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pete25r's bugeye progress

48K views 211 replies 21 participants last post by  pete25r 
#1 · (Edited)
pete25r's bugeye progress

Short story:
2002 WRX Sedan
Mods:
3in TBE exhaust – cat welded in downpipe, Borla muffler
silicone inlet
silicone afta MAF
VF-39 with billet compressor and lightly PNPed
Grimmspeed up pipe, wrapped
AEM UEGO Wideband
Deatchswerks fuel pump - DW200 / 255LPH
Kartboy Short Shifter
Perrin? shifter bushings
tint
kenwood headunit with pioneer speakers
12" sub with amp
aluminum radiator
Kartboy Front and Rear Endlinks
Whiteline Adjustable Swaybars - 24 front on softer and 22 Rear on middle
Konis and RCE Black(7-23-13)
Group N tophats
Grimmspeed splitter
Grimmspeed TMIC
Grimmspeed IC Hose
OEM JDM Bugeye hood scoop
JDM Pinks
STI transmission mount
Group N motor mounts
Kartboy Rear Diff bushings
opensource tuned by your's truly

Stock:
everything esle

Long Story:

I'm a Subaru fanboy. I've had 3 80's models, loved each one. I wanted to get a turboed car so heck, I'll go find myself a WRX. Here's what I found (Feb 2011) License plate is photoshopped, dealer tag was there and ugly.




Underhood - TurboXS atmos. BOV, COBB SF with beatup, dirty filter, exhaust leakS



yeh, filter was supposed to be blue...


So you wanna see some wierdness? Someone welded a largish cat on the 3" downpipe. You might not be able to see in these pics but man-o-man them welds ain't pretty. The welds are structurally sound looking but more of the "bigger the blob, better the job" category.



From the downpipe back its 3" and looks like Borla, resonator in midpipe and dual tipped Borla embossed muffler. Sounds good, not to loud but sounds like it has a pair.

Paint looked good, somewhat fresh. Interior was ok, carpet was beat up, wholes under floormats. It was missing the clock, had a stock 6disc/tape radio, stock speakers, no guages, stock fog lights, wholes drilled in most of the "blanks" by the cruise switch. There was also an off brand remote start unit in it, still wired up just no fuse in the 12v+ line. There were also some other various rat's nests wired in under the dash. When I took it on a test drive I noticed there was a Cobb AP USB dongle-thing on the OBD-II port, no AP though.

I didn't know this until I went to a meet but it's got a short throw shifter with a kartboy sticker on it under the boot. And the boot trim has an STI on it and doesn't quite fit right, it's always falling down off the part that's supposed to hold it up.
 
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#30 ·
torque wrech - check
not dropping sway on my fo-head - crossed fingers.

I'm waiting on the endlinks to show up. Can't wait.
Today on the way home from work I was going through an intersection's left turn green arrow and there was a white hatch WRX going the other direction, I had some mad-body roll going on as I chucked dueces. I bet I looked like the biggest dork. ..eh...it was fun.

I peaked under my hood after my ride home. Some of my turbo nuts were loose. Luckily it was the ones on top of the up-pipe. I torqued them down though. I re-torqued them to 30lbs, 22.4 is what the manual says. I'll check them again tomorrow after errands and whatev, in a couple of days too. I used PB blaster on them to help break them free when I did the swap. I figured all that would have burned off by now.
 
#31 ·
it finally got nice enough to bring the camera out. that and I had a brief moment of "unlazyness" this weekend...

bad photo of wrap (it was hard to get any kinda angle)




PNP TD04, notice I'm missing a bracket. There was a bolt missing on the bracket. Well there was a bolt on the engine block side of the bracket but it didn't fit. Pulled it right out with my fingers. Left the bracket off until I could find a bolt.
Also missing is the heat shield. Wanted to be able to eyeball the oil return line for a little while.




Also did some logging and tweaked my tune. Still trying to get my timing nailed down.
 
#32 ·
good news, bad news...

bad news.. yeh you get that first :unhappy:

-"updated" ecu flash on netbook (tuning laptop) and now my Tactrix cable doesn't work on it, works on other laptops though
-couldn't get torque wrench on suspected leaky coolant line on turbo -got it good-n-tight with box wrench
-can't install my new parts for a few days...

good news :woocow:

-fixing tuning laptop, halfway done
-car is running great
-and below...



STICKERS!
...probably going to give stickers to my kids. they can put them on their bikes or something.
 
#34 ·
Nice Pete!

Damn I wanna get sways and endlinks, but I'm borked! :sadwave:
 
#35 ·
got it done son!










Had a clearance problem with the front. The bottom bolt would have scraped/bumped on the sway if I wouldn't have taken out the washers. I need to find some thinner ones or put one on the outside just to play it safe.

The rear was a cake walk. The front gave me some headache because of difficulties getting to the bolts. I highly recommend ramps. I went to the Auto Skills center, a DIY - rent a lift/bay place for Military peoples, and they didn't have a lift available for a good while. I took a bay, that meant jack and jack stands. That slowed me down quite a bit. It was hard getting under there to torque everything down too. I'm just whining though, it wasn't that bad. But ramps, if you are smart ramps.

I haven't really driven it anywhere but home from the shop. It did feel about 10x more awesome. If I could find a corner I could swing through at a safe speed under the speed limit that rating could jump up.

