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g00fy · 02-11-2011, 11:37 AM

I bought my forester back in April of 2005, brand new off the floor Crystal Grey Metallic with a 4eat.

Roughly a year later i got bit by the mod bug and purchased a QTP Downpipe with cut-out, and it's been a slippery, expensive, slope since then, and it's still not finished... I'll try to bring this Journal up to date as quickly and neatly as possible.

My ultimate goal for this car epic sleeper, near stock appearance, ride height, exhaust note, etc. The car also has to be able to handle all sorts of small SUV tasks such as towing, light off-roading, hauling, etc. Hence my first mod being a catless downpipe with a cut-out, it flowed great, allowed me to keep things quiet or crank up the volume if the situation called for it.

I'll skip the boring stuff and post up my current mod list, then I'll follow the list with my long and painful story until this point.

--------------------------THE OLD FAIL MOD LIST-------------------------

Fuel & Tuning:

* Jr. Tuned Open Source Tune @ 318hp (All Valves Were Leaking)
* 93 Octane Pump Gas
* Motul 300V 10W40
* Walbro 255lph
* Deatschwerks 850cc Injectors
* Agency Power Rails

Engine/Turbo:

* Rallispec Street Spec Short block FAIL
- 09' Nitrated Crank
- Cosworth Pistons/Bearings
- Manley H-Beam Rods
* Custom Built Heads FAIL
- Kelford 264/264
- Supertech .5 Over Valves
- Supertech Dual Valve Springs
- Supertech Retainers
- Mild Port Job
* ATP35R IWG Turbo @ 23psi

Exhaust / Intake:

* P&P'd STi Exhaust Manifold
* Catless Turbo XS uppipe
* QTP Catless Downpipe w/Cut-out
* Maddad Whisper Catback
* Perrin Old School Big MAF Intake
* P&P'd Intake Manifold

Drivetrain:

* Fully Built IPT 4eat w/High Stall & Valvebody
* Modena 4eat Front LSD

Suspension:

* Coming Soon

Brakes:

* Racing Brake Slotted Rotors All Around
* Racing Brake H6 Rear Upgrade
* Racing Brake ET500 Pads All Around
* Goodridge Stainless Brake Lines
* ATE Superblue Fluid

Wheels & tires:

* Stock Rims w/215x70x16 General Grabber AT's (Winter)
* MB Boost 17" Rims
* BFG Sports 225x55x17 (Summer)

Interior:

* Custom Garage XTi Triple Gauge Center Pod
* 60mm Omori Boost, EGT, Oil Pressure
* Alpine 9835 Head Unit
* Dual Alpine 12" Type R Subs

Exterior:

* 02-03 JDM STi Hoodscoop

--------------------------THE NEW WIN MOD LIST-------------------------

Tuning:

*Utec Delta w/map switching ???

Engine/Turbo:

* Area1320 Re-Built Short block
- Re-Honed
- CP Pistons
- Polished Crank
- All New Bearings
- Upgraded Oil Pick-up (Killer B or Covert???)
* Custom Area1320 Built Heads
- GSC 272/272 Cams
- Supertech .5 Over Inconel Exhaust Valves
- Supertech Dual Valve Springs
- Supertech Retainers
- Bitchin' Awesome Custom Area1320 Port Job
* ATP35R IWG Turbo @ 23psi Maybe Rebuilt if Needed

Drivetrain:

* http://www.powertraincontrolsolutions.com/ Custom Stand Alone TCU

Suspension:

* King Springs Stiffer Springs (Stock height in front, 3/4" lift in rear)

Exterior/Protection:

* Primitive racing 1/8" skid plate with stinger option & oil drain holes.
* Replacement Baby Head Hitch Cover

Will add pictures and story later...

The Story Of my Foresters Slow & Painful Evolution:

Like i said before I bought my forester new in April of 2005, since then the modding process has been slow, painful, and retardedly expensive.

My First mod in spring of 2006 was a QTP Downpipe with electric cut-out. Great pipe, kinda expensive, and the electric motors don't hold up very well, but they're cheap and easy to replace.

