New to the FFR Forum but current owner of a Highly Modified WRX

[chrisarella]

Hi all. I'm new to the boards here and was looking for info on the Mark IV when I saw FFR was building something on the WRX platform. I have a ton of experience modifying and upgrading Subies so feel free to reach out to me if you ever need anything. I'm currently the owner of this monster:

http://ride.chrisarella.com/



I haven't posted any status updates on my site in a long time but it's a 400whp wagon, brought up to JDM STI spec then, went way beyond that. It's got a built/balanced STI EJ25 motor, custom heads, GT3076r turbo, headers, and more mods and upgrades than I can remember (so they're all listed on my site).

I for one am tired of their finickiness and moving on to tried and true american mucle so my next car will be a Mark IV Roadster. Anyone interested in using my car as a starting point for their 818 project just LMK. The car is going on the market this week to make way for my new car.

Anyway, just wanted to introduce myself and say hi.

[Dave Smith]

Thanks for the kind offer. I have been impressed with the volume AND quality of the Subie crowd. The more Jim and Jesper work on the design and chassis, the more they feel confident this car will be ferociously fast. The target weight is still a very realistic 1800 lbs. and we can use all the help and expertise out there. Thanks for the offer.

[Slaughter]

I will contact you soon for advice..................... Welcome to FFR

[chrisarella]

With weight like that, the low center of gravity the Subaru boxer engines have, and the power potential of the EJ series motors, I can imagine these things walking all over anything in their path.

And Dave, thanks for having the tenacity to see your dream through and share your vision with the world. I've been dreaming of owning an FFR roadster since 96. Looking forward to seeing my dreams become a reality this year. Maybe with a coyote motor in it.

Slaughter, I'm here when you need me.

[f31monkey]

Welcome dood! Thanks for offering to give advice and what not just make sure to hang around long enough so you're here when these kits start shipping I am not familiar with the EJ engines at all but have been reading a ton!

[riptide motorsport]

nice car.........Steven

[Gollum]

I'm curious to know what duty cycle your injectors are at under full boost. By the looks of it they're a little small at 650cc.

Looks like a well built motor though.

[chrisarella]

Nice of you to notice. I had them upgraded to 850cc after the now motor and turbo went in, and just before I got the car tuned. Those 650s were in there when I was running a PE1825 twinscroll turbo and were way over worked. Duty now is somewhere around 80% at 22lbs of boost. As I mentioned, my site hasn't been updated in quite a while. I'll be putting up the latest info this week.

[chrisarella]

Forgot to mention, my wagon has been voted consistantly in the top rankings on NASIOC in multiple categories. They have regular contest for various things like top wagon (I placed 3rd overall) and top bugeye (ranked 7th). Not bad considering there are about 270,000 members. It still needs some work but hopefully I can find a home for her and won't have to part it out.

[Ks2]

what are your opinions on the twinscrolls out there? i have a Ver 7 ej207 and have been wanting to go vf36 or vf38 for a while, there isnt a huge amount more power to be made with them just response and faster spooling

how do you like your twinscroll setup?

[chrisarella]

Sorry in advance for the long-winded explanation but the reason will be revealed in the end...

So, I've had two vf37s, a vf36, and a PE1825 (which is a modded vf36, with bigger wheels, coated, and upgraded actuator). I had the vf37 on a usdm ej205 (stock WRX motor) with no AVCS, and put down 283awhp/290awtq. It was a good size for a 2.0 liter and spooled almost as well as the tdo4 with a whole lot more up top. Not bad, but that didn't last long and killed my motor dynoing it. There is a LONG historical writeup on my site so I wont repeat it all here. Basically I ended up going through two motors, killed two vf37 turbos, got a vf36, upgraded it, put it on a built ej257, only to find out in the end it wasn't worth it. Reality was the motor could have used a little bigger of a turbo and wasn't able to breath correctly with that turbo setup. Believe me, I was full catless with ported intake, a big MAf and short ram intake. The turbo was the bottleneck.

So no more messing around with rare OEM JDM spec'd parts for me. I went full-on race built isht. I had RAW Performance build me a track-series motor, all forged, balanced, and blueprinted; custom head work with 272/272 cams, porting, titanium valve springs, 3-angle valve job... the works. Mated a JDM 6-spd to it and got an ATP/Garrett gt3076 turbo. The car puts down 400awhp/460awtq. That is about 525hp at the crank. Not bad for a streetable 4 banger that hangs with turbo 911s. Unfortunately I built this, broke it in, tuned it, drove it down here to FL from NY, and have put less than 6k miles on the car since. It sits in my driveway and is never fully enjoyed.

