The car currently has a Dinan Stage 5 engine. But that wasn't always the case!
I originally did a Dinan Stage 2 upgrade which consisted of the cold air intake and the software. I never dynoed the car, so who knows the performance benefit? The car did develop a wonderful voice with this mod - it sounds stock under 5000 RPMs but makes an amazing roaring sound above that (check out this wav file for sample: Sears Point).
The Dinan component is certainly a well made product and looks nice under the engine compartment. It has the added benefit of being CARB-certified which is great for me because I live in Kalifornia. But the product does have a few caveats: price, maintenance and possibly performance. Price speaks for itself. Maintenance for this product is a bit more difficult then competitive products from ECIS or Conforti because you have to remove the headlight to service the filter. It takes me 45 minutes to clean my air filter instead of 15 minutes. Performance is also potentially not as good as the other products because the long tube design of the air intake can theoretically increase the effort required by the engine to ingest air. As such, I would recommend to other drivers to look into the Conforti air intake, which is still expensive, but a very solid design and looks great under the hood or the ECIS intake, which isn't quite as smooth looking as the Conforti piece but offers similar performance Intake Shootout.
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| Stage 2 Engine | S&B Filter, Dinan Supplied K&N & Conforti Supplied ITG |