[Karlot]

Funny, those are the turbos I'm debating between. I was looking at the G25-550/660, if I relaxed the power goals a bit, but I really think 400 is the goal and is achievable.
I'm reading that the G-series really need to be kept under their RPM limit or things go very wrong very quick, while the GTX series turbos just take abuse. I was looking at Precision and Xona stuff, but anything outside of Borg Warner EFR and Garrett seems to spool later and be focused on top end numbers, not area under the curve. That might be a misconception.
I'd probably pick up an ETS kit. I've reached out once and they said that they can do a custom turbo request so long as it doesn't require re-working the piping etc. I'm thinking that will mean that the EFR7163 is out if I go with their kit. All conjecture at this point, but good to have a plan.

i'm sure they can do the gtx3071, which is one of my favorite turbos for these cars, and the gen2 on pump should get you close to 400whp, on e85 if you ran that, i have seen some making right in the 500whp range, so detuning it to make even 450whp would be easy and very capable. the efr I know some places can make kits for it, although it would require custom piping as they are longer. if the ets is not willing to make that, reach out to moore automotive in virginia, they have made rotated kits for the efr turbos and i'm sure they could put one together for you.

and precision seems to be more popular with the higher whp builds, they are big in drag racing, and for that, they are great, they do make smaller turbos that will get you area under the curve, but i'd have to research which one would be best. the xona, same deal. i'm not super familiar with their lineup but i believe it's made by tial. and the g series i have heard that they only make so much before they overspin and then break, i love how much abuse the gtx lineup takes. i have seen multiple people running gtx setups for racing without any issue over long periods of time.

 

[xpystchrisx]

Thanks for the heads up about Moore Auto. This thread is quickly becoming my reference.
From what I've found the Xona XR 5757S should be well within it's efficiency curve for my power goals. It's difficult to gauge however since I don't have access to E85 easily and most people running serious setups are on E. I'm debating meth, but it seems to have fallen out of favor and only used as a cooling source, not extra octane. Pretty sure that I won't be able to convince the wife that a 55gal drum of E is a good idea either.

 

[Karlot]

haha no problem. seems like a good reference to have.

I'm not familiar with the xona lineup, but i do know they make quality parts. for whatever reason they just arent as popular as the garretts/borg/pte lineups.

i'm in favor of meth for cooling, but not really for adding octane/power. back in the day there werent many failsafes for that, so if it stopped working you could kill an engine pretty quickly. although nowadays there are quite a few different options for adding failsafes, including in the tune. so that could be an option, i'd talk to a tuner first though.

and yeah, having either e85 or even race gas is definitely the best option, but finding it at the pump can be difficult. if you are able to get it by the barrel it's a good thing, but you'd have to look into local ordinances to see if you can even legally store it. Some areas let you, some dont. i'm in a rural area and can actually legally store up to like 300gal of fuel, but some places limit you to 5 gal tops in cans.

I have seen people use a race gas mix with 93 to add additional power. essentially adding 5-7 gallons of race gas to 93 to up the octane, and then having a separate tune for it to gain the power for track days. the nice thing about doing that instead of e85 is that you should be able to run the standard tune and not have to worry about providing more fuel like you would with a mix of e85. granted, the people i know who do that, dont run subarus lol. but in theory it's the same thing and should work. and you could order a few 5 gallon pales/buckets of it instead of a 55gal drum.

 

[xpystchrisx]

I spent another two hours in the car today doing the last 100 miles to get the car to 1000. Dropped the break-in-oil which came out very clean. Threw in six quarts of 300v 10w-40 and a new filter. Fired her up to let it come up to temp. Some of the noises from the motor are gone, which I remember Motul Sport having the same effect on the stock motor. I did notice a random coolant puddle on the floor. But it may have been windshield washer fluid. It was approximately 2in square. I couldn't find any place where the leak lined up or fresh coolant showing on any parts.
The issues I had with the clutch previously are gone. I find when I drive it like a little bitch, it treats me poorly. If I drive with intent I get zero issues. Go figure.
I'm both excited and hesitant to see what this turbo does. I'm probably not going to get a dyno number that most people would justify spending what I've spent on this car on the first dyno session. I'll say that I'm fine... but I'm not really going to be fine with it. At this point I'm trying to determine what my long term goals are with the car whether it's HPDE, AutoX, or Time Trials. That will determine what my next steps are. I did reach out to Blouch, ATP Turbo and DRP. Each had their own take, with Blouch and DRP saying 20G-XT-R and ATP Turbo saying wait until they had released their stock-location G25-550 setup.
But that damn ETS Rotated kit looks mighty tempting... considering I have all the foundations to handle something north of 450whp...

