38 replies to this topic

[Beckers]

One day, I should get going on a build thread ??

[JDP]

One day, I should get going on a build thread ??

 

Yeah, get your shit together brother. 

 

Would be a good read.

[El_Freddo]

I’m with Kong on that one Beckers!

And include some pics! That always wins us over. If you need some inspiration for this you can check out any of my build threads or Barb’s ones

Kong, I saw an advert for an F-something (B maybe?) turbo with that plastic piece you replaced with the Cobb unit. I can’t believe the difference in the build quality or that Subaru haven’t learned from past experience with this sort of thing near a hot turbo!

Cheers

Bennie

[JDP]

I’m with Kong on that one Beckers!

And include some pics! That always wins us over. If you need some inspiration for this you can check out any of my build threads or Barb’s ones

Kong, I saw an advert for an F-something (B maybe?) turbo with that plastic piece you replaced with the Cobb unit. I can’t believe the difference in the build quality or that Subaru haven’t learned from past experience with this sort of thing near a hot turbo!

Cheers

Bennie

I know what you mean, Bennie. The plastic intake pipe on my old B4 was lucky to be intact after 300k kms. Wedged under the manifold, on top of a hot engine and also connected to 2 hot turbos. So many people run into problems with cracked intakes.

[allpaw4]

Fully agree, time to give us something to read and look at Simon! Did you end up using that 207 block you got from me all those years ago, been meaning to ask, but kept forgetting.

Cheers,
Ben

[RX25SE]

Forking nice car Kong, it's modded, without looking modded. I'm looking forward to seeing where this build goes!

[Beckers]

Fully agree, time to give us something to read and look at Simon! Did you end up using that 207 block you got from me all those years ago, been meaning to ask, but kept forgetting.

Cheers,
Ben

Yeah Ben, It got a new crank, forged pistons and rods in it now,

[JDP]

Forking nice car Kong, it's modded, without looking modded. I'm looking forward to seeing where this build goes!

 

Thanks Jase. 

 

That's exactly what I wanted to achieve. Keeping it looking like a factory tidy WRX with some STi bits but with enough pep under the bonnet to surprise the odd person when I put the foot down. The important thing for me was that it had to remain quiet enough & drivable enough to be able to cruise around and also fly under the radar of the cops and it is. I've kept it all legal with the mods so there will no issues if I were ever asked to pop the hood and there's no hassle at rego time changing things around . The only way you'd know it was spiced up a bit is if I floored it, then all the cool Turbo noises come out to play and it sounds beasty.

I do love the boxer rumble but the spool & exhaust sounds from the twin scroll and EL headers is something else.

 

For me, the nicest thing about this car is only bolting on brand new quality parts with the only exception being the BPV I got from Aek. It's a totally different game than sourcing older & used performance & JDM parts for a Gen3 Lib.

 

It's a great feeling unwrapping new parts and carefully installing them.

[aekOne]

For me, the nicest thing about this car is only bolting on brand new quality parts with the only exception being the BPV I got from Aek. It's a totally different game than sourcing older & used performance & JDM parts for a Gen3 Lib.

 

It's a great feeling unwrapping new parts and carefully installing them.

 

 

hahaha AMEN BROTHER!! Everything fits & everything works. Its a beautiful thing..

 

funny as i was scrolling through market place, i just realised the other day, i think the ganador mirrors on the unicorn are pretty much worth more than the rest of the car.. what a time to be alive

[JDP]

 

funny as i was scrolling through market place, i just realised the other day, i think the ganador mirrors on the unicorn are pretty much worth more than the rest of the car.. what a time to be alive

 

Hahaha surely not. 

 

Well I guess the value of the car has just doubled.

[aekOne]

hey mate these are the dash trim pieces i was talking about in the levorg thread. these are genuine subaru pieces from a 2018 STI. Mint condition. I bought them assuming they would be the same as the levorg but unlike almost everything else that fits betweent the two models, the levorg has a different shaped dash trim than the VA WRX & STI.