Anyway...

In the end I was I'm not sure I'd recomend going the twinscroll route though unless you've already sourced the turbo and exhaust bits. I will say that turbo setup was designed for your motor since yours has AVCS... that combined with its ability to turn to 8500 rpms and you'll get a very smooth power curve. In a 3300lb Suby you may be looking for more power though. At least I would be. Especially since more can be had for less money. Twinscroll stuff is extremely pricey and the bang-for-your-buck factor is deminished. Not to mention, you are going to be extremely hard-pressed to source parts these days. Very few places can get them. Last I looked only one guy was importing vf36 turbos to Norht America and that was almost 2 years ago. That JDM supply may have dried up by now. Also, the OEM exhaust components (which were very well designed parts) were extremely hard to come by. And the Tomei stuff even harder to get (I know cause I had both). You'll also pay top dollar for any twinscroll stuff nowadays.

I guess to answer your question it all depends on your goals. Dealing with JDM is a costly PITA in my experience. At this point I'm concerned more with value of my dollar than the bling factor. If it were me, I'd sell the ej207 (as great of a motor as it is). There may be still a decent market for your motor but I wouldn't expect it to last too much longer. It's becoming a dinosaur in the suby world now being 9 years old. Then get a new USDM STI motor and 6spd. Bolt on either of the newer Garret or BW twinscroll turbos and don't look back. I'm not sure what your budget is, and they may be out of your budget now, but save up and do it right. I've tried doing things in the past on the cheap, sourcing used stuff... and ended up paying more for it in the end. As the expression goes, the cheap man pays twice!

Well, I hope I answered your question. LMK if you need anything else.

[Ks2]

haha if i wanted cheap i wouldn't be looking into twinscroll at all, new turbo and headers on rallitek's site is about 2500 (have everything else i need) and clark turner has done a great job tuning my motor in the past and has plenty of experience with these so for me it wouldn't be terribly pricey compared to putting it on a vanilla USDM ej205

when i did the swap i had debated an sti swap with transmission and rear diff. but ended up just swapping in the ej207 and saving back the rest of the money for my next project, currently the motor has 70k on it and the car has 78k and is right now a occasional daily driver and weekend racer though still fast enough to run around the mustangs and occasional Z at the stoplight, at one time it made alot more power with 900cc injectors, a surge tank in the back and an aquamist kit (the turbo on it was still new and i ran methanol) that was 3 years ago i sold most of those parts in favor of keeping it as a daily driver

still have my FMIC, K&N intake, up/downpipe and full catback, STI pink injectors, went back to a stock wieght flywheel and tuned it back to 91 octane nowhere near as much modification as you (but then again there aren't any porsches around here...)

not sure i would part with the ej207, i love the high rev limit and top end power, as far as i know the only way to get that kind of RPM limit is a cosworth (or similar) long block or do alot of custom work rebuilding a motor, i can live without the bottom end torque in return for that awesome power band

[chrisarella]

haha if i wanted cheap i wouldn't be looking into twinscroll at all

Exactly! You better check with Rallitek to make sure they have it in stock. Last time I checked they only had a vf37 and had to special order the vf36 (which I doubt they can get now).

And Clark tuned my car twice. Unfortunately mine died once on the dyno during tuning the 1st time.

So what do you have mated to the ej207 now? vf34?

[Ks2]

they had a full vf42 kit a little while ago, the VF36 has shown as out of stock for a while now...

i swear by clark tuning, when i got my subaru i knew very little about it, just that it needed an initial tune, he not only tuned it he even walked me through fixing a variety of things (vacuum leaks and something else i cant recall) you don't get that service from a dyno shop

well i was running a FP18t that came off the old ej205 i bought the car with, i had it pushed pretty much to the limit and when it died a few months ago i put the stock one from the ej207 back on. i may rebuild the FP18 when i rebuild my ej205 for the 818 since it is a great turbo.. didn't need a massive turbo since the transmission is a stock 5 speed and i worried about destroying it with to much power.

[chrisarella]

Yeah, they definitely made the stock 5spd outa glass or something. I managed to get mine sold before I toasted it.

[Ks2]

mine grinds shifting to 4th, but so far has held up to almost 80k of solid abuse, it has had royal purple in it (and the diff) since the 1st owner had it, pricey but not as much as swapping a 6 speed. the clutch is from southbend and i really like it (if only their website were as good as their clutches...)

i almost prefer the 5speed though... the gearing is great in some ways and crappy in others, a rolling start to 100 is fast with few changes, it puts power down easily, but on the downside it cruises at 75 down the highway at 3500 rpm... makes passing people a snap but fuel economy goes right out the window