Dave's Subie Fah-Q

[DaveSTi]

Decided to start on one of these for this forum to help out people just starting out with their new Subaru turbo car. My knowledge comes from the GD series, so if you'd like to chime in with additional info on the GC or GR series, then have at it.

Part 1:

The Driver
-Learn to drive

The Car
-Alignment
-Maintenance
-Tires
-Brakes

Part 2:

SUSPENSION Setups, theory, experiences
-The Daily Driver
-The Sport Upgrade
-The Autocrosser
-The Tracker

Part 3:

POWER Setups, theory, experiences
-The Grocery Getter
-The Daily Driver
-The Me Too!
-The Middle
-And Beyond

Part 4:

Ghostbusters a.k.a. "Who you gonna call?"

[Ender81]

Awww shucks I hate it when the episode ends in a To Be Continued.......

[DaveSTi]

Originally Posted by Ender81

Awww shucks I hate it when the episode ends in a To Be Continued.......

haha sorry...this is going to take a lot of time to fully write...the above is so bare bones..

[caldwell]

please continue posting on this...

cant wait to read more !

[ATTI2D]

Damn Dave you really are missing your old subie.

[DaveSTi]

Originally Posted by ATTI2D

Damn Dave you really are missing your old subie.

Not really, I mean it was a great learning experience but I'm not regretting moving on to the new car. I wanted to write this more to help those who I could since I've been seeing a few of the same topics popping up more and more lately before I started to forget everything like I do when I move on to another platform, hah.

more will be coming guys, sorry for this delay...world series, reorg at work, and friends coming to visit this weekend have jammed up my free time.

[DaveSTi]

Part 1:

The Driver

Learn to drive.

All too often, we see people buy sports cars and then immediately start to modify them. As fun as this is, it is the wrong approach. Why? It usually raises the limits of what performance the car can achieve. This is bad only because I'd wager a hefty sum that most couldn't drive the stock car to its limits safely. I'd also wager a hefty sum that most couldn't identify what behavior the car is exhibiting at its limit and the way to tailor it how you want it.

This is a problem.

In the United States, its no secret that just about anyone can pass the driver's test. This does not mean you can actually drive though. For example, can just about anyone dunk a basketball, hit a homerun in the majors, score with a supermodel, or throw a 50 yard touchdown pass? If you've answered yes to all of these, your name is Chuck Norris. So what gives people (ok guys) that inalienable belief that they are the second coming of Jesus on a pogo stick behind the wheel of a car? Honestly, I don't know since I'm guilty of it as well, but awareness of this fact is important.

Put the wrench down, pick up the helmet.

My strong advice to anyone that buys a performance car is to learn its limits as it comes from the factory first. Not only will this enable you to get your speed fix for a lot less money, it will also provide you with a true life skill of knowing how to react behind the wheel and avoid an accident and be a safer driver. Today's performance cars are light-years ahead of the ones that were around even 15 years ago. Appreciate that engineering leap.

Enroll in your local SCCA, NASA, etc. Chapter.

Go out to some races. Observe what people are doing. Ask for rides in their cars as they go through the course or track (if allowed). Learn through their experiences. Ask questions. Then, when you feel you are ready, take out your own car and remember that you are learning. There are no records to beat, just try to focus on what you can do to improve. Consult with an instructor or three. Learn.

Once you've done this even once, I can promise you that you will have a new appreciation for what your actions behind the wheel can and cannot deliver.

The Car

Maintenance

The very first thing you must do and continue to keep track of on your car. Follow your owner's manual for intervals and products to use. Don't have an owners manual? Search around ebay or forums...there is almost guaranteed to be one on a CD-ROM somewhere.

Just remember...today's $50 oil change delays tomorrow's $1500 shortblock.

