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Right I've been acquiring parts and doing bits and bobs to the car for around 2 years now, and after some recent decisions with the car I've decided that its probably time to start a little project thread. Given that I've been doing bits for two years there might not be the photo coverage of the project that i would like but here goes.....
So ill start at the beginning, i purchased the wr1 off my brother who had lost interest in the car and was selling it at a price that any man would of snatched up. I had owned a seat ibiza 2.0 diesel before so as you can imagine the power difference was bit overwhelming initially but as any of you can imagine it wasn't long until the thirst began
Few pics of the car in all its glory when i first brought it:
So as i said earlier i was quite happy with the power when i first brought the car so initially it was only the aesthetics of the car i wanted to modify, so i began with the basics.
I bought a splitter off eBay for cheap, wasn't the best quality splitter i had ever seen but it would do the job until i could find a high quality fibreglass replacement.
My front numberplate was beginning to look a little worse for wear, so i decided to buy a new one and thought id do something a little different and go for a square number plate. I no photos of when i fitted it but you'll get the general idea off the photos later on in the thread.
Hella horns, cause lets be honest is it really a subaru without them!!!
so next it was time to jump into something slightly more complicated, next on the list was Coilovers. now i know this is a widely debated subject in the subaru world whether to fit these or not, and even though the WR1 comes with suspension that is one inch lower then its STI brothers i was still left wanting to achieve that aggressive look i was after.
So after searching for a while i came across a set of TEIN superstreets and after reading many a good review i decided to snap these up and get them fitted.
The TEIN suspension was not in the best condition so my plan was at some point to get them powerdoated and tidied up but for reasons ill explain later this never happened.
so the car was beginning to take shape and i was very happy with where the car was heading and it was approaching show season, normally I'm away with work and miss all the fun stuff but luckily i was home for both japfest 1 and japfest 2 so there wasn't a chance i was missing them, below are a few pics from the shows.
So as i said i was very happy with where the car was heading and i was pleased with how it looked but as we know the road of owning a subaru is never straight forward.
So one night i was driving home from work and for me this involves a series of twisty roads which is where the subaru really comes into its own, so i came round a corner and in the road was a lump of metal about the size of a bowling ball not a clue who or what had dropped it there but i swerved. I narrowly avoided it with my front wheels but my rear left was not lucky.
So when i eventually arrived home i inspected the damage as much as i could and came to the conclusion that it wasn't too bad was just a blown tyre. so the next day i took the wheel to my local tyre shop and had the rim checked and a fresh tyre put on. Easy fix or so it seemed.......
A couple of days later after i had been driving around i noticed some horrendous noises coming from the corner with the new tyre. now i was no stranger to bump noises off coilovers but this was something else so i took it to my local garage to get inspected.
upon close inspection my mechanic found that the metal had not only destroyed my tyre it had also broke the damper within the coilover, how the rim stayed intact i do not know.
So after days upon days of talks with TEIN i discovered that the model of coilover i had purchased was no longer available and the repair parts were special order only, and as you can imagine special order comes with a special price tag, so with a quote of a jaw dropping 700 pound for the repair of the strut, i decided that it was time for a brand new set.
The coilovers i chose were the HSD mono pros, i chose these coilovers due to a series of good reviews and testimonials about there performance even against there competitors with a much higher price tag.
okay so after the coilover madness i was back to where i wanted to be with the subaru and was content with how it looked, so now it was time to begin modifying the subarus performance and i thought i would begin with the basics and go for an intake.
So i began by removing the intake silencer from the wing, as i said earlier i don't have the photo coverage i would like to have of some aspects of this build due to it being so long since i started but I'm sure you are all aware of what the silencer looks like in the wing.
once i removed the silencer i was scouring the internet and managed to stumble across a HKS power flow intake for a very cheap price so i snapped it up.
Whilst i was fitting the intake i couldn't help but notice that my engine bay was looking a little bit tired and boring so i decided to break out the spray paint and give my engine bay a lease of life, began by painting the header tank, strut brace and battery and radiator clamp.
so wasn't long until i was looking for more parts and i decided that the exhaust would be the best route to go down next, so amongst the vast world of subaru breakers i managed to find a full turbo back 3" exhaust for a very reasonable price, unfortunately again no actual photos of it fitted but i have photos of the exhaust itself.
intercooler was the next item on the list now don't get me the stock intercooler is more then capable to handle the power figure i had in mind at this point as you will see later on it was a good job i came across the japspeed intercooler when i did. now i understand that japspeed isn't the best make for car parts, but as i have seen first hand on my friends builds the japspeed intercooler can handle itself even when pinned against its far more expensive competitors.
as you can see the pipes originally came polished silver which i was not a fan of so once again i broke out the spray paint and turned them red (not my brightest of ideas)
now it wasn't long until i realised that my once boring engine bay had turned completely the other way and was far too loud. Also due to me spray painting the pipes whilst fitting the pipes back in i had chipped bits of the paint so the finish was not where i wanted it to be, so i pulled the pipes back off and it was time to take a trip to my powdercoaters.
