Just got back from the stage 1 installation, tranny learning session and personal road testing. I have a number of comments. (I was working with my brother an ASE ceritfied master mechanic at a Cadillac dealer) First, the radiator would not drain from the drain plug. No matter what was done it still would not drain, Used a catch pan and removed the lower radiator hose to drain the radiator. Drained it completly. Did not completely remove the upper plenum after separating it from the lower half of the manifold. Removed the back two bolts from the manifold, and raised it up and propped it up with a short section of 2X4. This left PLENTY of room to remove the upper radiator hose as well as the Radiator fill neck/thermostat cover. Also plenty of room to disconnect the fuel rail and take out the 2 mounting bolts. Disconnected the injector elec plugs and removed the fuel rail with ease. (Room to work was not an issue there was plenty). Installed the new injectors w/a very small amount of grease on the o-rings and a small amount of grease on the o rings where the injectors go into the engine. Reinstalled fuel rail and put the unit back together reinstalled the thermostat cover/fill neck onto thr radiator (be careful here and insure that the thermostat cover is mating properly over the thermostat. The thermostst has an O Ring seal and ther is no gasket on the cover/filler neck itself. If the cover is not seated properly around the thermostat & o-ring before tightening it could leak. It is easy to feel it seat around the o ring though. Removed the PCM and replaced with stage 1 PCM. Please note that the pcm mounting holes (3 bolts where the PCM mounts to the bracket) do not initially have any threads). The 3 screws used from the old PCM are thead cutting screws. Start them straight, and they will still turn pretty hard because of having to cut threads along the way. Other than that PCM installation was straight forward.
Reconnect the battery, fill radiator w/new anti freeze and/or distilled water, and start engine. Bleed radiator from the top bleeder valve until no air is seen. Top off the overflow tank & all was completed. Did the auto trans learning procedure (what a pain).
Finally took her out for a test drive, I have been running a 2 stage MBC and was no stranger to running higher than stock Boost. I'm not sure how to explain this but when running the MBC the boost was not any higher than stage 1 stock boost, but stock boost "feels" different. With the MBC it felt like the car was fighting the boost rather than accepting and using it (read PCM holding back performance). I have disconnected the MBC and the Stage 1 stock boost performance is much smoother, more fluid and there is little to no lag before spooling up the boost. I can currently run 14.5psi stock. The 1/4 and 1/2 throttle response is awesome-even better than with the MBC. The pcm increased the transmission operation 100% in my opinion. All shifts were quicker and "FIRM". Ran WOT from 50mph, and the shift point was about 6200 RPM. It didn't shift into 4th gear until about 112-114 MPH. I left it hammered and ran it to 127 mph and had to back off there, ran out of clear road. (but there was more performance left there I'm sure). Overall I am extremeny happy with the performance of the stage 1 kit, and I don't give a damn about what it does to the gas mileage. I am running a free flowing exhaust, and an amx1397 3" turbo up intake so the inflow and the outflow are comparatively unrestricted. Anyways, those are my thoughts. Thats MY $ .02
[8D][8D]
Alan