New daily driver: 2004 WRX - Page 6

**goodhart** · 04-06-2010

Well a friend and I finally got my downpipe on. Let me tell you getting the old one off was a biaaaaatch! The heatshield and turbo bolts came out like a dream, it was actually the two bolts that connect the catback to the downpipe that really sucked. I ended up breaking both of them just to get them out.

Heatsheild off:

Stupid bolt that didn't want to break:

Comparison of stock vs. new piece:

Turbo, it looked damn good and had ZERO shaft play, not bad for a turbo with 94,000 miles on it now.

All done!

I will be reinstalling the stock heat shield at a later date and also ordered this http://www.fredbeansparts.com/servle...WRX-%26/Detail to bolt on over it.

I get tuned tomorrow and will be installing the Grimmspeed Electronic Boost Control Solenoid right before hand.

The car is a little bit louder now, but the best part is that I can hear the turbo spool right through the muffler now.

craig · 04-06-2010

Looks good, I remember doing that on a sti and it was a PITA.

**Kracka** · 04-06-2010

LOL the pics you took look nearly identical to the ones we took when doing Janelle's downpipe. The stock downpipe turbo flange is retarded, the bellmouth opening on the aftermarket downpipes are a huge improvement, let along being 3" instead of 2.25" or whatever!

**goodhart** · 04-08-2010

Got this sucka tuned last night. Made 19psi Woot!! That is mostly because of the GS EBCS in my opinion. The Rom Raider road dyno was being funky again with the auto transmission, so the numbers were way off. Nate was gonna play with it some more and send me some results along with some logs. I will post more info when I get it.

So far, this thing is waaay more responsive in the mid range, which is really nice, along with a little more top end as well. The lower rpm's still kind of suck, but that is mostly due to the transmission. I would say from the butt dyno, it picked up a good 20-25 whp and 25-30 wtq.

**Kracka** · 04-08-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by goodhart

Got this sucka tuned last night. Made 19psi Woot!! That is mostly because of the GS EBCS in my opinion. The Rom Raider road dyno was being funky again with the auto transmission, so the numbers were way off. Nate was gonna play with it some more and send me some results along with some logs. I will post more info when I get it.

Why aren't you getting it dyno-tuned? On the dyno Janelle was peaking at 16psi (2.5L remember) and tapering to 9psi by redline with the stock BCS @ 100% WGDC. On the street she peaks over 20.

**Shane@DBPerformance** · 04-08-2010

Are you going to run it at the Mitsustyle dyno day?

**goodhart** · 04-08-2010

Even talking to Shane, he said if I brought it to him, I would still need to bring it on the street for fine tuning because of the EBCS. So I figured I would just get a road tune to begin with. I may still bring it to Shane to have him look it over quick.

**Shane@DBPerformance** · 04-08-2010

His car is an auto and the street tuner he uses is good.

**Kracka** · 04-08-2010

Oh right, forgot his has an AT. Is this the same street tuner that everyone on over MNSubi uses?

**goodhart** · 04-08-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kracka

Oh right, forgot his has an AT. Is this the same street tuner that everyone on over MNSubi uses?

Yup, everyone uses Nate aka Bullwinkle.

Edit: I should also mention boost was tapering to about 12psi by red line, limited by the injectors.

**Kracka** · 04-08-2010

Cool, I think Emily used him too.

**goodhart** · 05-18-2010

My car is ghey, I'm pretty sure the TMIC heat soaked pretty badly sitting there warming up before it got on the dyno at the dyno day. Also doesn't help that it's an automatic and when it's run on the dyno in 3rd gear, it has to be above 60mph to not downshift into 2nd. When we tuned the car, we had to taper boost to like 12psi by redline because there wasn't enough injector left. (stock WRX injectors are weak shit) So, with the car being at like 3800rpm at the start of the pull, being in 3rd gear, and injector limited, I seen 18 psi (max is 19psi on the street) for just a split second before the boost tapered to like 12 psi for the rest of the run.

