Hey guys,

Had a question for yeah...I am thinking about making my STI stage 2 for the little extra power, sound, and feel. My only concern is how realiable this is and how much strain it will put on the car.

I will be running a Tanabe Turbo Back with the Cobb AP stage 2 base map, not a protune just the base map.

I dont drive like an idiot and usually rev to about 2.5k and then shift (gas is a killer now of days). I travel from Sacramento to Chico every weekend (about 200 miles there and back) and i travel from Sacramento to Roseville Monday through Friday for School (30 miles there and back). So i am ruffly putting on about 350 miles on my car every week, give or take some. Also have occasional trips down to the Bay area for military orders.

As you can see the car is driven quite a bit so i was wondering if puting a mild stage 2 on my car will really put that much wear and tare on the car. I mean i see guys that put VF34s on there cars with turbo back and protunes and run it for 20k+ miles.

So just looking for some personal experiance and some info from people that would actually know.

Thanks

Will

 

ruffly speaking, you will be fine.

I've only replaced my engine once. The car has 55K miles on it.

 

if you're really concerned with durability, reliability, and fuel mileage then leave the car stock. if you want sound, do an axle back.

more power = more wear and tear on the car.

 

 

Fuel mileage isnt a huge deal, just sucks with gas prices now of days, so stupid.

reliability is probably the biggest concern and durability definitely is too. I just dont see how having turboback and a AP on the car can really really really hurt the car, i mean i know after a while it will hurt it but will it really kill a whole motor?

Like i said i dont drive stupid, its not like i bring the car to full boost before every shift, my car barely ever sees boost because i shift so low. In light of this would a Stage 2 really make my car that unreliable and prone to problems?

The car itself has only 20k on it many of which are freeway miles.

 

if you drive it gently, then a stage 2 setup probably wouldn't do any more damage than the stock stuff, but in that same line of logic... if you're going to drive it like that, why would you spend the $$$ on the upgrades? [/jvick]

 

Did you get rid of the STi? I'll echo what people are saying; if you're concerned with reliability, I'd leave it stock.

 

FMIC vf 34 link stand alone

daily driven

130k miles

:shrugs:

 

Don't expect reliability and get use to your **** making funky noises sometimes.
Also you "might" get knock here and there depending on weather conditions or types of gas.

Just turn up the stereo

 

I like the rumble of a turbo back, axleback just doesnt put out the same rumble as a turboback. And if i am going to drive it like that then why? Just so i can have it...no really though...**** i dont know why. Why does anyone really stage 2 there car unless they are racing around the streets or trackign there car and i know that not too many people track there cars. I guess it comes down to a status reason. Because it looks cool, sounds cool, and i knwo it can go fast if i want it to. Sounds like a lame reason but i really dont know what kind of answer to give. I drive my car responsibly but i want to have the slight extra power, definitely the sound, and the look is nice too.

What kind of problems have you seen in those 130k with this set up? Also out of the 130k how long was the set up on it?

 

Just get a safe tune.

 

seryusly thoe

If you're not going to use it then why mod it?



I drive the **** out of my car....... I have the original tires to prove it.

 

I need to drive harder, I've gone through one set of tyres since 2004.
I live 15 miles from beryessa too. I really need to get a new clutch, a tune (cobb 2 ca for over a year).

 

those are pretty legitimitate reasons... if you got the $$$ to do it and the $$$ to pay for possible problems out of pocket (good chance subaru will deny any powertrain warranty claims), then absolutely go for it. if you're concerned with warranty, driveability, reliability, etc... then there's nothing better for that then stock.

i had a wrx that had a standard vf34 setup on it. i ran it that way for almost 50k+ miles. in that 50k miles i went through almost 4 sets of tires, spent close to 10 hours total on the dyno, almost jumped off the dyno twice, possibly blew the turbo seals (or some other oil seal), sunk thousands of dollars in it, and made some decent power for a 2.0l automatic wrx. i eventually parted it back to about 98% stock and that was probably when i had the most fun driving the car. it was rock solid reliable, predictable, super smooth.

 

Yeah i definitely have the money to fork out for the parts, and warranty issues well thats always a concern. I would hope that running a mild stage 2 with a stock map wouldnt cause too much of a problem. If soemthing huge were to happen i guess i could always return it to stock and take it to subaru and pray they dont notice anything.

Well i just replaced the tires on my STI after 22k and i could have kept them longer but i wanted a little bit safer tires for the rainy season. Sybir actually bought the tires from me so they did have life left on them. I probably could of had them last until at least 25k. So that shows how mild the car gets driven, that was about a year and a half of driving too.

I just dont see how my mild driving and low revs with a stage 2 will ever hurt the engine (now over time it obviously will take a toll) but i mean will the 350 miles a week with stage 2 lead to problems? Now keep in mind thats mild low rev driving, 75 percent of the time on cruise control.