Finally after a year of ownership I thought I would post some pictures and some information about about my Hawk.









The car was originally owned by Prodrive for the first few years of its life as a model for general marketing and used at the 2007 Prodrive live event.
It only covered 2543 miles in 3 years before changing hands to its first private owner.
When I picked it up at 25k it had a few mods fitted exhaust, air filter, fuel pump and open source map.

Over the last 12 months it has been kind of a weekend project for me, I've added what I think are some tasteful and worth while mods to improve the performance and reliability of the car.

First thing I did was improve the engine.
My last hawk Sti had hg failure and I wanted to make sure I didn't encounter that with this one.

I had the engine upgraded by Api to prevent any potential problem with Pistons ringlands , oil starvation or head gaskets ect.

This included.

Mahle 4032 pistons
Steal rods
Acl end and main bearings
Arp head stud kit
Upgraded head gaskets
Genuine Subaru gaskets
Oil pick up pipe
Api upgraded oil pump
Tgv delete's
Secondary air pump delete
Cam belt kit
Ngk IlFR7H
Exedy pink box H1 clutch
Exedy 6.7kg lightweight flywheel
Run in map

I also added
Hks panel filter
Swrd 290 fuel pump
Anti surge fuel pod
Milltek 3'' decat resonated turbo back


When picking the car up from Api It was good to see the original Pistons were in good shape with no signs of ringland damage.
The Exedy clutch drives very well just like the oem one, It was hard to comment on any difference in fitting the Exedy lightweight flywheel as a lot of other things changed at the same time.
But i have noticed that it does Rev up faster in neutral and you need more revs on a hill start.

After running the engine in and having the 1k service I had Bob Rawle remap the car with high and low boost maps and fit a Swrd 3 port boost solenoid.
This gave me 372bhp and 440ft lbs at 1.5bar on dyno dash.



Milltek exhaust sounds amazing, a nice deep burble at idle and not intrusive at motorway speeds. But sounds like a rally car over 4k.



After this I set about improving the chassis.

I was getting a very bouncy ride between 50 and 80mph with the stock Sti shocks.
And seeing as the rear's may eventually start knocking in the future it seems like a worth while investment to replace them. After reading lots of review I settled on the BC coilovers with a 5/4 spring rate.

These ride very well just as comfortable as the stock setup only without the bobbing up and down on motorways.
After trying lots of settings I've settled on 14 front 10 rear from soft as good balance between comfort and handling.

I then fitted the Powerstation stage 1 kit, compromising of
Whiteline 24 front roll bar
Whiteline 24 rear roll bar
Whiteline anti lift kit
Fast road alignment

I found this to cause the car to loose a lot of composure and confidence on roads. Really made the car twitchy and nervous over bumps and undulations.

After swapping the bars for 22mm front and back the car was noticeably better but still not as controlled as it was.

The original bars were then refitted and the car is now planted and composed on all types of roads,

I found the Anti lift kit gives more front grip out of slow speed corners, and seems to of added some weight to the steering by adding castor.

After another Alignment and Corner weighting being carried out, I fitted Yokohama ado8r tyres that were the finishing touch.



I've also recently added SuperPro roll centre kit. This has sharpened up the front end and improved turn in response.

I then set about giving the brakes a mild upgrade. First was a full calliper rebuild with all new seals and re spray in a custom gold flake colour with black Brembo decals.
The Discs and pad were also replaced for drilled discs with Black Dimond fast road pads with Dot 5.1 fluid.



Styling wise I've not done much as its already a great looking car.
So it just has a front splitter, black headlight conversion and wheels were refurbished in metallic grey.

Modification wise I think the car is pretty much complete now but In the coming months I'm looking to replace the oem head unit. Then maybe a turbo and injectors later in the year.

 

Lovely car there mate. Was thinking of having my suspension done on MY 57 sti because of the bouncy ness driving my misses mad.

 

Nice and tidy that mate, well done

 

Making me want a hawk!

 

Very good report there mate and nice motor being a hawk owner myself must admit was surprised at your torque figure never seen one that high before considering its only a stage one most seem to be 390 _400

 

lovely example, very tasteful indeed

 

I Must be lucky then. My previous hawk also made over 400 ftlbs. Might put it on a rolling road soon to see how it compares to dyno dash results.

