Hello! I have my 2002 gt and it has an of road x pipe which deletes the cats. It's throwing a code which shows up as my check engine light on my dash. I'm fine with the light being on but a friend of mine recently told me that because my ecu recognizes something's wrong I may be cutting or decreasing the overall power of my car. Is this true?

 

Do you notice a serious lack of power at the 3-3500 range? Almost like a sputtering? It's a problem I'm having and I think it's Because all the smog equipment is still hooked up. Might be something to look into. I know that the computer can be programmed to know that there isn't any cats. Which can help

 

I'm not getting any sputtering. This is my first mustang so I don't know exactly how much power I should be feeling, if he wouldn't have said anything I wouldn't have noticed. My ca delete was professionally installed by a performance shop before I bought it so maybe they did it the right way.

 

I'm assuming you have a 4.6 in your car, I'm not all that familiar with the way they work, but I'm sure a tuner could liven it up.

 

Yeah I have the gt so 4.6. I have been looking at tuners but I only run 87 octane regular gasoline and was told that with 87 a tuner would not make a very big increase.

 

You can always put a higher grade of octane into the car. I know 89 is better for my 95, and it isn't tuned. It runs a little more efficiently. After 89 though, the octane isn't going to make much of a difference on a stock engine. Your tuner or chip will still be able to program the computer to know that there is no cats. It may not make a difference at all. You are fortunate though, with the 4.6, you can set a tune for 91 octane and have a decent increase in power, then, the next week, you can set it back down to 87 to aid the wallet.

 

I would definitely recommend running a tune on your 2V-It was hands down the best thing I ever installed on my '01 Bullitt. Do you have any other mods like a catback?? The Bama SF4/X4 tuner would help optimize your flow more efficiently so it doesn't feel loose/sluggish.

Let me know if you have any questions, I'm always here to help!

Alex

 

Hmmm interesting. Well yeah the reason I'm not using 89 or 91 is cost for sure. I guess I would use 89 once and a while but majority of the time it's gunna a 87. I have a full magnaflow exhaust, and k&n intake, and am lookin to install my bbk shorty headers soon. I tune would be nice but is 400+ dollars worth the gains I will see?

 

go to autozone and have them read the code. They do it for free. Don't buy anything just yet. Let us know what the codes are.

 

Borrowed a code reader from work. Just the o2 sensors after the cat freaking out cause there's no cats. That's all the codes.

 

Understood! regarding the tune again I think it's one of the best mods that you can have on a Mustang and it's definitely worth it. One of the coolest features aside from being able to scan, check, and delete codes would be that if you're to have a new part installed down the road that would require a new tune you can shoot us a call or an email and we'll have it set up for free as you'd be enrolled in our free tunes for life program.

Let me know if you have any questions about this and I'm here to help!

Alex

 

You can buy eliminators... they are wires that plug into your O2 sensor wires and they basically bypass the sensors feedback to the computer. Or you can buy a tuner... not only will a tuner tell your ecu that the "death of polar bears" numbers that your sensors are reading are completely normal and fine, a tuner can also improve the overall performance for your car. (With proper data logging!)