I've been reading some of the posts on here, and have come up with a couple questions of my own...

I have a '03 WRX (automatic - more on this later, I know it's sacreliege) that is relatively stock with the exception of a cat-back exhaust and AEM short-ram intake. The exhaust is 3" mandrel bent stainless with a 3" Magnaflow race-series straight through muffler. The goal of these modifications was to decrease spool up time of the turbo. I am very satisfied with the top end performance of this car, but due to it being an automatic, the low end lag is pretty bad. These mods were made on the basic assumption that the more air I can get into and out of the turbo, the quicker it should spool up. I have felt a noticible change in acceleration, and acceleration is far better than stock.

Here are my questions...
1.) I'm reading that my short ram intake may be a bad thing for the car. Is this true? I did drive around for a week with the stock intake and modified exhaust, and performance was lower than it is now.

2.) Would a boost controller help me with low end performance, or just high end?

3.) Would an ECU upgrade help more than boost control?

4.) What are some affordable modifications that would help me increase low end performance?

p.s... about the automatic. my average speed is 10 mph in my morning gridlock commute.

 

A short ram air intake will help with spool up i custom made one for mine works awsome no problems. sounds better too. turbo xs runs a intake like the one i made on there 11 second wrx. i've talked to mark there before and he said no problems.