Next Round Of Modding Has Begun

[sti_steve]

great to see this in the flesh, the pictures don't show how epic this has become.

had to lol at this bit about the harnesses., I can relate

I laughed out loud in work and it's not exactly a noisy office...a few people think i've gone mad laughing to myself...

[badbaz]

You're only laughing Steve, you should have heard the expletives!

[sti_steve]

"aww FFS!!!"

[kennybspec-d]

this is a great build strip thread keep it up mate wish i could do this stuff to my car

[badbaz]

this is a great build strip thread keep it up mate wish i could do this stuff to my car

Thanks mate, other threads and helpful members is how we learn what achieves what. Other's mistakes will hopefully save us some pennies. I never imagined when I got my Scoob that guys and girls would own and mod them while having no mechanical knowledge or background at all, that really surprised me!

Moving on: I have now got in my possession an MD321T turbo, GT spec headers and up pipe, uprated and flow matched injectors, an uprated fuel pump, silicon intake hose(s), APS 70mm cold air induction, a 3" turbo back exhaust, cosworth kevlar timing belt, new filter, oil, diff and gearbox oils, plugs, knock link, apexi avcr and a set of nearly new defi BF gauges and make them go bits! I've probably missed something out but between christmas and new year I'll be photographing them and documenting their install. The only thing I've yet to source is an oil catch tank. I've been waiting to see exactly what I need.

Stay tuned!

Merry Xmas everyone, hope yours is sweet!

[Rick N]

Bit more weight reduction Baz?

http://oswaldperformance.com/WRXFRONTSUBFRAME.aspx

[badbaz]

Bit more weight reduction Baz?

http://oswaldperformance.com/WRXFRONTSUBFRAME.aspx

No money left I'll go on a diet!

[badbaz]

Here I am, back again.

As I said, I was going to work on the car between Xmas and New Year and I have - but not much. Snow + Ice + Snow +Snow + Snow + Ice = gritters in ditches/fields/ditches/distress and holidays or not, I'm out there, freezing my nuts off. I don't mind so much when they are caught unawares or if there is a mechanical problem, but wheels falling off is a driver's fault and I believe they should receive an automatic punch in the face for that. Hard.

I went to another one yesterday, a permanent 18t gritter, no plough and a farm road - a F*CKING farm road! Harthill, roads never been cleared since the Ice Age and it has minimum 8 inches of compacted snow, you can't stand on it never mind drive a vehicle with road tyres on it and Mr Gritter Driver decides to put the spinner on and give it a go. Now I said no plough remember, so off he goes, led by a JCB 'Airmaster', basically an overgrown grass cutter with a shovel on the front and compressor on the back. Three quarters of a mile in and the JCB jumps into the field, followed by, yip, the gritter, or half of the gritter to be precise! So I gets the call and heads over. No snow on main roads but I reckon wind chill is -10 minimum. I arrived, parked the truck on the main road when I saw how much snow was on the farm road and I took a walk of about 50 yds. The combination of couldn't stand/ears falling off/brain freeze and no sign of said gritter and JCB led me to return to the relative warmth of my cab, where I rang the 'cooncil' and after much complimenting of the drivers, requested a machine/shovel. Wait. Wait. Wish I'd brought my manifold to wrap. Wait. Wait.....

One hour and darkness saw the arrival of Amey: the new Knights of the road. It should be nights as they are as bright as a blackout. The 'shovel' turned out to be a 7.5T Merc, two guys, two shovels(hand held ones) and 3lbs of grit. He drove into the road and got stuck. I released my handbrake and drove home.

Today 'we' will attempt to reach the vehicles and get them out. But I won't be going because I've got the kids, thank fu.........

Anyone still here? Back to the topic -

Got all the stuff laid out on my nice pink blanket, it's an STi blanket Thought it best if I could see everything and work on a logical pattern of fitment so I don't end up doing things twice. Gave myself a headache looking at it and beginning to question myself over problems I foresee. I defo don't have everything I'm going to need and that's a worry without even knowing what these things are!!! So here is all the goodies minus an HT Autos front splitter which I collected from Phil after the photo! Thanks Phil.