Part 1, Level 10 and the 4eat Nightmare

The Downpipe held me for a while, then I got involved with Level 10 transmission later in 2006. A buddy of mine convinced me to pick up a Fully built Level 10 Trans out of a 2000 Subaru forester. The trans was supposed to go in a project car that got scrapped and little did I know this trans bounced around nasioc for a while before i finally picked it up. Before purchasing it i called level 10 to verify fitment. They told me yea it'll fit, bring it in and we'll swap it in for you. So i picked up the trans for a very reasonable price, brought it to level 10, they had the car for about a week, i called them they said there were some problems with the electronics & fitment between the model years, so i said ok call me when you got it figured out. A couple more days go by, i call back and they say well, things were not going very smooth so we just gave you a credit for the trans you brought us and built your stock one up and charged you the balance...

At the time i figured OK that's fair especially since they credited me a few hundred dollars more then i paid for the used trans, and I now had a fully built new trans from what i thought was a reputable company. Little did i know I had just gotten the ultimate shaft. So i have the trans for no more then a week and spot a trans leak. Bring the car back, they have it for a day, say it's fixed, send it back, the leak is now worse. This went on for several weeks before it finally seemed to get fixed.

Shortly after that in February or march i was at college and i start my car up in the parking garage on the coldest day of the year. The car is billowing smoke, but i assume it's condensation and whatnot cause it's freezing out. I back outta the spot and notice a big old spot of trans fluid and a big spot of motor oil. Great. I had the car towed t a local dealership (Ramsey Subaru), cause mods aside the car was still under warranty. They call me up and tell me my car failed the compression test/leak down. The Woman running the service desk at the time was a real nice person, she calmed me down & told me she'd probably be able to get Subaru to warranty it. Sure enough Subaru did despite my Open downpipe and fully built automatic trans. After the job though they gave me a short novel i had to read and sign that basically said, "we did this out of the kindness of our hearts, we will never do it again." I was cool with that and quickly learned the importance of a Tune.

Time went on and i started getting deeper into the mod game. P&P'd STi headers came along, catless uppipe, EBC, and an internet tune. However my level 10 trans kept having new and interesting problems. It was not shifting between 1st & 2nd on launches, the thing started whining like crazy. I kept bringing it back and they kept feeding me BS and the trans just kept getting worse.

Part 2, IPT Trans Saves the day

Fall of 07 I finally bit the bullet and took my car to IPT transmission to have them undo all the damage level 10 had done to my transmission. The car was there for about a month, they tore it apart, told me they found no evidence inside the trans that level 10 had done any performance upgrades, all they did was replace all the OEM parts with OEM parts, throw in a sloppy stall converter, a crap valvebody, spray painted the whole thing back, then put it back together wrong since the pinion gear was hanging off the ring gear in the front diff, hence the terrible whine. I get the car back, things are OK, there's still some issues, the ring & pinion are still noisy, i still hit the rev limiter sometimes.

Winter 08, IPT takes my car back, does a FULL REBUILD AGAIN, under warranty, gives me a brand new ring & pinion and rebuild, gives me the car back. It's perfect, no whine, shifts great, my transmission woes are over for the time being.

Part 3, Heavy Modding

Spring of 08' my car is running good, still on the stock TD04, but I've added most of the bolt ons, TMIC, EBC, P&P'd STi headers, catless everything, STi axleback, internet tune, and of course my $10,000 transmission. The car still feels slow, falls on it's face up top since the TD04 on a 2.5L w/high stall 4eat is little more then an exhaust restriction, i figure it's time to get more serious.

I start poking around on nasioc for a good size turbo, I did research and decided on a TD06-20G IWG w/8cm housing since with my 4eat the RPM's tend to stay over 4k under any serious driving conditions. I got lucky and found the exact turbo i wanted slightly used on nasioc & built by deadbolt, i snatched it up and had it inspected by deadbolt himself so the lifetime rebuilds would carry over (waste of time now) and it was good.

So anyway, i got the TD06-20G, all the supporting mods I needed and started searching for a reputable shop to put all this crap in the car for me, since I don't trust myself to do anything more complex then an uppipe on my own. After searching I came across Tristate Tuners very own Area1320. Got in touch with Ryan, firmed up a date and things went well. Dropped my car off, four days later picked it up ready to rock with a new turbo & injectors and all that junk. Shortly after I got the car road tuned also by a local tuner.

