Love the sound of the H4.. want more..

I'm completely stock. I'm going to remove the insulation/whatever under the hood (And yes I've listened as people rambled on about fire safety, paint etc.. not too worried), but I'd like even more.

As far as I can tell there is no silencer on a 2001 RS... Any other "free" or cheap ways to make it pur?

P.S. If older models of the RS have the silencer, is the 2001 louder, or was something else put in the design to quiet it down.. (and if so, can I yank it :))

JB

Yeah, take a screw driver (preferably phillips head) and repeatedly stab the muffler with it. This will free up some sound.

we do, in a sense, have a silencer.

see all that plumbing coming out of the air box itself? yeah, get rid of it! :)

seriously, you can easily take out all that plastic, so all you have is the little elbow coming out of the airbox.

that'll give ya some sound.

my next advice would be to get an actual intake, and a cat-back exhaust (and headers, if you really want sound)

Okay Just punched all the holes in the exhaust.. sounds great!!

I'm desperate for ehxaust/headers/intake/etc.. but I've decided to only spend money on anything that is still usefull on a Turbo'd RS (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). No point in spending thousands on exhaust when I'll just have to rip it out and sell it for dirt cheap in the end...

Isn't a dealer going to give you gears about chopping away at the intake plumbing? Not to get into one of these waranty arguements, just assuming that doing as mentioned is the same as putting a whole new intake on, as far as SoC is concerned....

I know they don't VOID warranty's for such things, but if they didn't waranty work on something, who has the time/desire/money to take Subaru to court over a 300, 500, $1000 warranty claim?

I still love the car as it came stock, and will do cheap free mods that nobody cares about until my warranty runs out. And with the amount I drive (30K km in 6 months) It shouldn't take too long.. After that... look out. :devil:

no, see, the beautiful thing about that plumbing is that you can remove it without breaking anything. And if you need to go to the dealership, you can easily put it all back in.

Okay considering this...

Couple q's though.. First, aren't you sucking more hot than cold air if you do this, compared to having all the tubing? Secondly, will this affect the performance at all (i.e. the cons/pros of what you'd get with an aftermarket intake). And Lastly if I were to do so, should I disconnect the ECU first, or is this all being way too precautionary?

Thanks,
JB

well, since the tubing also pulls from the engine bay, I don't see a difference :)

plus, I've opened up my whole hood, so there's cool air always coming in through the scoop.

as for the battery and/or ECU, don't worry about it.

This may increase performance, but the differences will be small. Get a K&N and you may see something, though...

yeah, if you are opening your hoodscoop, don't worry about sucking in hot air. of course, all sorts of people who paid $200 for intakes will tell you otherwise, but they are just trying to justify their irrational purchase.

Yeah, take a screw driver (preferably phillips head) and repeatedly stab the muffler with it. This will free up some sound.

Oh man, you let out the greatest import tuning secret!

I swear that's what people do around here. When I hear the "BRRRRR AP AP AP" I look for the melon shooter, but sometimes, just the small 1 inch stock tip, and I assume the "phillips mod" muffler. their cars sound sooo nasty.

Tha K&N or amsoil air filters will let a little more sound out for you too, plus a little better throttle response. Plus, if you're really concerned with hot air, there is the Ganzflow intake. check out http://www.imprezars.com/products.htm

Ron

If you are concerned about sucking in hot air, then for a measly $50, you can get a nice 3" polished PDM intake that sucks cold air in from the fender well:

http://www.whitetyphoon.com/impreza/mods/pdm_cai_03.jpg

This intake is loud as heck under WOT.

--
Richard
http://www.whitetyphoon.com/impreza/

Excellent intake choice, Richard. I actually think it is nice under WOT...the intakes that use cone filters and no airbox are REALLY loud under WOT.

JB:

No need to spend thousands on exhaust, just get a catback for $400 or less. Headers will really unleash the boxer sound, but aren't as cheap and the Borla option (that would actually work with aftermarket turbo kits) is pretty poorly made.


Ben

Thanks Ben. The nice thing about the PDM intake is that you can easily remove it and put the stock intake back in without any hassle before you drop your car off at the dealership for service. Likewise, installation of the intake is a piece of cake. There is no need to fight with the intake or pop open the airbox.

