Spoken by somebody who has clearly never been to a trackday on stock suspension, tires and brakes...

I did my first 3 trackdays stock, and you need very little skill to find a stock WRX's limits on a track....on a road is different.

once I changed to coilovers and toyo's THEN it required some skill to find the limit.

Start modding immediately if you are going to track your WRX

 

What happened to the GTX?

 

Oh sh*t - I get back and everybody woke up! 860+ miles in one day! Remind me not to do that again.

The GTX 440 was sold to a real 'old school' MOPAR type who gave me full price cash the same day it went on to craigslist. I was driving it everyday it wasn't raining and the gas bill was tapping me out. Had to have a fun replacement; so I bought it in Ventura and drove my red wagon on the return leg.

Bone stock w/37,xxx miles; from a Subaru dealership. No trade, full cash purchase. He came down a bit, but not much. The car was clean. Otherwise, I think the only goodie is the sub under the pass seat, no cold weather or leather. Oh and it has a Yakima rack.

I haven't been in it by myself yet so no hard driving yet, + I'm still recovering from the drive yesterday. I will get some pics and post soon as if a stock red wagon has never been seen!

 

Wow, 37k miles isn't bad for mileage wise. Good luck with the red rex.

As to finding the limit, IMHO, keeping it stock will help you learn the basics of driving the rex, but mods will help you learn the true limit. As stock teaches you slower is better, while modding even just slight suspension and DEFINATELY get off the RE92s, will help you have more fun and learn the limits.

 

What is RE92s?

 

The factory stock POS bridgestone tires.

Chances are, with 37K on the odo, the previous owner upgraded tires already, but if not- you really owe it to yourself to get better tires.

If you can afford to go with 17's that probably isn't a bad move too, but even if you stay with 16's- just about anything with the proper speed rating is going to be a major improvement over the re92's.

And with a wagon- I'd suggest a rear sway bar, an adjustable one gives you the option of setting it softer, but the factory set-up is way too weak and prone to understeer.

In any case; welcome to the dysfunctional family that is subie ownership, I think you will really enjoy the new ride!

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I know the tires aren't original stock, but I think they are Bridgestones. I am looking for the 'sticky' or the FAQ where there's the list of suggested mods for someone just starting out with a stock '02, but I can't find it yet. I know I saw it, but maybe it was on NASOIC or scoobymods and not on i-club somewhere.

 

i dont know about some of you guys, but once i started modding i never stopped.

-Ave

 

I didn't modify for 6 months at least. then once I started I didn't stop.

This is the order I did my mods. The best advice I can give, is before you do performance mods, get better brakes. even just pads, rotors, lines and fluid will give you something around 20% more stopping power I think?

Anyway, here is the order I went in:
1 - 17" Rota Subzero -$300 used(www.LICMotorsports.com) - You really can not go wrong with rota, I have taken mine off road on heavy washboard roads on several ocasions and they are still perfect!
1.1 - Pirelli Pzero Nero M+S tires 215/45/17 - $119 each@tirerack.com - These tires were awesome for the first 14K miles then I got them too hot and they stopped sticking as good as they used to. Incredible in the rain though!

2 - ERZ Flex Uppipe - $100 shipped on eBay - This, along with any other aftermarket uppipe removes the first cat before the turbo. The particular uppipe I got is basically a helix knock-off, but works fine. on the stock ECU tune I made 166WHP/176ft-tq. Mostly just got rid of some turbo lag which is nice.

3 - 20mm rear sway bar - free from a friend - The 02/early 03 sedans came stock with 20mm rear sway bars. Wagons IIRC just had 17mm. My 04 wagon came with the janky 17mm RSB. Swapping it out for a 20mm bar made a HUGE difference in handling, it got rid of a lot of body roll.

4 - Whiteline stearing rack and rear diff mount bushings - $65 (LICMotorsports.com and mpjperformance.com)- this tightens up a bit of the squish in the steering. To get an idea, when your car is off try turning the wheel side to side a few times and you'll notice how its a bit squishy initially before the wheels even begin to turn. That is what it gets rid of. Easy mod to do with 2 people but the drivers side is a *****! thats why you need the second person.
The rear diff mount bushings make the clunk go away between shifting sometimes.