The car ran good, and i was enjoying the upgrade the 20G gave me, however when i took the car to the track it just couldn't seem to put down the times i was looking for. My best time @ Island dragway was a 13.2, which kinda pissed me off considering all the work i had put into the car. I drove the car around like this for a few months, then in summer of 08' i decided i would get in on a dyno day because something just didn't seem right.

Got the car Dyno'd at 279whp & 290wtq. Again something was wrong, given the baseline tune was around 260whp, so i did make some gains, but there were VF39'd 2.0's there that were putting down better numbers. The blame was placed on my 4eat and it's high stall converter, and i left it alone. However my fuel mileage plummeted immediately after the dyno run, and some months later i started having drive ability issues.

In late fall of 08 we traced the problem to leaky injectors and 1 injector was just plain stuck open, especially in the cold. Again i had to dump more money on a new set of Deatschwerks 850cc's to replace the modded witchhunters I had. That fixed most of the drivability issues, and i went back shortly after Xmas or new years of 08/09' to get re-dyno'd and hopefully pick up some more power. I got re-dyno'd and lost 3hp... WTF? Again I left it alone and the finger was pointed at the 4eat.

Spring of 09' I start smelling gear oil when i would park the car. At work i started noticing the occasional quarter size droplet of oil in my parking spot at work. I take the car to IPT, they give it a quick inspection and don't see any problems. The gear oil smell continued and the droplets became a bit more frequent. Brought the car back to IPT & dropped it off for a more thorough inspection... Lo and behold they find a hairline crack on the diff housing just below the passenger side axle. The trans has to come back outta the car, completely disassembled, and they find my ring gear missing some teeth also. While they replaced the diff housing and ring & pinion they also refreshed the whole trans at no extra charge. This latest ordeal brought the total amount of $$$ spent on my trans over $11k...

Part 4, Bad News

Summer of 09' I decide that maybe i should have a compression test done, because my fuel mileage kept sucking (13-14mpg), and the performance just wasn't what it should've been. My compression test results come back, I think it was 140, 128, 145, 139, or something like that, not terrible, but not right. I realize this is probably my problem, it's time to get really serious, i now had an excuse to get some motor work done and go with a really big turbo.

I start researching, and collecting parts in fall/winter of 09/10'. I decide on the parts you see in the mod list above. I read great things about the rallispec shortblock, and the price was right, so i decided on that. For most other parts i consulted the company that was tuning me at the time, they recommended the ATP turbo, kelford cams, Supertech valvetrain, so that's what i went with through them.

Part 5, Build time.

I collected all the parts i needed over winter/spring. I bought used heads so that when i brought the car to Area1320 it would be a fairly straight forward motor swap with less downtime. Unfortunately the used heads i bought were flogged pretty hard, and when i sent them out to be refurbished, ported, and assembled, they discovered that one of the cam caps that came with my heads was not a matching cap, great... I start doing research, making phone calls and it was suggested that i just get the heads line bored so i can use them. I start making more phone calls looking for someone to line bore my heads. A local machine shop gets me in touch with MachineWorldNY.com, they say they can do the heads and have them back to me assembled and ready to rock in 1 week for a reasonable price. I figure great, lets do it.

I get all the parts together and drop the car off at Area1320. At the end of August i got the car back, it seemed to run strong, although the valve train was very noisy. I figure OK, I'll break it in and get it dyno'd again. I try to get in touch with the company that was tuning me at the time to see if they could just send me a break-in tune so i wouldn't have to drive two hours to them. My e-mails were ignored for the most part, I took logs and sent them up there and told them about CEL P0021 that kept getting thrown, they said something was wrong, stop beating on the car. I said I'm not beating on the car, these are just logs I've taken while I'm breaking the car in, can you please just send me a safe tune til i break the car in and can get up there on the dyno.

They told me they don't send open source tunes via e-mail even though they sent me one or two before. I got fed up and started searching for a more local tuner. I got in touch with Jr. on nasioc because he's right here in jersey and has a great Reputation. Jr. was quick to get me a safe tune until the car was broken in and i could head down to get a dyno.

I meet up with Jr. in the beginning of October to get dyno'd. Again somethings wrong, the car pulls 318whp @ 23psi with my ATP35R... WTF? After some talking and blaming the trans Jr. tells me come in and get a leakdown because he saw something similar to this on a car he had that had leaky valves. Based on my past luck, I know immediately that that's going to be the problem.

