5/5/03 -
The blow-off valve worked fairly well, but I did have to change from standard rubber vacuum line to a silicone one to get better response from it. No performance gain really, but the car sounds ultra cool now. I didn't seem to have much in the way of the black smoke during shifts that everybody mentioned, but also with the diaphram (not piston) style BOV there was a bit of lag for it to open up and maybe this helped the airflow plate return to the proper level before the BOV opened. Still no G-Tech, but at this point I have made a fairly decent list of cars whos drivers are most likely still scratching thier heads thinking of that old 4 door sedans tail lights. Current list as of this writing (and before EFI): mid '90s Acura Integra w/ VTEC, 2003 Acura RSX Type-S (also VTEC), '97 Porsche Boxter, and various "rice rockets", to name the most famous.

3/6/03 -
Now the chips installed, but testing isnt yet very thurough. The car runs much better, and pulls hard in any gear. Full 1.8 bar boost can be achieved as early as 4500rpm in 2nd gear, first just goes too fast to get the turbo spooled. Once it gets on boost it stays there, shifts dont seem to spool down the turbo as much as I thought. 2nd gear is really fun, low end goes slow, then at 3000rpm it gets to 1.4 bar and starts pulling a bit, then once it gets arround 4500rpm @ 1.7bar it really hits. More info once I borrow the G-Tech back and get some higher octane fuel in it (filled it with 89 a few days ago).

2/25/03 -
Well so far there isn't much to test. After 4 weeks the paint on the valve and timing covers is still nice, other then where the hood insulation was rubbing the timing cover and left a black mark. I should be able to fix that with some polish. The boost gauge that I have works well, proving just how bad the stock digital gauge reads. I've had no time with the G-Tech yet to test the stock 0-60 times, but I'm going to estimate ~7 seconds currently.