 

Very nice apart from the rear lights

 

Lovely looking car there fair play !!

 

An excellent example and credit to you, good job well done.

 

Nice car and a nice spec

 

Lovely car power graph spot on

 

Very nice

 

Thanks for all your comments.

 

Very nice car and spec.

What's the engine like, although a forged engine is bullet proof I don't like the idea of having a noisy one that cosnumes oil, does yours have any of othese characteristics?

 

Well I wouldn't say a forged engine was bullet proof, but I made sure the typical 2.5 Sti problems were rectified.

I had the 4032 Pistons fitted and there very quiet once warmed up. Only a slight piston slap on a cold start.
Oil consumption is also very little maybe 500ml in the last 3k.

 

Another nice looking hawk

 

Since posting this thread I've added a few more mods.
BC's were swapped out for some oem Rb320 Bilsteins. This had made the ride even better than what I thought was a ride comparable to the stock Sti suspension.

Rb320 rear roll bar was also added.



Revised geometry setting have also made the car more neutral and fun to drive.

New ride height on Rb320 suspension



Pioneer shp da120 headunit has also been fitted. This has been a nice upgrade from the crap oem headunit.

 

NICE

Who did your headlights and what paint etc did you use?

 

Very cool car , credit to you

 

Mate what coulour are your wheels they look mint

 

There powder coated custom gray with lots of metallic added.
Look awesome in direct sunlight.

 

getting mine done on the 4th, they look the bxllocks mate, im goin for pewter grey, its very similar

 

Post a pic of them after there done.
Think the metallic adds a two tone affect to them.

 

I will do, mine are a mess at the minute, corroded, scuffed you name it, what condition were yours before hand?

 

They were in good condition but in a silver colour, It looked boring on a silver car.

 

Thought I would update with a few other mods that have been done in the past few months.

Decided to change the colour of the Brembos again.

Only this time I wanted a colour that stands out more,

I had Godspeed strip them down and powercoat them orange, unfortunately the colour didn't come out as I expected, I was hoping they would be lighter and more metallic.

I then fitted new seals, bleed nipples and Hosetehnic stainless steal brake lines, and Brembo HP Sport pads,

After bedding in the brakes there is definitely an big improvement in the braking performance.

I also adjusted my brake pedal free play, it was way to long, it needed 4 turns of the adjustment rod to get it back within spec of between 1-3 mm,
This has helped give a much nicer pedal feel.





Perrin short shift kit was also fitted, but the supplied hard polly bushes were causing a lot of nvh, so one was swapped out for a softer superpro item, this helped remove a lot of the nvh.



Superpro version


Ported my throttle body and did the coolant bypass mod.
Maybe in my head but I'm sure I can feel a slight difference in throttle response.
Throttle body is now cool to the touch so should be helping to keep charge temps down.




Reverse camera was fitted above the number plate, was only a cheap eBay item but works perfectly well.


Was missing a few bolts from the plastic under trays due to careless mechanics, and both the clips that hold the gearbox cover to the engine cover.
Got these from Subaru for a few quid!




Fitted a custom built air oil separator with return to sump, works really well and not had any oil in the intake since fitting.
A very stealthy install that can be hardly seen.

Update!! Since fitting air oil separator oil usage has stopped! Not lost a drop between oil changes. Goes to show how much gets sucked through the intake and burnt off!




Richbrook Sti gear ****..




Fuel pump was replaced under warranty due to failure on the SWRD 290lph.
Improved colossus 290lph one was fitted.




On my 3rd front splitter! First one destroyed by a kamikaze rabbit.



The 2nd eBay one pulled out the self tapping screws at high speed and folded itself under the car, made so much noise It sounded like my bumper had come off!



After that scary experience the new one is secured by bolts and washers.




Swapped back over to the Yokohama V105s tyres.

The Ad08r are fantastic but can feel incredibly hard in the colder temperatures and tend to twitch and tramline unless there fully warmed up,

Although not a winter tyre the V105s handle it much better with no tramlining from cold, also massively more comfortable as noticed by the Misses!


That's all for now, but I'm hoping to do a turbo upgrade later this year and maybe retrim the steering wheel or fit one of them fancy flat bottom ones!

 

Nice mate good read

car looks stunning

Martin

 

I really do like the way you have done this car up

 

Really nice car, great attention to detail and not over the top.