I got some work done on the car on Sunday past. Still stripping parts which are to be replaced. I had to get the turbo, headers, air intake pipe and the expansion air intake box from inside the wing. The Impreza must be assembled by tiny performance people who, in their quest for the ultimate noise and power from a 2 litre, forget that these engines would need worked on! I reckon they have men only 2" high who fit the components under the intake manifold. Either that or they have people with foot long fingers, barely millimetres wide which are made from carbon fibre and can screw in bolts while making a sound like an air gun!! What a pain in the butt. Had to remove the intake manifold to get the air intake pipe out, the manifold has both the fuel pipes and a track for the wiring loom bolted to it's underside and is very fiddly to get off. But some persistence and gritted teeth saw all bits on the floor and the engine/vehicle ready for the addition of new parts. Only component still to be removed is the in tank fuel pump. I'll do this when I fit the uprated one.

Before photo:

After photos:

Turbo used to live here

Old headers removed

A rather depleted engine bay

Luckily enough I've managed to sell both my old headers and turbo so the build costs are being kept down. A bit.

That was all I manged and I was back at it yesterday, in between gritter issues, and ready to begin rebuilding. First thing was to get the headers, up and down pipes heat wrapped and ready to fit. There is no definative answer on the best method to apply the wrap that I could find, I ended up fitting it dry as I found a fair few complaining of wet applications cracking shortly afterwards. It's not the easiest thing to do, well the manifold I mean. I could have wrapped the pairs together but decided for neatness and the fact that I think it'll be tighter and last longer I wrapped the four pipes individually. If you were doing this as a job you'd know the length you'd need for each pipe but I didn't so I had to work with 50 metres for the first pipe. Pain in the butt. There's a port in the up pipe, presumably for an EGT sensor, I had to plug this and guess what - no 12mm 1.25 bolts left. After much raking around I found one cut it down to length and sealed it up. Have read a few articles where the EGT sensors have melted and been sucked into the turbo. Turbos no like eating sensors!! Here's the manifold pre wrap on another Ltd Edition STi sheet!!

Here it is mid wrap, I'm using cable ties to secure it until it is finished when I'll replace them with stainless clips.

Here are all the pipes wrapped and ready for proper ties.

I'm not particuarly happy with the end part of the manifold where it meets the up pipe. I'll probably have another go at that bit before I tie it off. If you have sensitive skin or allergies wear gloves and a mask, glass fibre(I presume) everywhere! Fingers are still all jaggy - no likey!

That's where I'm at for now. Gonna try to tie some bits off before I pick the kids up. Next build day is Monday the 4th, January is gonna need to be build, build, build as I'm defo taking the car to the M Sport visit! Timing belt to do next before I start on fitting bits back on.

See ya!

[wrxmania]

Looking good but too damn cold to be doing any of that not in the house!

If only the gritters would like to come grit my street in Whitburn - day of snow and it's still snowing and still all there.

My car is parked on the main road as it will NEVER get out!

Brian.

[badbaz]

Back at it again last night, a half ar$ed effort really as didn't start until 8pm! Too much to do and too little available time to be ready for the 20th Jan me thinks.

Had to try a couple of solutions for securing the exhaust wrap. Tried stainless mig wire but it was breaking too often, tried various cv gaiter clips and eventually settled on the ones that we currently use when replacing cv gaiters on cars. I din't have enough of them but I did the bits which would be awkward to do on the car and then fitted the headers and the up pipe to the car with new gaskets. Ordered more clips today and these will be fitted before start up day.

Here's a few pics just to recap on the header story:

New headers and up pipe

Wrapped up cozy

On the motor

Tonight it's turbo time!

[sti_steve]

Anymore progress, Barry? Worth a bump for a good read anyway...

[badbaz]

Funny you should say that Steve, what with the weather and birthdays and weekends away I only got back to it last night for a bit.

It was time to get the turbo into it's new home and this I knew was to involve a little bit of cutting to allow the turbo some clearance.

I had to cut one of the lugs which is on the bellhousing below the turbo, also shortening the bolt that goes through the gearbox and into that lug. Tried the turbo in again and it was also fouling another lug further up, I think it's one of the intercooler bracket mounts. Shaved a bit off that too and then tried the turbo in again. It fitted this time with clearance. I used a junior hack saw and a chisel to remove the bits as I didn't want a grinder spraying ally dust all over the shop with so many components disconnected or open to contamination even though they were all covered or sealed up anyway!

Then removed the turbo and fitted the oil drain outlet pipe to the bottom. This is from the old turbo and it's not a straight fit. The bolts are bigger in the new turbo and the hole centres are also closer together. Modified the holes, sourced some M8 bolts and washers, made a new gasket and fitted it to the turbo. The pipe is angled slightly and so can only be fitted in one direction to clear the up pipe bracket. This time the turbo went on for good! Slip the oil return pipe into the hose on the engine and bolted the turbo to the up pipe, with a new gasket too. A light spring clip secures the oil drain hose.