 

Not sure if you'd be interested but they're avaialble and for sale of you are..

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the carbon trims i have are Axis-Parts which i bought from Japanparts. Check out the range here: https://www.japanpar...&ma_kwd=&manu=1

[JDP]

hey mate these are the dash trim pieces i was talking about  

 

 

Thanks for first dibs bro but I have those ones. Cheers for the link, I'll check out the Axis range.

[JDP]

I’ve been impatiently playing the waiting game on a bunch of parts that were ordered in early July and the estimated delivery time has now gone from 10 days after purchase to late October. That totally pisses me off to no end. I would've been better off sucking it up and paying the extra $$$ buying directly from the manufacturer in the US, but here we are.

 

Patience was never a virtue I’ve possessed - END RANT.

 

Not much has happened since my last update but some bits and bobs have arrived this week and I’m looking forward to the process of putting together my first customised modification for the car.

 

For a while I've been tossing up between the options of an Air oil separator and dual catch cans. It’s a result of being on the American FA20 forums and groups. I’ve become a little paranoid thanks to our American friends and their issues, there's constant chit chat about having to walnut blast the intakes & valves because of carbon build up on these DIT engines. That sounds like a massive pain in the arse to me and not something I’d want to attempt at home. It’s funny because every time someone posts an issue with the way their car is running on the American forums, heaps of people jump on saying “Have you walnut blasted your intake”, acting like it’s the miracle cure to all problems. I really haven't heard much in Australian circles though and I’m thinking it possibly has something to do with the Yanks using E fuel more and it’s not such a big issue here because the majority uses 98 ron.

Nevertheless, when I changed my turbo inlet over to the Aluminium COBB inlet there was a little bit of blow-by. Not heaps by any means, but I've opted to do something about it and go the catch can route for a couple of reasons. The decision to go with a twin catch can set up over the AOS (besides the ridiculous price tag of the AOS units) was made easy by a video comparison I watched between the two set ups. What I saw being collected by the AOS was a contaminated brown milky liquid comprised of fuel, oil and water… and that gets fed right back in to mix with the sump oil. No thanks, it makes no sense to me.

Catch cans obviously need to be monitored on an ongoing basis and emptied when required, but that’s no biggie in my opinion and not much of a Con.

 

As much as I like the look of the Radium Dual catch can set up for the VA WRX, I just can't bring myself to pay the ridiculous price they go for. I'm sure they are a good bit of kit and the installation process is quite simple, but for about a ¼ of the price I picked up similar sized ebay spec catch cans, braided hose and all the AN fittings I needed to put together my own custom version of the Radium can set up. The only thing I’ll need to do is fabricate a bracket to hold the cans in place and to mount them in the same position as radium do. (on the LH side of the engine bay near the air box). I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the Ebay cans, I’m confident they’ll do the job once I source a larger O ring. The ones provided are a bit small and I’d rather go larger for a better seal. Chances are, these generic cans are probably made in the same Chinese factory as the expensive ones anyway. I guess I’ll find out soon enough if they’re up to the task.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the parts I need, hopefully. 

 

The Bonjour fur goblin bat pig has offered his support to the project.

He's a good boy.

 

 

[Barbbachello]

Those cans are the ones i run. The exact ones mishimoto buy and put a logo on

[JDP]

Those cans are the ones i run. The exact ones mishimoto buy and put a logo on

 

I'm not surprised, then they charge you top dollar for the logo. 

[Beckers]

Few $ worth of fittings there m8.

I'm sure these with work just fine, plus you saved cash not to get the laser etching done. Win  win

Fur goblin likes them.

[allpaw4]

Very nice. Keen to see what you come up with mount wise there Bosskong! Had the same thoughts regarding a catch can vs AOS, not a huge fan of sticking the sludge back in with the oil to contaminate it further...

