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trieullionaire · 03-05-2009, 08:48 AM

I also have a 2.7 engine and recently called a local independent shop to find out what can be done to give my stock engine a bit more power. I had asked about the ECU reflash with softtronics and they had mentioned it would be a waste of money on the 2.7. Stating that the 2.7 spec had maximize most of it's potential direct from the factory. And that they could do the reflash but it wouldn't make much of a change. Anyone who winded up doing it on a 2.7 chime in on this? It is a pretty well respected shop in the area so I'm confident they know their stuff but it is always nice to hear from people who did the reflash.

What they had recommended instead was to change out the headers w/ deleting the first set of cats. Explaining that the first set of cats was likened to the metal coiled scrubbers for dishwashing except much more denser and essentially the engine has to work harder at the lower rev limits to get passed that dense wall. The tech says that would be ideally the first thing to swap out should he do an upgrade to gain some hp on a small budget. Btw, is it pretty hard to swap out the headers yourself? I was quoted roughly a little over $400 to get the headers replaced with their aftermarket headers and that they would reprogram the ECU to "Rest of World" for the first set of O2 sensors to not be detected.

After this he said, you can do the shorter pulley which would give you some noticeable gains although he did mentioned it was mainly for the water pump issues that a lot of track cars experience.

Anyhow, they do have a dyno...so if I should decide to go with the header upgrade with them, maybe we can get a before and after dyno on it. My biggest hesitation though, is really the deleting out the first set of cats whereas a ECU reflash is easily reversible and storage free. Especially if I ever wind up relocating to California...that would now mean more PITA bread.

03-05-2009, 08:48 AM	#10
trieullionaire Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Florida Posts: 207	Interesting about the 2.7 I also have a 2.7 engine and recently called a local independent shop to find out what can be done to give my stock engine a bit more power. I had asked about the ECU reflash with softtronics and they had mentioned it would be a waste of money on the 2.7. Stating that the 2.7 spec had maximize most of it's potential direct from the factory. And that they could do the reflash but it wouldn't make much of a change. Anyone who winded up doing it on a 2.7 chime in on this? It is a pretty well respected shop in the area so I'm confident they know their stuff but it is always nice to hear from people who did the reflash. What they had recommended instead was to change out the headers w/ deleting the first set of cats. Explaining that the first set of cats was likened to the metal coiled scrubbers for dishwashing except much more denser and essentially the engine has to work harder at the lower rev limits to get passed that dense wall. The tech says that would be ideally the first thing to swap out should he do an upgrade to gain some hp on a small budget. Btw, is it pretty hard to swap out the headers yourself? I was quoted roughly a little over $400 to get the headers replaced with their aftermarket headers and that they would reprogram the ECU to "Rest of World" for the first set of O2 sensors to not be detected. After this he said, you can do the shorter pulley which would give you some noticeable gains although he did mentioned it was mainly for the water pump issues that a lot of track cars experience. Anyhow, they do have a dyno...so if I should decide to go with the header upgrade with them, maybe we can get a before and after dyno on it. My biggest hesitation though, is really the deleting out the first set of cats whereas a ECU reflash is easily reversible and storage free. Especially if I ever wind up relocating to California...that would now mean more PITA bread.