Archive for the ‘ Project Cars ’ Category

Project STI – Greddy Boost Controller Install

With the new engine up and running I had a bit of a scare one night as the turbo over-boosted. Afraid of hurting my new engine, I decided that the old bleeder valve had to go.

For those of you unfamiliar with bleed type, or manual, boost controllers, they are good for a small boost increase but are prone to over boosting when turning up the wick a fair bit from standard and in cold weather.

After consulting a few people in the know I decided on the Greddy Profec B electronic boost controller, and here’s how to install one in true Shift Up style:

1) Take all the parts out of the box. Place them in a neat fashion on the garage floor and take a photo.

 
 
 
 
 
 

2) Check that Rally Pig approves.

3) Remove dash, lose one screw in the process.

 
4) Find a spot to mount the control unit. It’s impossible to read the display if you can’t see it straight on so I opted for the space under the head unit using the supplied double sided tape.
 
5) Now find a power source. Being a car nerd who’s had too many Imprezas and knows exactly which wire you can get power from makes this step easy. Failing that, I’m sure a wiring diagram for your vehicle type will help; see interwebs.
 
6) Once a power source has been found, connect the red wire to it and the black wire goes to a good earth – make sure you solder the wires and use shrink wrap stuff or I’ll be very upset with you.
 
7) I drilled a hole in the back of the dash piece where the unit will sit so I can get the power wires and the vacuum hose through to the back – smart huh.

8) Run the wires and vacuum line through the rubber grommet in the fire wall and into the engine bay. On a GC8 WRX this is located above the clutch pedal and comes through just under the clutch master cylinder.

9) Mount the boost control solenoid in the engine bay. I chose to bolt it to an existing bracket which holds the factory boost controller.
 
10) Plug in the wiring harness from the in-cabin controller and connect all the vacuum hoses. Keep them as short as possible. Check the manual for specifics as what goes where varies a bit from car to car.
11) Once you’ve double-checked that everything is where it should be, you’ve earned yourself a five minute break.

Smoke if you got ’em…or down a Red Bull.
 
12) Time to turn the key and set it up. The supplied instructions are good enough to get you through the setup process. A couple of hints I’ve picked up though are: try and test in all gears – luckily we have a ‘private’ road handy for just such occasions; when accelerating keep a sharp eye on your boost gauge (or get a friend to help) and accelerate gradually, if you just floor it you might not have enough time to back off if you get too much boost and possible detonation; adjust “set gain” to 4psi below the desired boost; adjust “gain” to ensure boost is holding all the way through the revs; adjust “set” by 2 per cent increments until desired boost is reached.
13) Give yourself a pat on the back and enjoy consistent boost levels! And try and find that lost dash screw.

Keep it rubber side down,

Benji

2012
09/13
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Project STI – Pear Shaped

So it’s been a little while since I did the brakes and wheels and I absolutely love it.

The car has been transformed into a proper all round package. The grip and brakes match the power and it’s just a joy to point at a twisty road. But it’s a modified car. And there’s no “happily ever after” in these stories.

One afternoon I was casually driving down the freeway when all of a sudden the engine started to sound like it was full of ball bearings. I didn’t need to pull over and pop the bonnet as I already knew what had happened – it was definitely the all-too-familiar clunking of a bottom end bearing failure. Just to add to the drama, I tried to restart the car after pulling over but the battery was completely dead. Not even a jump helped, so I had to enlist the help of Dave and the ever reliable Polo GTI to fetch us a battery.

We got Koop started and then nursed him home trying to keep the revs low, now I know I probably should have gotten a tow then and there but I figured it’s already broken.

A week later Koopa was towed down to Subaru for the damage to be assessed. It didn’t take long for them to confirm what I had suspected; the bottom end was scrap. Luckily both heads and the entire top end were undamaged. Faced with a few options for a new motor I needed to do some homework.

The now broken motor was a re-built ’99 STI 2-litre which was stock save for forged Wiseco pistons which were 40 thou overbore. This engine always had very loud piston slap and used a lot of oil so I’d like my new motor to behave more like a factory item this time. Seeing as the stock STI motors already have forged pistons from the factory I didn’t see the need for an aftermarket re-build this time considering I’m not after big horses.

The 2.5-litre EJ25 has become a very popular engine swap for the older 2 litre models. However I have driven a 2008 STI sporting said motor and it’s very linear all the way through the revs compared to the 2 litre. I found it to be very underwhelming as it never delivers that turbo punch that I want from an Impreza. And even in STI form it doesn’t have forged pistons and only revs to a lowly 6500rpm redline. There’s nothing actually wrong with it but it doesn’t feel like a Japanese performance car motor should, I want high revs and aggressive power delivery.

