SkydiveMacca

Ok, so this project isn't going to be the bare metal, ground up rebuilds of the the other threads here, but it is my pride and joy and what I do to the car may be of interest to others

Here's where it all started...


Having owned all manner of German cars before, and not quite getting the handling / power I was after, it was clear I needed to man up and buy something from the land of the rising sun - or the other side of the world as it turned out.

I was fortunate enough to get to drive our modded work Voltz P1 before we gave it away and it quite literally I fell in love. From there on in, I had to own a Scooby.

Lots of internet scouring ensued and I finally found the one for me on the wonderful world of eBay.

It already has a pretty extensive mod list, and now knowing who's owned the car in the past, know it's all be done properly - and with quite a few pennies spent!

Current mods on the car include:

Full API engine rebuild with forged pistons and steel rods
Pink injectors
Walbro fuel pump
VF34 roller bearing turbo
EcuTek remap
Prodrive exhaust system
Prodrive front bumper
High level spoiler
Carbon Fiber bonnet
Prodrive Sparco bucket seats
OMP 6 point harnesses
OMP gear ****
Sparco steering wheel
Harness bar
Leeder adjustable suspension
Front and rear strut braces
Whiteline front and rear ARBs
Alloy rear droplinks










Plans are to make this a track car. The pure goal is to make it go faster, corner harder and brake later.

Speaking of which, the brakes are shagged, so those are first on the list!



Time for a bit of an update...

The scoob is fantastic, don't get me wrong, I love it. Problem is, it doesn't sound much like an Impreza should. For me, others may disagree, there are two things required - a nice deep burble from the exhaust, and the familiar sound of a quality dump valve.

The Prodrive exhaust on the car is ok, but is both quiet and restrictive = less power. I'm dealing with that one later, which left the dump valve to sort.

First up, here's the sad looking state of the standard Subaru valve.



Now, there are a number of options when it comes to dump valves, but for me, nothing can beat the look, and more importantly sound, of a Forge Motorsport dual piston valve. On lift off they sound great, and Forge say they help the turbo spool up quicker. Win all round!

I gave the guys at Forge a call to see which was the best one for me, and in no time a box of metallic beauty arrived.



This had the valve (direct replacement) and a blanking plate for the old return pipe. Both are beautifully CNC machined from billet aluminum and are absolutely stunning.

Here's a quick comparison shot to show what I mean:



Anyhow, as with all Forge products, it's so well made, it was an absolute doddle to fit and I had it up and running within 10 minutes. Job done.

It sounds so good on lift off. A really top quality product.

It does, however, make the rest of my engine bay look ****, so may have to do a bit more work on it to tidy things up.




Another job that i've been meaning to sort out since owning the car was to get the AC sorted out. Even with it on full blast, i'd felt colder hair dryers. It was obvious that the system had never been re-gassed and with all the heat we've had recently it was long over due.

Rather than take my pride and joy to one of those fast fit places, I decided to see what my local main dealer, Condors in Peterborough, could do.

Turns out, they'd just bought all the gear to do a recharge and refresh, and at the same price as a fast fit, I'd much rather they did it.

Really friendly garage, even let me hang out while they did it (meaning I got a sneaky look at their bosses 550BHP P1).

First up was plugging in the AC machine





It's pretty much an automated system from here on in. It drains all the remaining coolant from the system, then replaces it with new stuff.



After that's done its magic, various sprays are well, sprayed, into the system to kill any bacteria and add a nice pleasant smell.

It also gives you a print out to say what it did:

Gas recovered: 75g
Gas injected: 550g

Safe to say it was long over due and needed!

Holy crap does the system now blow cold. It's feezing and well worth the investment!

SkydiveMacca

One of the least exciting things, but most important for the health of your engine, that needs doing - especially with a high performance car - is regular oil changes.

As was my understanding, it's suggested that oil is changed every 7.5k miles, which looking at the paper work, would be now.

Due to the nature of the engine, a quality oil was required, so after a bit of research I settled on Silkolene Pro s 10w 50 fully synthetic oil. It's not cheap at nearly £60 for 5L, but gets the thumbs up from a number of people running race Scoobies.

As someone rightly pointed out, you'd happily put that amount of moneys worth of fuel in the tank, so why not spend the same on oil. Makes sense.

I popped down to my local Subaru dealer to pick up a new oil filter and washer and was ready to start.