Alignment

This is a part of proper maintenance but it is also one of the key foundations to anything performance-related. It references how your tire interacts with the pavement, which shouldn't need to be explained as to how important this is. For better stick in a turn, you will want to run more negative camber. For more dynamic camber, you will want to have more caster. To prevent excessive tire wear, you want to run without toe. The amounts of camber will vary depending on your setup and the track. A good guide on the Subaru is to always keep the front camber a degree higher than the camber in the rear.


Tires

The single most important part you can buy for your car. If I had a nickel for every time I've seen a tuner car with thousands of dollars in parts rolling on crappy summer tires or worse, all-seasons...I'd make Roger Penske blush.

Your car's only contact with the road are your tires. Unless you've lowered it like a retard and the body kit is scrapping, tires are the only place where all the things you do in your driver seat touch the pavement. Why be cheap here? Good tires to look into for summer performance driving will be different than what you'll want to run in the winter. It's how tire compounds work. Summer tires get stickier when its warm out. Winter tires get stickier when its cold out. This should tell you why its not a great idea to mix the two.

Here are some recommendations for summer tires (when you should use tires the most):
Bridgestone Potenza RE01R, RE11R, RE050A
Yokohama Advan A07, A08, A13, Neova
Dunlop Direzza Star Spec
Falken Azeni RT-615

Here are some recommendations for winter tires:
Blizzak.

Spend the money, get good tires.


Brakes

This is relatively easy to explain. Aside from your tires, your brakes are what stop you. (collective duh) This means that you don't want to cheap out here either, BUT you do have the choice of running the right setup for your budget and actual usage. For example, if you're riding on the street all day in bumper to bumper traffic, you seriously do not need a brake upgrade. Stop dreaming, you don't. Now, what I recommend to everyone is to run the stock pads until you get them to fade. At that point, change the fluid, move over to ss lines, and pick up better pads. You would be amazed at how far a set of stock pads can take you.

What pads? Here are my recommendations per usage:

daily driving/street = stock or Hawk HPS.
autocross/daily driving = Ferodo DS2500
track = Pagid Yellows, Oranges, Ferodo DS3000, Hawk DT-10, etc etc etc.

[DaveSTi]

Part 2:

SUSPENSION Setups, theory, experiences

Proper maintenance, tires, and alignment apply to all of the following setups.

The Daily Driver

You spend your time going Point A to Point B, but want something a little stiffer and a little stickier without ruining the ride quality or annoying your female companion.

Swaybars: Look into the Cusco 22mm bars all around for a noticeable but very light upgrade. If you want a little more at higher speeds, look into the 24-26mm range for front and rear. I'd recommend the RaceComp Engineering bars set at 25.5mm (softest setting) or Cobb/Hotchkis bars (if they've fixed the fitment issues). I'd stay away from Whiteline unless you don't mind the grotesque rusting issues and walking bar.

Tip: Ditch the grease on the bushings and wrap teflon tape around the bar where the bushing sits. No more grease required.

Endlinks: You'll want these so the swaybars don't break your stock ones or flip and damage your rear control arms. Avoid spherical bushings, they will only break down with time and operate noisily. Kartboy makes a hard to beat endlink design that has proven to be ridiculously durable and easily serviceable should the need ever arrive (it won't).

Cut your bumpstops: Take out your stock struts, open them carefully and remove an inch from the top of the rubber/foam cushion. This will improve your bump travel, ensuring a nicer ride quality and keeping the tire to the pavement under severe bumps.

At this point, you have a nice, comfortable daily driver that will not float or lean too heavily in turns. Congrats.


The Sport Upgrade

Take the daily driver setup and add the following:

Rear subframe and dif bushings: tightens up the rear of the car, you will notice it in your right foot when exiting a turn. cheap and effective at reducing slop in the rear of the car.

X-Brace: For GD sedans only. Tightens up the rear of chassis and is almost a must-do mod as it helps make the rear of the car feel connected to the steering wheel. Note: a rear strut bar or V-brace won't be nearly as effective due to the geometry of whats being connected.