That being said, I seen a gain of 3 WHP and 21 WTQ from $200 worth of mods (Ebay downpipe, used Grimmspeed EBCS) with the most recent dyno runs being about 30* warmer than the baseline runs. So apparently my butt dyno only reads torque

It did gain power every run, and leaned out each run also, it makes me think it was running kind of hot to begin with. I was using the water sprayer on the TMIC after the first run netted a whopping 129 AWHP. The very next pull it got 141 AWHP.

Shootout Mode:

Since this thing isn't getting much if any interest the last couple weeks, I am going to swap fuel systems with a friend that has an STi soon. (He wants top feeds for his FP Red setup, and I need more fuel, so this should work out pretty good.) And bite the bullet and finally install this f-ing up-pipe that I have laying around once I get some new gaskets for it. I'll see where that lands me before even thinking of buying any parts for this thing since I am just selling it anyways. The up-pipe should give me a bit quicker spool, and the fuel system, once tuned, should give me more top end.

turbotalon1g · 05-18-2010

I don't think u have a butt dyno.

**goodhart** · 06-10-2010

Well, last night a friend and I were going to do some work on our Subies. The plan was to swap fuel systems (He has an STI which uses a side feed injector setup, nobody makes a big injector for, biggest is like 860's and he is putting an FP Red on his car which is a 65 lb/min turbo for Subaru's. So we swap, he gets top feeds, I get more fuel for free, he even bought gaskets for my car), install an up-pipe on my car, and trade axle-back exhausts for a few weeks just for shits. Well, the night didn't go quite as planned lol.

We started by taking the exhaust off to do the axle back and up-pipe, we figured this way, if things got late, we could still put the car back together easy enough and get it drivable. First off, the axleback was beyond stuck, even after using a TON of PB Blaster, torch, etc to try to get it off, we ended up having to drop the entire exhaust and cut the bolts holding the two together. Then the up-pipe was a whole other ordeal. If you have never seen the bottom of one of these cars, there is about 15 heatsheilds covering the manifold/up-pipe/whole effing exhaust. after soaking all of the heat sheild bolts in PB Blaster, using heat, etc, we still ended up breaking half of them. To get the up-pipe out we had to unbolt one of the engine mounts and jack up the engine, but that wasn't enough, we also had to take off the whole exhaust manifold just to get clearance to get the up-pipe out. We finally got the old catted up-pipe out, and the new cat-less STi up-pipe in.

Putting everything back together was not quite as easy after breaking half of the rusty ass bolts, we had to run to the store and buy new bolts, nuts, washers, etc, of about 3 different sizes. Not to mention they don't make anything on these cars easy to work on what so ever, so after all of this it was about midnight and we certainly didn't have time to dig into the fuel system anymore, and then Charlie didn't even want to swap axlebacks anymore. So, all of this for just a catless up-pipe, and a new exhaust leak that I have to figure out now. Yay, someone buy this car already.

I hate working on Subaru's.

That is all.

**Kracka** · 06-10-2010

That's a lot of effort for a car you're trying to sell.

**goodhart** · 06-10-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kracka

That's a lot of effort for a car you're trying to sell.

I know right?

Thought it was an easy enough swap, I guess I learned the hard way that on Subaru's you can't just take off a part without having to take off 17 other parts to get to it.

More than once last night I said, "God I just want a fucking Evo!!"

He replied with, "Why, they are just as crowded under the hood and probably just as hard to work on..."

turbotalon1g · 06-10-2010

My friend said a HG in those cars isnt all that bad.

**Kracka** · 06-10-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by turbotalon1g

My friend said a HG in those cars isnt all that bad.

Which one?

**goodhart** · 06-10-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by turbotalon1g

My friend said a HG in those cars isnt all that bad.

Well, if pulling the motor to replace head gaskets isn't bad at all, then yes.

turbotalon1g · 06-10-2010

'02 wrx i think, don't know really they are tractor sounding things to me.

You know you guys could make GH's life a lot easier and adopt the wrx as the new cool kids car then he wouldn't have to sell this thing to be in.

I like evo's either way.