Well it truly has been forever and a day since ive added any form of an update about the ever changing frakenstien that is my car, and after recent mods ive been getting nagged to post some shizz up and make it known again.
Link to old thread http://www.subyclub....-matts-gen3-rx/
Now some of yous may remember the old silver na RX that she was back in the day, probably at hooters meets and the newey cruises.... i went through an assortment of suspension from billies to k-sport coilovers before coilovers were the norm on daily drivers (now on Toms B4), and had the now popular GD WRX rims in satin black....other than a Legacy garnish (yes Alex i know its not a real Regashi lol), some clear indicators, a Varex and buckets she was rather stock...but still fun as hell to drive..and i loved the shit out of her!!
I then found out about jap wreckers and import monster and started to get a bit nutty with extra stuff lol






STi badge was installed by the previous owner..why? Farked if i know lol, but it was a sign of things to come

So recapping for the na fanboyz, the mods back then were
ENGINE/EXHAUST
-Go Fast Bits Underdrive Pulleys
-UniFilter Hi-Flow panel filter
-Resonatorectomy (using 2 x 3in intercooler bends)
-Varex (x-force) Oval Muffler (2.5in inlet)
SUSPENSION
-K sport coilovers
-STi genome front strut brace
-Whiteline 22m Adj. Swaybar - Rear
-Whiteline 22m Swaybar - Front
-Whiteline HD Alloy Swaybar endlinks - Front
-Whiteline Anti Lift Kit (sports)
-Whiteline roll centre correction kit
-Whiteline Camber adj. Bushes (rear)
-Roadsafe HD Swaybar endlinks - Rear
-Superpro HD steering rack bushes
WHEELS/BRAKES
-MY04 WRX Rims (Powdercoated Satin Black)
-TOYO T1-R
-MUTEKI Black Wheel Nuts
INTERIOR
-WRX STI Ver3 front seats
-LEGACY RSK rear seats
-LEGACY RS-B MOMO Steering Wheel
-LEGACY RSK "Black" console plastics
-Glovebox gauge holder (Oil P+T,Wtr T,Volts)
-GIZZMO Shift Light (left over from the Pulsar!)
EXTERIOR
-Ganador Mirrors (Blue tint mirrors) - now on sheppos beast of an outback
-LEGACY JDM Rear Garnish
-Clear side indicators
-Rev-ABC Sports Mud Gaurds
-06/07 WRX Sti Front Lip
-Dechromed front grill (Acrylic black)
-Meshed Lower Air Dam
LIGHTING
-LED Licence plate/parkers/interior lights
-HID Low Beam 6000k (Phillips)
-HID Fog Lights 6000k (some brand?)
ENTERTAINMENT
-Pioneer DVD/CD 7in screen with iPod adaptor (shanes old setup)
-Crossfire X6 Front Splits
-All doors and boot are sound deadened
-Crossfire XT212 Subwoofer in custom diy box
-Jaycar Response 1500w/1 Mono Block Amp
-Dual Battery (baintech) setup in boot
Yes it was a decent mod list for back then, and all made the car that much better to drive, but i was craving power and boost! I pondered for a while to simply buy a B4 (what was i thinking!!) and install all my gofast bits into it...but after hearing about everyones issues with the twins i decided to stay away from the abortion that is the twin turbo B4 lol....then i was looking at the gen4 gtb wagons, now i still love these cars but they never had the "toughness" or the complete package i was wanting and would need extensive mods to get me where i wanted to be...which is pretty much a track car on the road

So after some talking with other subyclub chaps who had converted their cars, i was pondering what engine i could possibly shoehorn into my bay...cheap out and go a v7 wrx or go all out with a 2.5 sti?
I opted for the mid ground and got Al at AMauto to search for a suitable donor EJ207 V8 sti with a DCCD 6 Speed and Brembos in japland that was neat and with no/minimal mods.......within weeks he found me two (the V8 is a twin scroll turbo engine in japan running the vf37)
The first was front damaged which i steered away from for obvious reasons

But the second was a gem, and only had rear end damage (stickers were all lying about what the car had)


