Tanker's TurboSnail: I choose you!

[TankerTruck]

After a bit of delay, I finally decided to make a build thread where I can chart my progress as I build the car. I figured I'd list things I get as I get them, and how decent they are as a product if people care or are thinking about it.

THE CAR:
On September 28th, 2012, I received my DMG 2013 5-Door WRX with 5 miles on the Odometer. It came with the SPT STS, all-weather mats, and rear bumper guard. A friend of mine has a sedan, so we took some pictures to honor the day. This is my daily driver, as well as our kid-conveyer and grocery-getter on most days. I am trying to keep most of the mods subtle and rather stealthy as I don't want to be obnoxious and it is my work car.



I plan on going to stage 2+, and getting Torqued Performance to do a conservative E-Tune once Cobb gets their butt in gear and gets out the 2013 on their AP. So for now, it's just stock with some new bushings and braces.

THE SNAIL:
I put a black vinyl decal of a turbo snail on the back of my car, centered on the rear window. My 3-year old daughter loved it, and thinks the car is a Pokemon. We've named it TurboSnail. If you don't like it, you are mean and hate small children (and probably kick puppies too). Now, when we 'go fast', my daughter (and I admit, I sometime do as well) screams "TURBOSNAIL! I CHOOSE YOU!"



The culprit on my Speed3:


The most annoying part of the car is in the hatch portion of the car - something I didn't notice when I ordered because I test drove a sedan. I have 2 kids, both in booster/child seats, and the rear anchor point is at the back of the car. This might not seem like a big deal until you actually hook them both up and then try to fit groceries into the car. They don't fit well at all, and the rear straps for the child seats really interfere with the hatchback storage space. Considering I got this car over the more attractive sedan for it's convenience, I am a bit disappointed.



List of Parts Installed (with Grade):
Turbo Snail Vinyl Decal (A+)
Black Forge BPV (A)
SPT Short Throw Shifter (B)
Perrin Shifter Bushings (A)
Cobb Heat Shield (C)
SPT Boost Gauge (C)
Dual Gauge Pod Bezel (A)
Subaru Center Arm-rest Extension (C)
Cobb Shift Ball (Red) (B)
Rally Armor Mudflaps (black with dark grey lettering) (B)
Perrin Shorty Antenna (2" black) (B)
Perrin Pitch Stop (A)
Perrin Turbo Blanket (B)
STI OEM 19mm Rear Sway (B)
Process West TMIC (A)
Cobb AP-003 (A)
Cobb Catted DP (A)
Cobb Stage 2 (A)
Perrin CAI (B)
Perrin CAI Pre-filter (B)
TP Stage 2 (A+)
Grimmspeed EBCS (B)
TP Stage 3 (A+)
STI Transmission Mount (B)
Whiteline positive shift kit (B)
Innovate AFR Gauge (A)
Fuel Pump Deatschwerks 65C (A)
Perrin Equal Length Headers (A-)
"Special Edition" WRX side Emblems (B)

Plans for the future:
Fog Lights
Cobb STS

[TankerTruck]

A few of the first items I did:

1. DEBAGED: I debadged the car completely, front wrx and all 4 rear emblems. This cleans the car up wonderfully to me. I did not need to remove the front bumper, but I took off the top 4 plastic anchor points and got a dremel tool down there and shaved off the 3 supports on the wrx logo. It took 10 minutes tops. Easy and worth every penny. The silver side mouldings now seem out of place.



2. SPT STS: The car came with the SPT STS - thrown into the purchase price. The MSRP is around $300, and for that I would just buy the Cobb or Kartboy STS for half the price and be done with it. However, as the dealer threw in this part for 'free' to close the deal, I don't mind it too much. The throws are somewhere between stock shifter and Cobb STS - I personally would like them a bit shorter, but this is a very good every day type shifter - very similar to my wife's Mazda3 stock 6-speed shifter in throw length. I'd probably get a Cobb STS if I had to do it again.

3. OPTICOAT: I opticoated the car. This wasn't too bad on the DGM, but when I tried to do my wife's metallic white car, it was impossible to do because you just couldn't see the product well enough to make sure it had flashed off properly. Overall, the Opticoat was rather easy to install, and it took about 4-5 hours for me to do the entire car and make sure it had all flashed off. I checked it first thing in the morning for anything I missed. The product seems to work rather well, much like a very good coat of wax/sealant I think. Supposedly it helps remove some of the inevitable road sandblasting we get in Massachusetts, so we'll see. It seems to have made the clear coat look a bit thicker (deeper?) than other DMG cars I've seen, but that could be because it's new, or because I try to wash once a week as well. I am not sure it's worth it yet versus getting vinyl coating on the front. I plan on touching up the front bumper and redoing this yearly.

4. RALLY ARMOR MUDFLAPS: I installed Rally Armor mudflaps (black with dark grey lettering). I love them, they really do keep crap off the side of the car, but I'm not a huge fan of the rather rough edges, or the space that is left between the car and the bracket on the front set of flaps (leaves get in there too easily). I'm not 100% sold on the looks of them, but they do serve their purpose, so they are worth it to me. The dark grey matches the DMG color of the car almost perfectly.


