After 8 years of ownership i passed on my wagon to my little brother & purchased a 07 STI from the local stealers, that was in February 2010.
Since then a few things have been changed with more to come.





First things to be changed where the wheels, found some used PFF7 at a stealers in Cambridge for a bargain price.



Dave

 

Looks nice!

 

Nice motor fella,looks clean as

 

Thanks

It didn't stay standard for too long, it didn't feel as responsive as the old wagon even though it had more power,which i assumed was down to newage lardyness. The only solution was more power
After trawling the net & a lot of phone calls i chose the use the services of Richard Bulmer at Tracktive Solutions & went for the diamond upgrade.

http://http://www.tracktive.co.uk/content.php?page=149

This was a bit more like it, although there was a down side.
The chassis couldn't handle the extra power, the front end lift was scary to say the least. Under hard acceleration the **** end would squat down & pushing on through corners was just dangerous.
It wasn't long before i was back over to Tracktive for some Chassis upgrades & some new seats to stop my skinny **** sliding all over the place.



Dave

 

Dave , where did you get the Carbon Sparcos from? Im looking for a 2nd one

 

Got them from Prodrive , they were selling them off at the P1 anniversary.
Might be worth giving them a call as i didn't see anyone else buy any & they had a lot there that were out of date.

Dave

 

How much please dude. PM me if you prefer

 

After a bit of bartering paid £600 for the pair, bit expensive but got excited at the carbon sexyness.

Dave

 

Nice seats those, nice to see another Peterborough Scoob in projects.

 

Thanks, it feels like i'm wearing them rather than just sitting in them.

With the chassis upgrades done the car felt a lot better & as a complete package would recommend it to anyone.
I was tempted to go the coil over route but after a few conversations with Richard i went for the following :

Tein springs
24mm rear anti roll bar
Superpro castor bush kit
Geo set up

This worked out a lot cheaper than coil overs, cured the nasty front end lift & still felt comfortable on the pot holed b roads over this way.
That was the end of my spend for last year & was happy with the performance & handling upgrades that had been carried out.

It didn't take long before i wanted a little bit more though & started to make plans for an engine build at the back end of last year. In mid January it was taken back to Tracktive for them to start the work.The last time i saw the car was about a week ago.



Dave

 

Cracking project, subscribed!

 

Engine spec: This was left to Richard as i know bugger all about building performance engines although he explained why these components were being used over others available.

K1 rods
Cosworth pistons
Cosworth 14mm head studs
AP Clutch
ACL bearings

The FMIC i purchased myself at the end of last year, after looking at the various direct fit options available, or lack of options as it seemed i purchased a Blitz unit.
The cooler itself looks well made.



But the pipe work looks a bit on the cheap side & still needs some work to fit correctly.


It was all going well until i realised i had made a bit of a **** up, the plan was to run the engine in with the old VF43 & look at turbo options a bit later on. For some reason i sold the old turbo though & created a potential problem for myself
A call to Richard at the start of the week had him looking at turbo / injector options & prices for me & i was checking my funds
Luckily it all came good & a single entry LM500 is on it's way with a set of 725 injectors
As an added bonus Moley came up trumps on the insurance front today & it works out cheaper than what i was paying for a standard car from another broker

Dave

 

Sounds like it will be mental when complete

TX.

 

Thats the plan, nothing wrong with a bit of

 

All being well the car will be ready for collection tomorrow

Stopped by to have a look at how things were going yesterday & there was still at lot left to do from what i could see, but spoke to rich this evening & he just needs to put a few miles on it in the morning, check it over & we're good to go.

I was impressed that rich & mat had got it back together from what i saw yesterday & was even more impressed when rich told me when they came to fit the turbo yesterday there were clearance issues with the inlet manifold, a bit of tweaking here n there got it where it needed to be though.

By all accounts the turbo is designed to fit jdm models which have a different inlet manifold, replacing that would have cost another few hundred £.

Roll on tomorrow, camera is on charge

Dave

 

Looking awesome! Are you coming to the EA meet? Looking forward to seeing this in the metal

 

Looks very nice mate love the seats did they come with track or do they fit on sti oe ones

 

Cool seats mate !!!!

 

Used buddy club seat frames, think the oe ones could be modified to fit side mount seats. I should have just gone for fixed side mount frames though as the seats only go so far back before they foul the pillar.

Dave

 

Finally collected the car on Saturday & done 200 mils of the 1000 mile run in.
Even on the run in map it feels responsive & the turbo is spooling a lot earlier that i was expecting considering it's size.
Another 200 mile to do before another oil change & map tweak to add a little more boost.
With a bit of luck the new disks & pads will be ready to fit by then too, the front brakes are shot & scare the **** out of me. Hopefully performance friction disks & ferrodo pads will be up to the job.

There is still a lot of cosmetic work to do under the bonnet to tidy things up but it's all in hand.



Turbo was a bit of a tight fit as the larger inlet was fouling the inlet manifold but it squeezed in eventually.


So far so good, just another £**** to get it how i want it !

Dave

 

Half way through the run in now, just another 500 miles to go
Took it back to Tracktive today for an oil change & some new front discs / pads, the plan being that the brakes should be nicely bedded in by the time the engine is ready for some proper power




Hopefully these should be up to the job, Performance Friction floating rotors & DS2500 pads.

Dave