02-11-2011, 11:37 AM	#1
g00fy Tri-State Aficionado Join Date: Feb 2011 Member #19541 My Ride: 05 Subaru Rhombus XT iTrader: (0)	g00fy's 05' FXT is Back I bought my forester back in April of 2005, brand new off the floor Crystal Grey Metallic with a 4eat. Roughly a year later i got bit by the mod bug and purchased a QTP Downpipe with cut-out, and it's been a slippery, expensive, slope since then, and it's still not finished... I'll try to bring this Journal up to date as quickly and neatly as possible. My ultimate goal for this car epic sleeper, near stock appearance, ride height, exhaust note, etc. The car also has to be able to handle all sorts of small SUV tasks such as towing, light off-roading, hauling, etc. Hence my first mod being a catless downpipe with a cut-out, it flowed great, allowed me to keep things quiet or crank up the volume if the situation called for it. I'll skip the boring stuff and post up my current mod list, then I'll follow the list with my long and painful story until this point. --------------------------THE OLD FAIL MOD LIST------------------------- Fuel & Tuning: * Jr. Tuned Open Source Tune @ 318hp (All Valves Were Leaking) * 93 Octane Pump Gas * Motul 300V 10W40 * Walbro 255lph * Deatschwerks 850cc Injectors * Agency Power Rails Engine/Turbo: * Rallispec Street Spec Short block FAIL - 09' Nitrated Crank - Cosworth Pistons/Bearings - Manley H-Beam Rods * Custom Built Heads FAIL - Kelford 264/264 - Supertech .5 Over Valves - Supertech Dual Valve Springs - Supertech Retainers - Mild Port Job * ATP35R IWG Turbo @ 23psi Exhaust / Intake: * P&P'd STi Exhaust Manifold * Catless Turbo XS uppipe * QTP Catless Downpipe w/Cut-out * Maddad Whisper Catback * Perrin Old School Big MAF Intake * P&P'd Intake Manifold Drivetrain: * Fully Built IPT 4eat w/High Stall & Valvebody * Modena 4eat Front LSD Suspension: * Coming Soon Brakes: * Racing Brake Slotted Rotors All Around * Racing Brake H6 Rear Upgrade * Racing Brake ET500 Pads All Around * Goodridge Stainless Brake Lines * ATE Superblue Fluid Wheels & tires: * Stock Rims w/215x70x16 General Grabber AT's (Winter) * MB Boost 17" Rims * BFG Sports 225x55x17 (Summer) Interior: * Custom Garage XTi Triple Gauge Center Pod * 60mm Omori Boost, EGT, Oil Pressure * Alpine 9835 Head Unit * Dual Alpine 12" Type R Subs Exterior: * 02-03 JDM STi Hoodscoop --------------------------THE NEW WIN MOD LIST------------------------- Tuning: Utec Delta w/map switching ??? Engine/Turbo: Area1320 Re-Built Short block - Re-Honed - CP Pistons - Polished Crank - All New Bearings - Upgraded Oil Pick-up (Killer B or Covert???) * Custom Area1320 Built Heads - GSC 272/272 Cams - Supertech .5 Over Inconel Exhaust Valves - Supertech Dual Valve Springs - Supertech Retainers - Bitchin' Awesome Custom Area1320 Port Job * ATP35R IWG Turbo @ 23psi Maybe Rebuilt if Needed Drivetrain: * http://www.powertraincontrolsolutions.com/ Custom Stand Alone TCU Suspension: * King Springs Stiffer Springs (Stock height in front, 3/4" lift in rear) Exterior/Protection: * Primitive racing 1/8" skid plate with stinger option & oil drain holes. * Replacement Baby Head Hitch Cover Will add pictures and story later... The Story Of my Foresters Slow & Painful Evolution: Like i said before I bought my forester new in April of 2005, since then the modding process has been slow, painful, and retardedly expensive. My First mod in spring of 2006 was a QTP Downpipe with electric cut-out. Great pipe, kinda expensive, and the electric motors don't hold up very well, but they're cheap and easy to replace. Part 1, Level 10 and the 4eat Nightmare The Downpipe held me for a while, then I got involved with Level 10 transmission later in 2006. A buddy of mine convinced me to pick up a Fully built Level 10 Trans out of a 2000 Subaru forester. The trans was supposed to go in a project car that got scrapped and little did I know this trans bounced around nasioc for a while before i finally picked it up. Before purchasing it i called level 10 to verify fitment. They told me yea it'll fit, bring it in and we'll swap it in for you. So i picked up the trans for a very reasonable price, brought it to level 10, they had the car for about a week, i called them they said there were some problems with the electronics & fitment between the model years, so i said ok call me when you got it figured out. A couple more days go by, i call back and they say well, things were not going very smooth so we just gave you a credit for the trans you brought us and built your stock one up and charged you the balance... At the time i figured OK that's fair especially since they credited me a few hundred dollars more then i paid for the used trans, and I now had a fully built new trans from