Compared to my old golf, the oil change was a walk in the park. The sump plug is easily reached with minimal jacking involved, and the oil filter is mounted upright next to the sump.

With all the oil drained from the sump, i did the sump nut back up with the new washer. The filter was filled with fresh oil (which was the point I noticed the oil was red, nice touch), the seal lubricated, then easily fitted back in place.

Next up, the engine was filled with the new oil, with regular dip stick checks to ensure i didn't over fill.

Last up was something new to me. I'd read on www.scoobynet.com that you need to crank the engine after filling it, to ensure the oil circulates and removes all the air. So, i removed the fuse for the fuel pump to make sure it didn't fire and began to crank it for 15 seconds. Fuse replaced and started the car, just to make sure all worked.

Job done, took less than 30 minutes, and well, well, worth doing.

As the plan for the car is track use, then ultimately racing, oil changes are going to be a regular thing and for the time being i'll be changing it every 5k, or sooner.



Do you know what’s a **** feeling? Hurtling towards a roundabout, stamping on the stop pedal, and er, not stopping. The Scooby may have a lot of go under its beautiful carbon fibre bonnet, but it had some serious issues come brake time.There had clearly been some work done to shorten the braking distance, as hugging the non existent rotors are some nice 4 pot Brembo’s, but they had nothing to clamp down on, or with. As the plan is to track the Scooba-da-roo, I needed some serious stopping power so spoke to the legendary EBCAfter a spot of research, the Yellow stuff was to be my compound of choice, married up to EBC’s 'superior' Ultimax vented USR rotors all round. Also, knowing the ‘surface of the sun’ temperature that brake fluid can get to when hammering it round a track, they suggested using their BF-307 race brake fluid – a highly refined DOT 4 that wont die when it gets hot.



Several HUGE boxes arrived from EBC and after opening them, I realised I had no idea how to fit them safely. Seeing as stopping is fairly important, I decided to entrust the fitment to professionals. The Scoob was swiftly booked into HiQ in Peterborough for their brake experts – other services are available - to get everything fitted.

The guys at HiQ did an excellent job and the car was ready in no time – which is pretty awesome considering they needed to fit the pads and rotors all round and completely flush the system ready for the race fluid.



With everything now bedded in it’s like night and day. A simple squeeze of the middle pedal results in your skull being launched forward. This is a truly excellent set up from EBC that not only looks great in the wheels, but provides excellent, reliable stopping power = shorter lap times = WIN!

SkydiveMacca

“Wow, this is quietest Scooby I’ve ever been in”. Those were the actual words that a friend used when we went for a quick blat up the road in project scoob (I need to work on a new project name). He might as well have just called me a little girl.

Something needed doing, and quick.

I did some research on the internets, posting up a question on www.Soobynet.com with my requirements. I needed a system that removed the restrictive cats, extended the bore width to 3” and importantly, sounded better. The new pipe work needed to be louder to emphasise that all-important Scooby burble, but as the plan is to track, and ultimately race the car, it needed to be able to pass track scruitineering - which means 95dB or lower.

Almost before I’d clicked ‘post’, Pete from Cobra Sport had replied answering all of my questions.

A couple of emails later, and I was all booked in to get a full turbo back system fitted. The beauty of Cobra Sport is that everything is custom and hand made to your requirements. This meant I could get the performance I needed, with the exact look and sound I wanted.

Although they offer a full mail order service on all their products, I decided to pop up to Sheffield so that their experts could fit it.





I decided to go for a full 3” de-cat system, with a track spec box and a 4.5” slash cut tail pipe. Made from beautiful grade 304 stainless steel, fully tig welded with mandrel bent pipe work this bad boy is a thing of beauty and amazingly well built.





With the system fitted and the engine rumbling I was happier than a fat chick in a cake shop. It looks fantastic, and has a really nice low burble that’s loud, without being stupid.



I really am impressed with the whole system and the set up the guys and girls have up at ExhaustsUK (home of Cobra Sport). Excellent facilities, and a truly excellent product.









So, after getting the new exhaust system fitted, I headed down to Scooby Clinic to get the car on the rollers and check the map.

Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned....

There’s an old saying “Scooby should sound awesome, not like broken tractor from 1940’s”. I don’t know who said it, but they were right and I was in trouble.

