wow i cant believe i didnt do this sooner. It was a bit of a bi@#h putting it in and i did manage to break the locking mechanisim on the center wire harness (idiot). now i have it wedged in there with a piece of wood. Best $300 bucks ive spent on this h3.
Now on to the task of finding a new wire harness and putting it in... anybody know were i can find one with wires already pigtailed in it? i dont want to get a blank one and get stuck with feeding all those wires in.

 

Can't help you with the new harness, but I have to ask - is this the only mod or do you have other things like an AirDoc as well?

 

before this i put a JET power chip in...for some reason it never worked for me. I put in a JET maf sensor and that helped out a little with aceleration. I havent done an air doc system, i couldnt see spending that much money for it when i could get the parts myself for cheaper. I took off the resonator and put a 3 inch aluminum tube in its place and put a filter on the valve cover vent. were the air box goes into the fenderwell it is only like a 1.5 inch tube,there is clearly room for bigger. so i put a 3 inch tube (im pretty sure that was the size but either way it was much bigger) and ran a snorkel tube all the way up to the airdam that on the passengerside hood, so now its sucking in colder air. I put a K&N air filter on it also.

 

Hmm... I have yet to hear from anyone that has done the PCM tune that didn't do something like an Airdoc, or DIY version of it, first. I was severely bitch-slapped by the IRS this year, plus a mountain of other projects. I was really hoping to hear amazing improvements with an otherwise completely stock setup. I'm convinced an Airdoc or similar by itself isn't a huge improvement, but a PCM tuned for it makes a big difference. I guess I was hoping I'm wrong and the PCM is really all that's needed with the Airdoc being just a smidgen better.

 

well mine is the homemade version of an airdoc...the air doc is $155 roughly and all it is a aluminum tube. i did the same thing for $20. i didnt do anything noticable performance wise, just made it loader when i step on the gas. I know that by me running that tube in the fenderwell i'm getting colder airintake temps. My wifes highlander had 88 degree air intake temp when the ambient temp was around 50. On my h3 i had 73 degree air intake temp on a day that was around 60.
You can do the pcmforless even on a budget. it's like $199 if you dont get a loaner or return the core for the core charge. considering an airdoc system cost almost that much youd be better off going for a new pcm.

 

what was your air intake temp before you put the tube in? Did it reduce the temps? The only way to know is to have done before and after testing. Comparing two vehicles would not show anything either as they have different motors and running different intake systems. Only a controlled test with before and after results would be accurate.

 

i dont know what the temp was prior to the mod, i didnt have a scan tool. But i guess your right, i cant know for sur eif i dont have numbers to compare. but as far as my wifes car...yeah its a different motor and setup but its still a stock system. hers sucks the air in fromt the front right under the hood. when the car is at idle you can feel more engine heat from the front of the car then you would the side of it like from the airdam on a h3. just making a point that by running that snorkel tube in the fenderwell to the airdam it was helping bring in colder air.

 

I think that's a good idea. I would just be curious if anyone has tested the air temp before and after.

 

when i get a chance i'll remove the snorkel and test the temp again to see if there is any change. I do believe that by doing my homemade version of the airdoc system helped the temp drop a little. When u get the airdoc or similar systems they give you a thin peice of aluminum, I bought a peice that was close to a 1/4 inch thick. Aluminum naturlly pulls heat out of stuff and the thicker it is the better it pulls the heat away. just like when metal workers use it as sorta quenching plates to cool down metal they just baked in an oven. it might work better if it had cooling fins on it but i dont know. this is just my thaughts on it. I never feel for the "cold intake" system crap. The airs not cold if its sucking it from the engine bay, and those cold air intakes are just like the stock sytems...a plastic box. unless its insulated somehow its not cold air intake, just a marketing ploy.

 

Thank you for the ideas. I have been on the fence about the PCMforless ECM.