what i thought was a reputable company. Little did i know I had just gotten the ultimate shaft. So i have the trans for no more then a week and spot a trans leak. Bring the car back, they have it for a day, say it's fixed, send it back, the leak is now worse. This went on for several weeks before it finally seemed to get fixed. Shortly after that in February or march i was at college and i start my car up in the parking garage on the coldest day of the year. The car is billowing smoke, but i assume it's condensation and whatnot cause it's freezing out. I back outta the spot and notice a big old spot of trans fluid and a big spot of motor oil. Great. I had the car towed t a local dealership (Ramsey Subaru), cause mods aside the car was still under warranty. They call me up and tell me my car failed the compression test/leak down. The Woman running the service desk at the time was a real nice person, she calmed me down & told me she'd probably be able to get Subaru to warranty it. Sure enough Subaru did despite my Open downpipe and fully built automatic trans. After the job though they gave me a short novel i had to read and sign that basically said, "we did this out of the kindness of our hearts, we will never do it again." I was cool with that and quickly learned the importance of a Tune. Time went on and i started getting deeper into the mod game. P&P'd STi headers came along, catless uppipe, EBC, and an internet tune. However my level 10 trans kept having new and interesting problems. It was not shifting between 1st & 2nd on launches, the thing started whining like crazy. I kept bringing it back and they kept feeding me BS and the trans just kept getting worse. Part 2, IPT Trans Saves the day Fall of 07 I finally bit the bullet and took my car to IPT transmission to have them undo all the damage level 10 had done to my transmission. The car was there for about a month, they tore it apart, told me they found no evidence inside the trans that level 10 had done any performance upgrades, all they did was replace all the OEM parts with OEM parts, throw in a sloppy stall converter, a crap valvebody, spray painted the whole thing back, then put it back together wrong since the pinion gear was hanging off the ring gear in the front diff, hence the terrible whine. I get the car back, things are OK, there's still some issues, the ring & pinion are still noisy, i still hit the rev limiter sometimes. Winter 08, IPT takes my car back, does a FULL REBUILD AGAIN, under warranty, gives me a brand new ring & pinion and rebuild, gives me the car back. It's perfect, no whine, shifts great, my transmission woes are over for the time being. Part 3, Heavy Modding Spring of 08' my car is running good, still on the stock TD04, but I've added most of the bolt ons, TMIC, EBC, P&P'd STi headers, catless everything, STi axleback, internet tune, and of course my $10,000 transmission. The car still feels slow, falls on it's face up top since the TD04 on a 2.5L w/high stall 4eat is little more then an exhaust restriction, i figure it's time to get more serious. I start poking around on nasioc for a good size turbo, I did research and decided on a TD06-20G IWG w/8cm housing since with my 4eat the RPM's tend to stay over 4k under any serious driving conditions. I got lucky and found the exact turbo i wanted slightly used on nasioc & built by deadbolt, i snatched it up and had it inspected by deadbolt himself so the lifetime rebuilds would carry over (waste of time now) and it was good. So anyway, i got the TD06-20G, all the supporting mods I needed and started searching for a reputable shop to put all this crap in the car for me, since I don't trust myself to do anything more complex then an uppipe on my own. After searching I came across Tristate Tuners very own Area1320. Got in touch with Ryan, firmed up a date and things went well. Dropped my car off, four days later picked it up ready to rock with a new turbo & injectors and all that junk. Shortly after I got the car road tuned also by a local tuner. The car ran good, and i was enjoying the upgrade the 20G gave me, however when i took the car to the track it just couldn't seem to put down the times i was looking for. My best time @ Island dragway was a 13.2, which kinda pissed me off considering all the work i had put into the car. I drove the car around like this for a few months, then in summer of 08' i decided i would get in on a dyno day because something just didn't seem right. Got the car Dyno'd at 279whp & 290wtq. Again something was wrong, given the baseline tune was around 260whp, so i did make some gains, but there were VF39'd 2.0's there that were putting down better numbers. The blame was placed on my 4eat and it's high