So a new 2-litre it is! The only slight problem is that Subaru Australia doesn’t have any replacement 1999 STI motors anymore. Luckily though they do have Version 7 (2001-2004) STI short motors in stock which are identical to the original 1999 motor except for the deck being semi-closed instead of open; making it stronger and lighter.

A surprisingly quick two weeks later and Koop was back with a brand new motor. After some gentle running in it was off to the dyno for a tune. The end result is 180kW at all four on 20si. On paper that number seems a bit low but as a comparison, its previous tune saw 201kW atw on 18psi and the car is much quicker now. It just goes to show how much you can’t compare different dynos.

Benji

2012
07/02
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Project Sil80 – Countdown To Track Day: Part One

With the promise of an upcoming track day, and an eventful one at that being Benji’s cherry-popping first, I was keen to get a few things in order on Yoshi.

Conveniently both things would basically result in a general service, oil and coolant change.

The first thing was to hook up the oil cooler and remote filter – both have been disconnected since the new motor went in and was wrapping up its running-in process.

A quick visit to the local Autobarn for supplies and we were away. My trusty jack, Big Blue, was onto the job (despite developing a tendency to slowly lower the car and thus becoming significantly less ‘trusty’) getting Pig nice and high with enough room to get under. Because death is still something I’m keen to avoid, we again, and wisely so, incorporated the help of a couple of jack stands.

A quick sump plug pull later and the old run-in oil was on its way out meaning we could start on the oil cooler.


I chewed my hands to bits like normal when getting off a standard oil filter, binned the old filter, took off the existing filter that was keeping junk from getting into the relocation base while it wasn’t hooked up, gave the relocation base a clean-up and screwed on one fresh looking Z9 (just for you Benji).

Having already been mounted up before, our job was pretty straight forward; hook up the blue hoses from the cooler to the filter and then from the filter to the ‘normal’ oil filter location on the engine block. This isn’t too tricky, just make sure the two lines, one central and one nearer the edge, are fitted up to match both ends of the hosing.

With this done we did our usual ‘we’re pretty dumb and probably forgot to tighten things up’ tighten up check – all good. Chucked in the fresh oil, checking levels regularly, until it was pretty full then a gentle idle for a few minutes to let things pump through and settle. Another check of levels and a top up and we were right. Onto the second job – the dodgey heater hose that had started leaking.

Jack stands were once again employed for safety reasons before we found the culprit at the back of the CA engine block. Right at the back of the motor, almost up against the firewall is where you’ll find this little guy. Why was my hose leaking (giggles)? Split hose? Old hose with lots of cracks in it? Neg bro. While it did have a hose clamp on the hose itself, the hose clamp was not done up, allowing coolant to spit out and trickle down the hose and hence the leak – not great but an easy fix…ish.

As anyone who owns a slightly banged-up old Jap import would know, when something appears to be shitting itself, it’s probably rooted. With this in mind I wasn’t about to simply do up the clamp and leave things as they were (I was pretty sure the hose must’ve been split). Being a heater hose though this would require dropping the coolant, so game on; coolant change.

With coolant all over the driveway we were ready to pull off the heater hose and start checking for cracks, splits, holes or any other signs of being shitted.

With it blocked at one end I tried the tried and true method of blowing into it and nothing. It was fine. Not even really hard like some hoses get with age (ironic giggles).

So back on it went, both hose clamps tightened up correctly to actually seal things and then a fresh batch of coolant went in. I did order a brand spank new hose from Nissan which came about a week later so that’ll go on next coolant change just to be sure.

More boxes ticked in Part Two, stay tuned.

Dave

2012
06/05
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The Pig
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Project STI – Test Drive

The new wheels are on. The new brakes are fitted. Now to test drive it.

The first positive impression happens creeping out of the driveway as I touch the middle pedal and jolt myself forward quite violently. The stock brakes never had anywhere near that much bite!

Hitting the street it’s instantly apparent that this is already so much better.

Even stone cold, the Project Mu Spec B brake pads are doing their job. And well.

I struggled at first to get used to the amount of braking force as it far exceeded anything I had ever experienced in this car. I initially found it hard to brake and change down smoothly as the pedal is much higher and far firmer than it used to be. After a few days getting used to it though, I wouldn’t have it any other way! The Spec B pads prove to be really good when just tooling around town too. Not once have I had that first stab at the pedal to find not much there which some other performance pads are known for (*coughs* EBC red stuff). I haven’t been around a circuit yet but so far through the twisties I haven’t had any fade at all.

