Having finally parted with my STi5 after nine years of ownership I had to decide what to consider next, to be honest my mind was open on what vehicle to go for, for example I have been quite taken with the EVO 9, a great car which for very little expenditure can be made to produce 400 bhp given the right remap. No I didn't succumb, this is what I ended up with.



The car is a MY07 STi UK, 9,000 miles only, one owner car with, wait for it, a Prodrive Performance Pack, I found it at MKG3000 in Twickenham, they had this plus a Spec D which was of interest. I would like to say thanks to Stef and James of MKG3000 for their help, it's been a pleasure doing business and great to find that James is an MX5 "racer" so very like minded.

I would also like to thank Iain Litchfield for his help in identifying a suitable selection of vehicles plus doing some background checking. Brilliant support.

So I am at ground zero with this car, its never been modified in the true sense, the PPP is a slightly elevated starting point. Crystal Grey has always been my favourite colour for the Hawkeye, not sure about gold wheels though, needs something more "complimentary" methinks.

One of my reasons for going "UK", I have never owned a UK car before always sticking to JDM cars, is that EcuTek are on the verge of releasing the EcuTek "Race" upgrade for fly by wire cars.

Anti lag, flat shifting, automatic throttle blipping, launch control plus speed density option will all bring new opportunities to tuning, as always I dislike using customers as "guinea pigs" so this will give me great R & D opportunity.

Those that followed my "End of Phase 1" thread which detailed my Twin scroller progress will not be suprised to find that step one is going to be simply "How much" can be extracted from the car as is, so thats the current plan, weather permitting of course.

This thread isn't going to be about a huge project to gain monstrous performance by decimateing and changing everything on the car, least not yet, but for those interested in going for a decent step up from standard, whilst keeping the car sensiblly balanced in respect of mods will, I hope, find it useful.

Job one is to benchmark the car as is, I will be running on V Power only, no fuel additives.

Job one was to check that the fuel pump upgrade had been done with the PPP ... tick the box.
Job 2 is to change the spark plugs for a heat grade colder, NGK ILFR7H plugs ordered. (plus a set of standard ILFR6B's just in case)

more to come.

cheers all

Bob

 

looks very nice and am very glad we didn't lose you to the evo's.

 

A great choice and colour Bob, not that I am biased or anything Let the mapping commence.

 

Good stuff Bob,

Will be following this real world development with much interest.

 

Nice one Bob.

 

Hi Bob, well once again thanks for finally letting go of the sti5, i can assure you it is in safe hands and i have already been on the phone with david regarding the cambelt and disks along with the oil cooler (should be going in end of the month early feb).

the new hawkeye looks nice and clean, would have to be that colour for me if not balck. i will keep an eye on this to see how it comes along and how far you take it, and you never know in 9 years time i might buy that off you as well.

best of luck with it all and once again thanks for all your help.

 

Looks like this will be a good thread with alot of hawkeye owners will be watching this with great interest, Looks like you have a nice base car to start mate.

Have you thought what colour/make/weight/size wheels you are going for and suspension/ brakes ?? As if its not going to be a big power build I'm sure you will be making up in these departments, Looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

I will also be following this thread with interest, I like the sound of the Ecutek Race upgrade as well.

After you have just remapped my S202 it looks like I might well be going back to a Hawkeye or to a Hatchback sooner than I thought.

Good luck on the project and it is nice to see you did not venture over to the 'dark side'.

 

I will be following this thread with interest,

Bob what are your thoughts about the md321T on the standard engine?

also why the change of spark plugs

Any news of when the ecutek race upgrade will be available to the masses?

Cheers

Rich

 

Subscribed, nice to see you back in the fold.

 

Hi Bob, also at the forum.
This is going to be a nice project with interesting results I believe. And of course useful experience to you, with those new upgrades.
Subscribed.

Jaka

 

Lovely car Bob.....i'm subscribed.....interesting that you mention the new Race ECU too.

Baly

 

Bob, very nice to see you back on a new project. Really enjoyed your previous upgrade threads from a few years back and found them very informative ... so looking forward to watching this one unfold.

 

Cheers everyone, not much to report so far, weather has been against me. New set of std plugs fitted today, fresh start and ready for bench marking, forgot about the excess air fan, off side plugs are easy to change just air box out as normal, near side both battery and the air fan have to come out, not a difficult job at all, just more tedious. I can confirm that disconnecting the battery for 15 mins does reset the ecu, noticed a couple of threads asking about that. Car felt terrible to drive for a mile or two afterwards until the ecu learned everything back up, especially the throttle response.

Next job is to hook everything up, do a proper benchmarking excersise, then change the plugs to the '7's and repeat then the stick a map on it and see what she can do.