I then looked at the connections for water and oil feed. Mark at Lateral supplies all the bits you need so I installed the water pipe to the new fitting on the o/s, fitted the oil feed braided pipe to the top of the turbo(it's a neat fit with the actuator arm and possibly a bit too long on my car).

That leaves the other water connection on the n/s of the turbo, it returns to the header tank. As that isn't back in place at the moment I'll need to wait to connect it after the injectors are fitted. That pipe will need to be made/modded.

The pipe work for the actuator has became a bit of an issue for me, mainly due to stupidity on my part and so I'll explain that another time!

I quickly trial fitted the silicon hoses for air intake

and the APS cold air intake

which both fitted without issue. At the moment and then removed them again till it's there time to go on.

I need to now get the injectors in and then sort out a breather system next. Unfortunately time is again very tight this week - more soon.

[dipsy]

Funny you should say that Steve, what with the weather and birthdays and weekends away I only got back to it last night for a bit.

It was time to get the turbo into it's new home and this I knew was to involve a little bit of cutting to allow the turbo some clearance.

I had to cut one of the lugs which is on the bellhousing below the turbo, also shortening the bolt that goes through the gearbox and into that lug. Tried the turbo in again and it was also fouling another lug further up, I think it's one of the intercooler bracket mounts. Shaved a bit off that too and then tried the turbo in again. It fitted this time with clearance. I used a junior hack saw and a chisel to remove the bits as I didn't want a grinder spraying ally dust all over the shop with so many components disconnected or open to contamination even though they were all covered or sealed up anyway!

Then removed the turbo and fitted the oil drain outlet pipe to the bottom. This is from the old turbo and it's not a straight fit. The bolts are bigger in the new turbo and the hole centres are also closer together. Modified the holes, sourced some M8 bolts and washers, made a new gasket and fitted it to the turbo. The pipe is angled slightly and so can only be fitted in one direction to clear the up pipe bracket. This time the turbo went on for good! Slip the oil return pipe into the hose on the engine and bolted the turbo to the up pipe, with a new gasket too. A light spring clip secures the oil drain hose.

I then looked at the connections for water and oil feed. Mark at Lateral supplies all the bits you need so I installed the water pipe to the new fitting on the o/s, fitted the oil feed braided pipe to the top of the turbo(it's a neat fit with the actuator arm and possibly a bit too long on my car).

That leaves the other water connection on the n/s of the turbo, it returns to the header tank. As that isn't back in place at the moment I'll need to wait to connect it after the injectors are fitted. That pipe will need to be made/modded.

The pipe work for the actuator has became a bit of an issue for me, mainly due to stupidity on my part and so I'll explain that another time!

I quickly trial fitted the silicon hoses for air intake

and the APS cold air intake

which both fitted without issue. At the moment and then removed them again till it's there time to go on.

I need to now get the injectors in and then sort out a breather system next. Unfortunately time is again very tight this week - more soon.

There a difference in inlet manifold's the Jdm Sti it's all one bit over the uk sti is two parts

Edited January 15, 2010 by Dipsy

[badbaz]

What point are you making Dipsy?

[dipsy]

What point are you making Dipsy?

There two different types of inlet manifold Jdm Sti is all one part and the uk sti is two parts to the inlet manifold does the lower part have the tgv fitted what ever that does to the car and lateral are doing a twin scroll versions of the md321 h/t/v aswell

Edited January 15, 2010 by Dipsy

[badbaz]

Still not with you Dipsy, mines is UK car. TGV? I've seen this talked about, particularly as deleted but don't know what it stands for.

What is it you are saying regards twin scroll etc? Sorry if I'm being slow!

[dipsy]

Still not with you Dipsy, mines is UK car. TGV? I've seen this talked about, particularly as deleted but don't know what it stands for.Tumble generator valve its to do with emissions on a uk car see the inlet manifold bit still on your car there butterflys like a carb in that part and you don't have this on the Jdm Sti but hatchback Jdm Sti has know

What is it you are saying regards twin scroll etc? Sorry if I'm being slow! Well you get a twin scroll version of the md321 turbo's know .Just letting people know with Jdm Sti's

Edited January 15, 2010 by Dipsy

[badbaz]

I see. There are no butterflies in the bit left on my car, you can look straight into the valves. Maybe this was on earlier versions?

[badbaz]

Was doing a bit more last night. It was time for the injectors to go in. These are injectors for those who don't know what they look like.

These are from Lateral Performance and although I've not got the paperwork to hand, they are around 800cc equivalent and flow matched.

