I had to look the car up, didn't realize its a wagon!
If you have the bug, you have it. You'll mod and tune your lawn mower, your wagon, your refrigerator....

LOL

That must be a very tiny turbo!

 

Hah. Yea the turbo is super small. Reminds me a lot of my old 04 WRX, except this car doesn't feel like a crappy appliance.

The drivetrain is basically the same as the Golf R. I am resisting the urge to slap a Golf R IS38 turbo on the thing and make 150whp more.

Currently looks like this:

 

150 + will put you well into sleeper territory. Unassuming grocery getta. Do the swap and put an "R" badge on it!!!

 

I'm getting my spare cylinder head ready this weekend to send it out to Arlington Machine Shop.

I'm still debating on going to GSC S2's from my current Kelford 214-b's. I'm assuming the S2's will pick up some more top end because they are more aggressive than the 214-b's.

Or should I look at the AMS TMP's (kelfords)?

Anyone have any experience 214-b vs S2 vs TMP?

The car already makes great power with the current setup and it's way more responsive than I had hoped. I def don't want to lose current responsiveness.

Anything else I should look into cylinder head wise for a motor that sees 8,500 rpm regularly?

I'm getting all new valve train on this spare cylinder head.

 

IMO, if you like the cams, keep them. I'd get the head ported though.

I know ER really likes the S2's. They have good results with them with the same turbo.

Since the head is coming off again, get a Gen2 5558. ER finally did one, it spoiled like 400rpms faster than the 5858.

 

Is there a chart or some bit of data around that living somewhere? Did it also make more power?

 

Finally shipped my spare cylinder head out to Arlington Machine Shop today. I might have overdid it on the packaging... lol

If I still have issues after this, I'm getting rid of this pile of poo emoji and just finally buying a GT3 or ZL1 1LE.

 

47 pounds??? How much packing material is in there??

 

 

Picked up the new version of Knock Monitor from Tuner Nerd so I can install it while the head is off again...

Looking forward to wiring the 0-5v out into my RaceCapture system. Hoping I can really figure out the noise issue I had before with this instead of just guessing.

 

Do you know how good/bad the factory knock detection is? Is it exceptional, because it is my understanding that the knock sensor is "normal' but the ECU is aggressive on responding to the knock and slow to forget about knock.

 

I'll be using both. This uses an additional knock sensor.

I had a bunch of noise with my motor build that was driving me nuts so I ended up just desensitizing the knock filters, but of course just guessed. I'd like to be more scientific around it so I purchased this. You can check out more info here: http://tunernerd.com/

 

Thank you for posting the link for this kit. It seems to be interesting kit once you know how it works. Going to read into it.

 

Well, head made it to the new machine shop. They let me know when it arrived. Then radio silence for two weeks.

I swear to god this industry is baffling to me.

 

What is it about the car industry bc I've had this conversation way too often lately? Seems to be so bifurcated where you have top notch shops true to their word but top dollar as well and then the other half is over promise under deliver, sketchy scummy you name it. Seems there is no in between.

Im making a general statement here but it seems to be very common in the trades industry where people have the skills but lack the business knowledge. But what is it about the automotive industry where proper service is unheard of and getting screwed is the norm?