good write up:) that's a bloody cracking torque figure you ended up with there aswell:D (well, back in the good old 'not gonna mod it much' days;))

Great read mate , Im very lucky guys as live only 2 mins from young Frayz , And i get to see these updates "Live" As they happen

He is so thorough & his attention to detail is amazing

This thread has alot , lot more to come i promise you ;)

Only friday night i was lucky enough to sit beside him for the " Round 10 " Still to come update :D :D

Keep up the good work mate , Proud of ya :thumb: :thumb:

Looking awesome Frayz :thumb: easily the bestest Bug on here :D

:nono:

that's mine :norty:

Just kidding:D

Nice car, Frayz :notworthy

"better than a 22B"
"Easily the best bug on here"

Wow guys those are some statements. Not sure i can agree but thankyou very much :thumb:

Cheers for the rest of your comments too. Im gonna carry this thread on right up to present day and then hope to update it as the car progresses forward.

Tiny, cheers bigboy, you know youre always first inline to see the lastest mods:thumb:

Best thread on sn in ages:notworthy That is one very nice bug:thumb:

Good thread and pictures....its has come a long way:)

Round 5
 

On return from Germany the chassis mods continued with the addition of a few more items. These included a set of Whiteline flatout springs, Whiteline adjustable front ARB, camber bolts all round and Noltec billet clubsport pillowball topmounts (camber/castor adjustable) I threw in an STI front strutbrace for good measure.
This little lot was all lovingly setup by Zak at Mocom. We managed to get a staggering 5.5 degrees of addition castor on the front, 1.5 degress neg camber all round and a slight toe out on the rear.

This was to be my new road setup and wow did it change the car dramatically. Steering weight was increased substantially and the cars poise and turn-in was now crisp, balanced and very willing to go wher i pointed it.

Infortunately i dont have off car pics of all that stuff so heres a pic of the topmounts similar to the ones we fitted.
http://www.mocomracing.com/dbimages/...haft-small.jpg

No as i said i had hatched a plan in my head for the dash project.

I knew the kind of tuning i now had planed ahead for the car so i ordered myself 6 Defi BF gauges. These were to be placed 3 in the centre of the dash and 3 down my A pillar.

Now at the time there was not a tripple pillar pod available for the newage impreza so we had to have one made. I started off by buying a twin pod from Martin at Nomad Racing and gave it to a buddy of mine at work. He works in composites fabrications as said he could take a mold of the existing pod, use the mold to make a 3rd gauge housing and then graft it onto the top of the twin pod to create a tripple.

And thats exactlay what he did.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ripplepod1.jpg

I also had a Innovate wideband lambda and RB Motorsport ACT gauge. These are IMO probably 2 of the most important gauges in the car so i had to have them in good view.
I asked my buddy if he could fabricate these into the top of my existing steering column. I told him what i wanted and how it wa to fit. He came back to me with a beautifully made bespoke pod.

Attachment 50978
Attachment 50979

I purchased another full dash from Saj at Jap performance and had it all including the new pods and A pilars sent to Doug at Suffolk Flocking services. Doug was incredibly helpful and withina few weeks i had the whole lot back at home, beautifully flocked.

Attachment 50980
Attachment 50981
Attachment 50982

I didnt like the dash panels in the stock silver colour so a spent a fair bit of time preping these and then painted them satin black. I think they came out extremlely well and still look just as good today.

Attachment 50983

Now knowing i was going for a completely new look, i needed to do something with the stock steering wheel. I decided to get myself an STI 8 wheel and airbag. I then sent this away to a guy up north who trims Porsches. At my request he trimmed the wheel in black leather with red stitching and a red centreband. It came home looking like this.

Attachment 50984

Now i really had to throw my balls to the wall and do the dash swap. Here are a few pics from along the way.

Attachment 50985
Attachment 50986
Attachment 50987
Attachment 50988
Attachment 50989
Attachment 50990

It finally looked like this,
Attachment 50991
Attachment 50992

To celebrate finally getting it back together, i fitted my speedlines, fitted a set of 6000K HID headlamp bulbs and gave the car a new identity with a new registration.

Attachment 50993

The car promtly went back to Mocom shortly after for the fitting of a TD05 20g turbocharger, 800cc injectors, Fuelab FPR, a bespoke 80mm wing mounted intake and some more map time. This saw the car with a healthy 303bhp and 272lbs at the wheels.

Attachment 50994

Its starting to come together now :D

Flocking lovely dash frayz.

