jiffthejiffmanjaffa

iTrader: (10)

Hello there, I have a pre-facelift wrx Impreza with a cat back ehaust and K&N panel filter. I'm looking to take the car from 208bhp to 300bhp.

I have already upgraded the brakes and suspension to suit, but now I'm struggling to think of the best way to get the power I want.

I was going to go down the line of induction kit, equal lenght manifold, FMIC, Unichip, sport cat and the use good plugs and leads.

Whatever, I end up doing I'm going to have a two stage boost control put in, as I don't drive hard all the time.

Does anyone agree, or have a better set up?

dogpole

decat, td05 and remap should make 300+

dan83590

As above but bear in mind that you cannot re-map an early ECU. The only way it can be done is by either replacing the whole ECU with re-mappable type or having a piggy ECU fitted, one example is the scoobyecu, some people like them some don't. I personally think they are a good upgrade, its all down to personal preferance. Do a Google search and you will find it.

A friend of mine has got to 311bhp by simply exchanging the ECU for summut from a later model >1996, induction kit, and an electronic boost adjuster. I personally would not recommend this because the fuelling is not set to match boost, but like I say, personal preference and budget.

There are lots of ways, keep reseaching until you find your own personal preference.

Dan..

wez wrx

esl chip, full decat, port the o/e headers and fit a panel filter unless you completley sheild the induction kit from the engine bay and fit a cold feed from the brake duct! To be on the safe side fit a knock sensor! also ngk 7's! Should give you around 300hp!

cmpequeno

sorry for the hijack but I'm also interested in this.

what about a td05 18g, 550cc injectors, fuel pump, uprated tmic and a piggy-back ecu or a new ecu. I also have a pre-facelift, euro my98.

I know this seems a little odd, but we are having a few problems with the law here in portugal, the parts I mentioned are subtle so I think the police or MOT won't mess with it. if there was an fmic, induction kit or louder exhaust, that would be a problem.

powerwrx

iTrader: (11)

i have a my94 wrx,de cat downpipe, with a mapped apexi power fc & commander. now running 300+bhp

WRX Blues

You'll most certainly need a VTA dumpvalve running this sort of power. Don't forget the additional power the DV will give you on top due to the loud hissing!

dan83590

Blues,

Are you taking the mick?

wez wrx

The standard dv could take 300hp! Youl need a vta for a fmic tho! unless you do some plumbing!

borat52

decat (££'s depends on what you want)
induction kit (Apexi £80)
440cc sti3 injectors (£80 second hand)
FMIC (£195 from GB)
dawes device (£20 from 3 bar racing)
ESL 440cc map and daughterboard(£250)
knocklink(£120)
air flow meter (£50)
+ lots of time to put it all together will see you easily to 300 and probably over 320 depending on what boost you run.

Many wil advise an apexi power FC with a custom remap but this will probably cost you over £700 alone. It is the best option but you can get pretty close to what the apexi would give with the esl chip and a boost controller.

wez wrx

borat52 is right, power fc alone will cost £700!! then theres the 440's, induction, fmic the list goes on! I have the esl and supporting mods and its near 300hp. If i had loads of money i would go the power fc route!! But for what you want esl is the way to go!

dan83590

Question: How does a Dump Valve give additional power?

I'll read any answers with joy!

Jolly Green Monster

iTrader: (4)

it doesn't.. WRX Blue must have stumbled out of the muppets forum?

Simon

911

IMHO:
TD05 16g, maybe 18g (?)
440 Sti injectors
Sti TMIC or a FMIC (last is a bit of overkill)
Ported headers from Harvey
Apexi FC with a good mapper (!)
Sti /Green cotton panel filter in stock air box.
Ninja sport cat 2.5'' exhaust system

Shell Vmax with a correct dose of NF booster, but you may get away with Vmax alone I think.

Sti/RA clutch a consideration.

That's quite a bit of money when you see it listed!
(but an Sti instead?)

Graham.

dan83590

Nice one.

cmpequeno

the sports cat that everyone talks about, are they all ok for MOT or you better look for the better. in another thread I rad the ninja sports cat didn't suit a 22b, because it was 2.2. but it is ok for 2.0?

borat52

Hehe, that list is the 'proper' way to get over 300bhp, but your probably talking over £2500 for that little lot and thats if you shop around.

