First Power Mod

I'd skip the intake and hold the bucks till you need a pro-tune down the road.. I don't care for the SPT line. Unfortunately, there are no cheap mods for our car......

 

Wanna bet? While the list pricing on new stuff is pretty high, you can do a LOT for a little if you're willing to learn. How about 280+ whp for < $1k?

 

moose, give me the lowdown, I'm willing and able to do that.

 

Check this thread for some brainstorming we did...

http://www.wrxatlanta.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9402

 

I would do engine management before UP/DP on an 04/05.

 

Sorry, I should've written a bit more.. the reason being the closed loop to open loop delay which is a bad thing on a stock car and just made worse with mods. It's an absolute abomination and Subaru should be ashamed of it, and it should be the first thing anybody addresses before making power mods.

 

Yes, engine management is the way to deal with it; it's just a set of parameters in an ECU table.

 

Yep, or OpenECU for a fraction of the cost

 

Tactrix cable (<$100)
ECU flash Free
STg1 ROM Free

SOG bucks - Diff and tranny oil change, oil filters, alignment, etc,....

 

Moose and I are on similar tracks - OPENEcu yes
he has more knowledge and im just tagging along andd learning and have some fun

 

Safe ? only you can answer that Q.
You are in full control of it. I would not enter a digit if i dont know what will happen if i do so.

SS can tune with OpenEcu As well, just make sure your AC is working

 

Or gut your cats, go OpenEcu and flash stage 2 right? I went a different route and I am not disappointed in any way. I already had an accesport as well as a TBE on my car when I bought it. I paid an additional $400 and got Street Tuner as well as a LC-1Wideband O2 sensor for my car. Self tuning is fun, but read a lot first or ya can screw things up.

 

Will I need a gutted UP on a 06 WRX? Someone said it's the same as in a 06 STi, SS informed me that the UP on the car is totally fine to work with other DP and exhaust. How hard is it to have MAPs with openECU? Do I need to have my own laptop to do this (I have my old one from college which is very tempermental). The possibilities are looking good with openECU, which frees up $600 to put in safety or or bolster the upgrade.

Can someone link a post or website comparing openECU to AP? Pros and Cons? Thanks

 

Yes, the 06 doesn't have a cat in the UP.

You need a laptop to flash changes to the ECU.

As for pros and cons, you really need to read up and judge for yourself. Each person has different priorities as to what is important and what is not. There's an OpenECU sticky thread in the power/engine/something forum here that I put together a few months ago that would be a good start.

By the way, they are doing testing on the real time tuning with Enginuity now. Not up to speed on the details, but apparently they had a massive breakthrough in that area.

 

But if he is going to buy a gutted UP, he may just want to look around for an used aftermarket UP as they can often be had for similar prices...

 

if your laptop or cable is questionable - dont try it
And if your car battery is weak dont do it either
one slip there and you may need a new ECU

 

Just make sure you get all the nastiness out of there. You really have to make sure it is ALL gone. No real cons except better spool and more power. Cheaper than a TBE aftermarket, but does not yeild quite the same gains. Alex beat me to it....damn you lightning fingers!

 

Well, briefly:

The stock O2 sensor is a narrowband sensor and is only accurate within a very small range. Ergo, it can only work reliably for anything near 'cruise A/F ratio' which is normally 14.7:1. This is 'closed loop' where the car keeps checking the O2 readings to ensure that it's fueling appropriately. It will make any necessary corrections in the short and long term fuel trim tables.

14.7:1 is entirely too lean to run on a turbo car under boost. You want to run closer to 11:1 or in that general neighborhood. Since the stock O2 sensor can't provide any accuracy in that range, the ECU is essentially 'flying blind' and fueling the car based on calculated values (injector size, MAF scaling etc, as well as the fuel trim tables mentioned above). This is 'open loop'; open meaning no feedback from the O2 sensor is taken into consideration.

The issue with the 04/05 WRXs is that due to some EPA regulations (at least that's the most common story), a mandatory 'enrichment delay' was put into the ECU. This forces the ECU to wait a certain amount of time (2-3 seconds) after open loop is triggered before it actually moves from closed to open loop fueling. During this time your engine starts making lots of boost and RPMs, and the end result is that open loop and richer fueling doesn't kick in until well AFTER it is triggered/needed. Basically, you'll be running very lean under boost, which is not good. The 'stumble' you can feel is when the ECU finally is allowed to enter open loop and radically enriches the fueling.

Hope that makes sense.

 

I love the Helix catted one, and it has a bung for wideband sensor which is a nice bonus.

I would recommend doing the uppipe as well, since you don't want to give the cat that's in there more incentive to poop itself into the turbo...

 

^^Agreed on the UP. As for DP I have a turbo-xs 4"-3" bellmouth that I like quite a bit. You can actually hear the turbo a bit.