2005 WRX - An All-Rounder
 

So I just got my car mapped by the brilliant Andy Forrest today and I thought now would be a good time to show how the car has come along in my 3 years of ownership.

I bought the car in 2014, I had just sold my Ibiza Cupra 1.4 TSI after getting a bit twitchy about the well known reliability issues they have. I wanted something that ticked the same boxes in terms of being a good fast road car but wanted something with more of a track record of reliability. A life long fan of scoobies, it was an obvious choice. Here is what it was like the day I bought it, a 2005 Impreza WRX PPP:
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...001d28cbe4.jpg

in terms of mods it was fairly standard apart from:
-BC coilovers
-K&N filter
-Decat downpipe
-Roadrunner Scorpion back box
-The usual PPP goodies

First job was pretty simple, I like a car to look clean and uncluttered, so I debadged the rear end:
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...a057663065.jpg

and de-stickered the front:
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...a936caae21.jpg

Next up was getting a decent detailing regimen in place. I played around with a few products and found Dodo Juice hard candy topped up with Wowo's quick detailer after each wash is a really nice combination on the world rally blue paint:
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...67a49bab46.jpg

Next up I was never really happy with the wheels, they had been badly kerbed by one of the previous owners and a cover up had been attempted with badly mismatched paint. A friend of a friend sold me his 18inch prodrives. They were in a sorry state but they were sorted out with a bout of shot blasting and a respray, brake calipers also got a fresh coat of red paint:
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...79f25878d0.jpg

After this I went a few road trips and just enjoyed the car, here's the car at Dunrobin Castle, just at the start of the North Coast 500. An epic drive, the car was brilliant:
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...ddcfbe82dc.jpg

And here's Loch Katrine, half way up the Duke's Pass:
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...784e48570f.jpg

Time for a performance upgrade, I went for:
Hybrid TD04 from Central Turbos
Harvey's Trick Up-pipe
Standard exhaust headers ported and polished
STI TMIC with scoop and tray
Walbro 255lph fuel pump
STI pink injectors
NGK 7s

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...f1f96913a1.jpg

First job was fitting the intercooler, scoop and tray. Easy enough job and it made a nice subtle change to the front end:
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...17b29b5542.jpg

Fitting the rest of the hardware was beyond my abilities, so it went into the garage. After a week or two of the car being off the road it was over to see Andy Forrest for a remap. Result: 304bhp, 304LbFt and a much better power band!

The car now pulls harder than with the standard turbo all the way through the rev range, and it keeps pulling harder long after the standard turbo runs out of ideas.

Future jobs:
Sort out a few minor body work issues ie stone chips and door dings
Fit less dusty pads
Strut braces
A decent detailing session on the engine bay

looking good.

Which tyres are you running?

What work was carried out on the TD04? I'm after a hybrid TD04 myself for my UK 2000.

Great stuff,keep it up.

Thanks. Hancocks in the summer (can't remember model off the top of my head) and Toyo Proxies in the winter. When the Toyos wear down I'll probably just replace them with something else, I've had them slide about on the 1/4 mile in the dry so probably not the best option.

The turbo was fitted with a billet 19t compressor wheel and larger, ported compressor housing. I think there's some kind of heat resistant coating on the hot side too.

Dyno reading from today. Logged with road dyno rather than a physical dyno

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...c0541f41db.jpg

doubt it

Just regular 99RON. E85 is relatively hard to come by this side of the pond.

Thanks John :thumb:

Curves look really good, must drive very nicely.

Yeah man it's sweet to drive. It spools slightly faster than the standard turbo (as confirmed by overlaying a graph of a mapped WRX) and just widens the gap right the way through the range. Driving wise it feels slightly stronger than the standard turbo at low revs but just keeps pulling harder as the revs climb. There's no let up after 5000rpm either which is refreshing. The car feels a lot happier past 5000rpm whereas with the standard turbo it felt like you were wringing its neck.

Looks really good. Love the clean de-badged look. Subscribed!

Liam do you know what boost the cars running to make those figures?

Thanks

Cheers Stuart! :thumb:

I'll ask Andy and get back to you mate.

Thanks i'd appreciate that, basically running the same spec as you but i'm missing some power so wondered what boost you was running

Just curious with all the mods and >300 hp/ Torque do you not find that the brakes fade easily ?

Not so much to be honest. Never the brakes fade on this car, I (try to) drive to roadcraft though so the brakes don't tend to get leant on very much.

Brakes ok
 

Well Liam , its nice to here that.


If you are just looking for some good pads with good bite with low dust,
I can recommend for Carbon Lorrain RC5 's these are sintered and at least under my standard callipers are not noisy.


UK sole distributor is "Paul Chance" <sales@clbraking.co.uk>
0044 7974 153967


Id like to think that they will be a good improvement and keep you out of trouble :thumb:

Same with my TD05 swap, Stock TD04 was fun but wasn't great for those long gear ratios! I push my 03 WRX to 7,600 all the time now. The only downside is spool start has gone from 2k to 4k :( My wife's Touran leaves me for dead if I'm not in the right gear :(

I've also got to launch at silly revs at the drag strip or I bog down, but modding is usually a compromise :)

Cheers mate, I may very well be looking for a PAD upgrade in the not too distant. Getting frustrated with the amount of dust the standard pads generate. Like I say I try to plan brake use put of my driving as much as practical but a few days after a wash and the standard pads have the wheels looking a shade of grey.

It is a compromise indeed Matt. I was very close to going the TD05 route myself after I lost to a Peugot 206 equipped with one on the 1/4 mile. I had my standard TD04 at that point and easily had him off the line and then some. But come 3rd gear he just started rocketing ahead and had about 3 car lengths by finish line. To be honest it was gearbox strength that swayed me away from the TD05.

When yours comes on song it must pull like a train though, what figures did you get?

Boost is exactly the same as yours, so like you said in your thread the ECU's probably pulling timing for some reason. I read somewhere that dynos can cause det on cars that wouldn't experience it on the road. Might be worth driving the car for a while to let the ECU unlearn it's bad habits then dyno again with a decent octane booster and see what that does for it.

Failing that a road dyno from the likes of rom raider or torque pro might be worth a try.

Another step along the way I forgot to mention: I reckon time will show the newages to be every bit as bad as the classics in the rust department. So i had the underside thoroughly cleaned, rust treated and sealed with dinitrol products. Cavities also filled with wax. Really clean job. A few tiny fits of overspray on the paintwork but these came off with tar remover, claybar and a bit of gentle work.https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...3fff51358a.jpg

Slightly discoloured back box has since been hit with APC, claybar and polish so is looking much brighter.

Good job! Should keep the rust gremlins off for a long time...
The areas the usually concern me on a newage is the area under the radiator and behind the front arch liners.

Looking good, is this a WRX300?

Yeah fingers crossed!

That's prompted me though, in/around the radiator looks good but I'll have to pull those arch liners and have a look.

Cheers Craig! :thumb:

Yeah, it is/was a WRX300 :lol1:

Rust around Radiator
 

I found quiet a bit of rust , but luckily it was easy to treat it when I took my engine out last year. Once you have the radiator out you can get to it fairly well , and rust inhibitor and blue hammerite makes it neat and tidy.

It is a problem area, it gets all the crud from the road. If it is bad ICP do a replacement panel for about £100, and I'd imagine it would be about 4 hours to replace.

nice project, that first pic on the NC500 is absolutely blinding!