Parts Comparison

[ste91]

Anyone who's ever looked through websites/shops that sell Starlet parts would have noticed the difference in price between items that are very similar apart from a few small differences - for example Blitz intercoolers cost an arm and a leg whereas you could get a similar size universal core and do some custom piping for less than half the price.

For this lets say the car is on a CT9 with the wastegate ported, uprated actuator, standard ECU and is running around 12psi of boost (just under fuel cut). Everything ready for the "stage 1" mods.

The most common first few mods are the exhaust system, manifold, decat, air intake, and a FMIC or uprated TMIC.

So I was wondering at this point how much difference do the more expensive parts make? Of course when you've spent hundreds on forged internals and a nice big turbo and a good piggyback/standalone you'll want to get the absolute most out of it. But for a less complex and less powerful setup does it really make a world of difference to spend two or three times the amount of money, or are you just paying for the brand name?

Before I go any further I know there will be people saying "things are cheap for a reason" and that cheap items will break easily, so we'll rule out the well known cheap parts such as autobahn manifolds for example as I'm sure everyone's heard about them...

Here's a list of a selection of the commonly available parts and rough prices:

Manifolds

SPS £254

Zisco MS Ram style £321

Zisco MS Compact £321

Zisco SS Ram style £384

Zisco SS Compact £384

Decats

SPS £119

Monster Motorsport £159

Garage EP £159

TM-Developments £162

Night Pager Screamer Pipe £277

Zep £362 (362 for a small bit of pipe are you fucking serious?)

Exhausts

TM-Developments £314

Blue Flame £345

Buddy Club Spec 2 £390

HKS Silent Hi-Power £475-£545

Blitz Nur Spec R £500-£550

Intercoolers

Japspeed £262

HDI £305

HKS £740+

Blitz £800+

GReddy £950+

Arc TMIC £940

I wont bother with the air intake as there are simply too many options for different setups, different filters, different companies do their own relocation kits but it's all basically the same.

Also I've missed out things like RX7 intercoolers, Blitz decats, JAM manifolds, etc... aswell as any "custom" parts, I only went through the common Starlet part websites where parts are easily available so anyone can buy them any time rather than searching for specific hard to find items.

So has anyone got any input on this?

A few things that stand out to me:

TM-Developments exhausts have more than adequate size piping and as far as I know are replicas of the Blitz systems?

HDI intercoolers regularly get good comments, Blitz/GReddy/HKS intercoolers cost an arm and a leg.

Zep decats are rediculously expensive.

I've wrote too much and can't be bothered to write any more so I'll go back to the initial question: are the more expensive parts really worth it when you're on standard turbo/internals?

[Guest Enzo]

nice write up, this is interesting for reading

could you repost it in the wiki section please? to show your the auther. in turbo tech here

if not il move it across in due course

[ste91]

Cheers mate, I've posted it up and added a short list of the websites with the parts mentioned aswell.

Back to the question though, has anyone here tried both the cheapo and expensive parts and have you noticed a considerable difference in performance?

[Guest Enzo]

ive tried the arc top mount

and would agree its the best setup for a daily car with moderate power

thats as far as i can delve into it

i have a zisco externaly gated ram style manifold here not fitted yet

[ste91]

This has given me a thought, I'm sure someone mentioned it before though - maybe we should have a reviews section?

[Bourkey]

You get what you pay for at the end of the day. I got one or two cheap parts and they give up pretty easily. The FMIC wasn't a problem but the cheap mani was. Mainly i would want to spend the extra and be reassured it will be good with a warrenty etc.

Also one reason for the large prices is that Starlet parts aren't as mass produced as your Civic's etc, as Starlet's are only recently jumped in the market in the past few years. Other cars have been well know and modified for years and so have more parts made for their market. Starlet's/Gt's/Glanza are still fairly rare which is a brilliant thing but the cost of making a part is more when you make less. Massive bulk items will be much cheaper to make.

Bourkey