--
Richard
http://www.whitetyphoon.com/impreza/

When ever the intake question pops up i have to yell COBB CAI.

I just love mine so much.

Sorry
-Dustin
^retreats back into his hole

As far as not wasting money goes, if you're going turbo, forget the Cobb intake. I've got one and I think it's great, but if you're going turbo anytime in the near future, it's not smart. The PDM intake that Richard has is a MUCH better option. Especially since you can pop it off and throw the stock setup back on in like 2 minutes. The Cobb would take a bit longer.

I personally am not worried about the dealer service bit. If I ever DO have a warranty recall issue, well then I'll consider reverting, but otherwise mine's not going into the dealership.Give me another year and a half and my powertrain warranty will be up anyway. 21k miles and counting, only owned it 11 months on the 29th. :)

I'm slipping in my old age. By this time in my '98 I had almost 30k.

Quick question...where does one go about acquiring one of those PDM intakes?

I know, I know, I should do a search...but I didn't, so help me out, will ya?:D

You can order the PDM cold air intake directly from PDM Racing (http://www.pdm-racing.com./products/subaru_corner.html).

--
Richard
http://www.whitetyphoon.com/impreza/

Well I yanked it.. ;)

Sounds a bit rougher early on the gas, no lights except gas.. that's my fault though..

Thanks guys,
JB

After doing this though, I find it very hard to believe you get much of a performance boost from any intake.. I'm not saying it's impossible, but technically I just don't see how it could do much.. interested to try one down the line and see what it really does..

Originally quoted by -JB-
I find it very hard to believe you get much of a performance boost from any intake.. I'm not saying it's impossible, but technically I just don't see how it could do much..
A cold air intake can potentially add at least 10 horsepower and 10 ft-lbs of torque to a MY00-01 Impreza. For instance, Compass Motorsport did some dyno pulls on their intake. They gained 14.6 hp and 12.9 ft-lbs of torque. You can read about the intake and the dyno results here (http://www.compassmotorsports.com/new.html). It is up to you to decide whether or not to take these results seriously.

I will be putting my car on a local AWD dyno chassis to see how much gains I'm getting from the PDM intake.

--
Richard
http://www.whitetyphoon.com/impreza/

Thanks for the link on the intake, guys...looks like a nice piece. Couldn't figure out if the $50 was US or Canadian, though, so I'll have to e-mail them and find out...

Man, the text on that site was brutal.. couldn't really read it. But regardless, I know people are getting great response from a new intake, I'm not disputing that, I guess I'm just saying I'm amazed that it could do much.

Never read much into it, but I'm assuming the idea is to ram more air in than it would suck normally, therefor trying to reduce any negative pressure, or hopefully create boost (albeit small)?

Also like to mention that before I bought my RS (my first car) I had VERY limited knoweledge of how a car works.. As my buddies were in shop figuring out how to tear down a engine, I was trying to figure out how to animate in 3D Studio (look where that got me ;) ) so I always had a contorted look on my face as they mentioned cams, headers, "gasoline", etc... Now I still don't really know how everything works (as the above statement either proves or dissproves :confused: ) but I at least know where everything goes and what purpose it roughly serves.

Without this site I would be clueless... :)

JB

Ram air effects are really not there until 100mph+. The issue is that the stock intake tract is very restrictive, so replacing it with a smooth, mostly straight tube almost directly to the throttle body eliminates that restriction. Yes, it really can add that much power.

You aren't going to see any ram-air benefit on a dyno though, unless the dyno happens to be inside a wind tunnel. :D

People really punch holes in their mufflers?????

And you people whine about Altezza tail lights for our car, but you tell some guy to punch holes in his muffler? Oh man..... should have known this kind of crap would come out here.....

:lol:

Uhh... we were just joking around... I think...

Just to follow up on the intake thang, I could see replacing everything, including the stock airbox/filter, and replacing that with a nice polished intake. But just to yank out the plumbing from the airbox elbow out as I did (Loving the sound more and more by the way, sounds deep and rumbly in the low end) and then replace it with a fancy chrome tube.. I wouldn't understand the benefit. Unless I guess it's running to an opening and grabbing colder air...

