archivesOctober 2, 2007Well, it's official. The car died on my way to work today. Since the car has so many miles on it I ordered a new Exedy Stage 1 clutck kit and Act lightweight flywheel. Might as well do it while the motor is out. I should have the car back in a week. October 1, 2007I decided I'm buying Gerry's STI longblock. I can't run the AVCS because there isn't anyway to manage it at the moment, but maybe we can work something out down the road. September 28, 2007I just got back from the dyno... The good news is I put down 282.4whp / 290wtq before the tune.The bad news is I didn't get a tune because we think I have rod problems in the motor. We turned off the AVC-R, turned down the boost and I crawled home. It's rattling pretty bad now and now I need to look to the future... USDM STI ej25 or v8 JDM STI ej207 swap. I might need to do the tranny then too. I guess I'm not done with working on the car this season and won't be autoXing tomorrow.
Here is the graph:
September 19, 2007I got the car back. The recent additions have made an enormous difference. I can't wait to see what Dave and Clark do with it. September 18, 2007Dropped off the car today to get a Tomei Catless downpipe, Apex-i AVC-R, and Enginuity loaded on the Stock WRX ECU. I'm hoping this will cure the lag, the occational CELs, and get me closer to my 300whp goals. I scheduled an appointment to get the car tuned one last time on the dyno with the tag-team duo of Dave Brown and Clark Turner. September 1, 2007The new freshly modded 2004 WRX cluster is back from lightwerkz with Blue backlighting. It looks sick with the Defi Blue racers.
I also installed the Prodrive Driving lights and added PIAA 55w Yellow Ion H1s to them. They came with 100w bulbs which I may go back to but I figured I'd try out the yellows for a little while. I added a full gallery up to the right.
August 28, 2007Ok, I bought an AVC-R to manage the boost a little better. Dave also ordered a new DP to free up some breathing room. Hopefully I'll see better power and throttle response now. I also took some more pictures today. Here is a preview of the new interior. I added a link to the page to the right in the gallery. I hope you like it.
August 15 , 2007I made an appointment to have Dave and Clark Turner retune the car in September after a few more upgrades like a new DP and boost controller. Bring on the power. August 14 , 2007I pick up the car today from MSPT. They've had my car for two weeks now doing another round of major work again. WBR500 FMIC, Perrin Short-Ram Intake, Perrin turbo inlet, Perrin crank pulley, PE timing belt, installing 5 defi blue racer gauges (boost, temp, pressure, EGT, and volts), installing STI front seats, STI door cards, Samco Ancillary hoses... and a tune. Sadly though, it only made 240whp / 250wtq because of low boosting issues and the temps. The car was only hitting 15lbs of boost on the dyno. :( When I picked it up I was seeing 17-19lbs, so I'm guessing the car has a lot more than what we saw on the dyno. Dave suggest I go catless, and upgrade my crappy manual boost controller with something like an Apex-i AVC-R, along with going with Enginuity in place of my Utec. Here is a picture of the engine work though.
August 13, 2007I shipped out my 07 head unit and 04 gauge cluster to Cory at LightWerkz to have them modded for blue LED backlighting . August 9, 2007The Prodrive Fog lights arrived today from Oakos Automotive. Time to order up some PIAA Yellow Ion H1 bulbs... now for some serious lighting. July 25, 2007I just bought a full STI interior too. Front seats, rear seat fabric (to go over my wagon split rears), carpet, door cards, and chrome handles. Hopefully I'll be picking them up at the Greyhound bus terminal soon. :D July 24, 2007I'm collecting the last of the goodies for the FMIC install. I just picked up an APS 65mm Cold Air Intake, and now Dave at MSPT needs to do the install, tune the base computer on Enginuity, and load performance maps on my Utec. July 16, 2007Since I blew my Sirius Starmate, I got to rethink my approach to my interior and take some steps to changing some things that haven't been right for a while. So I decided I hated the blue backlighting in my interior not matching correctly and it was time to fix it once and for all. But i order to do that, I need to replace some things. I'm replacing the Faze EL boost and temp gauges in exchange for Defi Blue Racer series gauges. And I'm not just replacing the two I have with 2 defi replacements... I got all of them (the boost, pressure, EGT, temp and volt gauges).The three new ones are going in an ATI pod with the blue trim. I also needed to trade in the Racing Dash black face overlays and my 2003 WRX cluster for a 2004 WRX cluster. So I got a 2007 OEM stereo out of an STI Limited with the Sirius satellite upgrade and AUX jack for my iPod. The stereo and cluster are going to Caesar at LightWerkz to be modded with Blue LEDs. Hooray, everything will match. June 19, 2007I took off the OEM corner markers and added the STI carbon fiber corner markers which are now flush to the fender.
