timing belt/revo stg2 poll

[doublezero30]

im getting exhaust on today. and my fmic has been on for a while. ive got my injectors in my garage waiting to go in with a stg 2 flash. my only dillema is that im just about to turn 68k miles and not sure if i should do the timing belt job before the flash. i had the TB cover off to paint it along with the other parts of my engine bay, and the belt looked decently worn out (underside was starting to get those little brown spots like old leather), it would be about a month before i could do the job if i flashed it first. help a AZ brotha out and let me know what you think i should do...thanks guys!

[treemolecule]

if you flash first you're gonna have to change the belt in a more timely manner than before, personally i'd change the belt, and when they flash it, see if they can advance it to like 3 points OTDC, r0x! but then again, we do have strong ass belts in the first place, so you could flash first and be fine, but there'd be a few cracks to go along with those brown spots in no time!

[doublezero30]

yea looks like out of the people who voted majority says tb first, i was leaning that way too since i dont have money for engine work if something does happen to go wrong.

on a side note, the exhaust is WAY too quiet. sounds good, but you can barely hear it at 4k. i think im going to take the resonators out and then when i get my testpipe in ill put one before the split on the 2.5in piping. so if anyones looking for some 2.25in magnaflow resonators for our cars ill sell you mine cheap. hopefully ill get them out tuesday.

[b6onboost]

maintenance before performance mods. doing things right will pay off.

[converted2audi]

+1 for tb.........ive have my gtrs sitting in my room for a couple weeks now waiting for my tb to be done first.....hopefully i can get some time to do my tb this weekend!

[lookaught]

I agree that you should do the belt first, but only because your car is around 70k and not b/c of the mods. You really could wait, but since its apart anyway, just do it now.

I fail to see any correlation between a more powerful engine and decreased timing belt or component life, there just isnt any reason to think that it will "wear out" more quickly b/c you got flashed. The belt is replaced along with rollers/pulleys because with MILEAGE (and thus engine rotations, not power), bearings wear out and it is of course better to change before they get to the point of failure or near failure due to the interference design. The only reason I could think of to change it prematurely is if you track your car often and it is constantly in the higher revs... b/c higher revs at equal milage equates to more wear on the tb components. I can just see people on the forum changing their belts every 50k or less b/c they have a BAT, and they have no idea that this is ridiculous.

FWIW I changed my belt two weeks ago at 84k. I had been putting it off since 78k when I bought the car, but decided that it was a good idea to change it before a track day when the car was going to be living at 4k+ rpm for extended periods. Im comfortable with 80k changes, and as long as you pay attention to your engine noise you should be able to hear any impending failure before it happens (or smell it, if its a water pump problem) unless you suffer from the rare case of an actual broken belt, and not a bearing or seal failure that can result in the belt skipping enough teeth to interfere. The parts from my car were in very decent shape for 84k, very little rolling resistance, and the water pump felt like new!