The donor car had a diffback and a boost gauge..ohhh and some crappy earthing shit all over the engine bay lol....all in all a very clean example, so it was tested in j-land and shipped over to Brisbane where it got dirty whilst waiting in quarantine


Now, in the meantime i obviously couldnt just put the engine into the car, i needed some supporting bits, and general things to make the swap easier..including a pwr radiator to be super safe, AVO silicone intake, DEFI style cluster with jdm wiring, gc8 sti alloy LCA, DBA discs, ferodo DS2500 pads and v sport dogbones for the brembos along with GoodRidge braided lines, DEFI BF boost gauge DCCDpro controller...and a lot of other stuff that isnt shown that Al told me i needed like a B4 front swaybar and STi endlinks etc etc


At this time i also wanted some tougher suspension (ksports are great but i wanted to fully trust whats under me) and needed some rims to clear the soon to be installed Brembos, and a Turbo bonnet to feed the TMIC (and just to look cool obviously lol)....so i opted for some TEIN flex type coilovers with the EDFC controllers from Japan as Aussie distributors are ripoff merchants!!, and i got hold of some neat 04 STi rims that i had blasted and powdercoated in satin black same as my WRX rims. The bonnet literally took me about 8 weeks or more to aqquire as the people i bought it off (northside wreckers Melbourne) are complete and utter fuckwits! Long story that i may tell later, some know it though...anyways i finally got it and fitted it up ready for some paint, i actually got a few things painted like the boot holes welded up and sprayed, door dings repaired, front n rear bumpers, qtr panels etc etc



So finally in August 2010 (i think?) it was time for the migration up to Noosa where i had an appointment with a fuckload of awesome! So the car was packed full of the good bits and i drove what would be my last road trip with the current na setup....fun times were certainly up ahead!
After talking to Al and Miles for months before the set date we knew we had it all ready to install, and when i rocked up i saw the new STi heart sitting on top of Als toolbox in all its glory (shoulda got a photo!)...
Al talked about some last minute items, i showed him the parts i had, he showed me the exhaust he'd be modding to fit, and the bits of the donor car scattered all over the workshop, after a good conversion about the car i left him to do his thing whilst i found my accomodation and chilled in Noosa for a few hours at a few recommended spots
Heres a few pics i got of the progress, as i dropped in a few times during the week cause i was only a five minute walk away...
ven gave him a hand for a liitle bit as he was solo with Miles' firstborn due that week




Theres Al!



Modded impreza tcpauto exhaust to fit around the gen3 multilink rearend (3in-2.5in diffback)



So after a week of walking around the beautiful town that is Noosa, and drinking lots with the locals (and a few with Al) it was time to pick the beast up, ended up creeping into saturday morning due to not having Miles to help, and also my door was crushed on the hoist (lol) and replaced during the work....i'd just got it painted a week before!!
Al and a mate had to miss out on Jamboree to finish the car, and great thanks go to them for sorting it all out...hell i even chipped in and installed the dccdpro switches into the console and checked all was still working...
Only things that were no longer operational was a rear door switch not working (wiring fault behind the cluster, fixed later that week), no seatbelt warning light anymore (seriously who cares) and "because jdm yo" the dash no longer had dimmer control (also no great loss as the dash light levels are perfect)

Hilarious photo of me about to give a thumbs up but Al was a bit trigger happy and got me just before it lol
So i payed my bill and had my first taste of 20psi in a gen3.....fark me!!! It was scary at first as i'd never driven a turbo, but it put the biggest smile on my face and i intentionally took the long way back to my dads before chilling for the weekend till i could get it engineered in Brisbane by an RTA signatory before driving her home
I also met up with Kris from Rising Sun whilst up there and he got me a new pulley cover as mine was cracked, an intake snorkel as the cut never came with one, and i scored my mesh jdm grille off of an RS30 halfcut aswell as a jdm coin pocket fuse door (all fuses now labelled in Japanese yo!!) also sold him the STi struts and strut brace and my old na whiteline swaybar which saved me putting it up on rexnet etc
So after some beers at dads and some TLC the bay was neat once again and the new grille and intake snorkel were fitted up