I was at top Scooby tuners Scooby Clinic (http://www.scoobyclinic.co.uk or 01246 590807) getting the fuelling checked after the de-cating when disaster struck. All power gone and it sounded like a tank.

We limped it on to the ramps to discover the turbo up pipe had snapped clean off at the welds. ****. It was already late in the day, all the mechanics had knocked off and I was miles from home.

Thankfully the guys at Scooby Clinic are an AWESOME bunch and downed tools on their own projects to come to my aid. A new uprated up pipe was sourced from their massive stock of Scooby tuning parts and so began the worlds quickest switcharoo.



I’d barely had time to nose around their huge number of cars, projects and stunning engine builds before the guys had the car dropped and running like new.

The new up pipe has made a staggering difference to the car with the turbo now making that sexy spooling sound through the revs and the power coming in much earlier.

Kev and the boys at Scooby Clinic, you = ACE!

super_ted

iTrader: (30)

Good write up. I'm sure i read this in a mag a while ago??

Dazza9t9

iTrader: (2)

I was going to say i have seen this some where, what mag was it in?

SkydiveMacca

There are clues in the pictures. Sadly, as always on here, should I mention the brand I work for, a debate will no doubt ensue about the magazine and it's assumed audience stereotype.

Dazza9t9

iTrader: (2)

Im guessing Max Power?? I dont read Max Power, Nothing against it or anything. If thats who you work for, hats off to you fella! must be awesome working for some where like that.

SkydiveMacca

It is, and it is. I actually work in marketing for a number of car brands within our publishers portfolio. Being a petrol head it works out quite well

SkydiveMacca

Anyhow, back to the updates...

The Scooby is really starting to take shape now, with the engine performing in several shades of awesome. When you run a tuned engine though, you need to know what’s going on with it ‘on the inside’ [deep maaaan].

The standard dash has a couple of needles on it, but these are about as accurate as the bloke on the telly trying to tell you what the weather is going to be like tomorrow. The only solution is aftermarket gauges.

Now there are gauges, and then there are Stack gauges. When you want the best, there’s only one company to talk to, the legendary Stack (www.Stackltd.com). These guys don’t mess around and IMO build the best you can buy – just ask anyone whose even remotely built a motorsport based car.

I’ve gone for a set of three – oil pressure, oil temp and boost pressure - from their beautiful Pro Control range, as well as one of their wideband air / fuel gauges.



The Pro-Control series sits at the top of their 52mm auxiliary gauge range featuring; fast, smooth stepper motor controlled needles, highly accurate (to within 2%), all electronic design with remotely mounted sensors to keep the dangerous stuff out of the cabin and really easy fitment.



You can choose any of the 7 super bright LED lit colours for the dial face and needle, plus select any of the colours for the many flashing warning modes available – making it really, really obvious if any part of the engine does something outside of the parameters you set, such as low oil pressure, or high oil temp.



The gauges are so clever, you can even programme them to turn things on at a given limit eg, a fan if the temp gets too high.

The build quality is stunning on these bad boys and you can really see why they cost what they cost. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and these truly prove that. They = amazing, and now I can easily keep an eye on exactly what’s happening with my engine.

Adding gauges to your car obviously means you need something to fit them to. With many options available for the Impreza, I decided on this dash pod which replaces the clock and gives it a real OEM look. I wanted something decent, so gave the guys at Scooby World a shout and picked up this one for £75. Bargain!

beef-on-the-bone

iTrader: (5)

quite like the gauges!!

SkydiveMacca

They're absolutely awesome. Love the fact you can set colours and dial flashing at certain warning points

zippy!

iTrader: (1)

coming on nicely mate keep up the good work and good choice on the forge d,v

Mad Hammer

iTrader: (55)

Nice to see another Peterborough based project

super_ted

iTrader: (30)

i'm loving those guages.

SkydiveMacca

If you’ve got a forced induction car, your standard ECU can usually cope with a new ‘map if you’re only changing a couple of bits. If however, you want real power, multiple ‘maps, and absolute full control over every aspect of the engine you need an aftermarket unit.

For me, there was only one choice – the fully excellent Syvecs S6 ECU. This puppy is used in some of the most powerful Scoobys on the planet, featuring in a number of time attack and race cars.

Syvecs (www.syvecs.co.uk / 0845 234 0060) make this unit as a ‘plug and play’ device for all Imprezas meaning installation is really simple. They also do a version for all ‘non Scooby’ motorsport cars - these just require a dedicated loom.



