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Well I "accidentally" bought another project car. It was time to give some love to a new project. It was too cheap to pass up, and since I've never had a turbo before ....

02 bugeye wrx with 141k miles, mostly straight and unmolested. Needs paint (badly), a clutch, heater core, and a few other things. It's had thorough "standard" maintenance... I have 30 receipts for oil changes from the PO who has had it since 10k miles.

The goal is to make it a nice, fun daily driver which can be rallycrossed, and could be used on track, with about a $1k budget for maintenance and $1k for improvements, not including paint work.

Calling all subie gurus, what parts/pieces do you recommend? Cheap but effective upgrades for suspension, HP, etc without hurting potential track longevity... so nothing crazy.

Here are my first thoughts:

Maintenance/refreshing
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Clutch kit $150
Heater core $120
RF axle $?
Rear wheel bearings
Fluids
Rotors and pads
Valve cover gaskets

Upgrades
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KYB AGX shocks
Group N motor mounts and trans mounts
Intake?
Uppipe?
Downpipe?
Catback?
ECU tune?
Anything that can improve the lag?

Anyone have recommendations of a place that can do a decent respray of the car for not a lot of money? The back/right 1/2 of the car is actually in great shape. Front and left side has the worst peeling.

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Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Congrats on the new project! I hear that era WRX has a fragile transmission, but honestly don't follow the first gen too much. ClubWRX.net and NASIOC are your friends, but you may have to wade through a bunch of crap/nonsense to glean the good stuff on your searches. If the PO seemed responsible and the car appears stock I'd say you're in a good starting point.

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Steve Carter
1972 Datsun 240Z-- resto pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/srcartermd
2007 GPW Honda S2000-- STR 86

Empi axles are the non OEM axles of choice it seems in the subaru world. With the Bugeye you have to be careful when buying axles since it has stubs (ie female end axles) in the front.

Fluids, the rear diff can take any old gear oil, but the front diff, trans, center diff (all one fluid) seems to be a bit choosy about lubricant. The FHI stuff (Subaru Extra S) is a really solid gear oil. A widely known Subaru trans shop very frequently recommends a mix of 3 qts of Redline Lightweight shockproof and top up to the proper amount with Motul Gear 300.

Improvements. For 1K and needing to get dampers, Tokico D Specs are also an option (some may argue a better option) and are probably in the same realm of cost as the KYB AGX. Don't waste money on an uppipe, but remove yours and gut the cat out of it (does precat on the MR2 ring a bell ). For the other $400 you have to spend, a used downpipe and an opensource stage 2 tune (just need a tactrix cable and computer) and some used sway bars is what I'd suggest.

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2011/2012 Autox VP
2013/2014.5 President
2013 Top Gun

2015 Fit

22R-EC => 4G63 => D16Y7 + D16Y8 => EJ255 + K24Z2 => K20Z3 + K24Z2 => K24Z2 + M54 => L15B

Well for $53 each at Advance auto after the 25% discount I got today, I pulled the trigger and took my chances



Good info, I probably would have just thrown MTL in the trans like I did on the OBS. I'll do a bit more reading when it comes time. Fyi my 1st gear synchro is tired, so I might have a trans in my future anyways.



Tirerack had the AGX for $123 each, couldn't pass that up. Had them on the OBS and loved them.



Thanks for the info. I'm a total newb to turbos and started reading some of the tuning guides on nasioc. Had no idea that there was decent open source tuning stuff available. Sounds like I have a lot to learn

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Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Replace "era" with "every".

Do all of that minus the intake, plus:

Group N suspension top mounts (at least in front; rears are more expensive than they're worth, I've decided) and a set of stock STi springs (05-07 are slightly taller than 04, btw).

Kartboy shifter bushings are cheap, and will get rid of the sloppiness in the shifter.

Bigger anti-roll bars make a HUGE difference on Imprezas for track. I like 24mm for both. You can get adjustable for both ends; 24/26 and 20/22/24 are my favorites.

Crash bolts are cheap and add up to about -1° of camber in front, which will get you to around -2.2° or so, with the stock camber bolts at full negative. Good compromise setting for street and track. I use the Eibachs.

Open source tuning would be the way to go, if you want to play with it.

Turbo lag is annoying stock, but with the uppipe/downpipe/catback/tune, it will be way less annoying. Swapping to a transmission with shorter gearing will make the biggest difference. That loooooooooooong second gear is completly pointless. FYI, my STi is basically geared just like my WRX wagon, but with 2 gears replacing the WRX 2nd gear.

That's all I can think of for now. Have fun with it.

Oh, and Whiteline steering rack bushings, definitely.

Thanks Kevin - couple of questions:

- Any recommendations for exhaust vendors? I want something not too loud if possible.

- What year/model transmission do you think would be a good upgrade?

- Know anyone local with STi springs for sale?

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Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

nice. still bitter that fatty DS station wagons beat you, I guess?

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Steve Carter
1972 Datsun 240Z-- resto pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/srcartermd
2007 GPW Honda S2000-- STR 86

I've seen Sti springs on Craigslist locally. Or close by.

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'11 RallyX VP
1998 Integra Type R - track fun
1999 Subaru 2.5RS - dirt fun

I've had a little luck lately with allofcraigs.com Plus, they have a new "Carolinas Only" search button.

http://www.allofcraigs.com/p/search-res ... d7h7s#1635

Exhaust - Stromung sounds good, but is pretty quiet compared to the ricey melon-shooters. So is Scoobysport (that's what I have on my STi). There are some that look just like these, but are a lot cheaper, sold on ebay mainly, and I was thinking about recommending one of these off-brands to Liz for her STi, but after more research, they end up rusting out after a year or so. You could also just put a stock STi muffler on it, which is what I did with my WRX. It's very quiet (has a slight rumble at idle), but it is a LOT more free-flowing than the crappy stock WRX muffler. I've bought a few over the years, for $50-100 depending on condition. Also, no need to replace the pipe between the cats and the muffler. Just up-pipe, down-pipe, muffler and tune.

Transmission - If you want to go with FXT, 04-05 have the best gearing. If you want one that's just like the one you have, but with better synchros, 05 WRX.

STi springs - nasioc SE region forum classifieds, iwsti.com classifieds, craigslist

Oh, yeah - forgot to mention that you may have to switch to a push-type clutch with the FXT transmission. 2.5RS transmission is the same type as FXT, so same deal.

I've seen a few JDM STi transmissions for sale on various forums - nasioc, iwsti, rs25, that are basically the FXT transmission but with a pull-type clutch.

And there's a thread on nasioc in the transmission forum that details how to swap in a USDM STi 6spd for about $3000. Been thinking about this for my WRX - which is one reason I should sell it.

Might have STi springs...checking.


--Donnie

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I've got spare sets of STi springs. Unsure if they are 04 or 05, but Mike you can have a set. Least I can do for almost buying the 540.


--Donnie

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