Ever since I found out (the hard way) that the Apexi AFC was incompatible with first generation Probes, I've been considering giving the Venom 400 a try. Finally one day I decided to give it a try. When I received it, I was immediately hesitant about installing it. Aside from the power and ground wires, there was only two wires to connect to the engine. The Apexi had a dozen connections and installation required that the air flow signal wire be cut so the unit can intercept the signal. The Venom 400, however, required that only the throttle position signal and one wire from the air flow unit to be spliced... 'spliced'? Not cut or intercepted, just spliced into the wire.

Well, installation couldn't be easier... it took me 5 minutes (which also worried me). The unit is suppose to stay in passive mode until you increase the throttle to 25%, at which the unit activates, which is very noticeable. You realize this (besides by the red led light illuminating) by the fact that the car abruptly drops a gear and the rpms go sky rocketing to the redline... which in my car is 6000rpm. The problem is, it's an automatic transaxle, and the transaxle is suppose to shift at 5500rpm. The extra 500 rpm yields no extra power, even at full throttle, since the car was designed to have midrange power.

I was originally very unhappy with the unit's changes to my car. Trying to drive a car normally in everyday traffic without giving it more then 25% throttle is almost impossible. The low activation setting makes it impractical, since trying to drive down the street in traffic when the engine is constantly reving up high is pretty annoying. Say you're driving down the street at 25mph. If you give it 25% throttle, it drops to a lower gear and the rpms go sky rocketing. The problem with this is since your only at 25% throttle, there's not enough power to propel the car forward, so your driving at a constant 25mph at 5500rpm... with my Borla exhaust system roaring away, I end up looking like an arrogant hot-head. If you give it more gas, the car rockets way, which isn't very practical since you may only want to add 5mph to your current speed, not 50mph. If you let off the gas, the engine takes a good second before it switches to a higher gear. By that time, you've slowed down a bit and you need to speed up a bit more... you step on the gas, and the Venom 400 activates again. Really annoying.

On the highway it's more controllable, but it's basically the same thing. Normally, to pass someone, you'd need to give the car at least 25% throttle, which would accelerate the car comfortably and smoothly. With the Venom 400, it's not as simple, and will cause a more aggressive passing, which is about 200% more then you wanted. There isn't much information about this unit on the venom web site, but from what I've noticed, its 'performance improvements' are only a change to more aggressive shift points, and what seems to be a removal of the brief fuel cut off that normally occurs between shifts. This makes me wonder what use it would be on a manual transaxle. I can easily see this unit being overly hard on automatic transaxles and lessening their lifespan.

This unit would be great if it could easily be turned off. I could wire it to my boost controller to turn it on when I hit the high boost setting. Unfortunately, Venom didn't think of this because the instructions strictly state that you have to turn the car off before switching the unit either on or off. It would also be more practical if you were able to adjust the throttle point at which the unit activates. This would allow you to increase the activation point to about 35-40%. The only situation this would be good for is in pure track racing or drag racing, where lower speed control wouldn't be needed.

It's also important to note that my gas mileage dropped over 5mpg with the unit on. Starting out with a half tank of gas, I used almost all of it in the first day of the unit's trial.

Pros

Mild improvement in power between 3000rpm and 5000rpm when the unit is active. Slightly quicker shifts. Good for very aggressive driving and heavy acceleration.

Cons

Loss of control between 25% and 50% throttle makes it a bit more difficult to control lower speeds. Harder shifts. No 'on-the-fly' on/off switch, low 25% throttle activation point and lack of any way to adjust the activation point makes it impractical driving off track. Extremely poor gas mileage.

Final Word

After a day of use, I found that I could get use to it by using only about 20% throttle to accelerate normally. I got use to where the shift points were and knew when to expect them. If I had this unit for a week, I don't doubt that I could get use to it by lightening up on the throttle. The problem is that's not the way I drive. The Probe's ability to smoothly accelerate at part throttle is something I really like about the car and with the Venom 400, would be virtually removed. Basically, think of the car with five points of acceleration... light, moderate, medium, high, extreme. With the Venom 400, you lose moderate and medium.

It was returned within the week.