The S6 takes complete control of all engine function allowing the mapper to fully tune the engine way beyond what could be done with the standard ECU.

There’s a ton of ace features in the S6, including; data logging, knock control, traction control, full throttle shift cut and 3D mappable nitrous control - check their website to see the full list. The two that excite me the most, however, are launch control, and anti-lag. Yes, i'm a child and like the pops and bangs!

Syvecs in hand, I spoke to Duncan at Scooby tuners Race Dynamix (www.RaceDyanmix.com) to get it fitted. In next to no time the Scoobys old brain was out, the powerful new Syvecs was fitted and project scoob was strapped to the rollers at the Surrey Rolling Road (www.surreyrollingroad.com) in Chertsey, Surrey.



Their fully calibrated, 4x4 capable, Dyno Dynamics rolling road was perfect for loading up, then tweaking a base ‘map into the Syvecs to get the car moving.



Although not finished yet, I can already feel a massive difference in the way the engine is reacting, plus it’s now pushing a healthy 340 BHP.

The next stage is to complete the mapping, then as the Syvecs can run 8 switchable ‘maps, start to play about with meth mixes to see what kind of power we can really get!

Mad Hammer

iTrader: (55)

You actually live in Peterborough ? Seems your travelling all over to get things Done. Did Dunc map it and then you took to Charlies rollers or was it mapped there too ?

SkydiveMacca

I do live in Peterborough and I do travel around

Base map and some tweeks were made by dunc on Charlies rollers, but then the TGV's snapped shut and day time was running out, so we decided to call it a day.

TGV-less manifold was fitted, then dunc finished the map on the rollers at Zen

Mad Hammer

iTrader: (55)

I did wonder You have bigger future plans given the ECU you have gone for ?

gojonnyjo

iTrader: (1)

great thread, bugs rule, looking forward to the rest

SkydiveMacca

I sure do

Love the fact it can run 8 maps, and all the additional control it can offer.

The engine internals are already nicely uprated, so the next steps are a bigger turbo, and a stronger gear box.

We've sadly not seen the performance increase from the meth mix, which is a shame, so will be looking for other ways to up the power

Looks like you're running something quite special. SC billet turbo?

Mad Hammer

iTrader: (55)

I expect your turbo is the limiting factor therefore a meth mix won't take it much further. Where would you like to get to in terms of power/torque ?

My drag car has a 35R Billet, and my Sprint car has an Enginetuner S215 (mapped by Duncan recently) I too have a project thread covering the exploits of both cars - Type R caged track machine

SkydiveMacca

Almost certainly the turbo. It's a Vf 34 so certainly at its upper limits.

I'd like to keep it driveable and with a hint of reliability, so probably around the 400BHP mark, but I know what i'm like, it'll probably all change when it gets there.

Sadly, those plans may end up paused temporarily as the garage have just called who were working on the dodgy wheel bearing. As suspect, the hub has been chewed out as well, so there's going to be a relatively hefty bill coming from that little lot

birchy2010

iTrader: (12)

I started reading it and knew I recognised the car before it clicked. I love projects. This looks like it's coming along well and almost certain it's the same path I will follow. I'll be keeping a close eye in it and I wont mention the mag just incase but it's publisher it future publishing iirc

SkydiveMacca

NO! Future do the other one...

We're part of Bauer Media, formerly EMAP

Mad Hammer

iTrader: (55)

Second hand hub maybe the answer then, planty around for not much money. Not got a spare myself at the moment unfortunately.

If 400 is the goal I would suggest you gearbox will be fine if not abused. Turbo wise a billet SC40 or a 321H will get you there. If you want a little more then a 321T or SC46 may be the answer. Tried and tested turbos that work

Clive

birchy2010

iTrader: (12)

haha oppss sorry i get so confused between the 2! met a few of you last year when i was with midzmodified! anyway less distracrtion! more scooby action!

Ramdog81

Great thread.

SkydiveMacca

Sadly, the car is currently my daily, so time is of the essence on getting it back on the road. I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go new to get it done.

Thanks for the advice on the turbos. I'll keep an eye out for any that might pop up on the SH market

mickywrx

iTrader: (29)

Interesting thread.

Be better if you didn't try and type it as if it were a magazine feature though.

p.lambo

like this thread giving me loads ideas