The other change I’m getting used are the new wheels and tyres. The car feels much more solid and planted now, in hindsight making it feel under-tyred on the old 16-inchers. Initial turn in is very sharp but, from the middle of the corner out, it will still eventually give in to understeer if you try to carry a stupid amount of speed. I’ve been guilty of intentionally turning in to slower corners too aggressively just to feel how much the car grips up on these tyres – it really is amazing. It’s a good thing I’m not still into drag racing anymore because with the grip at hand I think any attempt at a launch would result in a massive bog down or a good chance of something breaking!

In the wet they are surprisingly capable for such an aggressive tyre with good resistance to aquaplaning in heavy rain but for spirited driving the pace needs to be kept low with slow-in fast-out the name of the game. It’s not terrible but compared to something that’s really good in the wet, like the Goodyear Eagle F1s, it’s a long way behind.

Just to reiterate my point though; the Bridgestone RE070s cream anything else I’ve ever driven on in the dry with the possible exception of the Falken RT615s. The only way up from these is a proper ‘R’ compound tyre.

Final verdict? Forget big turbos and huge power, big brakes and sticky tyres are the go!

Benji

2012
03/28
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Project STI – New Anchors

Front Calipers Old vs New

Fitting up the shiny new wheels has resulted in a small catch; the old brakes look terribly small! Time to fix that!

After a few weeks scouring internet forums and online auction sites I finally scored a set of 2002 STI front and rear calipers, front rotors and braided lines. Getting the rears sorted would require a few choice bits.

I needed a special rotor from DBA that suits the GC hub and the GD rotor.

Front Discs Old vs New

They have it listed as ‘Brembo Conversion Rotor,’ which is really awesome as it saves you having to change the hubs. I had to pick up some ‘dog bone’ adapters so the rear calipers would sit in the correct spot. And finally, I decided on Project Mu Spec B pads and some Dot 5.1 fluid.

Front

Rear Discs Old vs New

Changing over the front brakes really was as easy as unbolting the old calipers, changing discs and bolting on the new calipers. We flushed the old fluid out, did the brakes lines up and that’s it.

The rears were a bit trickier as the ‘dog bone’ adapters didn’t fit properly so we had to modify them a bit with a hacksaw and a heavy file. Then it was new fluid in, a lot of pedal pumping and we were done.

Rear

So just a quick summary. The standard front rotors were 292mm and the new fronts are 330mm. Not sure of the exact size of the rears but the new rears are bigger than the old fronts!

Tyres have gone from 16-inch 205/50 to 17-inch 225/45. If the car doesn’t feel good after this I’ll be very surprised!

Benji

2012
01/31
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Project STI – New Boots

With all the bits back on the car post-defect, Koop was running well. Unfortunately stopping with the standard brakes was becoming more of a problem. While fairly capable, they always left me wondering if the middle pedal was going to do anything after a few hard stops – not what you want for spirited driving.

After a bit of homework I decided the best option was to bolt up the Brembos from the 2002 WRX STI. This conversion is very common and there’s loads of help available on the net.

For this to happen I’d first need some bigger wheels as the standard 16s have no chance of clearing the bigger brakes.

I’d always wanted some BBS GTs in gold, a la STI 22b, but then I discovered the OZ Superleggera. This is the wheel Subaru used on the WRC car for tarmac events. Just to complicate my decision, I then discovered Yokohama Advan RGIIs, a very aggressive looking wheel. Ultimately though, all three options were just too expensive. The cheapest being the Advans and they came in at an eye-watering $830 per wheel…for 17s!

After wearing out Google images I eventually found the Rota GRA in gold, which are very similar to the Superleggeras.

An order was placed and two weeks later, like a kid at Christmas, I was opening my four new wheel-sized boxes. A quick trip to my local tyre shop for some semi-slick Bridgestone RE070 rubber and Koopa was looking very old school WRC indeed – Mint.

Next up; Brembos!

Benji

2012
01/11
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Project Sil80 – Monster Catch Can

A difficult part of leaving one state for another for work is abandoning your loved ones; family, friends, partners, etc. Or in my case, the Pig.

Upon returning to Victoria an idea popped into my head while downing yet another can of Monster Energy Drink. I’d seen a few people (such as Mad Mike and his off chops RX-7) using real or look-a-like Red Bull cans as oil catch cans in the engine bay and thought it scored a solid eight or nine out of ten on the rad scale.

I wanted one!

Being a pretty big fan of Mr Ken Block’s work and coming to the conclusion that the black and green livery of Monster would work far better in my reasonably tame engine bay, the decision was made to go with the green ‘M’.