After making sure the injector seat seals were all in place and clean I sat them in.

These two (the blue bits you can see) are in the driver's side

These are the passenger side ones in

I trial fitted the new silicone intake pipe again to see if it was going to go on 'post manifold fit' and decided it would. Then I cleaned up the faces and refitted the inlet manifold. It's about three weeks since I removed it and had to keep checking I wasn't putting on bits too soon to avoid removing and refitting. Anyway, I got it back on and along with that the fuel rails went back on. Everything was then piped up and plugged in and that kind of completed the manifold.

I had to remove the alternator to refit a bolt to the underside of the manifold which carries the plastic track for the wiring loom. It's important to make sure all the fuel pipes are secure, tight and nothing is fouling them. A lot of pipe and other things all criss cross under here. Don't want any fuel leak issues!

At this point I fitted new spark plugs. Can't remember the number but it's the fancy NGK platinum ones that AndyF recommends. Same type I had in since last map but new ones won't go wrong.

Last task for the evening was to fit the APS CAI. This is a two minute job. Stuck it through the wing, mounted it up, fitted the MAF sensor and stuck on the silicone hoses to see everything met up. Didn't clip these on just now in case I need them off for anything.

Couple of pipes with nowhere to go now so trying to find out what to do with them via other posts on here and SN. More soon.

[badbaz]

Hi all, Chapter 42 - Nearing the end. Of my tether!!

Over the weekend and Monday and Tuesday I put in a lot of time on the car as mapping day was today, yipee, more on that later.

Without boring the socks off everyone, I had a couple of pipes left over which had nowhere to go since I removed the standard air intake pipe to the turbo. These ones -

The top one, circled, came from the boost solenoid, arrow, and as it happens is the exhaust for the boost solenoid and as such could just be vent to air.

Having the Apexi AVC-R, which I hadn't even fitted at that point, does away with this anyway so I needn't have worried!

The bottom pic one, circled and arrowed , is another exhaust/vent, this time for fuel vapour control and as such just needed to be routed safely away from harm. I have a temp solution just now as I just didn't have time to do everything before today properly.

Moving on I then had to get wiring installed for the Knock Link, Apexi AVC-R and my Defi stuff. I ran the wires through the bulkhead at the grommets shown here

and secured all the wiring so as to avoid any problems later. You think as you begin working on the car I only have X Y and Z to do but it turns out that until you sort ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU and flamin V you're never anywhere near ready to do X, never mind bloody Y and Z! Back to the build: I had to decide on a location and mount the pressure sensor and the boost solenoid for the apexi, also the knock sensor and the defi boost sensor. None of these are in any way hard to do but when you've never done it before you need to research it to make sure it's the right choice, then make sure it IS the right choice and method and then fit the bits. Running wires to them in the process and keeping it all neat and tidy. I haven't managed to photograph these bits as my fingers were just too tired to press the shutter button. This pic shows where the items were fitted and connected to.

So, having fitted all the necessary sensors and got the associated wiring into the inside of the car, it was time to fit the top mount intercooler back on. It's amazing how your own mind can wind you up! Look at where the intercooler goes. Look at the size of the new turbo. Go to collect the intercooler from the boot. By the time you reach the boot your mind is convinced the intercooler won't fit. By the time you pick it up and talk to it about how it looks as though it's never gonna fit and walk to the front of the car, you've had a breakdown of some sort. Actually it fitted, not without losing three knuckles and becoming a fully certified tourette's sufferer! It's a neat fit, the silicon elbow to the turbo being a particular pain. But it went on and that was the main thing. Beyond that I had to bodge up some breather pipes - NO catch can here yet and make a water hose from the turbo to the header tank. Luckily there is room for a bit of hose to curve up to the tank, later I will make this better and more effective but for now it will do.

Other bits I had to then complete seemed to jump at me from every angle. Had to secure the air intake pipes together and to the CAI. Had to fabricate a bracket for the bottom of the header tank, I did this by cutting up the former header tank bottom bracket come injector crash protection. After that it was just a case of double check everything, secure all pipes and cables to avoid chaffing and fill up with water.

Remaining at this point to do, pre map, was the wiring of the Apexi and the fitting of the fuel pump.

