I called Tray up at TopSpeed and told him I wanted more power and what he recommends.  His question was simple, how much power do I want and I answered 400whp.  The FP20g wouldn’t get me there, green would be closer, but his recommendation for my needs and budget was the FPRed.  He listed a whole bunch of things that need to be changed in the car for this turbo, told me the price, and I gave him the OK to proceed with the project.

The project got to a rocky start because FP was getting a ton of orders and it took a few extra weeks to get my turbo.  While I was waiting for my car to be ready, I started reading about this “Methanol” thing. I called Tray to ask him what this was all about and he said that for 500 bucks I could get 50 or more hp. I was very upset when he told me this because I was already over my budget but how could I not get this… this was probably the best dollar to horse power mod I could get so I told him to order it for me. Eventually TopSpeed got all the parts in and installed them.  The list of parts was:

• Ecutec
• Perrin FMIC
• FP Red
• Perrin Big MAF
• 860 injectors
• fuel pump
• ACV-R
• Tial BOV
• SMC Meth kit

Doug tuned my car and when everything was done, I went to pick up my car. They greeted me with the numbers I was looking forward to hearing: 455whp/435wtq. Two thumbs up for TopSpeed and Doug for such good work on my car. I was very happy with these numbers and the first thing I wanted to do was go out and try it out. Below is the dyno from that day:

I had never been in a 400+ hp car before so I didn’t know what to expect.  I drove to the highway on the way home, looked around to make sure it was a safe straight to give the car a quick test and I floored it. WOAH! I could not believe how fast the car was… it was scary fast… almost too fast (well for the first couple times :p). I was so excited.  Every morning I couldn’t wait to get in my car and drive around.

Eventually I started getting lazy.  Because I was always getting on the gas, I was using up my meth pretty quick. I had a 5 gallon container that I would go fill up at TopSpeed every so often (about 1 hour away). I started getting lazy in the sense I didn’t want to go fast because I would use up the meth so I would have to refill the reservoir in the car and eventually drive back up to TopSpeed. It’s a silly reason really, but that’s what happened.

Looking back what would I have done differently.  I think I would have gone with an external wastegate… more for the sound but I guess it makes tuning a bit easier with boost or was it that you can hold boost better with it… or both? I think I would have also gone with a rotated setup, probably a GT35r and no meth. I have no issues with the red other than now if I want more power I need to go rotated since I don’t believe I can fit any bigger turbo in the stock location. I would have also gotten a trunk meth tank (bigger) so I wouldn’t have to refill so often (I could do that now for not much more money).

Actually, knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t buy an FP product anymore.  Why? Read this. If you do read it, it’s not because of a turbo or two going bad (things happen), it’s because of what the FP guy says about the Subaru community. I would think people trying to sell their products should know it’s a bad business practice to insult your possible customers.