As you can see with the help of viper performance hoses the pipes and engine bay in general were looking a lot more professional and tidier all round.
so i was happy now with the car but i was naive and didn't realise how tender the subaru was when it came to modifying and it was long until the dash board was lighting up like a christmas tree, YES i had reached the limit and it was time for the car to be remapped and little did i know that this was where the fun would really begin........
But before we get into that there was one more aesthetic modification that i found and wanted to do and that was to rebadge the front grill. nothing to serious just involved removing the grill cutting out the badge filling and repainting and took less that one afternoon to complete but am really happy with how it turned out.
Right so we have reached the stage in my build where I'm going to get some serious stick for what i chose to do next, so by now the subaru is off the road and I'm deciding what route its going to go down next.
so all you purists out there are not going to like what your about to see but i chose to go down the track car route initially, now my front bumper was looking bit worse for wear due to my home area not being very lowered car friendly so i came across some wide wings and a bumper to match.....this was momentary madness but here are the wings and bumper fitted.
Now don't get me wrong i love these wings and i love the bumper but i couldn't bare having to cut the rear wings of the WR1 to match. so i needs to track down a new bumper and tidy up the body, as you can imagine there isn't many WR1 bumpers knocking about so I've chosen to get normal sit bumper with foglight covers to hide the intercooler pipes.
I forgot to mention but to fit the wider wings had to cut my STI side skirts so i needed some original sit twisted side skirts so picked them up the same time as my bumper.
so the car at this point was off the road and it was at this point where the build really snow balled, after some long hard talks with my dad/build advisor we decided that if i was going to fork out the money on a remap i may swell go the whole hog and fully rebuild the car, now as i stated early i work away a lot so the car being off the road does not affect me anyway so i had all the time in the world.
So now were unto date to where i am today!!! so now were through all the boring bits we can get into the exciting/expensive stuff.....
So it was time to find myself an engine builder luckily there is a subaru specialist known as TDR very close to where i live so they were my first point of call, so after a few weeks of me picking Marks and Michaels brain we came up with an engine build and i gave them the go ahead to begin, this was around 3 weeks ago so my engine is still being built and I'm not expecting it back till after christmas, don't get me wrong the wait is killing me now but it gives me time to get the other parts i need to achieve big power.
so the build spec that me and mark decided on is listed below:
EJ25 New engine block
Closed decking of the block
14mm head studs
genuine subaru crank
RCM low-X Pistons
RCM Arrow rods
RCM stopper gaskets
Cosworth cambelt kit
RCM 11mm oil pump
Group N sump
RCM baffle plate
as you can see i chose to go down the 2.5 route, and i chose this for a few reasons, i wanted to keep the drivability of the car and didn't want it to be massively laggy when i push for power so with the 2.5 i have the initial torque advantage over the 2.0 or 2.1. now 2.35 is the holy grail but the cost of this was more then i could warrant so 2.5 was the one for me.
jesus m8 why did you do that to a wr1 ? im not slagging you off but if it was me i would have sold the wr1 and bought a wrx or a standard sti if you wanted to go the track/ modifiying route. wr1 will only rise in value over the next 10 years or so and even at todays prices would have got you a tidy sum to build yourself a track toy to play with. all the same its your car so have fun with it and keep us updated with how the build goes. i hate the wings by the way lol, im a purist when it comes to special edition cars.
jesus m8 why did you do that to a wr1 ? im not slagging you off but if it was me i would have sold the wr1 and bought a wrx or a standard sti if you wanted to go the track/ modifiying route. wr1 will only rise in value over the next 10 years or so and even at todays prices would have got you a tidy sum to build yourself a track toy to play with. all the same its your car so have fun with it and keep us updated with how the build goes. i hate the wings by the way lol, im a purist when it comes to special edition cars.
i know was a lapse in judgement but don't worry its going back to standard body I'm just waiting for the engine to be in so i don't scratch any of the body whilst I'm working on it
OK, first off, I respect the fact that it's each to their own, it's your car and you can do what you want to it
I just think it's a shame you've kicked off your project on a limited run car - as above, you could have detailed the WR1 and sold it (they've gone up in value over the past 6 months) and then kicked off your own project based on a WRX or STI.
yeah its never ending lol. what are you doing for engine management?