So it was done, i now had the gen3 that id always dreamed about owning..an engineered turbo with 6 speed, brembos, R180 and all the extra bits that completed the package....so i said cheerio to dad and the fam and headed back down south, where after much research in Qld i had decided to book in with Michael South at MSR (this guy is a Subaru GOD!)...mainly cause he was so close to home (20 minutes) and atleast $400 cheaper to tune the car than anywhere else, and the rexnet boys loved him so i fugured he must've been a bit of ok (as i found out later, it was the best decision i could've made)
Anyways..so lets just say the drive back to NSW was chock full of win, aside from being wary of an annoying overboost issue due to the exhaust (which was to be tuned out later)...hitting 25psi at 2000rpm in 5th was a bit worrying lol
Whilst cruising back i looked at my tomtom and saw this! lol

Bad picture but it was showing a pretty heltik speed of 1158kph!!! proving that the mods really did make a difference lol
Once home i did the required show off to my mates and a few days later dropped the car off at MSR for what was going to be the first of many visits, Michael promptly asked about the car and what i was expecting, which was simply a safe tune..and he then went about his business..hes a no bullshit tuner, really honest and happy to answer all my irritating questions lol
He modded my Intake Air Tempetature sensor to read from the manifold (moved it from the airflow meter and poked it into my intake manifold )and not the intake for better compensation and gave the car a few cans of UEC (lets just say there was looootttsss of smoke!!), changed the oil and checked the car over before rolling her onto the dyno

The old girl all locked in and ready for some fun
A few issues were found during the runs;
First the scoop was way too small for the STi cooler and atleast needed a seal made up to make the most of what little air is being forced through the tiny scoop
Second, the tcpauto dump wasnt the best, Michael showed me how the twin scroll turbos needed a long taper to dump into, where the tcp dump had too small of a bellmouth..not bad, just not ideal...i lived with it as the final result was enough to be happy with...for a while anyways

I walked away with 190kwatw, a safe tune, and a few things I needed to do to the car, so i spent the weekend making a custom seal to fit the intercooler as an STi one is nowhere near fitting, and also fitted two STi water sprayers to the seal and plumbed them into a twin pump washer bottle with customised STi switching and an 8psi hobbs pressure switch for the "auto" control, had it working off the stock 3 second timer for manual operation and the hobbs switch into the 3 second timer for auto control
It was then back to MSR where Michael modded the STi tmic y-pipe and installed a splitter into it to spread the air across more of the cooler making it a bit more efficient, then back on the dyno where i got 197.7kwatw! And after some tweaks to the cams and some road tuning it was back in my hands.. My god did it pull so much harder! Had a lot more usable torque down low now and was heaps better to drive!

A few weeks after this i aqquired a Process West cooler and a hyperflow 4 port catch can for cheap so i spent a few days installing them and modding the cooler seal to suit....unfortunantly the dyno showed that the PW cooler suffered bad heat soak compared to the STi cooler due to how solid and heavy it was (though it did make more power) and it was promptly replaced with the ever faithful lightweight STi tmic


So the car has been this way for around two years now, with a few little items added like
a carbon (colour-coded) ARC bonnet scoop add on lip to add a bit more airflow, lifts the scoop a lot actually


some gold STi rims which were solely track rims, but now have a permanent home till my CR kais are fitted

had this STi option seat fitted for a while, but it sat me too high (im kinda tall)

a set of Bride Ergo 1.5's.(cheap!!).i currently just have the drivers side installed which sits me nice and low

got hold of an S401 steering wheel!! Cheers Alex!!

S401 hazard lamp switch

Ditched the hyperflow 4 port as the piping looked a right old mess, and got a Grimmspeed AOS

Got some Eifel Prova bonnet dampers and coated them black


RedLine gearboot, handbrake boot and centre console cover with an 06 STi handbrake lever "modified" to fit




Work Emotion CR Kai rims with RE11 tread fitted


Turbosmart kompact series BOV (shimmed up with a heap of washers for funny tmic flutterz) and an extra elbow to powdercoat black

