Flat Four Turbo Terror...
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 246
From: Your friendly neighborhood Marine Corps recruiting station! (Pearlridge Mall by Banditos)
Flat Four Turbo Terror...
Chapter 1:
Well lets see... where do I begin... I purchased my 2002 Impreza WRX in August of 2001 from a Subaru dealership located in San Diego, CA. I had heard from a couple of my fellow car enthusiasts who worked with me that the WRX had been released here in the good ole' US, but had yet to see one.
It just so happened I was cruising down past the local Subaru dealership on the way home from work, and there she was... a WRB pearl 4 door WRX sitting all by herself surrounded by dozens of 2001 RS's. It was the first WRX I had seen anywhere since I heard they were selling them here in the States!!! I immediately turned into the dealership's parking lot to check her out, and immediately fell in love with the car.
I had seen many a WRX and WRX STI while I was stationed in Okinawa, but this was right here in Southern California... well within my reach! To make a long story short, I test drove her, traded in my 94 Integra GSR right there on the spot (for a loss, but I didn't care, I was about to get my dream car) and took possession of a brand spanking new 02 WRX sedan (in WRB of course)!
Within a few short months I did a couple simple bolt on modifications. I started out with an HKS Carbon Ti cat-back and a JUN boost guage (custom mounted on my steering column by yours truly):
Well, after these mods, I had to put off making her a fire-breathing beast due to a pretty ugly divorce, but this story has a great ending in the making... please wait and see what unfolds in Chapter 2...
Well lets see... where do I begin... I purchased my 2002 Impreza WRX in August of 2001 from a Subaru dealership located in San Diego, CA. I had heard from a couple of my fellow car enthusiasts who worked with me that the WRX had been released here in the good ole' US, but had yet to see one.
It just so happened I was cruising down past the local Subaru dealership on the way home from work, and there she was... a WRB pearl 4 door WRX sitting all by herself surrounded by dozens of 2001 RS's. It was the first WRX I had seen anywhere since I heard they were selling them here in the States!!! I immediately turned into the dealership's parking lot to check her out, and immediately fell in love with the car.
I had seen many a WRX and WRX STI while I was stationed in Okinawa, but this was right here in Southern California... well within my reach! To make a long story short, I test drove her, traded in my 94 Integra GSR right there on the spot (for a loss, but I didn't care, I was about to get my dream car) and took possession of a brand spanking new 02 WRX sedan (in WRB of course)!
Within a few short months I did a couple simple bolt on modifications. I started out with an HKS Carbon Ti cat-back and a JUN boost guage (custom mounted on my steering column by yours truly):
Well, after these mods, I had to put off making her a fire-breathing beast due to a pretty ugly divorce, but this story has a great ending in the making... please wait and see what unfolds in Chapter 2...
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 246
From: Your friendly neighborhood Marine Corps recruiting station! (Pearlridge Mall by Banditos)
Chapter 2:
After a long 2 year hiatus, and a move from Southern Calfornia to Hawaii under orders(see side-bar location for explanation), my car was bone stock with not even a cat-back exhaust to her name (I had sold the HKS Carbon Ti cat-back and gone to stock before I shipped her to Hawaii). It is now January of 2004, roughly two years since my last modification had been done, the need for speed bug had bitten me once again!
I soon found myself surfing I-Club.com and its vendor listings late into the night, looking for new ways to make her fast... maybe even faster than an STI or a Mitsu EVO 8. I started off slow, buying a few go-fast bits that were visually pleasing but nothing to be noted as a major "power" or "handling" mod (with exception of the 17 inchers I had bought). I contacted Eurosports in Honolulu Hawaii and Jeff S. hooked me up with some TEIN S-Tech springs and 5Zigen FN01RCs wheels:
(the TEIN S-Tech gave an aggressive drop, almost two inches up front, and almost an inch in the rear, getting rid of that obscene fender to wheel gap stock WRXs are so well known for)
(the wheels are 17x8 with a +48 offset and the tires are KUHMO Ecsta Supra's 225/45 x 17)
I also took the liberty of re-exhausting (hehe..is that a new word I just made up?
) my baby and called up ISR Performance and purchased a 5Zigen Miracle fireball cat-back exhaust(the one with 3 inch piping and without the crappy pre-muffler):
With that done, the need for speed bug had been pacified, for now... but little did I know within a couple more months, I would be back on track dumping more money into my little blue beast... stay tuned for Chapter 3!
After a long 2 year hiatus, and a move from Southern Calfornia to Hawaii under orders(see side-bar location for explanation), my car was bone stock with not even a cat-back exhaust to her name (I had sold the HKS Carbon Ti cat-back and gone to stock before I shipped her to Hawaii). It is now January of 2004, roughly two years since my last modification had been done, the need for speed bug had bitten me once again!