Oh well..
Much more to learn,
JB

That article was done back in June. When is that polished torque box going to be made public? That thing looks bitchin. And I'd consider getting one if the dyno results are true.



Skylab™

*Don't believe the hype:rolleyes: *

For some reason the Impreza people think this torue box idea is new. Having talked to the guys at Cobb, I have learned a few interesting things.

1. The Cobb CAI is real, not "vapor-ware," and any smuck with some bucks can order one, you won't have to wait for a little more R&D.

2. The Cobb CAI has the larger volume of air needed to keep torque up in the low rpms.... the PRM filter stores a large enough volume of air for this (the CObb intake was developed using a flow bench and was not pulled from someone's ass).

3. The idea of having a larger volume for low rpms is not new. Iceman intakes funnel down from 3.5" or 4" to the much need 2.75" at the throttle body on Hondas which gives the much needed volume of air. I can't remember the nmes of the companies, but I think it is Arospeed has a normal looking tube style intake with a 4.5" carbon fiber section to aloow for this volume of air.

4. Worrying about "low end torque" is pointless if you at all plan on staying with NA power.... bigger cams will move the power band way up (eg: Cobb's stage 2 cams make peak HP at the STOCK redline.... with his stage 2 head upgrade, it is possible, with computer modification, to reliably rev past the stock redline, thus theorectically allowing for more power).

5. Worrying about "low end torque" if you are going FI is also pointless. A turbo or supercharger heats the air up more than just sucking it in from under the hood and this is why people use intercoolers in FI. Nitrous cools the intake charge as well. FI alone will make up for any lost torque from sucking "hot" air in. I have only seen ONE turbo upgrade package that actually ucks air in from a "cold" source (APS WRX upgrades).

6. If you purely want sound and want it loud so you can enjoy it, buy a tube style intake (not Weapon R they don't fit the car very well) or make one yourself from mandrel bent exhaust pipe and hose barbs from Home Depot and slap a nice K&N cone filter on the end of it (total cost would be about $70... the K&N alone is $40).... it will give you all the intake sound you want, andif sound alone is what you are worried about, I highly doubt you are worried about performance because, contrary to popular belief, a loud car does not = fast car.... all bark and no bite is how I like to put it.

Thanks for reading my long post of the day....

Casey
:lol: stepping into neat-o silver fire proof suit:lol:

Are all the intakes discussed thus far in this thread made for 00-01 Imprezas with the MAP sensor? I know there is some added precautions or something necessary for the older year Imprezas for the 98-99 model years. What's the deal?

Keep it coming guys, this is an informative thread.

Here is a quote taken directly from Cobb's site:
Mounted directly behind the throttle body is the mysterious black plastic plenum whose function has been the subject of much debate. This box was completely empty inside, serving only as a chamber, until mid-1999 when Subaru included a secondary air filter inside. While we haven't discussed the details of this design with the engineers at Subaru, we can make some assumptions as to the reasons of this layout based on some theories behind intake systems. One of the primary reasons for this chamber is to act as a supplemental intake plenum to improve throttle response. When you go from low throttle to wide open throttle, the engine's demand for air increases drastically and the stock intake manifold with it's small plenum lacks the necessary volume to satisfy the engine's demands. To remedy this, Subaru uses this secondary air box as a supplemental plenum to supply this sudden demand of air. This gives us the throttle response we want and keeps our engine happy.
To read the full article, go to http://www.cobbtuning.com/tech/airflow/index.html.

--
Richard
http://www.whitetyphoon.com/impreza/

Originally posted by Seeing StaRS
I know there is some added precautions or something necessary for the older year Imprezas for the 98-99 model years. What's the deal?
There are no problems with MY98 maf sensors.
All maf problems seems to occur when the stock air filter box is removed on the MY99's.

Originally posted by Albert

There are no problems with MY98 maf sensors.
All maf problems seems to occur when the stock air filter box is removed on the MY99's.
Due to the fact that the '99 is a film MAF and more fragile than the '98 which was a wire MAF.*

* I may have that backwards.