stall converter, and i left it alone. However my fuel mileage plummeted immediately after the dyno run, and some months later i started having drive ability issues. In late fall of 08 we traced the problem to leaky injectors and 1 injector was just plain stuck open, especially in the cold. Again i had to dump more money on a new set of Deatschwerks 850cc's to replace the modded witchhunters I had. That fixed most of the drivability issues, and i went back shortly after Xmas or new years of 08/09' to get re-dyno'd and hopefully pick up some more power. I got re-dyno'd and lost 3hp... WTF? Again I left it alone and the finger was pointed at the 4eat. Spring of 09' I start smelling gear oil when i would park the car. At work i started noticing the occasional quarter size droplet of oil in my parking spot at work. I take the car to IPT, they give it a quick inspection and don't see any problems. The gear oil smell continued and the droplets became a bit more frequent. Brought the car back to IPT & dropped it off for a more thorough inspection... Lo and behold they find a hairline crack on the diff housing just below the passenger side axle. The trans has to come back outta the car, completely disassembled, and they find my ring gear missing some teeth also. While they replaced the diff housing and ring & pinion they also refreshed the whole trans at no extra charge. This latest ordeal brought the total amount of $$$ spent on my trans over $11k... Part 4, Bad News Summer of 09' I decide that maybe i should have a compression test done, because my fuel mileage kept sucking (13-14mpg), and the performance just wasn't what it should've been. My compression test results come back, I think it was 140, 128, 145, 139, or something like that, not terrible, but not right. I realize this is probably my problem, it's time to get really serious, i now had an excuse to get some motor work done and go with a really big turbo. I start researching, and collecting parts in fall/winter of 09/10'. I decide on the parts you see in the mod list above. I read great things about the rallispec shortblock, and the price was right, so i decided on that. For most other parts i consulted the company that was tuning me at the time, they recommended the ATP turbo, kelford cams, Supertech valvetrain, so that's what i went with through them. Part 5, Build time. I collected all the parts i needed over winter/spring. I bought used heads so that when i brought the car to Area1320 it would be a fairly straight forward motor swap with less downtime. Unfortunately the used heads i bought were flogged pretty hard, and when i sent them out to be refurbished, ported, and assembled, they discovered that one of the cam caps that came with my heads was not a matching cap, great... I start doing research, making phone calls and it was suggested that i just get the heads line bored so i can use them. I start making more phone calls looking for someone to line bore my heads. A local machine shop gets me in touch with MachineWorldNY.com, they say they can do the heads and have them back to me assembled and ready to rock in 1 week for a reasonable price. I figure great, lets do it. I get all the parts together and drop the car off at Area1320. At the end of August i got the car back, it seemed to run strong, although the valve train was very noisy. I figure OK, I'll break it in and get it dyno'd again. I try to get in touch with the company that was tuning me at the time to see if they could just send me a break-in tune so i wouldn't have to drive two hours to them. My e-mails were ignored for the most part, I took logs and sent them up there and told them about CEL P0021 that kept getting thrown, they said something was wrong, stop beating on the car. I said I'm not beating on the car, these are just logs I've taken while I'm breaking the car in, can you please just send me a safe tune til i break the car in and can get up there on the dyno. They told me they don't send open source tunes via e-mail even though they sent me one or two before. I got fed up and started searching for a more local tuner. I got in touch with Jr. on nasioc because he's right here in jersey and has a great Reputation. Jr. was quick to get me a safe tune until the car was broken in and i could head down to get a dyno. I meet up with Jr. in the beginning of October to get dyno'd. Again somethings wrong, the car pulls 318whp @ 23psi with my ATP35R... WTF? After some talking and blaming the trans Jr. tells me come in and get a leakdown because he saw something similar to this on a car he had that had leaky valves. Based on my past luck, I know immediately that that's going to be the problem. Last edited by g00fy; 09-22-2013 at 11:12 PM.