Update 9/02/09

West Coast Subaru Show in Stevenson, Wa on 8/26 was awesome!

My RX again won a award, 2nd place in Gen 3.

Thats 2 years in a row its won a award.

Update 7/31/09

Painted my calipers on the front, still need to do the rears.

Alot more stuff getting done shortly in preperation for this years West Coast Subaru Show.

Hope to win in my class again this year.

Also got a dyno run in a couple of weeks ago.

137 AWHP and 171TQ

And this is on stock internals.

Update 7/1/09

Added drilled and slotted rotors on all 4. Also picked up some Eibach coilovers that I will be installing soon.

New suspension installed 4/16/09. It now allows me to use 5x100 wheels.

Now sporting ADR Sokudo 17's.

I bought the car back in 03 for $450. It had a blown engine and some minor cosmetic problems. The engine is a 1.8 with a turbo. Tranny is a Full Time Dual Range 5spd with Diff Lock and a 3.7 LSD rear diff.

I bought a engine from a friend and it turned out to have a rod knock. Pulled that out and replaced it with another used engine. It ran like crap also. I found another engine that was running and dropped that in and ran it for a while but blew a headgasket when a radiator line ruptured on the freeway. I replaced the headgaskets and ran it till I decided to up the boost. Never, ever buy a cheap manual boost controller off Ebay. They suck. I either had no boost, or full boost. I ended up running it at full boost once (20lbs) and thats all it took. Seeing how I did such a great job replacing my headgaskets, they didnt blow. No, I blew the ring landings off one of my pistons! YeeHaw!

So after fighting with engines for a year or so, I got tired of replacing them. Go figure. I contacted a rebuilder in Colorado called CCR and had them send me a basically new engine to the tune of $1800. After a few days work I had it up and running. What a difference! She runs like a dream. Lots of power and torque. I went thru the break in process before doing any mods/improvemnts. Originally I installed a K&N drop in panel filter to my cutout airbox. Next was a MSD high output coil, NGK plug wires and NGK Iridium plugs (One stage colder). I also got a new 2 row radiator for it because I didnt want any problems with cooling. Theres the stock electric fan, kicked on by a thermistor and then a auxillary fan that comes on with the ignition. This baby does not get hot. After those add ons, I had a 2.5in exhaust installed from the downpipe back. During the install we discoverd my 2nd/center cat was melted. They wouldnt finish the job unless I installed another one because the DP was gutted. That was another $180 for a hi-flow cat. But it was worth it. I have a hi-flow aftermarket muffler on it that gives it a nice Subaru rumble, its no fart can.

After I had this all done, I put it on a AWD dyno and got pretty good results. 100 at wheel HP and 106 at wheel TQ. Running stock boost, which is 7lbs. I ran it this way for about 9mo and then decided it was time for more upgrades (I'm a boost junkie). I got a WRX TD04 turbo with all the goodies. The up/downpipe and the top mount intercooler. Configuring the piping for all this was tough, as I wanted to keep the stock airbox and some of the intake parts. The TD04 is clocked differently and made it tough to plumb the IC. Had some boost leaks, the worst when it was warm out and the rubber tubing liked to pop off. Once I had the bugs worked out, it ran like a champ. I upped the boost to around 10lbs and it didnt complain at all. A while after this I started throwing a engine code for the 02 sensor. I got a new one installed and still had the code and the engine was running real rich. I did some adjusting to the air/fuel mix and got it turned down a little and it ran better. But I would rather have it run rich than lean, for obvious reasons. Now, I cant just leave things alone and the next upgrade was to change intake manifolds. The 87.5 and up Subaru XT-T has whats called a Spider Intake. It supposed to flow better and the throttle body is better suited for a TMIC. I had to change the electrical on it as it wasnt matching my setup because of the year difference. Again, I had re-plumb everything and had vacume leaks every where. I had a big Subaru Show coming up in a few weeks and I was taking 3 cars, so this had to get fixed. Finally got it all wrapped up and running (poorly) but enough to get it to the Show. Where it took 1st place in its class. I've been working on getting it to run better, but I still have some vac leaks. I think the intake is warped, which means I have to remove it and true it up or look for another one. But when the boost kicks in (12lbs now) she runs hard! I cant wait to get it on the dyno again, hopefully the first of the year.

Be sure to check out the vid too!