Quote:
Originally Posted by 73Thumper  pietroraimondi, wow you did a fair amount - what was the final thought as to your mods? I hope to go with the Corsa and Volant - maybe a reflash - nothing else. Also as you have the Corsa installed - your impression of the sound?
I understand you sold but would also love to have you post a pic or 2... |
I'm a huge fan of the SRX and have been so since its inception. It's actually my wife's car and back in 2004 we were in the market for a new luxury SUV for her. I of course wanted the Escalade, but in all practicality...it was too much vehicle for her it terms of size.
The SRX fit like a glove. The first one we purchased was a 2004 AWD Northstar in Diamond White with every factory option for her and she had a love affair with the vehicle so much that we returned to the same dealership this May and purchased an 07 SRX AWD Northstar in Diamond White with all of the factory options.
What I love about the 2007 is the Sport Package. The front and rear bumper fascias with the forged mirror polished 20" aluminum wheels are outstanding looking and give the vehicle a very strong stance. The new interior with regard to it's fit, finish and materials is light years ahead of the 2004.
But the most important thing is that she enjoys it as it is. I'm the one that can't leave "well enough" alone and have to "change things" as my dear wife says!
If your going to install the Volant CAI and Corsa axle-back muffler package...you won't need a reflash and the dealer certainly won't do it for you with their Tech II.
You would really only need a reflash if you were installing 4 new cams with a more aggresive grind. And by doing that you would also need to replace the stock valve springs as well. Failing to do so could cause you to over rev the engine and grenade a lifter and then quite possibly the whole engine. But in doing so an aggressive cam grind will probably yield another 75 HP over stock and would run about $2500 with installation which is well worth it. I will probably undertake this on our new 07 along with porting and polishing the cylinder heads as I did previously on the 04 SRX.
As I had made previous mention, one of the things that I did do on th 04 SRX was a mild porting and polishing of the cylinder heads myself. There are some minor problems with the production cylinder heads. When the valve seats are machined, there is a sharp corner left on the short side as well as allot of rough CNC tooling marks from manufacturing. I radiused the corners along with doing some work in the intake ports and sanded out the CNC tooling marks. This porting and polishing of the cylinder heads probably netted an additional 25-30 horsepower at the crank. The extrude hone of the factory exhaust manifolds and jet hot coating was probably good for perhaps 8-10 BHP.
I would estimate that the Volant CAI and Corsa exhaust were good for maybe 20-25 HP at best; so all told I was able to increase the BHP from 320 to perhaps 375HP and would venture to guess that 365 FWHP is probably a very fair and accurate estimate without it ever seeing a dyno on the 2004 SRX. So all told; the cylinder head work, exhaust manifolds, CAI and Corsa bumped the FWHP an additional 45HP to perhaps 365.
To answer your direct question, I would highly recommend to you the Volant CAI and the Corsa exhaust system. The simpliest and cheapest way to increase horsepower is to get more air in and more air out and the Volant and Corsa do both of those things.
You can actually go to the Corsa website and there is a sound clip of the Corsa system on a Cadillac STS with the 4.6 Northstar. The STS Northstar Corsa system is identical to the same one on the SRX Northstar. The Corsa has a more throatier sound for sure, but there is no cabin drone or penetration of sound into the vehicle in my opinion, but everyone's ears are different.
But the Corsa and the Volant should run you about $1300. The Volant you can install yourself and a muffler shop can install the Corsa in less than 2 hours maximum; so figure another $150 for shop labor.
Other than those two items; there is unfortunately not much to choose from in "off the shelf" performance items for the Northstar engine and there are only two engine builders in the country that have done any significant amount of work on the Northstar to offer any sound warranted advice or service work with regard to performance modifications as there is not enough market demand for companies to bring aftermarket products to the market.
I also built some custom brakes for the 2004 SRX by sourcing a number of different components. I had billet aluminum rotor hats designed by a CAD engineer and then machined by a tool and die machining company. I then attached the rotor hats to 14" cross drilled brake rotors that I was able to order/buy "off the shelf". I utilized the same Brembo 4 piston brake calipers that are on the STS-V and had them ceramic coated in a Porsche "Guards Red" color. The big brake modification as I call it provided a world of difference in braking performance compared to the stock brake rotors and PBR calipers
The braking upgrade was not all that difficult; fairly inexpensive to do and aside from the performance advantage; it makes a really strong visual statement with Red Brembo brake calipers clamping down on 14" brake rotors all sitting behind a nice set of 20" aftermarket wheel rims.
Hopefully; I've answered some of your questions and have been of some help to you. If you need help with anything else or have any additional questions, feel free to PM me and I usually get back within a day or two.
Like you; I now have a new 2007 SRX that is 4 months old and has less than 1500 miles on it and nothing yet has been done! I will probably tackle the brakes sometime in the next week or two and install another Brembo Caliper 14" big brake kit, new lowering springs and sway bars to get started.
Anyway, congratulations on your SRX....it's an incredible vehicle and I feel very confident that you will have a very pleasant ownership experience.