Step one involved me thoroughly enjoying the last few drops of liquid excitement, rinsing the can and cutting off the top and bottom. As I already had a plain black catch can installed, I felt it would probably prove wiser to effectively make a new Monster ‘skin’ for the current catch can instead of finding out just how good (or bad) a normal aluminium can would work. This also meant I’d avoid the extra stuff-around of having to fit up a new drain plug and all the other bits and pieces.

Trimming up the can went well with just some household scissors and a little bit of care. This left me with a nice, malleable sheet of aluminium to work with.

I removed the catch can mounting bracket and oil level indicator and checked and double checked the position of the skin, employing the ‘measure twice, drill once’ approach to fabrication.

As the skin was slightly smaller than the catch can itself, I lined up the gap with the back of the can where the bracket would go, thus resulting in the front looking shmick.

Two holes needed to be drilled for the oil level indicator bolts and I found a block of wood behind the skin made things a lot easier.

A sneaky little tweak was then performed by folding the top and bottom edges of the can using the highly specialised ‘put the edge of the skin just slightly over the lip of a piece of wood and gently ‘roll’ it by tapping it with a hammer head wrapped in a soft cloth’ technique. This worked far too well.

Finally some strategically placed double-sided tape went around the edges of the skin and one down the centre to ensure it doesn’t slide off and look sub-par.

Then the oil level indicator and bracket went back on and my new Monster Energy Drink sponsored catch can was bolted back into Piggo and the oil breather lines hooked back up.

All up it took about two hours but you could probably bash one out in about an hour or maybe even half an hour, depending on how much Monster you’ve consumed.

Dave

2012
01/05
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Project Sil80 – Boot Respray

You might remember the last Pig update involved me finally removing the last of the sound deadener from the rear of the car – YAY! This was great but led to the next step: wanting it painted.

Anyone who’s ever painted anything car related will know that this simple idea of a fresh hit of paint never goes smoothly and is never as quick and easy as one might first think. And this was proved again recently on the Pig.

First things first; I wasn’t about to take out the excess weight of the sound deadening just to leave in the now unnecessary back seat and rear speaker frame work. This is metal, metal equals weight (plus it looked a bit shit), hence it had to go. These metal brackets/supports were tack welded in place, so simply tugging at them and screaming wasn’t going to get the job done, although I did try this approach. After that failed I instead tried drilling through the welds and incorporated the use of some gentle persuasion with a chisel and a hammer, this did wonders.

With the brackets removed the car looked good, bar the holes that now pock-marked the whole boot.

Some wise employment of one of my favourite materials, the ever amazing fibreglass, and the holes were patched.

Then all that was needed was some sanding, more sanding, a touch more sanding, a little more of a sand, one more good sand then a final sand. Ah, isn’t prepping for paint great?

Next all I had to do was prep the rest of the boot space so it would all be even and hold the new paint well. I went with 40 Grit then 80 Grit then 120 Grit for all the areas with fibreglass and then over the whole lot with 120 Grit then 350 Grit and finally a wet rub with 600 Grit – mmm smooth.

Now that the area being painted was ready to go, the next key step before cracking cans of VHT’s finest Satin Black involved masking and covering up everything that I didn’t want black. This meant the windows, roof, cage, boot latch, tail lights, wiring, seatbelts and the entire front half of the car. As you can imagine this didn’t take too long at all, if by ‘not too long’ you mean a sticky, frustrating, fiddly eternity – this bit was not fun. I did however have a genius moment of deciding to use a plastic painter’s drop sheet to block out the whole front of the car and it worked a treat.

Once everything was masked up I could safely climb into the boot and start converting my multi-coloured, rough-looking boot into a shmick satin black masterpiece.

I thought it best to start with the back seat floor area as trying to avoid wet paint in the rest of the boot while fart-arsing around inside the boot might have proven difficult if a little stupid.

Take your time when painting with cans to avoid runs and make sure you do it on a day with plenty of sunshine and warmth around; painting in high humidity or rain or cold will generally give you a less than great result. Also be smart and wear protective gear such as a mask and goggles and maybe even a silly hat.

After this floor bit was looking better, I moved onto the wheel arches, strut towers, bottom of the quarter windows and finally onto the main boot floor and spare wheel well. A few breaks to let things settle and dry and three cans of paint later and the job was done. I checked over all the surfaces before unmasking everything looking for any patchiness or unevenness and then just touched up a few areas that didn’t look quite as good as they could have.

A couple of days later and it was time for the big reveal. I unmasked everything and BONZAI, I hadn’t painted my seats, roof or any of my windows black – Bonus. It came up pretty wicked and I’m well chuffed with it. It looks a whole lot better all black too rather than being a mosaic of green, black, white and fibreglass.

