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01-23-2003, 02:37 PM | #1 |
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Year and a half review complaints and compliments of Subie Aftermarket
Alright Ive had my car nearly a year and a half now- I started out as a total turbo newbie and after much reading, research, time on the boards I fell I have at least become a somewhat informed consumer. I have compliments to the aftermarket tuners and companies and Ive got WTHs too. Well start with the negativity first.
Wall of Shame: 1. After nearly 2 years of the USDM WRX we are finally sonewhat close to the release of a kit that will allow us to use the Garrett and mitsu turbos. No less than 5 companies that I know of have them slated for release in the near future. THANK GOD! WTH took so long?? I mean really the writing has been on the wall since day 1. Is there some major obstacle or drawback? Quite a few individuals have made there own up and down pipes on their own - even this is almost unAmerican to not pack them up as a kit and sell them. Now tuners please release a version of this that will work with a TMIC also!! 2. We still have no real tranny or replacement gear options. Its either keep grenading stock 5mts (at every level of tune) or shell out hella cash and effort for Stock STI boxes. I know there are full dog boxes - this is unacceptable for a daily driver and an excuse for not wanting to researh and developea real and usable gearbox. 3. The most laughable of all- no replacement struts!! From no company anywere. Why is it so hard do get a set of struts to the market on one of the best drivers cars ever? Not everyone wants to rebuild coilovers every year or be limited to non adjustable STis, or mega expensive Sti adjustables. Cutting the stockers is crap also. Cobb can keep theirs. Subie Highlights: SOLID Brotha Man Engine Management: Bravo Guys lotsa really great options Ecutek, UTEC, XEDE, EMI, Autotronic looks promising for racers. Good job again at least we wont be having to worry about EM. Edited some bad spelling
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Last edited by MP5; 01-24-2003 at 04:39 AM. |
01-23-2003, 03:43 PM | #2 |
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Spoilt rotten!
As an ex-fwd-SR20 driver let me just add that the number/quality of parts available in Sube-land is second only to those for hondas.
It is amazing! I had a '91 SE-R and, later a '99 SE (Sentras) and there is one company that makes a header, one genuine aftermarket tuner (JWT) two or three companies that make a CAI and two that make short-shift kits. UR makes SR20 pullies but at $2-300 a pop! The up-side was that in the Nissan community, word spread quickly if a part didn't produce results. There are some MEs that actually really tested the parts (Mike Kojima is one) and worked with the aftermarket to bring a few, well engineered parts to fruition. Sometimes it took years. They are still waiting for a viable tranny option also. I get a WRX and I can hardly contain myself! I have fifty some bookmarked websites that I can readily order parts for my WRX. We have a huge selection of parts, parts that for the most part do what they claim to do. Honda owners might have a slightly wider selection BUT, a lot of it is crap. So, after rambling on for a bit too long, all I was trying to say is that Sube owners have it pretty good. |
01-23-2003, 04:11 PM | #3 |
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I still would like to know how people keep breaking trannies. It's not hard to understand that a sudden addition of torque will snap/strip things. They are like glass if you treat them like iron. People need to realize they are somewhere in between.
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01-23-2003, 04:37 PM | #4 | |
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Re: Spoilt rotten!
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01-23-2003, 04:42 PM | #5 | |
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Re: Spoiled rotten!
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There are probably more Camero's and Firebirds where I live (DFW) than WRX's in the entire US. I am extremely jealous of my friend with the Trans Am that can get full exhaust, from headers to muffler for cheaper than I can get a turbo-back. |
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01-23-2003, 05:08 PM | #6 | |
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Re: Spoiled rotten!
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I was just trying to keep it somewhat apples to apples. To address the tranny issue, the SR20 guys have the same problem, with the SR20 able to put out upwards of 400 big'uns the tranny is the weak link. One solution that they have come up with is cryo-treating the gears. This sounded like snake oil to my monkey self when I first heard about it but has proven to be quite a bit of help. I don't think I have read of any Sube owners trying it though. |
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01-23-2003, 06:47 PM | #7 |
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i wouldn't go through all of the trouble to take apart the tranny and cryo-freeze the stock parts. i've been hearing a lot of problems around 300 whp, for argument sake i'm ignoring the outliers. that's 2x what stock puts out, it would be safer to buy stronger gears - cryo freeze the stronger gears would be a likely possibility since they're also out of your car and will minimize downtime.
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01-23-2003, 07:00 PM | #8 |
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what i have been considering is doing a cryo job on a stock clutch. i remeber hearing of one nissan guy doing, he said ti gripped a little better and lasted twice as long. i like the stock because it will still slip.
i think at first a lot of the parts were there, but the availability to us, for the most part, wasn't. i remember before the amount of group buys that were only group buys because of the cost of shipping from japan. now we have tons of knowledgeable tuners, but we still lack upgraded tranny from someone (them aussis don't count ) it also looks like a bunch of vendors/manufacturers are soming out with DSM turbo options/kits, for example, quantum racing, and hopefully buschur if they go by the thread we replied to |
01-23-2003, 09:22 PM | #9 | |
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Re: Year and a half review complaints and compliments of Subie Aftermarket
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01-23-2003, 11:06 PM | #10 |
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Amen on the struts. Where are Bilstein and (forgive me) Tokico? Prodrive, where's this stuff? Where's their suspension, their performance pack giving me 40 horses?
