Are you thinking about buying your first subaru ??
 

5 years on and i think im in it for the long haul now..

Ive been on the site a while now and not posted much apart from asking questions and im working nights on a quiet shift so thought i would post my experience with subaru so far.

After being fiercely loyal to to the ford badge for many years and after owning various 80s/90s fast fords including mk3/mk4 escorts inc rs turbos, mk4 escort turbo cabriolet, 10 years in a rwd saphire cosworth and then due to having a house and family a family friendly focus, i decided to be brave and buy a non ford :eek:

I always loved the sound of the impreza and the idea of having a fast car that didnt want to kill you all the time (380bhp wrwd cossie) sounded more appealing the older i got so 5 years ago i bit the bullet and bought my first non ford a carefully selected 2004 silver wrx with 2 previous owners, fsh, a few minor good quality styling and performance mods and mapped to aprox 280 bhp.

My intention was to leave the car exactly as it is (except for installing a high end and high power audio system as thats my other passion) i intended to treat her well and then sell on after a year of ownership and not lose too much money. In this time the only mods i done was de-tangoing the headlights and fitting a Ninja Backbox. Well after 1 year of ownership the car had been flawless and completely fault free, when looking on autotrader the car was worth the same as it was a year ago when i purchased it so no depreciation. After a great year with the car through a snowy winter and nice summer i decided i couldnt sell her and would keep for another year then re evaluate.

In the next 4 years i done no performance mods but added around 150k of extra weight with amps, woofer boxes, batteries, cabling and sound deadening, (made no new holes in the car though) so performance was lacking and i couldnt justify modding her any further as she was still a well looked after unmolested example and as good as the day i got her. In 5 years of ownership (50k miles) all i replaced was the front droplinks a battery and tires/servicing. I also replaced the gearbox and clutch for piece of mind for the new owner as it had a slight intermittent fault. It was now time to sell on but what would i replace her with ????

After looking through the autotrader, stating at A and going all the way to Z it was a no brainer really it had to be under S for Subaru, a v8 sti to be precise this time with the intention of again keeping standard and re evaluate after a year. So 3 months ago i purchased a wr blue 04 sti ( wasnt my first colour choice but has since grown on me massively) and the car ticked all the right box's and after a long treck she was now mine. Standard sti apart from 18" prodrive alloys, prodrive backbox, gauges, baileys chav valve and some whiteline goodies underneath and had been freshly serviced. Upon arriving home with her i took her to my local subaru specialist (Arden Bridge Subaru who i can highly recommend) and we put her up on the ramps for a good look over and under and was pleased to find out all was good :thumb:

After a week of enjoying the car i had a few niggles that were starting to really annoy me, a rattling gear knob, and a couple of rattles from the rear and one in the cabin, 4 separate rattles lol. I found and fixed them all which 1 =front cabin rattle which was found to be my pillar gauge pod, easily fixed. 2 = gear stick, i disassembled the whole thing re greased, carefully re assembled and rattle gone. 3= rear boot lid, easily fixed with some foam pads on the rubber stoppers. 4= hard one to find but turned out to be the parcel shelf, again easily fixed. Now all the niggles were gone and i was really enjoying the car especially the low down driveabilty compared to my previous wrx. All was fine until my mate "Craig" who is a member on here bought himself a modified classic with over 350bhp. After going out in it (and also been wasted by it in mine lol) i decided to give in to my craving and get modding.

First of all i had to freshen up the looks a bit so first off there was slight rust showing on the boot lid under the spoiler so that was the first thing to be replaced. Next all the pink badges and fog cover stickers were removed along with the subaru letters off the boot. New red badges and decals were applied along with a black front oval badge and a rear blue oval badge. Next was de-tangoed and painted black headlights and a lower zunsport front grille followed by a black front splitter and finished off with a set of red horns behind the grille. Im happy with the look now so it was time to think about performance, I had an eventual goal in mind of around 430 bhp (enough to keep up with craigs classic lol) and within the safe limits of the standard internals if driven sensibly and for now i intended to retain the standard top mount and air box so aiming for the 400 bhp mark.