Now she sits in the garage until the 23rd when I drive her back up to Jacksonville for a date with JR at DRP.

 

[xpystchrisx]

The car leaked a little coolant on the floor over the past two weeks that I haven't driven it. The puddle size was maybe the size of my hand. That's little enough that I'm not terribly worried about it. I'm pretty sure that this is coming from the T fitting in the chamber 4 cooling modification. I will be checking it today before driving up to Orlando. Tune is still scheduled for tomorrow at 10am in Jacksonville. If I have to rent a trailer and drive this thing up there again I will.

 

[xpystchrisx]

I'm back. The coolant leak was actually the second puddle that I had found on the floor. DRP had warned me that the Chamber 4 Cooling mod can leak, and sure enough that was it. Tightened the fittings and no more leaks. I also found that a few of my lug nuts were loose (eek) from cleaning my wheel wells a few weeks back. I took the torque wrench to all of the lugs before heading out.
I made it to DRP on the 24th at 9:15 AM and she was on the rollers at 9:30am. At 10am Junior started and spent about an hour and fifteen working on the car. Straight to the point, on 93 the car made 300/300. Not a numbers car by any means, but I'll get to that later. I didn't grab a photo of the dyno graph. Excuses are cheap, but it slipped my mind. During testing the turbo was spooled by 2400rpm and making 300 torque at that point. This was a concern for bearings so things were adjusted to bring boost in a bit later at 3200. That said the car makes 300tq from 3200 all the way to ~6400 rpm. HP builds but it carries 300 from around 4000 all the way to 6400rpm. JR dialed in a 300rpm progressive throttle close around 6700 and the hard stop is 7200ish.
So the current setup clearly isn't a numbers setup. After the car came off the rollers I was immediately thinking about what the next steps were. Talking to DRP, they'd like to see a rotated kit with a G25-550 or G30-660, with an ETS FMIC and E85. The E85 thing was basically hammered into my head all day.
Junior said that if I'm just shooting for spool and 400whp he'd suggest a BCP X500, good front mount from Cobb or ETS and E85. Spool would be immediate and we could carry power all the way through this motor's effective rev range. Again, with the E85 thing.
Apparently my current setup is good for another 40 to 50whp and that again torque if I had E. And wouldn't you know, as soon as I got home there's an E85 station within 10 miles of home now. My wife is ecstatic.
I drove off the dyno and out of DRP with mixed feelings. DRP and Junior are fantastic. I cannot recommend their services enough. The car drives like stock at partial throttle, except for that twin plate clutch. But I felt like I had spent a bunch of money to build a platform and that the car was 50hp from where I wanted. 300hp and 300tq is nothing in today's world. Hell, you can get that from a stock-block STI. So I fueled up and hopped on the highway, flipped on audible, popped in ear plugs and cruised home.
When I got home my son was back from school and he really wanted a ride. I told him to not expect much, that the car wasn't a hellcat or putting out as much as the Mustang had. Mind you until this time I hadn't floored it, which looking back seems strange. I guess I was so used to driving it at partial throttle and babying it for break-in that I didn't really think otherwise. So I got to a safe spot, turned off TC brought the revs up to 5000 and let her rip. My whole world changed in about two seconds. Have you ever been unprepared for something and it makes you light headed? It happened to my son and I. The car was fast before, but holy hell is it nuts now. The party used to fall off hard after 5500rpm, but she just pulls right to the soft rev limit. Which is nice because I grab another gear and the party starts right back up again. We did about five launches with the both of us laughing our asses off. I fear for my driveshaft's life. My car is back, and I am really happy. I wanted to build this thing so that it would be safe for autocross, and it's so much better than that. Throttle is immediate, there is minimal lag, and the power is everywhere. No waiting, just response. The sounds it makes are visceral. The engine was intense before, but now it's an animal. There's no tonal wail or redeeming quality to it. It's all aggression, snarl, vibration, turbo noises and lots of exhaust.
Yesterday I had taken another day off, and so I spent that time driving around getting used to the way it drives again. I ruined someone's day in an S550 Mustang GT and generally just enjoyed myself.
Further photos etc when I get a chance. For now I'll say that I'm just driving the car and can't wait to get it to an autocross. I'm still trying to decide what the next step is. Stock location turbo? Rotated kit? FMIC or TMIC? Not sure but for sure it includes E85.

