Performance at high altitude?
 

Hi all,

I've decided to purchase a P5 in the next couple of weeks. Do any of you live at high altitude, and if so, do you feel like the P5 is severely underpowered? I'm currently attending Stanford and am at sea level, but will be moving to Albuquerque in a few months which is at an elevation of ~5300 ft. According to online estimates, this will drop the P5 to ~ 105-110 hp at this altitude (yep, a free mod when I move!). For this reason I've decided to go with the 5-spd rather than the tiptronic so that I can wring out every last hp from the car in Albuquerque.

Thanks

I took my car on a trip to New Mexico. I think Ruidoso is up around 8,000ft. It was definitely sluggish compared to lower altitudes but it was still driveable. Every car is going to lose power when you take it to a high altitude. Unless you really want to be hauling ass around the mountains I wouldn't worry about it.

Just an additional thought here but all the Civics, Foci, and Sentras are going to lose juice too. So at least you will still be running with the class of car you bought.

time for a turbo!!!

Time for NOS too!

Pardon my ignorance, but what's NOS?

Nah, no turbo for me :)

Anyone think a K&N filter would help?

Yeah, everyone else will be handicapped too. But it doesn't change the fact that the car will still feel about as fast as a Geo!

I live at 4000' ASL, and I find the car to be quite ok. I don't know that there'd be much of a difference at my altitude. As a pilot, I learned about a little something called density altitude which states... Blah blah blah... Enough science for tonight. When you get to Albuquerque, you might want to reset the ECU just to let it re-learn everything.