From MKV GTI to GR STI 2 years later

[Noside]

Its been a while since I traded in my MKV GTI about 2 years to date exactly!
Anyways I've done a ton of work and just wanted to share what I have finally done.
To start here's what my MKV looked like



Then here she is bone stock pretty much on the way to the LIMKVBBQ shot by Ronaldo


And then about 40k miles later, a stg2+ setup, some meth and this happend!!


After that it then became time to start to a rebuild.
Sure enough I weighed out my options, talked to various engine builders and settled on one very smart guy. Sean from Vigilant Motorsports to build one of his signature track series short blocks.
· 2.5 Liter STi semi-closed deck case
· Modified forged EJ257 crankshaft
· High Performance ACL Main & Rod Bearings
· Pauter 4340 Chrome-Moly Forged Rods
· CP Forged Pistons w/ Moly Coated Skirts
· High Performance Piston Rings
· Fully Balanced & Blueprinted
· 8,500 Rev Limit Recommended

With that I decided I wouldn't be installing an amazing engine on the stock turbo and things got a little out of hand! with parts like these showing up



Engine/Power adders
Vigilant Motor Sports Track Series Short Block, built by Sean @ Vigilant Manley Sport Compact Valve Springs and Retainers
60@1.420 / 151@1.050 / 187@0.895 ( these were the lightest upgraded springs I could find, I didn't want to overload the stock valves with a double spring )
KillerB Motor Sport Oil Pan, Pickup, and Baffle
Injector Dynamics 1000CC Injectors
Perrin Black Fuel Rail kit
DW 65C pump
Snow Performance Stg3 WMI -4AN custom dual port
KS Tech MegaMAF Type 3 CAI
Agency Power 3" Solid Turbo Inlet
Process West TMIC
Forge BPV
CNT catless bell mouth DP
ERZ quad CBE
Tomei EL headers
IAG 38mm EWG 3 bolt uppipe
Tial 38mm EWG
GrimmSpeed EBCS
Engaged Performance PNP Throttle Body / Intake Manifold / TGV Deletes
OEM Engine Gasket Set
FluiDampr
Gates Racing timing belt kit with water pump
Gates Racing power steering and alternator belt
OEM 12mm Oil Pump
OEM Oil Cooler
Tomei Timing belt guide
NGK 1 step colder plugs
Torque Solution air pump delete plates
Perrin alternator and radiator covers
Torque Solution 12mm exhaust hangers
Blouch Dominator 5.0XTR the biggest, baddest mammer-jammer bolt-on turbo for the Subaru WRX/STi offered by Blouch

Drivetrain / Suspension / Mounts / Bushings
Clutch Masters Fx300 segmented kevlar disk
OEM Flywheel
TigWerks Motor Mounts
Torque Solution Pitch Stop
Groupe N Trans Mount
Torque Solution Positive Shift kit
Torque Solution Prop shaft inserts
Torque Solution rear shifter bushing
Perrin Shifter bushing insert
SPT OEM Short throw shifter
Fortune Auto Dreadnought Coilovers, 9kF/10kRR Custom Swift Spring rates (Ordered Nov 9th)
Whiteline 24mm front and rear adjustable sway bars
Kart Boy solid endlinks
GT Spec rear lower control arms
Cusco Front power brace

Exterior
INGS+1 shaved and smoothed Front Bumper
Painted grill
Rear De-badged
Red outline tails
Rally Armor mud flaps
WeatherTech Rain Guards
DressupBolts.com Ti dress up kit

Wheels / Tires / Brakes / Lugs
OEM 18" Forged BBS silver wheels on 255/35/18 hankook ventus v12 Evo k110
17x8 Sparco wheel 235/45/17 blizzak lm-60
Hawk HPS pads
Fortune Auto Ti Smart series lugs.