 

[Karlot]

Sounds awesome! Honestly people really under rate how good a stock turbo setup can be. The car sounds like a blast.

so far as what’s next, get to a few autocrosses like you want, enjoy it, and decide if you want to get competitive, and if you do, build for the class you want. Locally the fastest STi runs an efr7163, but it’s twinscroll and bumper mounted lol. Sooo yeah. But most of the faster ones stick with tmic, and pending the course, the soool of the stock turbo makes the “slower” cars faster because of how the stock turbo comes on so fast.

 

[xpystchrisx]

For now I'm in Street Mod. I'll be getting my ass kicked by the competition which includes a few STI's with rotated kits, Evos with major suspension and a number of other high grip stuff. I honestly couldn't care because I just want to get out and drive it with intent.

I did start putting together the spreadsheet to include an ETS kit with a G25-550, FMIC, FlexFuel, Injectors and speed density... Until the wife caught me and I promised to delete the spreadsheet.

I didn't. It's getting deep.

 

[Karlot]

If you’re already in sm look at what the competitive STi guys are running. Locally the most competitive STi all run the efr7163, and none are running fmic. For autocross you do not want fmic (unless you have a bumper/fog light mounted turbo, one guy locally does). Granted most of these guys built their setups prior to the g series coming out. And there was one guy a few years back with a garrett gtx3071 rotated with a tmic. I’d skip the fmic and go with a big tmic. Spearco is one of the top ones. And I’d think the 550 may be pretty small. I’d have to research more but I think speed academ did an STi with the g25-660 and said even that was small.

 

[xpystchrisx]

I talked with DRP about the FMIC/TMIC thing, and their recommendation was to go FMIC. This mostly comes down to the higher ambient temperatures in SWFL and issues with heat soak. Junior agreed that I could do a Spearco TMIC, but that a quality FMIC in SWFL heat would be better for heat extraction and recovery. That said it was a few days ago and there was a very excited kid there who was asking a lot of questions of him while we were trying to talk. My cognitive dissonance may have kicked in hard.
Competitive? I don't think so. As soon as I started thinking competitive AutoX stopped being fun. I am just aiming for a bit of fun and scratching the itch that's been in my brain ever since I was in high school reading Sport Compact Car.
The 550 is fairly small, but according to the math I've done (perhaps it's wrong) that'll get me right to 400whp but it'll pretty much be tapped at that point. I'll think this through more when I'm closer to actually making the change. For now I'm just enjoying it.

 

[xpystchrisx]

One video of the last dyno pull. I quickly realized I hadn't captured anything so I grabbed my phone quickly.

 

[Jay11STI]

Sounds like you're a happy camper with the results. Yeah 300hp isnt alot by todays standards but what everyone forgets including ourselves, is that 300hp isnt everyone else's 300hp. An sti at 300whp is pretty much a 370ish (crank) hp car. Everyone seems to downplay how quick a stage 2+ sti actually is just because they dont run 10 or 11 seconds quarter mile times. Like whatever, we're playing with old outdated technology lol. EJ's are still single scroll turbo, multi port injection, 4 cylinders with a "basic" ecu lol. These cars can pretty much hold their own against cars that have alot more power. I myself have shocked quit a few M3 guys over the years with my stage 2+ car 😂.

Since you have an IAG block, yeah get used to the power you have now but definitely upgrade that turbo! You can now go were some of us cant lol.