My personal opinion is that with a <96 classic the appeal is a very quick car for not much money. Because they are almost 15 years old now the purchase price for a minter is probably about 3k and with another thousand on tuning you can hit 300bhp. Even if you do end up blowing the engine, there are pleanty of WRX engines out there for relatively small sums of money. Using postal maps from esl/scoobyecu suppliers while monitoring air fuel mixtures and knock will see some very good performance increases with the standard TD05 without breaking the bank. What Graham suggests is the ideal setup, but it probably isnt worth putting that kind of money into an early classic.

cmpequeno

so, a 3" or 2.5" exhaust system and a piggy-back/new ecu are ok for how much bhp?

borat52

Add a decent panel filter for good measure and your probably looking at about 280bhp.

cmpequeno

now I have a green panel filter. 280bhp with what sort of boost pressure?

911

For a sport cat to pass the (UK) MoT it must be very very hot. ie the cat must be wrapped, and the test taken at the right time. A decent examiner will make sure these conditions are set. Not a fiddle, just doing it right.

I said my list was expensive, but i think you really will get 300bhp on a good day.
Investing in mods is NEVER a way to invest money! Mod a new or old car and you can kiss most of it goodbye

There is the question of reliability too. Mess about and you could have a surprise at the wrong time of the day, in the wrong place etc, but there is always a gamble!

My own engine is beyond the above, based on an Sti v3 and it cranks out about 380 to 407 bhp. It is raced to an inch of it's life and regularly bounces off the 8000 rpm limiter.
Still ok after 2 years.

Modding is good fun, sometimes a pain, and never enough. The mods I have suggested can be put on an Sti (550cc injectors and a bit more) and the 18g will pop 360 bhp.

Those mods will be a good basis for the next move! (which will surely come).

Enjoy!

Graham

nickyrhodes

Hello,

Not sure if this is helpful or not, i have an MY98 classic with full revolution system and panel filter. No other mods and its making 261bhp with plenty fuel to spare and no knock. Hoping to push it to 280 next week when i'm having the boost turned up (dawes device) as far as is safe.

In short, maybe you dont need to spend thousands??

nickyrhodes

Hello,

Not sure if this is helpful or not, i have an MY98 classic with full revolution system and panel filter. No other mods and its making 261bhp with plenty fuel to spare and no knock. Hoping to push it to 280 next week when i'm having the boost turned up (dawes device) as far as is safe.

In short, maybe you dont need to spend thousands??

jiffthejiffmanjaffa

iTrader: (10)

In total I've got about £1500 to spend on the old girl. If I don't spend it all thats cool. My main concern is I want a realible 300BHP. I don't really won't to relay on simply winding up the boost. My car's only done just over 50K and with a FSH to boot longivity is a concern.

At the moment I'm still confused on how to get the power I want. Is the Unichip (piggyback chip) not the best route, should I be looking at a direct ECU replacement with something like the Apexi and commander unit?

I do want a FMIC over a TMIC, FMIC look better and if I ever want to go further I could do with out problems. Plus both FMIC and TMIC on Ebay go for the same money so it would make no odds. The only really difference is with a FMIC I'd have to get an induction and there seems to be a lot of dispute over wheather of not adding INduction kits is a good thing or not. I've heard horror stories of HKS cones letting in loads of dust thats regualr needs to be cleaned out, and K&N's letting their oil clogg the MAF. I really don't know what to do on that point

Fuelling seems to be an issue too. I was going to fit a 255 Walbro fuel pump, and leave it at that. But, now it seems that people are suggesting I go for yellow injectors. Is this neccassary too? And where do I get them from? Every store I've been too or visisted on the net only has them for the facelift models. Will they fit mine as a pre-facelift, I know alot of other mods are interchangeable.

nickyrhodes

Hi,

A fuel pump will only be useful if the oem is failing or if you are mapping it. Personally i like the idea of the unichip, there are many piggy back ecus available. I like them mainly because you know the oem ecu still retains its knock sensing and retards the ignition. With the Apexi PFC you only get a flash of the "check engine" that you need to watch to see if you have a knock but nothing would be done about it if you kept your foot down.

i think you would get close to 300bhp with a full decat exhaust, fuel pump, panel filter and a unichip. Anyone else agree? You may need an aftermarket boost controller also as i think the oem one is quite limited...

borat52

If your budget is £1500 then just an apexi + map will be £700 bare minimum. I would just go for a replacement chip on the ECU. Don't bother with unichip, scoobyecu's and ESL chips will be far better as they have been designed specifically by people on here who have spent many hours mapping early impreza ECU's. They are not piggyback chips either, they actually replace the ECU map using a spare socket which bypasses the stock map designed in the subaru ECU.

