My lil Bugeye

So I got a 2003 silver rex. I am loving it so far. It came with a TurboXS TBE and up pipe, Cobb stage 2, 18" wheels, Viper Alarm, eibach springs, STIish spoiler, and a mild system. So far I have no pictures of the car. I will try to get some on here in the near future.

Parts on the way:

Ebay TMIC
Saamco hoses
putting new decent sub in today from one of my other cars before I sell it
grounding it with home made grounding kit
New carbon scoop

Future plans:

pro-tune
various reliability parts such as oil cooler, shroud
dynomat-type stuff for trunk and maybe doors
Undecided on new turbo, but who knows!

 

nice

 

Sounds nice. Are you going to the Subaru Challenge?

Any pics?

 

very nice! need pics though

 

Pics to come. I wanted to get the new scoop and intercooer installed first. The scoop is on now. Dedicating my before work time to finishing up the amps and getting the scoop on. THEN I will have time to get it to a wash and make it presentable...I am a Go guy. The show is only good if it can back it up!

 

Nice! I have a 03 as well i love it. Glad to see some one else rockin the bugeyes.

 

Installed a new amp and rewired the system tonight. Now rather than the crappy sups that were in it, I have a mild 250 watt RMS mono, a 400 watt 4x100 going to the fronts and as soon as I replace the rears with something decent I will hook up the rear speakers to the other 200 watts coming off the 400 amp. Next comes the new TMIC and hoses.

 

And grounding kit, and AEM short ram, and turbo inlet pipe, and...ok so I am a tad bit addicted!

 

you were already ahead of the game the car was started before you got it but it nuthin like your own mods.

 

Ebay SSautochrome TMIC installed today. Love it. Flows .9 psi better than stock. Good fit, easy install (even though it is the first one I have ever done!) No instructions, but I figured it out. Bad part is I will have to take it right back off to do the turbo inlet pipe sometime in the next week or two, lol. But, at least I know how to do it!

 

the inlet pipe is going to be a royal pain... good luck

 

Is it just hooking up all the various hoses that mount on to the inlet pipe that is so bad?

 

i havent done it but from what i hear, taking the stocker off and getting the new one in the right place is a REAL pain

 

Yeah, its a nightmare if you intend on doing it without removing the intake manifold. It took me several hours and several bloody knuckles (and it destroyed the factory inlet hose in the process).

How are you liking the scoop by the way?

 

Loving it!! Some have said that I should paint it, but I like the look of raw carbon...funny thing is my car is now confused with an STI all the time by non subaru people. They see the wing and the scoop and just assume. Well, I managed on the intercooler. It was a bit of a pain, but not too bad. I guess it is time to press my luck a bit. I plan on replacing the stock turbo with another stocker I found that is brand new. It had 1k miles on it and I got it for $150+10 shipping. Got it yesterday and it looks absolutely brand new. I am just trying to decide if I want to do that one or go ahead with a 16g before actually putting anything more on. I figure with the turbo out it might make the inlet pipe a bit easier. I have heard that the aftermarket intakes make the car run a bit lean. I am currently running rich enough to backfire when I let off of it for shifts. I think this is due to running cobb stage 2 and only hitting 15.4 (14.5 before new TMIC). Thinking with the AEM short ram it might even things out a bit. Might do that this weekend.

 

Glad you like the scoop, man. Backfires are pretty normal tho, especially when you are catless, and even more so if you are running an atmospheric BOV.

I'm not sure about with an AP, but as a whole, Subies dont really like that AEM intake. The diameter of the bore at the mass air flow sensor differs from the factory 65mm. It can cause air flow issues that can be corrected with ecutek, but like i said im not sure if the accessport will correct for it. Just to let you know.

 

accessport most diffenetly will NOT correct for the smaller/larger diameter, as far as cobb is concerned anything but the factory box is a big no no with a stage 2 flash.

 

but protune can correct it right?

 

Yeah protune will fix it. Oh on the turbo inlet you CAN NOT take the stocker off without destroying it if you are not gonna remove the manifold. There is a vaccum bung that has to be broke and cut off. Installing the new one is a breeze compaired to removing the stocker but don't let that discourage ya. It takes a little brawn, and creativity and patience. You want to be careful with the wire loom at the front and carefully slide it over that bolt hole on the front of the turbo Inlet tube (TIT :keke . You will see it....its an allen bolt on the front of the manifold that holds the TIT in place. After you slide that wire loom over that bolt piece you are homeward bound....wiggle and pull and wiggle. Look at the back of the TIT near the turbo and you will see the bung that has to be broken and snapped off in order for it to be removed.

 

still got the high flow cat on, havin trouble finding 3" exhaust gasket..., don't have atmospheric, stock recirc...not sre why so rich, but switching turbos soon i hope. Will get a tune then.

 

Hit 16.8 last night. Still slow to spool, but might be faulty stock bov.

 

Ok got the new IxizShfit shifter on. Wrote a review on it with some install notes and tips. Nice part. Still running rich, still spooling like it has been. Maybe with some of this cool air coming our way things will change.

 

Time to get some pics I guess...I ordered some cheapo gauges yesterday. They are the glow shift gauges, but hard to beat $90 shipped for 2 gauges and a pod. I'll write a review after they are installed and I get a chance to evaluate them some.

 

Grounding kit made and installed today. Tech reviewed it. Me likey! Guess now it is time to seriously save some cash for a TD05-18g or TD05-super 16g and get the thing tuned!

 

Yeah, I want to see my scoop on your car!!