June 17, 2007The Wicked Big Meet was today. You can find some pictures here.
June 16, 2007The car is back from UCC and it's all done. Here is what was done: Now I just need to pay the balance on my WBR500 FMIC, buy intake for it, then Have Dave (MSPT) do the install and tune.
June 12, 2007JDM Lights were installed today. Pictures coming soon. June 9, 2007The car is back from UCC, but it's not 100% done. Due to a series of unfortunate events, they weren't able to finish. They did wind up painting and installing the front end (but the hood and hood scoop needs some touch-ups), the rear bumper is painted, and the interior pieces I wanted painted are done. I just need to install the interior stuff. I'll post up more as the car progresses but here is a preview of the front.
June 2, 2007I dropped the car at Ultimate Collision Center today to give the car a major overhaul. I was up and out the door by 6:00 am, on the Port Jefferson Ferry to Bridgeport at 7:00 am, drove up to Manchester to pick up my STI grille and side skirts from a buddy George, then drove to Peekskill to meet up with Dan and Bill at UCC. All of the body stuff is finally going on, the dings are getting taken care of, the bumper repaired, and the car is getting painted, including the carbon fiber hood. Yup, that too. It's going to be a whole new car.
May 31, 2007It was time to renew the registration so I went all the way and got vanity plates. What do they say? [ STI WGN ]
What else. Then I thought, this would be a good time to get one of those tilted JDM Brackets, since I plan on getting a FMIC. I can't show off the new frames behind those ugly old dealer frames.
May 28 , 2007Now that the warmer weather is hear I wanted to send the car in to get more surgery and get the kinks ironed out. But I'm a ways away from that since I can't afford the downtime right now. In the meantime, I'm going to start getting everything together that I need. I was going to get an SSAC FMIC from a buddy but he isn't going to have it off the car for a while and no idea when exactly. So I had to come up with an alternative. I wanted the best bang for my buck, good performance, and retain the factory fog lights. So after a lot of research, I put a deposit on a WBR500 Front Mount Intercooler. Here are the features: The Pipes
The Core
I'll pay it off in a week or so and it should arrive soon. Now I just need an intake before it gets installed and tuned. May 25 , 2007Well, it's official... 84 weeks (and 2 full winters) later and my PIAA Graphites finally wore out. And even when the rubber insert split, it still cleared water better than most other inserts with a 10th of the life these had on them. Simply absurd. A real quality product. So guess what I bought for replacements... Yup, you guessed it... PIAA Silicone Super Sporzas with the carbon fiber pattern. These are probably one of the last sets in the country since PIAA in only producing the black Super Sporza now. Get 'em while they last.
Thank you PIAA for continuing to make great products. I'm a lifetime customer now. March 5 , 2007After I got the car back from having Metric install the twinscroll turbo set-up it had a series of minor maintenace related issues like coolant hoses leaking, my fuel rails gave out (typical with WRXs), and a few misfire CELs (which may be related to my plugs). Since it was winter, Dave felt the car should only get a mild road tune and then turn up the power in the warmer weather. Oh well, the car is still insane and pulling hard with minimal lag. February 6, 2007Picked up my twinscroll setup (vf37 turbo, JDM catted downpipe, JDM split uppipe, JDM equal-length headers, modified STI midpipe, brackets, and gaskets) today and dropped my car off for major surgery at Metric Subaru Performance Tuning in Huntington and have Dave Brown work his magic. February 5, 2007My friend Alex lent me his G-tech meter last night so I cold get an idea of what kind of performance my wagon has. After the configuration and several runs, my car with it's stage 2 setup has 235.0 whp/ 243.7 wtq. I think that is totally insane for a td04. Now lets see how it does next week with the JDM twinscroll turbo. January 25, 2007I just bought a rear S202 Badge. I'm not sure If I'd actually intall it but it's nice to have. January 24, 2007Well, today is my birthday. Horay! My UK300 headlights came yesterday and I installed them at lunch. Would you wait? Me neither. So today I took the day off and took it easy. Got a haircut, hung out with Rick G at the shop, grabbed some pizza, drove around with a big smile on my face... just basically chilled. While I was out I decided to take some pics. Click here to see more pictures on how it all looks.
January 22, 2007I decided to finally install my VIS carbon fiber hood today with new hood struts. Click here to check out the pictures. January 18, 2007Well, I sent my 565cc injectors back and swapped them out for 650cc injectors at the recomendation of Dave at MSPT. January 17, 2007I sent the final payment in for my Prodrive WRC (UK300 style) HID headlights. They should be here any day now. January 8, 2007I just bought some polished stainless steel NRG hood struts. Bye-bye annoying hood prop. |
||
| home | gallery |
|
|