The final piece that set it off nicely was the reinstallation of my Cusco rear strut brace I picked up a while ago but probably forgot to mention.

Dave

2011
01/19
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Project STI Update – The Put Back

Following on from the whole McLeod episode I now have a thorough understanding of how the Police and EPA work together in cases like mine. The previous times I’ve had cops under my bonnet have resulted in defects for the parts they knew were naughty, so I thought this was how it worked. I’d never made any attempt to hide parts as they can always find something anyway.

What happened differently this time was the officer who inspected old Rexo put together a detailed report which he then sent to the EPA (instead of writing up a defect to be cleared at Vic Roads). This report stated that I had a Power FC, no blow-off valve, front mounted intercooler, pod filter and a boost controller.

Based on this report, the EPA is allowed to instantly fine me before they have even inspected the car! So I could have avoided the fine by hiding the Power FC and boost controller, putting on a plumb back BOV and boxing up the pod filter. Devastating! Obviously I still would have had to go and pass an EPA test but they would never have known the original state of modification.

So with this in mind let’s get around to re-modifying Koopa! (I’m not really learning!)

Dave and I, in typical fashion, started working on the car in the late afternoon ensuring we would be at it until the wee hours of the morning. Oh and the temperature was already down to about 10 degrees so we’d be earning it. One smart move we did make was to buy car ramps to make the exhaust swap easier but even with the front bar removed we didn’t have enough clearance to get him up there – Bugger! Some wood-plank ‘engineering’ later and we eventually had him perched up.

We started by removing the horrible standard exhaust which is always a nice feeling considering the aftermarket system is so much better in every possible way. It’s really alarming to see how the stock dump pipe just has a plate over the wastegate side of the turbo. We had this changed over and the Varex motor connected in no time.

We had to remove the front strut brace to get the stock ‘inter heater’ off. With the front bar already off, the front mount and all its piping went back on rather easily.

I decided to put the aftermarket blow off valve back on and to plump it back this time, making it all a bit more legal.

An added bonus I hadn’t counted on is that it’s actually more drivable like this too – who’d of thought huh?

We wanted to get the ride height as low as legally possible (100mm) but there is a resonator in the exhaust which sits a full 35mm lower than the next lowest point on the car so I will get that removed at some point in the future.

I was planning to leave the stock air box on but in the spirit of the moment it got ditched for the pod filter setup as the box would need modifying to bolt up to the Z32 air flow meter (well that’s my excuse but its just that I can’t stand having no turbo noises!) Once we plugged the Power FC and boost controllers back in (both very well hidden now) it was all systems go.

It’s amazing how awesome it felt to have all the sounds and performance back again; it really is worth all the dramas.

Keep it rubber side down,

Benji

2011
01/17
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Project Sil80 – Sound Deadening Removal Part 2 + Gauge Wiring Tidy Up

A little while ago I spent some time removing most of the sound deadening out of The Pig but I had a final portion yet to complete.

A nice day, some motivation and another trip down to BOC and its now almost all gone. Last time I tackled the boot and a bit of the back seat area which is all done now, leaving me with only the slightly fiddley rear wheel arches to go but its not much at all. It looks awesome now and is almost ready for a quick prep and then some paint – getting excited.

I again incorporated the much touted ‘bag’ technique, as used last time, along with just letting the little dry ice pellets run free all over the sound deadening. A short wait and some ‘hammertime’ later and big chunks were again breaking off nicely. I final tidy up with the help of a screwdriver to lift up some last pieces and the job was done.

I also decided to tidy up the wiring for my aftermarket gauges mounted on the dash. I wanted things to look neater as well as be a little safer considering the ends of the wires were dangling a little close to my fire extinguisher and I really didn’t want to have to worry about pulling out all my gauges in one fell swoop while trying to stop my car from potentially going up in flames.

A quick trip to Autobarn resulted in a metre of cable neatening pipe stuff and a fresh bag of cable ties (oh how I do love cable ties).

Now I’m not going to lie, it was pretty time consuming and annoying to carefully stuff all the wiring into the black pipe stuff even though it is slit down the middle. But all the dicking around was well worth it in the end, it looks heaps better and much, much neater.

Once the wires were more or less in as far as they would go, I used a friendly and always helpful cable tie to keep it in its place while I moved on to the next section. I repeated this until all the wires were in the pipe and secured and then drilled two small holes into the side of the centre consol, creating an extra little bracket with the assistance of, yup you guessed it, another cable tie.

All done and finished the wires are now safely out of the way of both the fire extinguisher and the glove box plus it looks ace.

More cheap and easy mods that really do make a difference, now as for my motor…

Dave

2010
07/20
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