All the pics were taken by my brother-in-law, James. You can see the full gallery at his blog James Fleishel.

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.

I bought the car from ‘Herman Jones’ at ‘Classic Cadillac and Subaru‘ after a few hours of negotiations.  I was very happy with the purchase and I would recommend anyone interested in buying a Subaru to go talk to Herman.  The car was everything I was expecting it to be if not more.  4 cylinder boxer engine, turbo, 300hp/300tq, all wheel drive, sport seats – so much performance I didn’t know what to do with.  So of course, my first thought was… more HP!

After a proper one thousand mile break-in that weekend (or was it two?)  I contacted ‘Knowledge Performance’ and asked them to upgrade me to stage 2.  Stage 2 usually consists of an intake, exhaust, and engine management.  Since this car is full of electronics, it benefits greatly from EM and tuning.  If you have an STi, make sure to get it tuned when you add modifications to it.  The mods were TurboXS intake, turbo back exhaust, and UTEC EM.

I didn’t get a dyno while stock (around 250whp maybe?), so I’m not sure how much power I was making before the mods but after they were done I was around 290whp.  I don’t remember how much wtq but it was around there as well.  My first impressions when I drove off were wow… this thing moves quick!  Unfortunately, there was a nasty side effect from either the tune or running UTEC which was hesitation.  It’s hard to explain but the car hesitated at various times while driving which made my driving experience less enjoyable.  I was not very happy with my car.  I went back to the shop and asked them to fix it but after a few visits and more money nothing changed and I never went back.

Shortly after I started to lose interested in my car (or gained interested in World of Warcraft) and just drove my car around for a year without making any more changes to it.  Then the mod bug hit me again and I wanted more power.

To be continued…