Fender Braces: For all cars built before 2007. Redirects front suspension force from the cabin back into the firewall and suspension where it belongs.

The Autocrosser

Camber plates: You want a plate that has a beefy bearing set that will withstand the pounding that it'll take over bumps in the road and on the course. This means that you're not going to want to run some half-ass plate made in Taiwan if you value not having to replace it every 6 months. Look at the Vorshlag plates...if the plate you want to get doesn't look as beefy, don't buy it...unless you like replacing car parts. Camber plates for up front to get your car the -3 camber it needs and some pillowball mounts out back since you will never find a need for more than -2 camber out back, which can be done with stock hardware and ride height.

Coilovers: Oh boy, you knew I was getting here eventually, didn't you?

First, lets start with something you need to keep in the back of your head when navigating these waters:

"Andrew's top 5 things to look for in a coilover

1. A solid US presence from the manufacturer. Can you have them rebuilt quickly and easily without sending them to China, Japan, Germany, Afghanistan, etc.?

2. Spring rates. If a manufacturer puts out mismatched spring rates....it's a good sign they don't know what they are doing. Seriously big red flags should go up if they do this.

3. Can you get someone on the phone to talk to you about the shock and how to adjust? How about good alignment settings? How about being able to do that on the weekend when you're at the track?

4. Damper travel. You can't soak up mid-corner bumps (or potholes) if you only have an inch of travel before hitting the bumpstops. Lots of coilovers are like this unfortunately. Separate ride height and preload adjustment is nice, but if you have hardly any travel to start with....sorry....you're gonna have some trouble.

5. Valving. The hardest to see and the hardest to evaluate. Shock dyno plots are helpful but can be difficult to understand and not always available. Can the vendor explain how the shock will feel and the reasoning behind the valving?

Remember....a kidney crunching ride is NOT always fast."

So what does this all mean for you? Here's a quick and dirty coilover lesson. If its from Taiwan, Japan, Korea, China or the Philipines...don't buy it. I will explain more later in the theory section of this write-up. If it's made by KW, Ohlins, Bilstein, AST, Penske, or Koni...buy it.

Anti-Lift Kit: Only if you want to run in SM class in SCCA, or if you just don't care about classing rules. This will help you gain caster. Caster is good because it influences your camber curve dynamically and keeps it negative longer.

Roll Center Adjuster Kit: If you lower your Subaru, buy this. It will fix what you screwed up by lowering the factory geometry.

Ride height setting: 14" from the center of the hub to the top of your fender-well in the front and 13.5" in the rear. Why? Because that's what has been recommended by Javid among others that race Subarus on track for their careers. The math bears it out as well for the car's cg and suspension geometry. If you see someone lowering more than this for looks, you are allowed to snicker because the car will handle and ride like ****.

The Tracker

Subframe brace: Reduces front end weight on a front end heavy car. Also stiffens up the chassis.

Lightweight battery: Reduces front end weight by 10-15 lbs. A track car wants this.

JDM front bumper beam: Reduces front end weight by 20-30 lbs. A track car wants this.

Strut Tower bar: Stiffens up the front end when high spring rates are chosen that can make the chassis mounting the weak link.

Group N bushings or Lateral Links and Trailing Arms: Get rid of the slop in the rear of the car once and for all.

Theory

Dave's Rules of Suspension

1). Stiff is not always fast.
2). JDM sucks.
3). Less is more.

Lowering Springs: Notice I never mentioned them? Good. That's because they're awfully overrated for something that accomplishes a lot more bad than good. Here are the Pros and the Cons.
First, the Pros:
-Lowers the car which lowers the cg
-Increases spring rate
Now, the Cons:
-Lowers the car too much 99% of the time
-Eats up precious bump travel, reducing ride quality and suspension compliance to zero.
-Does not increase the spring rate enough to really matter
-Reduces shock life substantially
-Doesn't always take corner weighting into consideration (Swift does..yay Swift)
-Have yet to show much of a decrease in lap times.