Interior / Gauges
SMY CluterMaker Dual gauge pod
AEM tru boost digital boost gauge
AEM Wideband Uego Digital gauge
NYRM98 triple 52mm A pillar gauge pod
Prosport Evo Oil Pressure gauge
Prosport Evo Oil Temp Gauge
Prosport Evo EGT gauge
FlossyShop.com Redheaded Shorty shift knob

About 3 weeks ago IAG Performance came 200 miles up from MD to NJ to pick the car up for me!



IAG has been an absolute pleasure to work with, I have to add.
I got the car back about 2 weeks ago on the break in tune and this is what I now have






No power numbers yet, final tune is scheduled end of April but we are hoping to see over 501AWHP

Enjoy I just wanted to share what I have been up to for the past 2 years would love to hear your guys comments / criticism.


















Just wanted to update, got the pump gas daily file done, this is on a low reading dynojet no correction factors 82* and about 3 and a half hours on the dyno heating up. only 22psi and max 14.5* timing. So very very safe


93oct no meth 22psi no correction

in car videos
16-17psi sport mode

22psi Sport#





And this is what happens when I leave for a day and my g/f decides she wants a new car!



Next time out, 30psi + meth should pick up about another solid 100whp. For ref we ran the car at 13-14psi wastegate pressure and made 300awhp, so picked up about 80whp with 8psi bump no timing or a/f adjustments, another 8psi with timing and a/f adjustments should get pretty wicked!

[maverickar15]

Good looking GR!

If you don't mind me asking, which cylinder # was that? 4? 2?

[Noside]

It was #2

[stevegolf]

I was hoping to read some driving impressions. Whats that beast like now? Looks like a sick build, those gold wrapped intercooler parts look like they could go on the space shuttle

[Calcvictim]

Que up 12mph jokes.



Sick build

[Noside]

Heat is going to be number one enemy so I spared no expense in insulating the car. besides the small fortune in heat insulating DEI materials I also had steps taken like deleting the water temp regualted throttle body etc.


There's about 150 ft of titanium exhaust wrap covering my headers all the way back to my CBE and my turbo has a titanium blanket on it. I know why didn't you just get a FMIC? well my bumper seals up the front end completely flush to the ac codensor and I did not want to hack away at my bumper along with I wanted to keep everything in the stock location to keep spool up times to a minimum. I have good reason for not hacking up the bumper it took about 4 months to get, 2 weeks in the body shop and a little over 2 grand to get it done.

Driving impressions, its nice, its smooth you wouldn't even be able to tell that so much is done to my car, no emissions systems, no tgv's, ported TB, big injectors, monster MAF etc. No CEL's no rough idle even on cold starts she fires right up and idles right where she would have in stock trim. A lot of the built big turbo STI's raise their idle to 11-1200. Largely this is in part to the tuner Jorge@IAG he knows exactly what he is doing without hitch!
MPG's have remained the same which are crappy about 27-28 if I'm lucky.
Turbo starts to spool up at ~3900 rpms and kicks ass just at only 12 psi but unfortunately right now it is short lived as I'm still breaking it in and shut it down by ~4600 rpms.
If I can make full spool 28psi by 4500 rpms I will be extremely happy considering this turbo is a 65lb/min GTX35R wheel stuffed into a stock location housing. 11 more days and I'll some real numbers no worries! there are a lot of mixed reviews as to what this is going to do since no one has used this turbo on this sort of a setup before.

[l88m22vette]

Where did you get the gold insulation, and what was the cost? I'd love some McLaren F1 wannabe bling for my BT project

[mk_ultra]

nice

[simple]

Damn that is a serious list of parts. It must be awesome!

[tiopedro]

Wow!

You, sir, do some real work!

[DOQ fastlane]

wow.. so proper.

[mariok2006]

Can you please disclose how much something like this costs? I understand that it might cause a mental breakdown.

[HolyRollie]

Very nice.

[C4 A6]

My god...best STi I've seen in a LONG time.

And shout out to Fortune Auto!