I dreaded wiring the Apexi as it was unclear what wiring I would encounter at my ECU, there seems to be a few versions, maybe in practice there are less! Anyway, I pulled out the ECU, established which pin out info I had gathered was mine and spliced the wiring into the ECU loom(s). You need to get Power, Earth, RPM, road speed and throttle position. It proved straight forward except from deciding which plug was which, which way round the plugs were relative to the diagram and seeing the actual pin numbers on the plugs may have been easier with the hubble telescope!! At this point, with time rapidly slipping away I had no choice but to fire the car up and see what happened. Nothing! It started and idled and the Apexi worked and there were no leaks and that was lovely! Under advice I left the car to idle for a while, to fully warm for the water level and for the ECU to learn that the injectors were spewing in v-power like the falls of Clyde and try (in vain) to do somethin about it. Everything passed without incident. Note - exhaust much louder and heat wrap stinks like fu...., quite badly.

All that remained before the mapping was to fit the fuel pump and secure the AVC-R boost controller. I did the latter first, a temp solution to allow it's use for now but permanent mounting will come later. Tied up all the wiring, refitted the ECU and cover and then set about the tank. Removing the fuel pump/sender assembly isn't hard, especially when you have no interior. It's behind where the rear seat would have been at the driver's side. Remove the cover, remove the pipes and wiring and then the nuts. Lifting it out is tight but ease it up and round and out. Onto the bench, v-power making your head spin and have a look. The pump I have is an uprated version, more capacity than a 255. So it should have! It's bloody massive. At first I thought it was the wrong one, that's how different they were. Safe to say, it was right and I had to mod the carrier, and the filter pickup and fit it all together. Wiring needed cut and this is scary no matter how much you tell yourself it'll be ok, wires in petrol just seems daft. After much humming and sawing?! it was assembled and returned to the car. All fitted I started the car and - ran away as fast as I could! A fire extinguisher wasn't gonna be any use to me if three quarters of a tank of v-power had decided to go up. It didn't though, and the car ran fine. Game over - there was no more time. . . .

And so it was map day : to be continued

[wrxmania]

Brilliant work

[MarkJHarris]

Eh Baz?

Why are you not going for the front monut intercooler then?

With all the other mods I'd expect that and a WRC bonnet as well, with the big hole in the top for cooling.

Comin on well fella, well done so far!

[sti_steve]

You can't leave it like that, Barry! I want to know how the mapping went. I suppose I will just need to wait until tonight

[badbaz]

No front mount as no pennies left and it's no big issue for me at this level and the car's intended use.

Map day:

When you rush to get things ready, it leaves a terrible anticipation of a major faux pas. Left in plenty time to run through, off boost, to Andy's place for a 1pm mapping bonanza. No problems and the car ran fine. Arrived and straight in for all the equipment to be fitted to the car. It was then the snags started.

First up, when Andy wants to upload a map to the car the voltage of the car must be between certain limits. Mine's was just above this and Andy said it was only the second time he'd seen this. It wasn't a major problem, just turn the headlights on for a bit and that brought it to the correct level. It was only 0.1v out so not looking for a fault. Trouble was it kept delaying getting changes uploaded to the car.

Next problem was with the fuel mixture, when the car returned to idle, after a few seconds it made itself go awful rich. Andy wondered if this was because of my uprated fuel pump and no fuel regulator, the standard system being unable to return the fuel to the tank when not required.

Eventually we went out and we began the acceleration sequences. It quickly became apparent that there was an issue with boost creep. Up to about 5k rpm in 5th the Apexi maintained the target 1.6bar, beyond that the boost began to rise with the revs. Andy tried lots of things but there was clearly an issue with the wastegate. Even with the Apexi off and wastegate boost of 1bar as the revs rose so did the boost. We finished the mapping anyway and in the meantime, till I get to the bottom of it, I can't use 5th and 6th gears at full throttle.

Andy worked hard for his money yesterday and the results are impressive. We couldn't do a power run due to the boost creep but it feels way more powerful than before (a good 340bhp) when the boost stays under 1.65bar and I'm happy so far. I've got to say when it reached 1.9bar during the mapping for a second it was bloody flying! Takes me back to the days of vise grips on wastegate pipes .

Not had a chance to try it out much and will now need to look at this boost creep issue. I'll come back with what I find.

Had to nip into Maplins and get a resistor to put in where the original boost solenoid was to fool the ECU and keep the check light off. Came home and allowed the engine to cool. Fitted the resistor and then checked the wastegate actuator was adjusted properly, which it was, so no luck there.

Thanks AndyF for all your help and your donation to Yorkhill!

[G-ManUK]

Looking good Barry...

Did you get to the bottom of the Boost creep issue?

I wouldn't have the knowledge to take on a project like this, but it's interesting to see someone else's hard work!!!

sure the finished article will be well worth all your efforts!