I now have the Race Rom software from EcuTek for beta testing. Options available so far are true twin maps, in gear boost adjustment, launch control, flat shifting, auto throttle blip on change down and, of course, I can go mafless if I want. Its still work in progress, the fire has delayed things somewhat unfortunately. I reckon that a hybrid setup will probably work best, use the maf for off boost areas and switch to speed density on load, best of both worlds as it were. Keep you posted on that thought.

To mention again that as its a PPP its alrady had a fuel pump upgrade otherwise that would have been done today as well.

This will be fun !!

cheers

bob

 

Jaka great to see you here. looking forward to meeting.

best regards

bob

 

Rich apologies just noted you were asking about plugs and the 321T.

Heat grade 7, being a colder plug they are mnore det resistant, whilst its not usual to have it happen to the 2.5 the heat grade 6 plugs in the earlier cars can cause a bit of pre-ignition to take place which then makes the engine detty. I have not seen it in the 2.5 as a norm. I have always run colder plugs in all my cars, heat grade 8 are too cold for day to day road use and, in any case, are unnecessary for a std 2.5 engine. Also the Subaru plug change intervals are, for me, far to widely spaced, I change every 10k miles, much more and they start to go "off".

The 321T on a 2.5 makes a v good upgrade but to get the best from it you will need to go internal and change pistons and ideally rods. Since the engine will be stripped a set of decent shells will also be beneficial. Otherwise it won't last too long.

best regards

bob

 

Are you running a beta/early release version on your car or plan to before the release to the 'general public' as I am really keen to see how these new abilities will work out.

I think there will be a huge demand for RaceRom personally and it just a shame that these new functions are not available (unless they will be in the future) for older newages without fly by wire throttles.

 

Great to see you in your new Motor Bob..

And lovely colour too.....

Enjoy..


DAVE

 

Yes I have the beta version software, it will be on my own car as soon as I get a couple of hours mapping time into it, since most of the functionality relies on the DBW system then a throttle cable system is not compatable, so for MY06 onwards. It will have two settings (two map sets), one for "Road" and one for "race" hence "Race Rom"

The colour was a major factor Dave, its got a tremendous depth to it when we do get some sunlight !!

cheers all

bob

 

Bob,
Good luck with the new car and of course the project thread. Your original JDM Twin Scroll thread was what spurred me in to the ScoobyNet Project thing...... 5yrs later and my pockets have been dented, but I must admit I learnt and continue to keep learning. Threads like this are invaluable imo.

 

Bob just seen this
Small world thats the same place i got my P1 from
Car looks beautifull
Now subscribed to see the progress on this
Many thanks for your e mail reply today as well
Dave

 

Thanks for the answer Bob, I was hoping to have kept the S202 in the hope that Ecutek would engineer the same product for JDM's/earlier UK models.

Oh well, looks like I had better start looking for a UK Hawkeye/Hatchback STi in the near future.

 

Cheers For the Reply bob,

One more question as regards the md series turbo's,

I dont think my budget is going to be able to stretch to stronger internals, i now see lateral are doing the md321h in twinscroll varient, would that be a better option along with litchfield single to twin scroll conversion kit?

In my mind this would make a fantastic road car coupled with the 2.5, great spool up and power all the way through the rev range instead of dropping of like the vf43 does.

Or am i talking out my **** lol!

Cheers

Rich

 

Rich,
That turbo IS the Litchfield Twinscroll turbo, but rebranded afaik. You might get a better deal if you bought the whole lot from Litchfield direct.

 

Shaun,

cheers for the heads up fella, i just saw it advertised in jap performance car mag, didnt realise it was the litcho one

Rich

 

Hello Bob,

Lovely looking car.

As a poorer member of S'net is there any financially acceptable way of using a Hawkeye ecu on an earlier Uk STI ?

Dreaming....

dunx

 

Would probably be better to just get an aftermarket ECU like Solaris or something...

Bob, it would be very interesting to see some performance figures when you're done, on things like how much difference flat foot shifting makes to quarter mile times, or any other performance measures. Same for the launch control etc.

Looking forward to seeing how you get on with this!

 

Cool. Does this mean overboosting is going to be easier to manage in the 2.5's ? Race Rom additions sound like alot of fun

 

Hi, the only way to use this on earlier cars is to transplant everything from a Hawkeye into the earlier model, not really very cost effective, the Simtek will get you twin maps, launch control and als, no flat shifting yet but its likely to be in the upgrade pack when that comes out along with the changes to idle control. The Syvecs will do it but at almost twice the cost of the Simtek. I like the Syvecs (Solaris), its as good as a Motec and a much cheaper option for that level of ecu.

I will certainly be benchmarking te car to excess all along the way, like everyone else I also am v keen to see what improvements the Race settings make over the road ones.

I've never had any problem with these cars overboosting in particular, the Race Rom enhancements themselves would not affect that area particularly, its really about balancing the relevent map settings together to get a snappy response without that happening.

cheers

bob

 

Nice car bob