Coilovers: Asian coilovers are valved to have high rebound in the low speed and high speed area of the shock dyno. This is bad for ride quality and bump absorption. This means that the tire will leave the pavement over bumps on track. This is a loss of traction.

Asian coilovers also do not offer much strut travel, which when combined with the valving, mean a lot of areas on bumpy roads or tracks where the damper is not keeping the tire to the pavement.

Asian coilovers love dual-height adjustability. It means nothing for performance since there isn't enough strut travel to make use of it. Maybe some inboard spring clearance could be had, but that's not a sure thing.

Asian coilovers are expensive despite all of these downsides. For some reason, people run them under the pretense that they're decent. Not sure where that came from.

BC Racing, etc. coilovers. Cheap and effective for autocrossing. Not comfortable on the GD for the street and will overheat on the track. Camber plates rust out and the bearing will disintegrate after 6 months to a year. You get what you pay for, but if you are smart enough to avoid lowering springs but can't afford good coilovers, you buy these and accept the drawbacks rather than pay twice as much for Tein, Cusco, HKS, etc. and think its good because of the brand name and price while receiving similar product.

Bilstein PSS-9 coilovers. Good for street driving, but the adjuster is inaccurate and thus this system is ultimately limited. Still a lot more comfortable than JDM and worth the money.

KW V3, RCE T2, etc. The standard for a track coilover that retains some street comfort. The problem with the KW V3 platform is that the high speed portion of the shock valving cannot be changed with the adjusters, which means that no matter how much you dial in the system for 99% of the time, that 1% big bump in the road will make you go crazy.

AST 4000 and 5000 series. Excellent choice for comfort and track. Race valving can be manipulated to give an amazing setup at slightly less than premium pricing.

JRZ. If you want to win, you buy JRZ, period. I didn't mention this brand before, but we're not talking about racing on a budget here, we're talking about shutting up your entire car class and the exotic owners that hate your spoiler. Cha-ching.

Ohlins. The DFV has a reliable adjuster that can properly influence both low speed and high speed valving. The problem is that the valving out of the box could use some work. The solution is to call up one of the many Ohlins revalving centers in the U.S. to fix that. Then you're on another level from nearly everyone else with quality components to back it up.

Penske. File under JRZ/serious tracking. Will crap all over everybody else since it will be custom built to your application and cost big bucks.

Koni. And finally, everyone's favorite budget shock that can be revalved to compete with anything...the Koni. Match this up to ground control springs and perches and you'll be light-years ahead of most on a budget setup.

Experiences

Tokico, Cusco, Tein, KW, RCE, Whiteline, BC Racing, Megan, HKS, Greddy, Koni, AST, Ohlins, KYB, Bilstein, Vorshlag, Stance, Tanabe, Apex'i, Ground Control, and JIC to name a few.

Conclusion

At the end of each of these stages, your goals for the car should be satisfied. The decision for where you want to take the car is entirely up to you, but my advice is to start small and find what your limits are as a driver rather than as a consumer. You may find that having the tracker setup is too extreme for what you really use the car for, or you may find that the daily driver doesn't offer enough for your liking. that's ok...its just a lot cheaper to be in the daily driver and know that satisfaction is only a part or two away rather than $5,000 of wasted investment.

If you opt for the The Tracker, I can guarantee you that your Subaru will be as good as it gets. From that point on, it will come down to your driving ability and learning curve. Enjoy.

If you'd like to go further in-depth into suspension tuning, then this site is a great place to bookmark and read through:
http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets5.html

[DaveSTi]

Part 3:

POWER Setups, theory, experiences

This section may be a little controversial because I'm going to share things that are known but not as publicized. Here we go!


