[gjtracer]

Background: I bought my car in late November after my Integra was stolen out of my driveway. I have wanted a STI since it came out in the US. I graduated from college and got a decent job that would help me make the payments. I found through IWSTI and looking around that some dealerships were offering a $7,000 off and 0%. I always wanted the WRB and gold rims, but without a car I was happy to take anything with the discount. My girlfriend told me that the only way for me to get the car was if I got the WRB with gold rims, so I could not complain. I found the car at Sherman Oaks Subaru and had a few problems there with them after I purchased the car.


Parts:
Engine:
-Turbo heat shield (March 09)
- Perrin Turbo Back Exhaust (October 09)
- AEM Cold Air Intake (October 09)
- AccessPort (October 09)
- Protuned by Churches (November 09)

Suspension:
SPT Strut Bar (March 09)
SPT Cross Bar (March 09)
Tanabe Sustec Pro Coilovers (6-12-09)
Whiteline Swaybars (24mm Front, 22mm Rear) (8-11-09)
Whiteline Endlinks (Front and Rear) (8-11-09)


Please comment and make recommendations as I am still a beginner to the Subaru world. I love reading post and learning as much as I can from other peoples experiences.

[gjtracer]

Tanabe Coilovers:

About two month ago a co-worker of my girlfriends asked me if I wanted to test out some coilovers from Tanabe. I said sure. They scheduled me to come in about a month later and when the time was getting nearer, they called and said that they coilovers would not be coming in due to the swine flue. I was a little bummed but they told me that I was still first on the list for testing, but I would need to switch out my pinks to stock. I got them switched back and hated how bad the suspension felt. But, I finally got a call back and was told to come in on the 19th of June. On the 10th I was asked if I could bring my car in on the next day because they had a cancelation in their testing. I said sure and was excited. My girlfriends co-worker (he drives an Evo X , but I have no hate towards him) and we took our cars over to the shop and left the cars there. They call me the same day and say that everything went smooth and that they wanted to finish testing the electronic dampening system. Yesterday (6-12-09) I picked up my car and was so happy. Everyone in the shop was so nice and very helpful. They car looked extremely nice and I am very happy of how the car turned out.

Before: As you can see the height of the fender is roughly 27 inches.



After:The fender height droped roughly 1 inch.


Rear drivers side:



Top:


Overall View:



I have a quick question though. What alignment settings should I get?

So far the the suspension is a bit harder and feels nice and brings back memories of my old coilovers on my Integra.

[gjtracer]

Saved again

[GhoSStRyda]

can't beat free parts

i was wondering when tanabe will release their c/o for gr... they're SO slow in moving their products to the market. do you know around how much their c/o will cost?

[gjtracer]

Originally Posted by GhoSStRyda

can't beat free parts

i was wondering when tanabe will release their c/o for gr... they're SO slow in moving their products to the market. do you know around how much their c/o will cost?

I will ask when they call me this week for the review.

Quick update:
Hard setting on the coilovers is HARD! It was hurting my boobs (and I don't have much) just going down the freeway. I took it to the canyons for some soft testing, and the coilovers were very nice. I had them on soft and there was no body roll and the soft setting was great for daily driving.

[gjtracer]

Quick update:
In June I was able to take my car to Willow Springs the Big Track and had a blast. It was my first time at the track and was just building confidence and learning how to improve on my driving skills.

Got a birthday present (in August) of Whiteline Swaybars! 24mm front and 22mm rear. I then ordered myself a birthday present of front and rear end links.

I tried to install the rear sway bar the other day and got frustrated when the bolts would not break loose and parts were not fitting well because I was at an awkward position. I tried for about 2 hours and finally gave up. I spoke to Vaughn Performance and wanted to know if he could install the sways and end links. I was then taken care of the next day. Even though the install did cost money, it saved me frustration and time. After the job was finished the drive back was awesome!

I was extremely satisfied with Vaughn Performance.

Next on the list is Stage 2 Lite from Perrin (Lite because I do not know what exhaust I want to go with yet).

Pictures will be uploaded as soon as I can (probably this weekend).

[gjtracer]

Last month I finally pulled the trigger and got new parts for the car. First I got an AEM Cold Air Intake. This was actually delivered to my house in one business day! A few days later I finally decided to pull the trigger again. I went straight into Stage 2. I was thinking of just getting the Stage 2 Lite from Perrin, but when I called in they made me an offer on the exhaust that I just could not refuse. I was never really sure on the look of the exhaust (looked like a bell from the underside) or the sound from sound clips. I knew that I wanted an exhaust that was a bit larger than stock, but still looked similar to the stock exhaust. Everything came in about two weeks. I didn’t have any time to install everything until last week. First I installed the intake. This did not take very long, but it was a little difficult because some of the tight spots and not having all of the correct tools. When driving with this you can hear the OEM BOV a lot more and you can hear either the turbo spooling or just air getting sucked in. The next day I got the Turbo Back installed (THANK YOU TARMACKJUNKIE!). After the install of this I could tell a huge difference in just normal driving. The next day I was driving into work and noticed that the AP was losing connection every 5 minutes. Once in the office I was looking at the AP and noticed a few things. One there was a huge scratch on the screen. Two there was a finger print on the screen. Three there was a screw coming out. After looking at the screen I realized that there was a protective cover on it and I immediately pulled that off. Seeing that the scratch and the finger print was still there I was a bit angry. I then felt over the scratch and tried to wipe off the finger print to only find out that they were both on the back side of the screen. I immediately contacted Perrin who told me to contact COBB. COBB told me to send it in and they would more than likely replace the AP for me. I shipped it out on Friday (10-23-09) and hopefully I will get it back in time for me to use to get a tune with before the next track day in two weeks. Finally the last thing I got were break pads. I figured after this next track day I would need new pads as I am at around 6mm on the front. I got the Hawk HP+ from Vaughn Performance in an extremely short time (THANK YOU VAUGHN PERFORMANCE!).

I have not taken pictures of the exhaust yet, but probably sometime this week or weekend.

Up next will probably be new tires (because these stock tires just suck), new break lines, and more suspensions parts.


Intake Before


Intake After


AP Scratch


AP Scratch and Finger Print


The Screw on the back

[gjtracer]

As I just went outside to take pictures of the exhaust, I came around my garage and 2 raccoons were at my feet and scared the crap out of me! To me the big one was massive, that is because I live next to LAX airport. Who ever thought that we had raccoons here (even though I have seen them around before, but not often)





Well here is the exhaust, not the greatest of pictures, but it was a little cold out and the raccoons were staring me down.







And just because I had my cybershot out:

[optiondrifter]

would you happen to know the spring rates of your coilovers?

[gjtracer]

No, sorry, I will try and contact them tomorrow and see what they are.