Hey guys,

I just bought my impreza wagon so its still all stock. I am going to get the blue foot well illuminators put in soon and get my hatch and two rear windows tinted. After that, I'm not quite sure what I wanna do. I hear that people with mods get hassled way more and it can get expensive with tickets and such. I come from a truck world, so mods aren't really my knowledge base. I'm going to get the illuminators installed here at work (I work for the SJ subaru) and have them send it out for tinting.

Any ideas?

 

really depends on what your gonna do with the car tbh.

 

Hassling from the cops depends greatly on the flashiness of the mods. If you make your car look like something out of fast and the furious, you're going to get hassled. If you keep your power mods low-profile and drive responsibly, you will greatly lower your chances of getting hassled.

 

Its going to sound really dumb, but I want it to be "cool" lol. I'm mostly looking at shows, performance enhancements, things like that. I'm not really a racer or rally person or anything. I'm more of an "great out doors" person vs city. But I guess the best way to describe it is "I wanna be cool!" Lame I know.

I do go on A LOT of drive and cruises. Up skyline, 9, 17 that kinda thing.

 

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be cool, but I encourage you to derive your sense of coolness from the enjoyment you get from driving your car instead of the (false) image it gives off to others. If you choose to alter the exterior of your car, do so discretely and tastefully. If you want to alter the performance of your car, drive it and pay attention to the characteristics that you would like to improve.

The worst mistake you can make is to heavily modify your car to the standards of what you think OTHER people might want. That being said, make the car work for you and enjoy it as much as you can.

 

you should definitely get the red overlays for your tail lights. by far it's the best exterior mod haha.

 

Thank you. That is very wise advice. I'm not so much looking to impress others with my "coolness" I've never had a vehicle that I can truly make my own. I used to have a 05 canyon 4x4 and short of lifiting it and throwing on monster tires, there wasn't really much I could do. I do enjoy the act of driving. I find it peacful and a great time to relax. I've been driving it for about 2 weeks or so and haven't really found anything I dislike about the ride, but I am still in the process of altering my driving style. Before, I used to have to put my foot in it to get my truck to move out of someone's way. I'm still learning exactly how much pressure my accelorator needs lol. I will definatly drive it more before I make any mods. I KNOW however that I want to do the interior lights and some interior addtions to the hatch that I can get from work that aren't mods, but thing like mats and the hatch tray. I'm truly open to any suggestions on low profile additions I can make to make my subie one of a kind.

As for the red light tinting...... I may be the one of the few that likes my tail lights the way they are. Its different than most other tail lights on the road. But it is def an awesome suggestion. Any ideas how I can get into my dome light to make it blue?

 

If I had it to do over again, I'd focus more on suspension than power. I would of course still have done my tranny swap.

From your wording I'm assuming the car is an automatic? Otherwise I'd suggest a short shifter and a counter-weighted ****. Besides that, some stiffer suspension (don't need to be silly and put race coilovers on it though), and some stickier tires.

 

front lip, chargespeed underline replica kit, sti/wrx spoiler, aftermarket seats, suspension mods, and wheels.

 

Mod to your hearts content but steer clear of 510. Id build from the bottom up. Suspension/wheels, drivetrain and engine, bodyparts and kits probably in that order.

 

Easiest parts to modify are suspension and wheels/tires. Good place to start. You could try to make it some of the meets to see what other people have done to get an idea as well.

 

Why not get used to your car in its stock form first. Every new car has a learning curve. When you have a good feel of your car in its stock form, you'll appreciate power and handling mods much more (and will likely be able to take fuller advantage of them). Also, as you drive your Impreza around stock for a period of time, you yourself will be able to figure what you changes YOU want for YOUR car. My 2 cents.

Also, why not come out to some meets and check out some other Imprezas in person. It's a great source of ideas.

 

Give it some time in stock form and get some feel of what you want to improve on. Honestly, I think recent stock wrx perform great in it's stock form. Perhaps, one light track day would give you a better idea. For me, I would probably keep new wrx/sti stock. It's impressive how well they handle now in stock form and have a lot more hp than my humble bugeye.

Sounds like I need to get myself a new sti...but I hate car payments.

 

I'm assuming your car is the non-turbo version, so power modifications are probably aren't the best to concentrate on.

There is nothing like seat time to really lean the car and see where it can be improved, drive it as-is for as long as you can. Then, when you are ready, I'd look into upgrading suspension. But, don't skimp on stuff and go for the best stuff you can afford. I would consider the GTWORX Bilstein setup.

Oh, just realized you may be a girl -- any girl driving a Subaru is automatically considered "cool", so no worries there.

Stan

 

um, looks like he has a normal impreza guys...not an sti or wrx. So body parts, suspension, wheels, and shifter are probably all there is to do. No point in adding power components.

He wants it to look cool not go fast. I'm totally ok with that.

oh, and congrats and welcome btw.