The Grocery Getter:
This is your daily driver that must be reliable and cannot break down. You still want to have a little fun with it though, without going crazy and having the dealer deny your warranty. Here we go:

air filter. will let you hear the woosh sound more. ecu tune...either through opensource or a cobb ap protune, this will clean up the crappy stock tune that has been known to detonate newer engines and eek out a little bit more power. simply flash back the stock map should you need to make a visit to the dealer. how much power will this add? 20-30bhp or so. more of a torque gain than anything and as we all know....torque is what we drive.

The Daily Driver

The above plus a downpipe and turbo inlet pipe. reflash the car to stage 2 map, get tuned by a professional. now you're cooking. much more lowend torque on the stock snail, safe power, but still quiet so not going to piss off your neighborhood or set off any car alarms. the stealth power build.

What downpipe? Divorced or bellmouth? Doesn't matter. Pick what fits into your budget, although I do recommend a bellmouth and making sure its a full 3" through because some systems aren't (cobb).

The Me Too!

Throw a catback exhaust, header, up-pipe, cold air intake, and intercooler upgrade onto the DD package and get a retune. a fmic doesn't work well with the stock turbo but people run them anyway since it looks cool. personally, if you use a stock mount turbo, use a stock mount intercooler. nothing in the stock location will really push the flow capabilities of a good TMIC (Spearco). there is some concern over heat soak, but unless you're pounding the car in hot weather or tracking it all day...you really won't get killed with it. Besides, isn't everyone stage 2 protuned?

What exhaust? It doesn't ****ing matter. Buy the cheapest or the most baller one you want and the power numbers will be about the same every time. Pipe really is pipe provided the welds are good and the routing is right. Sorry, $2k into a JDM exhaust does nothing more for power than a $275 ebay special. Truth hurts.

What header? Depends. Do you want to make the most power or do you want to keep the Subaru sound? I'm referring to equal length headers or unequal length. Also, how are the welds, how thick are the flanges, are the flanges level, how thick is the tubing? All things to consider...I do NOT recommend ebay parts here. Stick with Perrin, GTSPEC, Mad Dad, Full-Race and don't look back unless you like cracking exhaust manifolds. Another option is to port and polish the stocker and run a mid-pipe from grimmspeed. Whatever works...

What intercooler? Stay far, far away from the junk ebay cores. This includes SSAC and CSS crap. AMR is an ebay core with new brackets welded on. Stick with Spearco, APS, or Perrin for a TMIC and Perrin or APS for a FMIC. You don't want to have to deal with fitment issues because you decided to cheap out.

What cold air intake? Something that can be tuned!! This means stay away from Injen, AEM, and instead buy the APS 65mm. It's stupid easy to tune and won't bork your maf curve if you decide to run around on it without a tune (you'd be dumb to do this).

The Middle

you want a turbo upgrade. your friends are making fun of you for having a turbo that drops off above 5k. you only want to run pump gas because its a street car. here's what you buy and don't look back:

autox car: stock turbo
open track car: 18g/20g

that's it. here's why...the VE (volumetric efficiency) of the subaru 2.5liter does not produce power gains on pump gas beyond the 20g 44 lbs/min size. sure, you may eek out another 10-15whp with a dom3, but you're also trading some response. simply put, its not the turbo size that matters after that 44lbs/min mark...its the octane and VE. stock longblock? buy the 20g and use the extra couple hundred you've saved on a trip to the track and a few oil changes. don't believe me? go look up dyno results from your favorite turbo on pump gas vs. the 20g on pump gas. straight 93 octane. stock longblock. have fun ;)

throw in 800-850cc injectors and a walbro 255. have the car retuned by a professional. swap out the factory induction piping to an aps 70mm for more maf headroom.

And Beyond

You want to have the nastiest Subaru in the parking lot. Where does sanity end in this build? Is it your CC limit or your IQ?

Go rotated. Don't waste your time with stock location turbos...the hot side is too small for big power. skip the GT30R...go bigger. GT35R, GT42R, etc.

Forged CP pistons, Cosworth cams, forged rods, forged crankshaft, upgraded rod bearings, ARP head studs, etc etc. CONSULT YOUR ENGINE BUILDER AND TUNER ON WHAT THEY SUGGEST FOR YOUR BUILD!!