To get 280-285 bhp you just need an off the shelf scoobyecu/ESL chip (£200), decat (£150 for downpipe,£300 for sports cat downpipe) and panel filter(£30-40).
The scoobyecu/ESL chip will raise boost to 1.1 bar and adjust fueling/timing to be safe (ie it doesn't just up boost like a dawes device/any boost controller would).

After this point having spoken to a few people on here who are far more knowledgable about subaru's than I am I was told that the restrictive thing is the small intercooler followed by the injector size. As far as I'm concerned if your replacing the intercooler you may as well put a FMIC on and then your stopping point is the injectors. A set of 440cc injectors should be good for somewhere between 320-340 bhp with a suitable map. After this its the engine internals which are probably your biggest worry. I personally would think that over 340bhp on an early wrx block was chancing your arm with reliability. Your TD05 turbo is more than capable at this power level, aim at anything over this and you should really start with a late classic sti, stronger internals and gearbox.

Have a word with Andy from ESL. When I spoke with him he had his 1993 WRX running 327bhp on (i think it was PTS) Rolling Road with decat, 440 injectors, FMIC, boost controller, induction kit and his remaped ECU chip at 1.2-1.4bar boost.

As for the 440cc injectors you need them from a phase 1 or phase 1.5 engine. sti 1 and 2's had 380cc injectors sti3 on had 440cc injectors. put a wanted in the classifieds section here, someone always has a set of 440's going spare (worth about £80 - £100 posted). However if you end up buying a phase 2 set you will need an adaptor which I think costs £30-£40 for a set of 4. Really easy job to fit them.

Apexi is the way to go for induction, but only do it if you put a FMIC on as ideally your better off with the standard airbox, unless you build a wall between the Engine and the Induction cone to prevent the engine heating up the air around the cone.

I've just done all of this to my 1993WRX, have not had chance to plug the ESL chip yet but will report back when I do.

RedScoob

I agree. Andy at ESL is definately a very good person to talk to for what you're after. I'm very impressed with the chip that he did for me, and found him extremely helpful and knowledgeable.
I also thought about doing a 2 stage boost setup with mine (running a Z4 ecu), I was going to make a switch controlling the cut J2 resistor, but Andy advised against it. Once I had fitted the ESL daughterboard I realised why, the map on the new board is so much more refined all the way through the rev range, that the old map is redundant. The car is easier to drive smoothly AND has more power with the ESL chip (as well as increased economy, I get 25-27mpg with a mixture of normal and "spirited" driving).

don81

Hi there.
Iv been reading this tread. very interesting.
I got a standerd 96 import pre face lift wrx last feb.
Have done a few mods. Full de cat ss system, Piper cross induction kit and bonnet vent for more air, baileys dump valve, Allways run it on shell v-power. Had it rr tested at 246bhp.
Want more power but im not to sure on what to do next. After reading this threat im thinking now about yello 440cc injectors and sti tmic.
Would this add more power?? would i be best off doing some thing else first b4 this?? Is it a hard/easy job to change the injectors??
Thanks
Don

borat52

Please note, upgrading the injectors requires a remap. if you just put some 440's in with a 380cc map then you will be running rich and probably costing yourself a bit of power.
There are 2 stages to upgrading using the ESL route above a standard car.
Before you start: Boost gauge, air/fuel gauge, knocklink.
1. De-cat, panel filter, ESL/scoobyecu chip mapped to 1.1bar.
2. de-cat, induction kit, FMIC, 440cc injectors, boost controller ESL chip mapped for 440cc injectors.

Stage 1 is relatively safe as the scoobyecu's have been running like this for years with a fair few examples with over 100k miles on the clock.

Stage 2 is a little more dangerous mainly as your responsible for your own boost control so the temptation is to up it to an unsafe level. Probably best to have a tuner set the max boost and get a RR run in at the same time.

jiffthejiffmanjaffa

iTrader: (10)

I think I'm getting an idea of what to do. The only thing that I'm still unsure of is the ECU.

I've already got the exhaustwith de-catt, I'm still thinking of going with an induction kit over the panel primarily because I want a FMIC over the TMIC. A Walbro 255 and yellow injectors.

I like the sound of the ESL item and retaining the OE ECU. But, For just a few extra pounds I could get a replacement ECU and have far more mappabilty could I not? and my car would benifit from greatly tuning potention, including things like water injection programmabilty, progressive boost control blar blar blar.

Chip or replacement ECU