whats up guys i sold my evo last fall and am missing it like a SOB. either way i dont really wanna buy another one now due to money issues, but my bro might be getting rid of his WRX. i was wondering what is the basics and costs to get that thing running like low 12's or so. i would imagine like 420 WHP or so. he has full exhuast, downpipe back, dont know about upipe. i imagine you would have to get rid of that small *** intercooler and get a nice front mount with some piping, but what about turbo upgrade and stuff like that. i know the stock turbo cant crank out the power like the evos does and it pushes what 12 psi stock?? im not horribly knowledgable with the boxer engine so if you guys could help me out as to what id be looking as far as $$$$ and mods to get to like a low 12 second car. thanks in advance.

reason im cosidering it is because hes at school. the car is driven half the year for the past 3 years, has low miles. he already has wheels and exhaust on it, all it needs on the exterior is a drop. thanks, its an 03 by the way, last of the bug eyes.

 

wassup man. I just put a 20g,ebay top-mount, 850cc injectors, and a pump in my friends sti. He is untuned and it is a monster. He got the kit from deadbolt and it only cost about 2200. He should be around 400whp with a tune.

 

Hopefully his motor is built. Stock WRX motors are fragile when it comes to making power as they are good up to 300whp. Oh yeah, and then you have to worry about the tranny as well when you are making that kind of power. Might as well get an STi.

 

if im gonna drop the kind of money that and STI will run, ill get an evo. i prefer evo over both any day, having owned evo, it was just an option cuz id get a good condition, easy driven used one for a good price. and thanks for the reply but were talking WRX not STI.

 

You want the truth? I'll give you the truth.. First of all your brother has the most fragile WRX of all (02-03).
You are aiming for about 440whp?uhmm, that is a tough one bro, I spent $7000 in parts alone and only got 280.3 whp on a Dyno Dynamic Dyno. I put brand new parts, the best brands and I had perhaps one of the best tuners in the country for WRX/STI, Clark(AZscoobie).

Running low 12's on a WRX will cost your brother many thousands of dollar. Just to give you an idea, Vividracing spent upward of $15000 on their WRX and when they had their WRX on a sport car cover magazine they ran a 12.95@105mph on pump gas.

IAperformance WRX wagon runs mid 12's but he has stroker kit(2.35l plus aquamist,NOS turbokit,and many other parts).

In the event that your brother would get brave enough to spend soo much moeny to run a WRX in the mid-low 12's he might want to consider opening a savings account to be prepare to spent another $3-4 to rebuild a WRX tranny with at least a cheap set of RA spec gearset.

To me the 02-03 WRX is absolutely not a car that I would recommend as a project car to run 12's. I can recommend 1000 times better a 1st or 2nd Gen Eclipse before a WRX.

I broke a WRX tranny twice and my levels of power were way below what your brother is aiming for.

As far is the PSI on the WRX, you can run up to 17psi but it would rapidly fall to about 12-14psi. The turbo CFM is rated at 360cfm. Evo 8 turbo is around 550CFM.
Forceperformance and Deadboltenterprises offer a nice variety of affordable bolt on turbos. The 850cc someone mentioned above are simply too big for the job, 550-650cc are plenty when using a turbokit.

A big FMIC WILL kill the performance on the stock WRX turbo, the piping for a FMIC on a WRX is about 8ft (ridiculous). The TMIC are great for fast spool up.
VF series turbos are really cheap for the WRX, I recommend the VF22, it offers the best bang for the buck, then try the 16G and the 18G.
Good luck. and PM is you want to chat more about WRX mods, I can talk to you over the phoen if you want.

Carlos

 

hey carlos thanks for the info man you answered most of my questions. 7K in parts and you got 280HP with 12.9 1/4 miles??? i ran that well more than that with turboback and boost controller in the evo. i hate to buy cars used the only wya id buy his is because i know its been driven well and has low miles. either way i think after reading your post ill scrap the idea and just wait for another evo. thanks again.

 

420 whp out of a WRX?

I hope you have a HUGE bank-roll.....

 

Yeah. The $7000 was NOT part of the other few thousands dollars that I had to spent in less than two months ona new clutch and two trannys. It all mounted to around $12000-13000 for a slow unreliable WRX.

The 02-03 WRX have notoriusly fragile trannys. The design of the tranny has a horizontal lengtht wise split that has a tendency to flex under hard acceleration putting huges amounts of stress on all the internals gears.

Ironically a WRX with a up-pipe,full turboback,CAI, MBC and a tune gives you a decent reliable combo of performance,affordability and reliability. I can tell you that many WRX owners are very happy with their WRX with the mods I mentioned above, the car responds very well to such mods and it also optimizes the stock turbo and injectors.

Definately I am not here to ruin your day but the 420whp on a WRX is unrealistic unless you dump close to 5 digit $$$$$.

Carlos

 

you didnt ruin my day at all man you gave me the info i needed and ultimately saved me $$$. i need an evo or DSM.

 

I see you better off on a 1st or 2nd gen DSM. The Eclipses with the 4G63 have somehow a detune version of the Evo Engine like smaller IC,smaller injectors,smaller turbo and small things like that but I can see a DSM making 420whp for a fraction of what you would have to spend on a WRX.

Anyone here on this forum would agree that even a 1st -2nd gen DSM would be much better choice for your 420WHP goal.


Carlos

 

Speaking of VF22 turbo's Carlos, I raced a guy in a '02-'03 rex w/ a VF22 turbo and I blew his doors in my stock evo.

Gotta love the Subies!!!!

 

well when i had my evo i would smoke his and a friend of mines rex easily. i have looked and found some actually decent shape and decently built gsts and gsxs for pretty cheap on ebay. the bodies all have over 100K miles on them but the engines are all rebuilt and modded. its no problem costwise to find a 3" turboback and intercooler/pipe kit to put on one of those. injectors no big deal too. let me know what you guys think. plus buying a car for 8K means more money for mods which mean great weekend monster.

 

LOL Who? What? When? How? Why? LOL, that is a clasic Matt... Do I know the guy?
is he from base?

You should drop me your # cell number, I have something insteresting for your car to tell you.

Carlos

 

He's not from base. He is some pimple faced young kid. The wrx is blue if I remeber correctly. It was on golf links and swan. it was almost a year ago. I didn't even want to race either, but he wouldn't even leave me alone.

Carlos, you want my cell #?

 

OK, I know exactly wo he is now. His name is also Matt and he works in a local shop(I don't want to say the name) , he runs low 14's to high 13's at SIR.

It matches 3 things you said:

pimple face
blue WRX
VF22 turbo

Carlos