My Journey from Fords to a WRX
 

Hi guys n gals, Thought id join up and spread my love of cars with everyone.



Ill keep things simple as I have a few questions that I will spreading out and putting in relevent sections about my new car and coming from a ford RS background and having fords all my life ( im now 30 ) im finding things a little different..





Within the last 4 months ive sold my treasured 215bhp fiesta rs turbo :brickwallit kinda had to go as it just sat in my garage doing f all, i fully rebuild the engine with forged bottom end and a rick woods of CNC heads and was bloody quick to drive.


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to get a mazda 3 mps :nono: ( tax and running costs out of this world ! )but lovely car allround
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to a smart car :idea:
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to my new car

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Now all my previous cars especially my Fiesta RS were mint and under the bonnet so this engine and under bonnet make me sick and angry that someone could let it get to this state, it tells me alot about the previous owner, hopefully they werent to bad. cant wait to get stuck in and make the enginebay look like new again
This is where i need your help, im now thinking after doing research about the car and the specs that this may not be an STI as advertised ??

The guy who owned it was called Paul Thompson of Bournemouth ? ring any names ???

The chap who i bought her off ( a dealer not said Paul )says that the early STi models didnt have the "red inlet" but being a ford man i havnt got a clue and just kinda took his word for it. Ive got a R/R pring out for 301bhp and receipts for uprated walbro pump and its runnign around 15psi
The advert also said it has anuprated ECU ?? to be the ecu looks standard but they could of kept the standard casing ?? or am i wrong?

I beleive the brakes and wheels are of a v6/v7 ???

Now the reason why i question the "uprated" ECU or "tweeked" ECU is due to the fact the MAS sensor isnt plugged in and hasnt got a plug ? someone told me that they do away with it when the ECU has been messed round with, anyone shed any light on this as i find this very strange,

But in the morning on cold start she is a bit **** and turns turns over with no life untill turn 5 or 6 just will splutter and stall again then will fireback up with another turn and be fine, when warm/hot she fires up first time

Ive seen on the downpipe someone has welded a lambda bung in so i have an innovate lm2 hand held that i think ill be pluming in soon to see what she is doing under boost

Sorry to go on but this is the situation

cheers and hi again


Ben :luxhello:

its a WRX STi according to this http://www.type-ra.com/what-model-is-my-impreza/

nice work mate, thats made me feel ALOT better now

haha no worries, i know exactly how you feel mate. i bought my first scooby not so long ago and its so confusing with how many different models, variants and differences in spec there are. ive just chucked myself in head first and tried to learn as much as i can, kinda getting there now haha

also id maybe remove that picture with your VIN number on mate, never know whos looking! haha

ive also been told and now seen it via the link above that i have a "closed deck" and they can handle more power.

whats is this ? a different casting ? , stronger block ??

in that model year the sti was a wrx modified after production, meaning they were converted from wrx to sti off of the production line. so the vin number is not able to tell you if its an sti.

if you look carefully at your ecu you can see the little blue sticker on the yellow plug (RJ4) does not match the code on the lid RY7 (meaning the lid is the wrong one). take the lid off and see if there is a chip fitted.
weird if there isnt cos rj4 is a wrx wagon ecu which is mapped for a smaller turbo with less boost??

your model code also says its a "b" series car which means if it were a sti it should have a unique 1/100 or 1/200 sti plate on the driver sus turrent. i can see a k and n sticker there - is it covering it up?

Looks to me like it's either got a simtec ecu or esl daughter board because your running maf-less and there's no way the car would run without it unless one of the above were fitted, the simtec uses the existing casing and I think the esl daughter board is hard wired to your existing ecu.

esl daughter board i think cos the ecu connectors looks oe

Id of stuck with the smart car,


just kidding :)

oh god dont say that ! lol

is it really that bad : (

ill wip the casing off then and take somemore pics and see if the 1/100 plate is on there

but happy days on the info that has been gave above, seems like there are a few people with good knowledge on here and proberbly some :freak3: like all sites

passionford being one , isnt that right stewart :)

I fair few of us run maffless on here, points towards aftermarket ecu which is never a bad thing :D

But why would u go mafless ?? What gains can u get without using it ??

It is basically a 'true tuners' map where the fueling etc is based purely on the input from the driver rather than air flowing over the sensor giving much more finely tuned results. Mafs do have their advantages as most maffless cars end up running a little rich at normal road speeds and can become heavy on fuel to make sure they don't lean out and go pop. . There is arguments either way tbh.

For a standard road care there is no reason to run without one . .

Both cars look nice!!

My simtek ecu was in the standard casing on my old 2 door Type R!!! Had the same problem with starting the car on a cold morning, but always put it down to the uprated ecu!!!

Ok thats good to know.

Ill keep everyone up dated

And for the record my akatec is also in a standard case

2C ECU is a stock early WRX ECU, not an STi, with a pretty poor map TBH.
The early STi was an SA or SB ECU, which was chipped by STI with an additional chip fitted inside the ECU.
But as mentioned above your MAF is disconnected so I expect the inside of the ECU may not match the outside. The connector on it looks original so it may have an ESL board fitted.

If the screws that hold the top cover come out easily or are damaged then someone's been inside, as they are Loctite/thread locked from new and can be hard to remove.

Ill be takin the cover off mozz so ill let everyone know

Very nice mate I've had a few fast fords including a concours fiesta rs turbo (never doing that again spent more time cleaning it that driving it lol) they were cracking cars especially the waste gate chatter :thumb: welcome to the subaru fold

There's a few things not adding up with it being an STI though.

There's no pink badge on the grill and the STI badging is not present in the engine bay. Why would someone remove them to make it look like a WRX?

Does it have STI badged seats, matching door cards and the red stitched nardi steering wheel?

It has the nardi wheel and gearknob but no sti badged seats. But i have a receipt for the installment of these seats. I have no idea what was i there before.

Is there red stitching on the wheel and gear knob though? The WRX also has Nardi items, but with plain black stitching.

...again, why would someone remove STI seats from a car that's not being broken, unless they were for some really nice replacements, like Recaro or similar.

I'm not trying to be difficult as I'd like it to be an STI for you, but its all a bit strange.

No red : (

But ive got a proven 300 bhp so im not to bothered.

Looks tidy i had escort rst s before my impreza s.good cars but was always chasing the rust.
Got a subaru and i never looked back.!!

i dont think the op is particularly arguing its a sti but:
no sti badge on belt cover
no unique sti plaque
no sti grill badge
no water spray
no sti badges on wings
no sti strut brace
2c ecu lid (probably the original one {wrx code} - board had been swapped for a different one)
...its a wrx

I'd bet a few quid it's a WRX! But that's no bad thing anyway, just slightly annoying that sellers do it IMO. The only thing Sti on the car are the light covers so I think it's safe to say its a WRX. Maybe your insurance will be cheaper though.

Coz it is the v2 and the sti models were just bolt on stuff im guessin the engine is the same yea ??

no, the heads are different hence it has a higher red line.