I'm hearing you on the delivery times blow outs! I've got 3 out of 4 packages from Japan, with customs deciding that they'll hold onto one for a while longer, ETA yet unknown...

Cheers,
Ben

[JDP]

Bit of an update. Good things have happened, parts installed & tuned to suit.

 

I had my wedding late last year so the lead up to that put a halt to any major work or purchases. Since the wedding I've accumulated all the parts I wanted & needed. It also gave me the time to make the final decisions & get my plan of attack together in regards to getting tuned.

Right now the car is very close to where I want it to be in terms of modifications.

 

I'm at 82,000kms travelled and it's all been smooth sailing. I haven't had any real issues or had to replace anything other than the usual consumable things like battery and tyres. No leaks noises or smells yet - touch wood hahaha.

 

Even though the km's are low, recently I opted to get the 112,000km major service done (30.000kms before due) and also had the belt replaced at that time for peace of mind as it was looking fairly tired.

All servicing has been completed by Subaru since I acquired the car and it's been based on time and not kilometres (Mainly to get the Subaru stamp in the service logbook). Moving forward, I've decided that I'll be doing my own servicing every 5-6000kms and only taking it to the dealer or mechanic when I hit the required kilometre interval.

 

I've had a bad taste in my mouth several times after getting it back from Subaru Servicing. It's possible it might be just my local servicing dept, but I don't feel like there's enough care taken with my car.

I could rave on about it for ages because the list of problems I have with them is long, but I won't bother with the boring details. Just shit workmanship.

 

 

New additions…

 

 

I've added OEM window rain guards and also installed an automatic mirror folding module to shut the mirrors when the car is locked up

.

I found a slimline V-Style roof spoiler that I liked and ordered it from America. They seem to have much more aftermarket options than Australia. It's quite subtle and doesn't really affect the stealthy stock look I want to keep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the engine bay I've added a Perrin engine cover, Turbo XS vacuum pump cover and black Grimmspeed caps to get rid of all the yellow caps. I love the Perrin cover. It tidies it all up nicely compared to the Process West pulley cover and completes the look hiding the alternator, AC and wiring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process west intake also. It came with a 3 inch K&N pod filter which I'm pretty positive is the oiled type. Not sure how that's going to play out, may need to replace it with a dry type.

 

 

 

 

 

Then off to MSR in Somersby she went.

 

I installed the Process west cold air inlet in the carpark before I handed it over to Michael South & the boys to twist some spanners and chuck her on the dyno. 

 

An Ultrex ultimate J Pipe was added to complete the turbo back exhaust. It's quieter than I anticipated but I'm not unhappy at all.

 

Whilst on the hoist I got the boys to chuck on the Perrin short shift adaptor I had lying around, saving my back and knuckles in the process..

 

COBB 3 port boost solenoid bolted up to the COBB alloy turbo inlet then on the rollers she went.

 

I'm happy with the results and the feel of the car. It performs so much better all round and the dreadful rev hang is gone. It pulls hard under boost.

 

I wasn't really prepared for how loud the intake turned out to be. It's really loud & it sounds freakin scary. So many loud turbo noises, flutters and bypass valve noises. The combination of the PW intake & the COBB inlet plus the BOOMBA BPV is hectic, making for really unique sounds.

 

The 3 port BCS bleeding off at lower RPM's makes it sound kinda like it has a screamer pipe and I've been scaring lots of pedestrians and dogs on footpaths as I blast by. It certainly turns a few heads.

Boost obviously has to be eased on in the FA20 because of the sissy conrods but it makes for cool noises.

 

 

Nice respectable numbers were achieved with engine longevity kept in mind. She's daily driven so pushing limits or high numbers were not a consideration.

 

 

 

 

 

There's a few more things on the cards, I'll update once they've been locked in.

[Beckers]

Hey brother,

Congrats on the wedding, I was wondering how it all went.

New mods and the tune have got you sum good numbers.