Looking at my tires, I need new ones and an alignment.
 
#36 ·
yeh buddy

I highly recommend swaybars and endlinks to anybody thinking about it. My car handles sooo much better now. Corners say "gimmie some more" Busta Rhymes style. Just driving around chill mode feels a lot tighter, more responsive.

Finally got the tuning netbook running well. Its the one I use to flash and log. Win7 Ultimate, Rom Raider 5.6, Learning View 1.0, and Ecu Flash 1.44.3721 all run very well.
I even found a cool background



and a quick teaser a clubwrx member persauded, ah-hem, beat me over the head (yes I'm that stubborn) and got me to flash a map off the Rom Raider site. The back of my seat feels good. Nice and firm. Gotta a little touching up to do, MAF maybe some hot spots on the timing. Also gotta tighten up my exhaust. I fixed all my leaks but I guess I didn't torque my driver side header to head down enough, sounds like it's leaking a bit. It comes and goes as it heats up and cools down though.
 
#37 ·
finally got some new tires, the ones that were on there when I bought it were the budget flavor and can be found at Wal-Marts. Not the best traction when it was moist out. Also had an indecent with a pothole and my sidewall.

got 4 Bridgestone Potenza RE970AS Pole Position, so far they feel good. I drove straight home from tire place so not many miles on them yet.
 
#38 ·
pete25r said:
and a quick teaser a clubwrx member persauded, ah-hem, beat me over the head (yes I'm that stubborn) and got me to flash a map off the Rom Raider site. The back of my seat feels good. Nice and firm. Gotta a little touching up to do, MAF maybe some hot spots on the timing. Also gotta tighten up my exhaust. I fixed all my leaks but I guess I didn't torque my driver side header to head down enough, sounds like it's leaking a bit. It comes and goes as it heats up and cools down though.
:wiggles:
 
#42 ·
pete25r said:
I'll have to dig them up for exacts but they were 5 or under. It was -, +, +, - at one point, which I heard wasn't good.

RomRaider Forum post link(DD log): RomRaider • View topic - AF correction
Learning View utility...

Ideally you want all + or all -. You have an intake, right?
 
#43 ·
I think he has the stock intake...

But I recall that even my stock intake on the stock tune had something like 5.5% correction in one of the cells...
 
#44 ·
zax said:
I think he has the stock intake...

But I recall that even my stock intake on the stock tune had something like 5.5% correction in one of the cells...
MAF scaling is generally useful on the stock intake, too.
 
#46 ·
COBB SF, silicone afta-maf and inlet, is this my build thread? hehe...

the scaling was really close to stock when I did it the first time. I've been playing around too much to remember which map I have that on. I'm a sloppy technician, need to take notes and all that.

I did make one or two short scaling runs before I flashed the testes map.
On LV the AF learning looks ok, 5 or under in all blocks. I'll post it up here tonight just to show you guys.

What I was seeing in my logs is that when AF Learning #1 jumps to -10 sometimes -25, I'll have knock. Once when it jumped to -25 I had two incedents of knock, pulled 2 then 4 degrees. That's what's got me worried.

Still think I have an exhaust leak. I tightened everything but the bolt under the turbo/downpipe, the uppipe to turbo bolt - I did get the other two they were torqued good when I went to re-torque.
I might seafoam it again to find the leak. The is so fustrating. My WRX has had exhaust leaks ever since I bought it. Starting to sound normal too me. I should have had zax or somebody at the MEAT listen to it for me.
 
#48 ·
from today heading to work...





from 2013-03-15 heading to work...



the last one was before I pulled some timing in those slight knock areas. 16 IAM, that's what the initial value is so it's not dropping.

also did some slight scaling between the latest one (top) and the earlier one (bottom)
 
#49 ·
pete25r said:
from today heading to work...

[snip]

from 2013-03-15 heading to work...

[snip]

the last one was before I pulled some timing in those slight knock areas. 16 IAM, that's what the initial value is so it's not dropping.

also did some slight scaling between the latest one (top) and the earlier one (bottom)
New one doesn't look bad. Drive around a bit more populating 50+g/s and see what happens.

When you fix the exhaust leak, you'll need to revisit this again, likely.
 
#50 ·
yeh, problem is as soon as I drive around knock-iddy, knock, knock...

the latest LV only has at most 20mi of DD to work and back. 10-15 min drive to work, speed limits are 15, 35, and 45. So yeh it's kinda hard to get in the 50+ area on a work run. Once I get as many knock events fixed up I'll get up in that range.

I might got for a logging run tonight.
 
#55 ·
I was logging to and from work mainly because that's the majority of my driving. I logged for a few days and compared the logs. I didn't pull timing for the random ones, just the ones that occurred on at least two logs.

Easily repeatable? Didn't try that. But the multiple logs taken in roughly the same conditions on the same route might count for that.

Ordered a new Tactrix cable. Got the OBD extension too, don't want to karate chop another one. Current Tactrix still works, just dropped connection a time or two on a logging run. USB connector is bent. Don't wanna brick me ECU with a dodgy connection...

Once the new one comes in I'm re-flashing the base map EJ257 pointed me toward. I fudged something up on it and didn't take notes.
 
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