5 - rear strut tower bar - $35 eBay crap - When you really push your wagon through turns, there is a tiny bit of flex between the rear strut towers since there is nothing between them to stablize. something like the GT-Spec(www.gtspec.com) bar design is more effective since it places the reinforcement at the tops of the struts and not in between like the cheap knock off I have. This is another future upgrade I need to do.

6 - EcuTek reflash - $700 @ Gruppe-S(www.gruppe-s.com) - Mike does great work. Though now you can get custome Cobb AccessPort maps tuned by Mike. This is what I would go with now since it gives you the flexibility of shelf maps from cobb, going back to a stock tune for dealership service, or if/when you add more mods you don't have to wait for it to be re-tuned.
Last checkup with mike when I was still running the gutted stock DP I was at 197WHP/192FT-tq.

7 - Eibach prokit lowering springs & camber bolts - $240 (springs from worldoneperformance.com, camber bolts from www.mpjperformance.com)- This made things a lot stiffer, but in the turns it is soooo much more consistant and predictable then before.
Stock, there are no camber bolts in the rear so I got Eibach camber bolts and am running -0.8 front, -1.6 rear. at the next tire change I will go to -1 front, -1 rear.


This is about it for me. Along the lines somewhere I added a SubyDude short shifter, which is basically a kartboy(www.kartboy.com) shifter from what I have heard, a gutted stock downpipe which is nice for a stock tune, but didn't do me any good on aftermarket engine management. I later have added a 3" divorced waste Stromung downpipe, and 2.5" stromung catback, keeping the stock 3rd cat.
I have put just under 50K miles on my wagon in about a year and a half.

I think you are going to love this car, sure people say they look funny but they do not know what is like to drive a wrx.

Anyways, sorry for the hi-jack, let me know if you want to explore some of the south bay back roads, there are some incredible places to drive around here.

 

look what you made me do Ave!! I went on a huge tangent, GOSH!

 

mcdrama - Your list of mods is good info - thanks - no hi-jack IMO. Likewise - all of west sonoma county also has miles and miles of twisty country roads. I've been driving them since the mid-70s - never dissappoint; even now with the higher population.

Fine-line is walking distance from where I work and they have a good rep from what I've heard so far. I got the nickle tour about three months ago when I first started my research and shopping.

Only two remaining questions - Does anyone know where I can find out how many red '02 wagons compared to the other colors were sold in the US? and where is the thread about suggested first mods? I tried a couple of searches with no luck so far. Thanks again - Denny

 

I'm sure that data resides somewhere in the vast SOA databanks, but they don't seem to be really forthcoming with that sort of information as far as public consumption, you'd probably need an in with someone at the corporate level, and even then it might be more work to find out than they feel like doing, I don't know...

I'm reasonably sure that there were probably a few more in red than yellow, but only a small percentage still (they probably didn't do yellow wagons), I think probably most were silver, then Blue- probably about even numbers of them, not quite as many in black, and only a few in white and red.


I don't think there is any definitive thread on the subject of first mods, different people have different objectives and budgets, and these forums were where a lot of back-yard as well as top tuner R&D discussions have taken place over the years, so you are bound to come across suggestions that range from the good to the bad and the ugly.

I'd suggest that you spend a couple weeks and a few thousand miles with it stock, find out what you think is lacking and or needing improvement and then check around with the knowlegable guys like you'd find at FLI ,LIC, or Gruppe-S.

Between those three shops you should be able to get the car prepped and modified as far as you are willing to throw your wallet. And it should all be good as these guys all really know their stuff and have lots of customer experiences with different mod parts and pathways.

And if you want to do the work yourself, they are still good resources for knowledge and advice.

 

werd

for me i didnt start adding mods til about 7xxxx or so miles. first mod was a BOV. i found it cheap so i thought id get it, then afterwards i started to focus on suspension and then engine mods and now i just added some 4 pots.

next up, maybe some defi gauges.

-Ave

 

so you are saying that you did not appreciate having a "'67 Plymouth GTX w/440" - That is a muscle machine..........man!

 

Seriously! was it in good condition? I would seriously consider trading my WRX for a car like that.