[Noside]

Where did you get the gold insulation, and what was the cost? I'd love some McLaren F1 wannabe bling for my BT project

Go to summitracing.com Its from DEI but summit has better prices and their shipping is very quick. If I order from them in the AM I'll have my package generally within 2 days.

nice

Thank you!

Damn that is a serious list of parts. It must be awesome!

Its good considering I had to drive my 91 cavalier around while this was down for 3 months, but it is only going to get better!

Wow!

You, sir, do some real work!

Much appreciated, I have to shout out that IAG did most of the work but this is my plan and my parts I had two 55 gallon tubs full of parts I ordered for them to take when they came!

wow.. so proper.

right back at ya

Can you please disclose how much something like this costs? I understand that it might cause a mental breakdown.

You're looking at about $20k from stock to fully built, suspension, tires everything.
If you want to see a specific break down and close ups of everything that isn't obviously seen check out my build thread.
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show....php?t=2310293
There are a lot of little things that I covered to make sure that this build would have almost no limitations once I get on the dyno after break in.

Very nice.

My god...best STi I've seen in a LONG time.

And shout out to Fortune Auto!

Thank you, I tried bringing about a little clean OEMness with some serious flare under the hood.

Fortune has been great to me, I have their top o' the line dreadnoughts which drive great despite having custom spec 9kFR/10kRR springs and being pretty low IMO.
They stayed in constant contact with me along the 3 and a half month wait for these bad boys to be built in japan and I'm very happy I went with them in the end.

Did I mention this is Daily Driven?

[nismo4life]

Hah. I had cylinder #4 ringland crack 3 times in under 12 months. Ended up lemoning the car and got my money back for the most part. Sucks to see yours suffered the same fate .

[Brendan@bwalkauto]

I'm not the biggest fan of GR STI's (I'm stuck in the 1990's and my love for GC's is as strong as ever), but that is one clean build, and I could see myself DD'ing that bad boy. Enjoy it!

[Noside]

Hah. I had cylinder #4 ringland crack 3 times in under 12 months. Ended up lemoning the car and got my money back for the most part. Sucks to see yours suffered the same fate .

Well I wouldn't say it suffered. More like evolved
Failure was largely due to to much power. I had a maxed out stock turbo setup for 30k miles. Then I got greedy with the tuning then it went pop. Simple as that I don't hold Subaru accountable for anything I didn't even try to make a warranty claim.

[SnowGTI2003]

Oh wow..... Looks great!

I like how the oil filler cap was drilled for the AOS oil return line. Sort of a better version of the Grimmspeed AOS.

[Noside]

Oh wow..... Looks great!

I like how the oil filler cap was drilled for the AOS oil return line. Sort of a better version of the Grimmspeed AOS.

No it's much better because that's not what it is there for
Oil is still returned through the back of the block under the tb through where the Pcv valve was. Pcv is deleted from the intake manifold so no chance of losing boost. That line coming from the oil filler cap is there to relieve any possible pressure in the pan. Tricked out right?

I'm not the biggest fan of GR STI's (I'm stuck in the 1990's and my love for GC's is as strong as ever), but that is one clean build, and I could see myself DD'ing that bad boy. Enjoy it!

Thanks that means a lot coming from someone who likes the classic subies.

[SnowGTI2003]

No it's much better because that's not what it is there for
Oil is still returned through the back of the block under the tb through where the Pcv valve was. Pcv is deleted from the intake manifold so no chance of losing boost. That line coming from the oil filler cap is there to relieve any possible pressure in the pan. Tricked out right?.

Ha nice! The stock PCV system is not going to be capable of handling the blowby 500awhp is going to generate so that is probably a really smart thing to do. Smart engine builder there.

[Noside]

Just wanted to update, got the pump gas daily file done, this is on a low reading dynojet no correction factors 82* and about 3 and a half hours on the dyno heating up. only 22psi and max 14.5* timing. So very very safe


93oct no meth 22psi no correction

in car videos
16-17psi sport mode

22psi Sport#





And this is what happens when I leave for a day and my g/f decides she wants a new car!