This is after a drive home through some snow, slush, salt, sand and leaves. I didn't clean anything off of anything, and you can see the muds do their job well.



5. SHIFTER BALL: I installed the Cobb Shifter ball with red trim. Color-wise the ball looks great, but I think the ball could use a bit more weight to it to help the shifter feel, but that's me. Overall it's a nice product, well made with clean looks. 5 minute install. I'll be keeping mine until I get a personalized one at a later date.


You can see the whole set up here - even though the car is a mess Shifter ball, gauges, etc.

6. FORGE BPV: I don't hear it much yet, as I'm still stock boost, but it's a very stealthy change for a much better BPV. I sometimes want to have a hybrid blow off valve for the noise (cause my mom didn't hug me enough, probably), but it is nice
to be stealthy. Very easy install, mated perfectly, and it's sort of a no-brainer install, for me.


7. PERRIN SHORTY ANTENNA (2"): I like how it looks, but it cut my radio reception in half. If you like your radio and live in a rather secluded place, don't get it.

[TankerTruck]

PERRIN SHIFTER BUSHINGS (FRONT AND REAR): I installed these in about 3 hours, with a lot of hard work (it should only take 15 mins IMO). The front bushings are easy, but the rear bushing was impossible for me to install with the hardware that came with it. I could not get both bolts to start into the holes at the same time with the brass shims in the way. I would recommend you get (1) Stainless steel 8mmx1.25 x 50 mm to replace the 40mm bolt that comes with all these bushings - that way you can start the 2nd bolt without having the brass spacer in the bushing, and threading the bolt pushes the spacer into the hole in the bushing. I think you could manually stretch the bushing if you wanted to and get them both to go in, but this way it was about 10000 times easier to install. Perrin's customer service was top-notch on this small issue - and I've heard cobb's can be like this as well. Overall, this is perhaps the best mod I've done so far - it makes the shifter much more 'positive' and much more like my motorcycle shifter's feel, if that makes sense.

Installing the bushings:


COBB HEAT SHIELD: It looks nice, easy install, says COBB, but it doesn't really cover much of the back portion of the downpipe (near the firewall). I think I would have gone with the Perrin or the Grimmspeed heatshields as I think they cover more. I'll be getting a turbo blanket as well, so this isn't a HUGE deal, but it is something to think about. I also think black would be easier to keep clean.


SPT BOOST GAUGE: It's nice, and matches the color of the stock gauges, but it isn't dimmable, and was kind of a PITA to install (why the giant harness if it's just for the light?). It also only goes to 20 PSI, so if you plan to go above that, you need a different gauge.

DUAL GAUGE BEZEL: I love this. It's a nice, stealthy mod that holds 2 gauges where I can see them. They do cover a few of the dumby lights, but overall I think this is better than the other ones on the market. It's a very good (not 100% perfect, but DAMN CLOSE - I'd say 99%+) color and texture match. I'd definitely get it again. Yes, I put a cheap wheel cover on my steering-wheel. Yes, I know it looks like crap, but I'm often in the field observing construction and I tend to get all kinds of stuff on my hands (paint, compound, etc), so the cover is my sacrificial lamb.


SUBARU CENTER ARM-REST: I am mixed on this. It does lift the arm rest, and give you a good spot to rest your elbow, but it doesn't have any extra storage in it, and it's kind of expensive for what it does. My wife got this for my birthday, so it was worth it, but I don't think I'd get it again if it were up to me. Install was easy (5 mins), and OEM match was perfect.

[alexanderig]

Sounds good so far needs more pics

[zax]

That's a good start to your mod list! Seems like you've done your research.

Now, when we 'go fast', my daughter (and I admit, I sometime do as well) screams "TURBOSNAIL! I CHOOSE YOU!"

[wrx50]

It's about time you made this Jesse. Those two wrxs look sexy as hell that guy with the sedan really did a good job with it! We should do a photo shoot at that mill I took some pics of my car at. My buddy has a sweet Nikon camera we can use

[TankerTruck]

First oil change at 1200 miles, with my little helper looking to clean something.

[TankerTruck]

So tonight i installed the Perrin Pitch Stop



The install took about 15 minutes (that included removing and reinstalling the TMIC, and explaining to a 3 year old what the part did... and then getting suspension grease off her hands, and off the motorcycle cover, and off the shelves, and ...). Anyway, it was a very easy install, and the part fit almost perfectly with just a little force needed to get the front of the stop into the stock location. I ordered on monday and got it on a Thursday from Perrin, perfectly wrapped and boxed.

The pitch stop is significantly bigger, heavier and stronger than the OEM one - almost to the point of being a joke at first glance. It does have a funny surface that is a bit hard to keep clean (it's sort of rubberized at the edges), but as it is under the TMIC, that doesn't really matter to me as you can't see it all the time.