 

OK, ok tomorrow! I will get some before I go ship out the gears I sold. (Wife's old 4.30 gears from her GT).

 

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

 

Rainey day pictures. Well this is it. Nothing too spectacular on the outside, just a good looking bug-eye. For the most part I hope to keep the exterior pretty stock looking. I like the sleeper effect! I have even thought of painting the carbon scoop, but I have always liked the look of raw carbon.

 

Nice! I love the bugeye.

 

Car looks really good in person I might add

Was wondering what wheels those were too.

 

Not sure, they came on the car. They are a little buggered up...a little oxydation or something in some places, but I like them enough to try to clean them up. I am probably going t try to take care of that this week some time.

 

Ordered Street tuner and wideband yesterday. Hopefully they should come in before the weekend considering ST was from a shop here in the Atlanta area. UPS should get it to me by tomrrow if it is shipped today (hoping it does not take longer than a day to process!) The wide band may take a couple days as it was from a company up north.

 

What kind of wideband? I love the Innovate unit. Works well.

 

The innovate one I believe it was the LC-1 Lambda cable with sensor for $199 shipped.

 

What are you using to read it? Street tuner?

 

Yeah street tuner is compatable with the LC-1. I think it also comes with a disk where it can be read on any laptop, but in my application, I will be using street tuner to read it. With ST you just download a plug in and it picks it up.

 

Wideband got here all the way from Michigan. Just waiting on the street tuner software from Marietta...little sad a guy from michigan beat someone from Marietta in shipping, lol.

 

Was really hoping to get everything this weekend to play with...that was one reason I ordered the software from a local vendor. I figured at the latest today (Friday)...Nice would have been Thursday, but I understand it takes a little while to process the order and put it in the mail...

 

The rides coming along great though. Good job on all the mods. :bigthumb:

 

Ok got the boost gauge in tonight, pics to come...turns out that they shipped me the wrong gauge and what was supposed to be an AF gauge was an oil pressure gauge :/ I did not noticed as they are blacked out gauges! So went ahead and wired everything up. I will just daisy the gauges together when the new one gets here. Waiting on the wideband until new gauge gets here or the ST software gets here...not sure which will be first!

Edit: These gauges SUCK in the daytime!! Can't read them at all due to glare and being so dim. Also boost will not go above 12.5 psi and is off bad at any given point according to the AP.

 

Time to find some reasonable decent gauges...just not ready to fork over $500 for 2 defi's :/

 

I paid $180 for both my Defi's. Search for the older 'D' series (I think that is it) that don't require the brain thingy.

 

Got an autometer on the way. Out with the glowshift and back to the factory for them.

 

Got the LC-1 hooked up. Software for Street Tune just showed up today. Hopefully I will get some time to play with that tomorrow. Serial->Usb is throwing me fits. MY laptop and the converters are fighting!!!

 

Street tuner is finally installed. My first impressions of this is that there is a great deal of user adjustability. Not sure what else the pro-tune software adds, but this is pretty in depth. Most of the stuff I am not going to touch at this point. I am however planning on doing a new intake in the very near future...just one more thing to get out of the way before the new turbo and injectors. I am however going to wait on the turbo inlet pipe until the turbo is off....that thing looks like it could be a pain. I realize I probably will not see the full gains of either the inlet pipe or the intake until I have something more than the stock turbo, but we will see what it is like.

I really do like the Street tuner software though. Very well done, easy to use and has some tuning hints with it. The only issue I have had thus far is getting the wideband to plug into the ST software...so far it is not displaying anything, but i can always monitor in the logworks software provided with the LC-1.

I also replaced the GlowShift gauge with an Autometer C2 boost gauge today. I do like it, but it is BRIGHT at night. It seems to be very responsive...I did not use the included tubing though. I went with some high pressure 5/32 line from autozone and a little rigging at the end to make it work. As soon as I send back the Glowshift crap I am getting an Autometer A/F gauge to mate up to my LC-1 and will program the output to have a visable wideband gauge out of a narrow band AF autometer gauge!!

 

Got the AEM short ram installed today. About to go start tuning for it as best I can. I'll review it after I get a chance to drive it a bit.

 

Aem is mostly tuned for now. Idle is better than with my stock box. Temps go up a bit faster now though...time to isolate it. Street tuner and the LC-1 are now playing well together so I can actually start messing around a bit with the tuning. On a bad note my car now has some JB weld on it :/ but it is better than paying $200 for a new wastegate actuator on a turbo I plan on replacing within the next month or two.

 

Ghetto redneck... :keke:

J/k man. Liking the StreetTuner?

 

Ya I am, it is pretty complex trying to determine how all the values come together to make a change, but I am learning. I need to just sit down with it for a day and just log, run, log, run and compare changes back to back. I am also trying to figure what is causing the kick in the nuts below 4200 rpm and the kick in the pants after. Below it is kinda slugish and not quite right, after it just screams...but it is at full boost by 3200. Also it was making full boost (23.xx psi) by 3200 when I had the wastegate actuator malfunction and now it is only making 17 by then...seems like there is some way I could be making 17 sooner, just have to play with it. I did some manipulation of the wastegate duty cyycles and boost levels today and had some improvement. Just have to keep tweaking it. THEN I have to figure out why it is getting the crazy acceleration starting at 4200 rpm...I am thinking fuel leve and timing change. Just have to look and analyze it. Also when I get the new turbo I plan on getting it tuned by SS. I am sure I will learn a TON that day.