Next time out, 30psi + meth should pick up about another solid 100whp. For ref we ran the car at 13-14psi wastegate pressure and made 300awhp, so picked up about 80whp with 8psi bump no timing or a/f adjustments, another 8psi with timing and a/f adjustments should get pretty wicked!

[rains]

Fantastic build!

[C4 A6]

Your GF bought an Evo SE?!?!??!!?

[B3passatBMX]

good lord.

[Noside]

Your GF bought an Evo SE?!?!??!!?

MR she can't drive a stick lol plus it makes for a better DD heated leather seats, sunroof, auto. It drives good but can eat my STI's dust though lol. Its nice before it kinda sucked having to drive a cobalt when I didn't want to drive the STI and since we live together its a lot nicer driving the x around town.

Its going to stay stock performance wise, 100k bumper to bumper warranty FTW, will do some cosmetics areleady have stuff on the way shorty antenna, mudflaps, rain guards basic DD stuff we like. I gave it a good wash, cut, wax, seal on saturday since the dealer did a terrible job.

[C4 A6]

Why didn't she get the wing then?

[Noside]

Cuz the wing is fugly, useless on a dd and only draws unwanted attention IMO of course.

[Lucian1988]

really nice car man. its so simple and clean looking!

just wanted to make one observation, its not really a good or bad one, and its not just you, so please dont take it the wrong way. But ive noticed that whenever a subaru owner posts his mod list, its almost always about 5 pages long. it almost always starts off with of something small happened, or decided to do minor mods, then BAM about 5 pages worth of mods. i find that strange.

[BagelConsultant]

Nice Ride! I'm currently in a 2003 WRX so a GR STI is on the list of possible next cars, should I worry about the motor blowing up if i'm not going to take it beyond a downpipe and custom tune?

[C4 A6]

Cuz the wing is fugly, useless on a dd and only draws unwanted attention IMO of course.

That's true. But no Evo is complete without a wing

Should get an Evo 9 wing like this guy.

[Noside]

really nice car man. its so simple and clean looking!

just wanted to make one observation, its not really a good or bad one, and its not just you, so please dont take it the wrong way. But ive noticed that whenever a subaru owner posts his mod list, its almost always about 5 pages long. it almost always starts off with of something small happened, or decided to do minor mods, then BAM about 5 pages worth of mods. i find that strange.

When it comes down to taking the motor out might as well replace everything. Everything has to get removed to do the short block so it was a matter of just buying the parts now and only paying one install fee or waiting.. Everything went in smooth completely 100% bolt on stock location. Minor modification was only needed on the cam cover to accommodate the fluid dampr.

That's why I went this route. Sti is my daily when it went I needed back as soon as possible. I didn't want fab work or wait times for backordered parts. Even shop times, Iag rocks they came got my car and got ot completed broken in and tuned about a whole month sooner then another shop would have even looked at my car.

Nice Ride! I'm currently in a 2003 WRX so a GR STI is on the list of possible next cars, should I worry about the motor blowing up if i'm not going to take it beyond a downpipe and custom tune?

Good luck, idk what to say mine went with a lot of timing in it so partially my fault but I certainly can not tell you that 100% stock motors won't blow either.

That's true. But no Evo is complete without a wing

Should get an Evo 9 wing like this guy.

It's got a trunk lip spoiler it looks clean and simple enough for me.

[dubjager]

I have a real soft spot for sti's. I test drove a GR when they first came out and fell in love. Was a little deterred with the engine issues, but I like how you made everythign better! Looks great!

[Noside]

I have a real soft spot for sti's. I test drove a GR when they first came out and fell in love. Was a little deterred with the engine issues, but I like how you made everythign better! Looks great!

thank you, I was stuck between the evo and sti when I was originally shopping. Yes I was slightly deturred by engine failures. But IMO its easier to build to a solid motor then it is to fight with a crappy gear box.

[Heffernan]

Very nice STI.

A big to IAG as well (see sig ). Truly a top notch company.