Initially i was going to go for a Syvecs ECU but after some talks with mark at TDR we've decided that for a while i can use a carberry map as i won't use half the functions on it.
OK, first off, I respect the fact that it's each to their own, it's your car and you can do what you want to it
I just think it's a shame you've kicked off your project on a limited run car - as above, you could have detailed the WR1 and sold it (they've gone up in value over the past 6 months) and then kicked off your own project based on a WRX or STI.
Best of luck with it though!
As i said in the thread and in earlier replies, looks wise the car will be no different to any other wr1, still keeping the blue driving lights and the body will be standard. I didnt buy the car with the intent of selling it and i wouldn't be throwing all this money at it just to sell it.... but once again i agree with what your saying and thats why i put it back to standard.
Looking good mate . As above though, not keen on the winglets or front bumper but each to their own as they say. Definitely a better idea going back to standard.
The bay is looking a lot tidier! And I like what you’ve done with the header tank, what spray paint did you use ?. the worse thing for me about a Subaru bay is the alternator, it’s an ugly looking thing without a power coat and stands out like a sore thumb when it’s standard!. Next thing on my list is having the alternator powder coated.
Looking good mate . As above though, not keen on the winglets or front bumper but each to their own as they say. Definitely a better idea going back to standard.
The bay is looking a lot tidier! And I like what you’ve done with the header tank, what spray paint did you use ?. the worse thing for me about a Subaru bay is the alternator, it’s an ugly looking thing without a power coat and stands out like a sore thumb when it’s standard!. Next thing on my list is having the alternator powder coated.
yeah it was momentary madness but am back on track with it now , just don’t want refit original bits until the cars done cause of me leaning over panels to work in the bay , but soon after that she’ll be back looking pretty again.
The paint I used was high temp paint, just cause I didn’t want it flaking off the pipes if it got too hot around the turbo, but also it gives it a matte almost crinkled effect so that was just a bonus that noticed after
nice engine spec you,ve chosen there, although any decent gt30 with a good billet front wheel will spin up nicely anyway on a 2.5-
rotating really suits bigger frame turbos-save your money and just add spacers to the manifold to make a bit of room for a 76mm inlet.
depending on pumps and injectors you could easily see 550/550 out of that setup on standard cams-
probably enough for a road car
SOOOOOOOO..... been a while since i updated this and unsure if people actually read it or whether they just look at the pictures but o well haha
so I've acquired some parts towards my build and have spoke to mark over at thwaites and the engine build is still under way so all is good at the moment, i have rough list of parts i need to achieve my goal and slowly but surely I'm knocking parts off here and there.
brake discs- as you may of noticed in my other pictures earlier on I've got AP racing brakes all round, 6 pots 355 on the front and 4 pots 330s on the rear, so the replacement discs are not cheap, but I'm in talks with godspeed brakes and there will be some pretty interesting things coming my way so I'm excited to show you all that when its done
Brake pads- so with my power I'm going for i think I'm gonna need some pretty serious braking power so with the discs I'm going to get I'm going to be running CL brake pads, RC6 pads to be exact. The only downside is the pads are probably going squeal a lot coming into roundabouts and stuff but after speaking to multiple sources these are the best gripping pads both cold and warm not saying that the ferrodo DS2500 are no good before people tell me to go for them I've spoken to many people and these come much higher recommended.
Oil catch can/ breather system- due to me running high power there will be a lot of crank case pressure so I'm using a catch can to vent this. I'm also having a return to sump line for any oil that it catches.
Great engine spec but the turbo, headers and down pipe looks nasty.
Turbo has moved on vastly and I’m not even sure what kind of GT30 that is.
Yeah I agree, but this setup is just to get the car running almost, I got the kit quite cheap so it’s just to make do until I can buy the other kit I have in mind, but all in all just until I have more money pretty much, just want the car running with rotated kit and then I’ll upgrade further as and when
Good luck with your build.I enjoy reading about other people's projects.
You are in safe hands at THWAITES..
Mark mapped my car after my engine build.Top people to do business with.
04 December 2017, 04:30 PM
WR1 Project
everytime i think yeah I'm upto date more parts arrive 