I soon found myself surfing I-Club.com and its vendor listings late into the night, looking for new ways to make her fast... maybe even faster than an STI or a Mitsu EVO 8. I started off slow, buying a few go-fast bits that were visually pleasing but nothing to be noted as a major "power" or "handling" mod (with exception of the 17 inchers I had bought). I contacted Eurosports in Honolulu Hawaii and Jeff S. hooked me up with some TEIN S-Tech springs and 5Zigen FN01RCs wheels:
(the TEIN S-Tech gave an aggressive drop, almost two inches up front, and almost an inch in the rear, getting rid of that obscene fender to wheel gap stock WRXs are so well known for)
(the wheels are 17x8 with a +48 offset and the tires are KUHMO Ecsta Supra's 225/45 x 17)
I also took the liberty of re-exhausting (hehe..is that a new word I just made up?
) my baby and called up ISR Performance and purchased a 5Zigen Miracle fireball cat-back exhaust(the one with 3 inch piping and without the crappy pre-muffler):With that done, the need for speed bug had been pacified, for now... but little did I know within a couple more months, I would be back on track dumping more money into my little blue beast... stay tuned for Chapter 3!
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 246
From: Your friendly neighborhood Marine Corps recruiting station! (Pearlridge Mall by Banditos)
Chapter 3:
Ahhhh yes, summer time is here. The month of July here in Hawaii is a hot one. My intercooler (as small as it is) needed some much needed TLC to be more effective over the coming months. I also noticed my exhaust was hitting parts of the car's sub-frame and needed to bring that to a stop as well. My solution you ask? I contacted the folks at Oakosautomotive.com and within 4 days I had my solution in my hot little hands in the form of SAMCO intercooler hoses and Kartboy long exhaust hangers:
(These hoses were definitely a PITA to install... especially the re-circulation BOV hose; which I guess from previous posts in the tech forums has no effect on performance. I, like others who have posted here, put the Y-pipe on too far the first time and had to take the intercooler off twice because of it. That made the install twice as hard of course. These intercooler hoses definitely made a differnce on the butt-dyno, but I got them more for reliability reasons and a little bit of aftermarket love under the hood as well )
(Check out the difference between the stock hangers and the Kartboy ones...)
but wait! There's more... August is rapidly approaching and I am growing weary of my WRXs paltry USDM spec motor. Chapter 4 is just around the corner, so stay tuned...
Ahhhh yes, summer time is here. The month of July here in Hawaii is a hot one. My intercooler (as small as it is) needed some much needed TLC to be more effective over the coming months. I also noticed my exhaust was hitting parts of the car's sub-frame and needed to bring that to a stop as well. My solution you ask? I contacted the folks at Oakosautomotive.com and within 4 days I had my solution in my hot little hands in the form of SAMCO intercooler hoses and Kartboy long exhaust hangers:
(These hoses were definitely a PITA to install... especially the re-circulation BOV hose; which I guess from previous posts in the tech forums has no effect on performance. I, like others who have posted here, put the Y-pipe on too far the first time and had to take the intercooler off twice because of it. That made the install twice as hard of course
. These intercooler hoses definitely made a differnce on the butt-dyno, but I got them more for reliability reasons and a little bit of aftermarket love under the hood as well )(Check out the difference between the stock hangers and the Kartboy ones...)
but wait! There's more... August is rapidly approaching and I am growing weary of my WRXs paltry USDM spec motor. Chapter 4 is just around the corner, so stay tuned...
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 246
From: Your friendly neighborhood Marine Corps recruiting station! (Pearlridge Mall by Banditos)
Chapter 4 (whew!):
Ahhh yes, August is here and I'm definitely up for some power mods. I had been doing a lot of lurking in the Engine Management forums and found a great solution to uncorking my engine's potential no matter what route I go. It was a toss-up between the TurboXS UTEC and COBB Accessport... but seeing as how I'm basically illiterate when it comes to tuning a car's ECU, I opted for the COBB Accessport which is a plug and play solution.
Now the only challenge was figuring out how to get one here to Hawaii without having to wait 6 to 8 weeks. I've heard the horror stories on all these forums and I wasn't about to be another victim of the dreaded "waiting list". I checked out COBB's dealer list and started pounding the phone lines. About the 6th number I called I struck gold! Subaru of Dallas (Hotsubaru.com) just got 4 AP's for the 02 WRX in stock that day. I ordered it that minute from their website and within 4 days my new "toy" was here in the Aloha state.
It's here!!!
Complete with everything you need to make your car feel like it's on steroids...
I knew the COBB stage 1 wasn't going to suffice, so once again a few late night sessions surfing the classifieds I found what I needed to take my car to the next level... a downpipe (used) made by PDE. Whiterabbit from the east coast was parting out his ride and I picked it up for a cool $250 from him. Luckily my sister lived near him and she picked it up and shipped it to me on her dime (thanks sis).
Clean and simple, with a built in CEL fix as well. PDE may not be JDM, but it's fit and finish sure makes it seem like it. Clean welds and not too flashy, just my style:
Something is still missing... after a brewing over whether or not I should re-flash my car, I decide to hold off on it and just keep these parts (to include the AP) on standby. More parts and time are needed. Chapter 5 is coming soon...
Ahhh yes, August is here and I'm definitely up for some power mods. I had been doing a lot of lurking in the Engine Management forums and found a great solution to uncorking my engine's potential no matter what route I go. It was a toss-up between the TurboXS UTEC and COBB Accessport... but seeing as how I'm basically illiterate when it comes to tuning a car's ECU, I opted for the COBB Accessport which is a plug and play solution.