First of all i took the car to Mark at TDR (thwaites developments) for a rolling road run and a health check to make sure all was well before i went ahead with any mods and mapping. All was well the engine was strong and there were no issues and made a respectable 275bhp (standard car). Now the fun starts :)

Over the following 2 weeks i purchased and fitted an almost new lateral Md321t billet turbo, some 650cc injectors, new plugs, fuel pump, a pipercross panel filter which i didnt use and decided on a pipercross viper enclosed cold air intake instead before mapping, 3" decat downpipe and 2.5" sraight centre pipe and an afterburner vortex backbox and a 3 port boost solenoid. I fitted all the parts myself before mapping with the help of craig :thumb: and drove very cautiously 11 miles to TDR for mark to do his magic. Car behaved quite well really with just a few pops and bangs on gear changes and i could hear my new turbo even at low revs :).

Car now on the rollers and my nerves even more in tatters mark started by having a check over of what i had installed and then he attached all his electrical goodies and started the mapping. All was going great until he started to dial in more power and boost but it wouldnt hold boost at high revs. Mark and i checked over to see if we could find any leeks but nothing was obvious, ruled out the baileys chav valve with an oe valve but still wouldnt hold boost. I checked over all the boost pipes i re fitted and all looked ok. Fair play to mark as we spent way more than the expected mapping time checking stuff but it was time to call it a day for now so mark backed things off a bit for safety reasons until we could find the problem, the final rr run was 380bhp which at the time i was a little dissapointed with as i was hoping for the magical 400. We road tested the car and it felt very quick, on the road it felt awesome and soon forgot about what the rr printout said. I thanked mark for his superb work and again going beyond whats expected and i made my way home on a nice quiet country road. After several hard pulls through the gears the car became hesitant at high boost so i carefully drove back home now slightly disheartened.

I lifted the bonnet and found the turbo to ic pipe had had slipped the jubilee clip and come off and was just resting against the turbo. When i first fitted it i was a little dubious as it took a bit of twisting and messing to get the intercooler back on but it seemed ok and the pipe looked to be on ok but it obviously wasnt. I now realised there was a slight gap/ bad fit at the rear of the pipe due to odd angles but looked ok from the front. I trimmed the pipe and refitted and it now looked much more secure and fitted much nicer. I took the car out for a test drive and was over the moon, not only was it now holding full 1.5bar boost to the red line but the car was way more aggressive in every gear and pulled like a train and overall much much quicker.

I called mark to tell him the good news and to apologize for him spending ages looking for a fault that i had caused and checked on the day and assured him it was fine lol. Mark was happy for me but said it was best to get it back to him and have it checked over now its boosting properly. We took it out for a quick road test and all was well, even dialed in a bit more ignition and power but left boost at 1.5bar and the car now feels very quick indeed and very aggressive on boost :) Didnt have time for a rr session and i had already decided the next round of mods would be sooner than later so this wasnt important. Im guessing it must be at least 400 bhp now as its much quicker than it was at 380. Ive now fitted a decent head unit and components in the doors and also sound deadened the doors too. I have more plans for the audio and more stuff to go in but hopefully no more than about 50 kilos in weight this time lol.

That was about a month ago and the car is going very strong with no issues at all, In fact the car has not used a drop of oil since i purchased it which is a good sign. Apart from spending a lot of time in shell petrol stations all is good lol. Ive now decided i cant wait and to go the next stage and get the most out of the 450 rated turbo so ive just purchased a fmic, tubular headers and up pipe and will be replacing the 2.5" exhaust parts for 3". All parts will be fitted and mapped over the next few weeks.

It looks like i am now in it for the long haul and my once ford badge loyalty has well and truely shifted. Ive already decided to eventually go for a bigger stronger engine for 500bhp+ and will start sourcing the parts soon after my next mapping session. The question at the moment is 2.1 stroker or 2.35 ??? or i wouldnt mind a test drive in a close to 500bhp forged 2.5 to test out the added midrange torque it can offer ??? anybody have one to show off before i decide :) ???

