Japtrix’s NEW 2008 WRX Project car! Testing and Development in Progress!

[Japtrix]

Japtrix recently purchased the all NEW 2008 WRX for research and development. Testing, development and tuning are our main goals as a Subaru specialist and We hope to serve the Subaru community by better understanding Subaru's new generation of vehicles, including the Impreza.

Please stay tuned as we will keep you up to date during the project’s development.






--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a picture of this car's first stage completed. If you want to find out more about this project, keep looking bellow in this thread.

[Japtrix]

Here we are with our new 08 WRX back at the shop... Lots of work ahead of us.




First thing we did after putting the car on the lift and inspecting all of the undercarriage hardware, was test fit some wheels and tires to try and determine what we have to play with as far as tire width, wheel offset and size.





After test fitting the wheels we decided to go with the fallowing:

Tires:
255/40 R17
Falken Azenis RT-615

Wheels:
Enkei
RC-T4 for Tarmac
17x8
5X100
+48 offset

Here are pictures of the bunddle...




stay tuned.

[BoostCrzy]

....and im in the last 2 shots.....damn. lol.....guess i'm never safe!!!!!


Impressions of the new WRX:

At first the obvious platform changes and looks of the car didnt capture my attention as i had hoped...but shortly after that feeling set in...it diminished.... the WRX is slowly growing on me with each passing day. The new lines and feel of the car carry a fresh outlook on things to come, almost a breath of fresh air to the tried and true personality we all know to be resident within these fantastic machines...The interior carries just enough Subaru cues to keep the feeling right...and with the addition of a couple of race oriented mods(pics to come) the feeling gets amplified to the race bred readiness you would expect from a true rally car...and it shines through in the drive. With the slightly stickier tires a wheels in place of the stockers there is a noticeable gain in adhesion which exasperates the stock suspension.....inducing a bit of roll....but the overall cornering of the car has shifted from the tail-happy oversteer feeling of the earlier models, to a very neutral pushier feeling...not bad all-in-all....but i cant wait to feel this puppy with a nice suspension setup in place......


......more to come

-Jack
www.JapTrix.com

[Smoby]

So how far do you plan on going with the car?

[BoostCrzy]

we will be competing in local Autocross events and driving the car on the street...so there will be a compromise between both worlds in regards to modifications(mostly suspension and handling mods)....and hopefully some nice engine mods to compliment..but it should e a fun project none the less ....

-Jack

[crazyGC8]

Good Luck!! I'm glad to see you guys stepping up and starting R&D on em'!!

[DSycks]

baseline numbers?

[wrxtasy555]

Originally Posted by DSycks

baseline numbers?

+1.....

[BoostCrzy]

:::UPDATE:::
Baseline was an ASTONISHING 195whp....lol....but that wont be for long
Heres some pics with the new Goodies...

1. Recaro seat..
2. Enkei wheels
3. Falken Azenis tires
4.Custom 3in DP back exhaust with Magnaflow SS muffler...






....more to come!!

-Jack
www.JapTrix.com

[orvtech]

why does your rims have 2 air valves ? i notice that on the black wrx at Geinesville too

[wrxtasy555]

Originally Posted by BoostCrzy

:::UPDATE:::
Baseline was an ASTONISHING 195whp....lol....but that wont be for long
Heres some pics with the new Goodies...

1. Recaro seat..
2. Enkei wheels
3. Falken Azenis tires
4.Custom 3in DP back exhaust with Magnaflow SS muffler...






....more to come!!

-Jack
www.JapTrix.com

did you encounter and Airbag lights after you swapped in the Recaro seat?

[Bala]

Originally Posted by Smoby

So how far do you plan on going with the car?

In addition to suspension R&D as Jack mentioned, we will also develop on its power plant. We intend to do as many performance boltons as possible to increase power. We will also concentrate heavily on the tuning aspect of the car and fully understand and develop the ECU with the help of Cobb and Turbo XS.

[Bala]

Originally Posted by wrxtasy555

did you encounter and Airbag lights after you swapped in the Recaro seat?

Yes, but we will try some resistors soon to bring it back to normal.

We also disabled the rear side airbags (now equiped in 08 impreza line) as we took all of the rear interior parts out of the car to lighten the car a little.

Will let you guys know the results with resistors.

[Bala]

A complete catback exhaust system is under works... Keep posted for updates.

[pio!pio!]

Originally Posted by orvtech

why does your rims have 2 air valves ? i notice that on the black wrx at Geinesville too

some rims have that.
if you fill your tires w/ nitrogen instead of air, ideally you want a valve pumping nitrogen in and another valve to vent the leftover air out.

that way you can be sure you have all nitrogen in the tire and no water vapor left

[orvtech]

Originally Posted by pio!pio!

some rims have that.
if you fill your tires w/ nitrogen instead of air, ideally you want a valve pumping nitrogen in and another valve to vent the leftover air out.

that way you can be sure you have all nitrogen in the tire and no water vapor left

thx, so nitrogen will mantain the tire presure under heat, right ?

[Crawdads]

Originally Posted by orvtech

thx, so nitrogen will mantain the tire presure under heat, right ?

Thats one benefit, but the real one is that nitrogen is usually from a dry bottle...the absense of water vapor and oxygen is better for the tire.

All in all its not really important.

/hijack.

Nice wheels, I love my RC-T4s.

[Japtrix]

::UPDATE::

Here's some shots of the custom exhaust... We decided to go with the following parts:

Magnaflow 25" muffler
3" piping from the downpipe
3" resonator
3" Magnaflow exhaust tip

Here is the prototype:





As you can see in this photo below, we decided to have the muffler centered even though that means making a more aggressive bend in the piping. We feel the flow in this configuration is more than ample to sustain the objective power levels.








We were very please with the results. The exhaust puts out a very nice familliar (rumble) sound yet subtle and deep.

Results:

The exhaust did not really make any power difference at this point though. According to our Dyno a gain of 10lb of torque was all it was worth ...this gain will become larger as the demands on the engine become greater....tuning and more power on the way!!

[wrxtasy555]

Wow, that looks like a tight fit with that suspension geometry. I'd really like to see how well it holds up over time. It looks like 3" is as big as you can get in there huh?

[orvtech]

nice, it would have look great to have dual exhaust like the picture of the JDM STi that is around the internet.

[DSycks]

Will there be a race/offroad version? Thats a lot of bends for some folks.

[Bala]

Originally Posted by wrxtasy555

Wow, that looks like a tight fit with that suspension geometry. I'd really like to see how well it holds up over time. It looks like 3" is as big as you can get in there huh?

Suspenssion clearence is fin at full tilt, no issues there thus far. You are right though, 3" is about as big as you can fit. You shouldnt need anything bigger though.

[Bala]

Originally Posted by orvtech

nice, it would have look great to have dual exhaust like the picture of the JDM STi that is around the internet.

Yes it would. we thought of that but decided to go with the single for now, didnt want to deal with boddy work yet (modifying rear bumber).

[Bala]

Originally Posted by DSycks

Will there be a race/offroad version? Thats a lot of bends for some folks.

Yes... We were not happy with all of those bends but an exhaust system for the 08 with less bends is deffenetly possible, however, you will not be able to have the muffler centered as we have it on our car and it would have to be a smaller muffler as well. This is just a concept vursion, we will be having other ones.

[Bala]

We are taking this car to its first autocross event tomorrow at Miami speedway. We will let you know what we think and how the car performed.