Now the only challenge was figuring out how to get one here to Hawaii without having to wait 6 to 8 weeks. I've heard the horror stories on all these forums and I wasn't about to be another victim of the dreaded "waiting list". I checked out COBB's dealer list and started pounding the phone lines. About the 6th number I called I struck gold! Subaru of Dallas (Hotsubaru.com) just got 4 AP's for the 02 WRX in stock that day. I ordered it that minute from their website and within 4 days my new "toy" was here in the Aloha state.
It's here!!!
Complete with everything you need to make your car feel like it's on steroids...
I knew the COBB stage 1 wasn't going to suffice, so once again a few late night sessions surfing the classifieds I found what I needed to take my car to the next level... a downpipe (used) made by PDE. Whiterabbit from the east coast was parting out his ride and I picked it up for a cool $250 from him. Luckily my sister lived near him and she picked it up and shipped it to me on her dime (thanks sis
).Clean and simple, with a built in CEL fix as well. PDE may not be JDM, but it's fit and finish sure makes it seem like it. Clean welds and not too flashy, just my style:
Something is still missing... after a brewing over whether or not I should re-flash my car, I decide to hold off on it and just keep these parts (to include the AP) on standby. More parts and time are needed. Chapter 5 is coming soon...
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 246
From: Your friendly neighborhood Marine Corps recruiting station! (Pearlridge Mall by Banditos)
Chapter 5:
Ahhh yes. Credit cards are a very bad thing when you use them to much. I'll just let you think about that sentence for a bit. Thought about it yet? Good, cause I didn't think about it very much when I decided to drop some more scrip on these next few items. I hit up Speedgear in Honolulu for a matching PDE up-pipe (thanks Farid) and called Gruppe-S in Nor Cal for my "power package". Luckily, they had not only the turbo I wanted in stock (VF-34), they also had the STI pinks (injectors) and Walbro fuel pumps as well. Another week long wait and this is what it amounted too (thanks Gruppe-S and Fedex!):
Looks all pretty lined up like that don't it?
And the crown jewel:
Well, I know I said I was going to wait to re-flash my ECU until everything was in. But I guess I lied. I re-flashed my ECU to stage 1 on September 2nd and all I can say is WOW. The turbo holds boost all the way up to redline and builds boost twice as fast as when the car was stock. And all I have is a cat-back and intercooler hoses. Even when my wife drove the car she turned to me and said "did you put that turbo in already? This thing feels 10 times faster than it did last week!".
So I'm now currently at a road block in my quest for power. With the help of a few fellow Hawaii I-Clubbers (Oldmansan and Mario; and anyone else who has done this type of install as well), I hopefully can have my car to where I want it to be by the end of this week. I'll keep you all posted as soon as it's all in, and give the best review I can for all of you who are interested! Next up after this: suspension and brakes...
-Neale
Ahhh yes. Credit cards are a very bad thing when you use them to much. I'll just let you think about that sentence for a bit. Thought about it yet? Good, cause I didn't think about it very much when I decided to drop some more scrip on these next few items. I hit up Speedgear in Honolulu for a matching PDE up-pipe (thanks Farid) and called Gruppe-S in Nor Cal for my "power package". Luckily, they had not only the turbo I wanted in stock (VF-34), they also had the STI pinks (injectors) and Walbro fuel pumps as well. Another week long wait and this is what it amounted too (thanks Gruppe-S and Fedex!):
Looks all pretty lined up like that don't it?
And the crown jewel:
Well, I know I said I was going to wait to re-flash my ECU until everything was in. But I guess I lied
. I re-flashed my ECU to stage 1 on September 2nd and all I can say is WOW. The turbo holds boost all the way up to redline and builds boost twice as fast as when the car was stock. And all I have is a cat-back and intercooler hoses. Even when my wife drove the car she turned to me and said "did you put that turbo in already? This thing feels 10 times faster than it did last week!".So I'm now currently at a road block in my quest for power. With the help of a few fellow Hawaii I-Clubbers (Oldmansan and Mario; and anyone else who has done this type of install as well), I hopefully can have my car to where I want it to be by the end of this week. I'll keep you all posted as soon as it's all in, and give the best review I can for all of you who are interested! Next up after this: suspension and brakes...
-Neale
VIP Member
iTrader: (38)
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 6,196
From: Rockin my 6th Suby in the 808 in the past decade!
Car Info: 01 Impreza RSTi, 08 Evo MR, and 13 XV
JDM SAL,
Nice build up.....I myself am going the same route as you. The unfortunate side is I have to wait till I get back from Iraq before I can do anything. Lucky for me I have already ordered my stuff and it is all waiting for me to come home. When you find a good brake setup let me know I am also in the market maybe we can get a group buy or something.
Jess
Nice build up.....I myself am going the same route as you. The unfortunate side is I have to wait till I get back from Iraq before I can do anything. Lucky for me I have already ordered my stuff and it is all waiting for me to come home. When you find a good brake setup let me know I am also in the market maybe we can get a group buy or something.
Jess