The Good: I honestly didn't really expect it to do that much, but I think I was wrong. I'm not sure how much of this is placebo effect, and what is actually a performance change, but it seems to have tightened up the higher rev shifts ever so slightly (above 4k; I'm not really sure why this is, but it's definitely there), and 1-2 and 2-3 shifts that used to cause the fun button to flash don't anymore under hard acceleration. I can imagine this, with motor mounts and tranny mounts, to be a really good way to get the power to the ground for relatively little coin.

The Bad: Not a lot really. It did make the cabin a touch noiser (barely noticeable - the radio easily covers it), and you can hear the motor a bit more when you downshift at higher RPMS (4K+). I actually like both of these effects, but it's something that could be considered bad to some people, I guess. Otherwise it's a good mod.

I would definitely recommend this.

[TankerTruck]

Installed the Perrin Turbo Blanket today. It was a major pain with the downpipe on the car. The blanket came well wrapped and protected, and came quickly after ordering it.



The install took me a little over 1-hour, from start to clean up.

The major issue is you can't really install it from the top without some major flexibility in your hands and arms, and you can't really install it from underneath the car without some tiny hands and long arms, so you tend to jack the car up to get under it, and then drop it down to work on it from the top. I think once I change the downpipe (i.e. have the OEM off), I'll most likely rewire it tighter, when I can really see the entire thing. I'd probably suggest this to anyone installing one of these. I think it will let you get a much tighter fit overall on the blanket. Right now, mine is pretty tight, but I think I'd like to tighten it just a bit more.

But overall I like the product, it seems to fit under the Cobb heat shield very well, and covers the turbo rather well. I don't have any exact temperatures, but I think the blanket kept the top of the heat shield a bit colder than it was previously, but measuring heat by touch is not an exact science.

[TankerTruck]

Installed the STI OEM 19mm rear sway bar, using the stock endlinks last night.

I ordered the product from Subarugenuineparts.com for under $100, shipped to my door. The product came in a few days, and was boxed decently. The bar didn't have any bubble-wrap around it, or protection of any kind besides the cardboard box, but it seemed to survive the journey intact.

It is noticeably bigger than the stock WRX rear sway, but it is black, and there is almost no difference in looks once it is installed. Install, in total, took 15 minutes, including time for jacking, unjacking, cleaning, adjusting the radio, picking up boxes. It's very easy.

Overall, I think this is a decent improvement - basically it's exactly how I think the car should have come stock from the factory. The rear of the hatchback always seems to be a bit softer than the front to me, and this made it so it rolls much more evenly with the front. There is still some body roll, but it is much more subdued and calm. If anyone wants a decently simple, cheap mod to make the handling a bit better for a daily driver, and have absolutely no warantee issues (you honestly can't tell it's different, even under the car, except for 3mm) then I think you probably can't go wrong with this mod.

Of course, now that I have it, I kind of wish I went bigger, and got endlinks... guess I'll put those on the list.

[wrx50]

Jesse,

I did some recon for you and Cobb is expecting the release of 2013 access port support mid December to early January. But I'm sure you already knew that

[TankerTruck]

Yeah, I'm pretty much at a full stop until Cobb comes out with their tuning software for me. I installed the intercooler this weekend (no time for pictures yet), and put on my winter wheels/tires, but otherwise all I have left to do would be the perrin turbo inlet before I need to get into tuning.

My winter set up is rather used 2004 16" WRX rims, sprayed black with rustoleum wheel paint and clear coat, with blizzak tires. I thought someone might be interested in black rims on a DMG car. I can take better pictures if you want to see it in bright light - but I forgot to get black lugs so it's a bit wierd looking to me right now.

[xFalleNx]

Nice thread, great progress!

[chinakid245]

Nice build man. Can't wait to see how the intercooler looks. Did you have to install a new splitter with it as well? Also does installing that intercooler affect your pressure drop and boost in any negative way?

[TankerTruck]

Well, here is the Process West TMIC installed, with the splitter. You really have to install the splitter to get the air directed against the TMIC really well.

The install took me about 1 hour, because I pulled off the hose that connects the BPV to the manifold, and I couldn't see where it connected back (because I'm stupid). Overall, it fits wonderfully, and it is a beautiful piece. The only issue I had was getting the routing for the boost gauge just right - that took about 15 mins.



I haven't tuned for it yet (I did email PW and asked, and they were of the opinion I didn't need a tune to run it, but I'd get 0 gains from it without one). But putting your hand against both sides of the IC, you definitely can feel that it is colder than the stock one ever was. I did end up removing all of the rubber 'netting' that is part of the OEM splitter, which makes me think that I should get a gillecraft grill to protect it.



The intercooler really hasn't seemed to change the behavior of the car at all. If anything, it's running just a little stronger - but very minor. Boost in 3rd gear (on my gauge only - no tuning yet), goes up to 14-15PSI before dropping and holding at 11-12 PSI. Pretty much what it was at before. You can hear it fill a little bit (not like a FMIC), which is pretty neat. I'm really looking forward to getting my intake & inlet pipe installed, to hear everything better, but alas, Cobb is being a reasonable tuning company and making sure their tunes are good... blah blah blah.