Thats my story with subaru so far, i knew next to nothing about them before i purchased one except they had turbos, sounded awesome and had great traction. With the help of reading posts and asking questions on here i now know a hell of a lot more but like most things the more i learn the more i realise i dont know;)

Thanks for taking the time to read, or not as the case may be...

Dubzy :thumb:

Old WRX

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/y...zy1/Sale/5.jpg

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/y...zy1/Sale/2.jpg

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/y...zy1/Sale/4.jpg

New Sti

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/y...bzy1/front.jpg

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/y...1/IMG_0682.jpg

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/y...1/IMG_0723.jpg

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/y...1/IMG_0598.jpg

Great write up mate interesting read summot tells me I need to start saving for more power to keep up with you now ha ha :thumb:

Awesome read up! Congrats on the car too :)

Great write up mate

May I suggest first that you up the boost a tad see how it feels

Buy an avcr to allow you to get over the 1.55 bar threshold and add a fmic

My old blob was running a T at 1.8 bar standard internals and managed 441 and 470 on meth

See how that feels then if your still not happy go for the big number

Steve

Great write up and modding is a very slippery slope ;)

+1.

Nice to see how people get the bug and cope with it growing on them !

PS want to swap your wheels :D

Haha its all your fault mate, dont do it, you'll end up costing me a fortune lol..

Thanks mate..

Thanks for the info mate, i have purchased an avcr off a member off here but unfortunately dosnt work so its just an expensive gauge at the moment. I was planning to up it to 1.6bar at next mapping session, as awesome as 1.8bar sounds dont think i will try pushing it that far just yet.

thanks mate, its all good fun until it goes wrong lol..and reading your projects hasnt helped any, great cars :thumb:

Haha no wheels are staying for now mate and just been treated to 4 new toyo proxies and a covering of dark bronze plastdip for the winter then will be getting powdercoated in a similar colour next spring :thumb:

I'll offer some info Davey boy.
your car has 114 pcd wheels this one 100 pcd wheels so you can't swap as they won't fit.
great right up by the way and I've posted your parts earlier so you should get an email shortly.

Thanks mate, will be interesting to see if i can get it fitted without taking the inlet manifold off, was you planning to do the same ??

no as the turbo etc was all being changed.

My turbo has pretty much got to come off again to do the headers and up pipe so will do it at the same time to give a little more room to work in, im hoping plenty of ky jelly will do the job, on the pipe that is lol

Great read mate :thumb:

Nice m8, keep up the gd work.

Excellent wrote report
Welcome to modifying and getting rid of all your cash as well
It's worth it

Thanks guys :thumb:

Ive now got rid of the baileys chav valve and blanked it off altogether, nice bit of chatter on high revs now but not too loud, i guess it will become more evident when i fit the front mount and open cone filter.

Didnt i mention it was a eco friendly vegetarian build too ??

i blame all the typos on my phone and a wireless keyboard lol

What fmic r u thinking of getting m8?

Already purchased a new japspeed kit, wasnt really my first choice but after reading up they seem to do the job.

They seem to vary in price quite abit, fmic

Have bought ur headers yet?

Great write up mate! All these Redditch scoobs seem to be pushing higher power now ! Looks like I will have to keep busy this winter in the garage to keep up!! Fair play mate, lovely car!

Yes mate.. got a new set of williams motorsport items to try out

Thanks mate, what motor have you currently got ??

2002 bug Sti on 54k

I bet andy will love that haha

Ha ha, Andy has no idea what's coming his way!! He gets all the good jobs, he loves my lists when he picks the car up! Top bloke

Nice choice ;)

Going to try and organize a little meet / cruise to santa pod on saturday the first of november. Family fun afternoon with fireworks display to finsh. The admission price is £20 per car. Be good if you could make it :thumb:

A little sound clip as she currently stands.

https://www.scoobynet.com/scoobynet-...oundtrack.html

Sounds like a decent day, will check my shifts as I would like to attend! Having watched that vid I now need more power, thanks ha!!! Car sounds wicked and a nice smooth delivery of power! Mark is great, he mapped mine earlier this year and even let me have his maf sensor off his personal car as mine was fooked!