This is like Jakanory, i'm sitting here wanting to hear the next episode :thumb:

Keep it goin Frayz, one of the best threads ever :notworthy

Nice plate - I suspect I beat you to the one you really wanted ;)

I dont know what to say about the work you have put into this, so I am going to say nothing and just sit back and admire:cool:


Kev

Actually no, I treated myself for my birthday. My birthday is on the 26th. lol :thumb:

That's an incredible amount of work you've done on the car!
How many banks have you had to rob to finance it!? ;)

I'd probably be spending similar amounts if the wife didn't want to keep going abroad on holiday!

Keep it going fella you're an inspiration to all us modders!

Frayz really impressed with all the dedication, effort and attention to detail you have put into the car, you are a credit to all Impreza owners :thumb:

Banny

No banks, no credit card... just hard graft and saving mate. Its tough but can be done. Id also just like to add that appart from where its stated.
Everything on the car has been designed, made if need be and fitted by myself.

Zak @ Mocom takes care of my mapping and chassis geometry... those bits im still learning :D

"you are a credit to all Impreza owners"
"you're an inspiration to all us modders"

Comments like these guys, really blow me away. It means so much to hear comments like that.

Thankyou very very much.:thumb:

Hope your enjoying reading this as much as im enjoying looking back over the last 2.5 years. :cool:

Great work mate :notworthy :thumb:

when we getting the next episode?

Makes me want to chart my cars progress at some point down the line


Subscribed by the way ;)

Round 6
 

So after the dash was done, it was really starting to become something special and the "lets keep it reasonably stock" had gone right out the window. Ha ha.

Zak and I had grown from a business relationship to very good friends. I felt i wanted to help towards possibly pushing Mocom Racing forwards and offered to totally graphic the car as a complete rolling advert for Zak and his exceptional tuning work.
Now i have never seen graphics in a good light before. Certainly not on a road car. I hated them to be honest, so this next step was imo my biggest risk id ever taken with the car.
With that in mind i contacted Simon @ SJS Designs and explained how i really didnt like graphics, i had never seen them done well before and he had the task of changinfg my mind. I went to see Simon and sat with him for hours to try and design something, unique, original and motorsport orientated. If it looked tacky then they would be taken straight off of the car.. regardless of how much i had spent on them.
So i left Simon do finalise the design...

In the meantime, the car gained a few other items A custom carbon fibre fuel door made in the states. I thought this would be a different little touch as it wouldnt be that noticeable being partially covered in graphics.

Attachment 50995

Also a set of ported headers and lightweight pulleys had found their way onto the car along with yet another map tweek.

Attachment 50996

After a few weeks and alot of discussions, Simon finally gave me the final designs for the graphics. This was about as close to the real thing as it was going to get.

Attachment 50997

The car was taken to Simon where he spent 2 days fitting up the vinyl. The chequered sections are all digital print on white with black fades. These are also all covered in Armourfend to stop any UV bleaching, discolouration and genearal wear/tear.

I think my gamble paid off as she came home looking like this.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...aphics11-3.jpg
Attachment 50998

The elusive roof vent is coming up soon :lol1:

I love threads like this ....making a cracking read so far frayz, keep up the good work.

dont agree with the comment though, you still look like a geek ;) :D

Cheers mate :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

Cracking thread Frayz , and there's me thinking I was being brave by thinking of having my wheels refurbed a different colour :D
I can vouch for the noise this beast makes, I'm sure I hear it rumble past the top of my road frequently (about 1/4 of a mile away:thumb: )

Cracking thread Frayz! :notworthy: Car looks great! :cool:

Nice looking HIDs too ;) :D

Keep up the good work fellow Impreza owner ;)

roof vent, roof vent, Frayz show these people your roof vent install.....:notworthy

rgds "MADDOG" :thumb:

loving the thread mate. great outcome on the grafics. your not messing around with it are you. this is proper modding.
like the cf fuel flap. put mine on yday lol

MADDOG, is your Scoob in Zen at the minute as I saw her today whilst mine was in having a service.

sure is.......:luxhello:

rgds "MADDOG" :thumb:

LOl, i have very few pics of my own install, might have to post pics of me doing your install lol :D

it's a very smart car indeed and has obviously had lots of work put in to it and for that you should be applauded, but i think you should have stayed away from the graphics, i know you wanted to help your freind at mocom and thats should also be applauded but they just dont suit the car imho.

good work other than that and i love the red painted exhaust wrap on the headers and uppipe, keep it coming.