I've put off making a project thread as i didn't plan to keep this car very long and didn't intend to start modifying it, however as with all my other vehicles it becomes quite hard to resist.

Every car I've owned has been modified in some way from my 180bhp racing puma powered fiesta, my 340bhp turbo duratec fiesta sleeper to my 280bhp Volkswagen scirocco. Not to mention my other vehicles that I didn't really do much to.

Being only 23 the Subaru was very expensive to insure as you can imagine, so I didn't plan to make any modifications until he inevitable happened.. Piston 4 ring land failure. This made my mind up as I wasn't going to fix it for a similar price I could mod it for !

Anyway less of the boring talk, below is the spec I bought the vehicle in last year:

2009 Subaru Impreza 2.5
WRX STI 330s Edition
Dark metallic blue
Full 330s spec including;
Keyless entry & start
Touchscreen navigation
Multifunction steering wheel
Half leather Recaro's
Pro drive exhaust with second decat
18" 5 spoke Alloy Wheels
Only 19,000 miles on the clock with full service history







The first thing I did when buying the vehicle was to fully detail the vehicle inside and out, saying this is was immaculate inside ! But hadn't seen a clay bar or polish for a while. After this I noticed the bodywork wasn't the best condition on the front end had many stone chips .
Working closely with a very good bodyshop I sent the car off to them to have a complete front end paint.
I asked them to paint all the boring looking greyish plastic parts in gloss black to give the front end a meaner look.





I then purchased a HT Autos front splitter to finish the front end off .
And the car stayed like this for a while

 

Two months later and this happened ..




So got the car back home and into the garage to find this ..

 

Now the car was off the road I priced up everything to fix the ad back to standard and then compared that to the price to have the engine Forged etc..

Needles to say I chose the modification route !! Hah would of been silly not to.

As I wanted to have some
Creditable invoices and workmanship I sent the stripped engine to Area 52 in Mansfield to have the engine work carried out now I knew what the issue was!

As the damage was quite deep to the cylinders I didn't want to bore them out close to 100! As anyone wanting to run more boost on this block may have issues with the thinner wall, so Area 52 kindly sourced me a brand new genuine Subaru block to start work on.

I wanted to try and keep to a budget and Marc @ Area 52 was very understanding and helped me out with this, so..

Spec:
Brand new EJ25 block
Mahle Forged Pistons
Mahle Rods
New Genuine Subaru Crank
ACL TRI steel race bearings
Uprated oil pump
Cosworth head hasket
Cosworth head bolts
All New Genuine Gaskets
Exedy stage 2 clutch kit
New timing belt kit

And the engine came back to me fully built, headers and turbo on just needed me to pop the inlet manifold on and drop the engine back into the car.


With millers running in oil and oil for the first change

Whilst the car was off the road o thought I would invest in a few other parts

AEM Induction kit
Updated ngk iridium plugs from scoobyclinic
H&S decat pipe
EBC Front Grooved Disc and Pads
EBC Rear Pads
Subaru SPT Short shift kit
Tein lowering spring kit





Whilst the engine was out I noticed how terrible the standard earths were and decided to make up my own and replace the ones I could and make a few additional earths

 

So after we fitted all the above parts and the new engine, the car fired up first time (after turning over with the crank and cam sensors out obviously !)

So full spec as it stands now:


New Genuine ej25 block
Mahle forged Pistons
Mahle rods
New Genuine Subaru crank
ACL TRI steel race bearings
Uprated oil pump
Cosworth head hasket
Cosworth head bolts
Exedy Stage 2 clutch
AEM Induction kit
Updated ngk iridium plugs from scoobyclinic
H&S decat pipe
Prodrive second decat pipe
Pro drive cat back system
All new earths plus additional

Tein lowering springs
EBC Grooved disc and pads
New Genuine wheel nuts


In addition to all That mentioned we also carried out:

Full coolant flush and replacement
New battery
Brake fluid flush and replaced with ATE Blue race fluid dot4
Air conditioning regas

And I'm currently running the new engine is gradually and slowly !

 

Red grille stripe fitted before I went away and this is as how it looks after nearly two weeks of Inside storage ! Dusty !





Also forgot to mentions custom spoiler fins I had made and painted

And the Area52 stickers applies to each side of the spoiler and front bumper centre

And team Heko wind deflectors now fitted.. I really need to get some good pictures of the car

A massive thanks to everyone at Area52 for help with getting this car running , can't wait get it back up there on the rollers to be setup!

 

Hi,
If you need any help with insurance at all then please feel free to drop me a line.
Regards,
Dan.

 

19k miles and the engine let go??? And Subaru say that theres nothing wrong with the 2.5 litre engine

Looks lovely in black, loving the hatch STi's, and would be top of my list if I was to have another Impreza.

 

When I emailed Subaru UK when the engine first went their "official" reply was the reason the engine is damaged is because there was no oil due to the piston ring land failure.
But when I then asked, well
Why does the piston ring land fail? They said they have no idea as they've never come
Across it before ..

Thanks for the comments it's actually a really dark blue, can only see it's blue in the sun though ! Looks meaner black hah

 

Cheeky picture to show how it now stands

 

Picture of the AEM kit fitted Perfect placement, the filter head sits right down in the wing behind the fog light.
So I removed the blanking plate from the back of the fog light grill and Swiss holed the rear part of the bumper to allow even more air through ! This way there is no need to remove the fog light itself
Mapping booked in next week so fingers crossed it will make some decent figures