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01-23-2003, 11:38 PM | #11 |
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Hey MP5,
Do you really have to rebuild coilovers every year or were you just exaggerating? |
01-24-2003, 12:20 AM | #12 |
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Yeah I want some new struts too
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01-24-2003, 01:04 AM | #13 | |
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01-24-2003, 01:07 AM | #14 |
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I also came from a Sentra SE-R (owned 5 of them). R and D time for turbos can take a while, so I'm not too surprised to see it taking 1.5 to 2 years for the US aftermarket to get us stuff. Bilstein has some stuff coming out this summer I believe. As for the glass tranny, I had the same problem in SE-R's and you just had to be careful. At least we have a 6-speed to go to. If you wanted another gearbox for the SR20, then that was just too bad. As for parts availability: in the ECU area, we have UTEC, XEDE, Unichip, Link, and probably 6 or more other options including re-flashing- The only place I ever considered for my SE-R's ecu- JWT. Exhaust stuff abounds- there's like 10 or more downpipes, turbo-backs, up-pipes, cat-backs etc and more on the way. We have no less than 6 (probably more) big brake kits to choose from. Intercoolers- probably 10 or more options, not including custom stuff. Turbos- vf22-34 are options, PE1818, PE1820, SR30-50, as well as some mitsu upgrades. Struts- yeah, someone needs to hurry up and get us some! I've got a set of GC's waiting for some struts that won't die after 2 weeks of driving. Give it a few more months- we'll be flooded with goodies. -Bolster
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01-24-2003, 02:20 AM | #15 | |
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Re: Year and a half review complaints and compliments of Subie Aftermarket
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01-24-2003, 04:57 AM | #16 | ||
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Re: Re: Year and a half review complaints and compliments of Subie Aftermarket
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01-24-2003, 10:22 AM | #17 | |
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Re: Re: Year and a half review complaints and compliments of Subie Aftermarket
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Most of the other companies are either designing them right now or waiting for the market to grow with the release of all the upcoming compact sport cars. |
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01-24-2003, 10:25 AM | #18 | |
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Re: Re: Re: Year and a half review complaints and compliments of Subie Aftermarket
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01-24-2003, 10:35 AM | #19 | |
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Re: Re: Re: Year and a half review complaints and compliments of Subie Aftermarket
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01-24-2003, 10:58 AM | #20 | |
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Re: Re: Re: Year and a half review complaints and compliments of Subie Aftermarket
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01-24-2003, 12:13 PM | #21 | |
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i think you may be dead on ..
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01-24-2003, 11:46 PM | #22 |
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dont want to sound like im completely against you but...
[Puts on mad fire proof suit] > 1. After nearly 2 years of the USDM WRX we are finally > sonewhat close to the release of a kit that will allow us to use > the Garrett and mitsu turbos. No less than 5 companies that I > know of have them slated for release in the near future. While I realise that there are many people out there wanting bigger turbos for more power and so forth. One needs to remember the balance and design philosophy of the car to begin with. The impreza, as well as the lancer for that matter, was designed as a rally car in mind. *NOT* a drag racing vehicle. With that in mind, the lag given with some of these larger turbos (unless you build an anti-lag kit, but that adds money, and also requires more turbos in the long run of things) does not help with the characteristic of the car. Yeah, there will also be people going with how much power, how fast in the 1/4, etc.. but you can easily do something like that much cheaper with a piece of quality American Iron (and I mean that!). The point is, trying to retain the characteristics of the car while improving one significant aspect completely kills the rest of the car. > 2. We still have no real tranny or replacement gear options. Its > either keep grenading stock 5mts (at every level of tune) or > shell out hella cash and effort for Stock STI boxes. I know there > are full dog boxes - this is unacceptable for a daily driver and > an excuse for not wanting to researh and developea real and > usable gearbox. Actually, there are a couple of options. You can score an used STi box for the price of a 5mt. Heck, Prodrive was using 6speed casing and 5spd INTERNALS in their rally cars!!!!! Its all about the driver and learning what the hardware can and cannot do. You can also simply order the sti internals and drop them in yourself, or have someone do it. The point is, they exist, but you have to look for it. Why do you have to look for it? Because the US market has never really had the need for such a thing before the introduction of the wrx in the spring of 01. > 3. The most laughable of all- no replacement struts!! From no > company anywere. Why is it so hard do get a set of struts to > the market on one of the best drivers cars ever? Not everyone > wants to rebuild coilovers every year or be limited to non > adjustable STis, or mega expensive Sti adjustables. Cutting the > stockers is crap also. Cobb can keep theirs. KYB has been backlogged in production for just the basic stuff, let alone upgrades. Bilstein messed up their option, but should be back in the running soon. Coilovers. Let's see. I've run Ledas for >30k without rebuild, Cusco's >25k without rebuild. It all depends on how hard you push the car, and how well you take care of the system. A yearly rebuild is not neccessary in most cases. Unless you have DMS *grins amusingly* The bottom line is this, if you look at the total number of cars that subaru sells, the US market almost accounts for HALF of their entire production run (at least in impreza and legacy terms). The STi group as a whole, doesn't even make that many cars to begin with globally. So when you're talking about numbers that essentially double your standard production from a small group - there will be a lag. Don't believe me? Go back and look even at the Civics, Integras, Supras and RX7's - it all takes time and money to come up with something GOOD. Give it a chance. You're part of the early adopters that Subaru hoped for, so that a STi can (and now will be) come to our shores. Just think, in a couple of months - there will be enough toasted STi's that there will be plenty of spares to go around *grins amusingly* [awaits a flaming long death in his fire suit] -victor Former Rallyist |
01-26-2003, 05:36 PM | #23 | |
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Re: Year and a half review complaints and compliments of Subie Aftermarket
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01-26-2003, 05:50 PM | #24 |
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Um ok but these are $4000 gears only! There are other offerings in this price range also. So we are still looking at the $4000 range for gear sets and ~ 7-9000 for the 6MT.
I have a feeling this is as good as it gets. |
01-26-2003, 06:02 PM | #25 | |
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Your comments make a lot of sense thanks for your input.
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