Let me say this again for this level:

CONSULT YOUR ENGINE BUILDER AND TUNER ON WHAT THEY SUGGEST FOR YOUR BUILD!!

You do not want to come to the forums and ask for what parts to buy here. It will end in failure. You need professional advice and knowhow to ensure that your $20-40k investment into power (and yes, to do it right it will cost in that ballpark), will be as good as it can be. You will not be able to daily drive this car now and you will have to pay careful attention to it when you do drive it, not to mention becoming religious with servicing it. Hey, you wanted the big monster...now you've gotta feed it...and it only eats one thing...your cash.

Theory:

9 times out of 10, you will blow your engine with a turbo upgrade on stock internals. Prepare for that expense when you go into your build so that you won't be left with your skateboard and a box of tissues when the car inevitably blows its engine.

The stock 2.5 liter engines are fragile. Don't try to push 25 psi through them, don't try to run a gt35r on it, hell don't try to push it very hard either, it will break. For every guy that gets his stock shortblock to accept a larger turbo with a quality tune, there are entire graveyards of those that can't.

The stock 2.5 liter likes to let go around 75k miles. Prepare for this. It may happen earlier. It's a bad design. The stock pistons are weak, the oil pickup tube is crap, and there are loose tolerances on some factory builds too. Just be aware of all of this.

The engine when built will still blow up if you overboost it, have a crap tune, abuse it, or build it wrong. There is no magic bullet for reliability in this game of modding. Prepare for that.

No matter what parts you use, your setup is only as good as its tune. Never forget this. A tune is the most important thing you can do to any car's setup so that it is reliable and produces good power. Never forget this.

Dave's Rules for Power on the Subaru:

1). Keep the stock turbo if you value reliability.
2). It will get expensive very quickly if you don't have it tuned well.
3). ~380whp is the limit of the stock block's VE on pump gas. don't be fooled by vendors selling GT30Rs claiming 400whp+...it won't be for long.
4). 20g or GT35R. The in-between turbos accomplish little to nothing extra over the 20g.
5). A protuned stage 2 car around a track vs. a 20g car is not that far away. Just something to keep in mind. You aren't lapping anyone with a 20g over a protuned stage 2.
6). At the end of the day, there will always be someone faster and your timeslips don't show a CC balance.

Have fun!

[DaveSTi]

Part 4:

Ghostbusters a.k.a. "Who you gonna call?"

Driving: www.phillyscca.com
Maintenance: Subaru's website, your car's manual, etc.
Tires: Luke at TireRack www.tirerack.com
Suspension: Myles and Andrew at www.racecompengineering.com, Bryan at JRZ USA
Power: Ryan and Drake at AREA1320, Josh at Import Image
Tuning: Ray at TurboTek for OpenSource, Ryan for UTEC, Doug or Scott at TOPSPEED for Cobb AP, John at COBB for hardware/software issues.

If you're at the track and stuck on a suspension setting or you're running into issues with power...it really helps to know these guys. Buy them a beer when you run into them, they're all as good as it gets.

And this wraps up my FAH-Q. I hope it helped you sort through the muck that is internet advice. If you have any questions, PM me. I can get a lot more technical if need be, but I didn't feel like writing a textbook.

[ATTI2D]

Great job so far Dave. Keep it up.
Whats pricing like on the JRZ's... top of the line time attack / track stuff?

[nissamax]

dont mean to clog this thread witha stupid question. im a poor student going to psu. i really really wanna lower my car. what should i look into? maby finding some brand of coilovers used? i was considering getting Tanable springs.or Tien. but according to u i should avoid them

[DaveSTi]

Originally Posted by ATTI2D

Great job so far Dave. Keep it up.
Whats pricing like on the JRZ's... top of the line time attack / track stuff?

Thanks, time to get into the power section which should be fun, haha.

http://www.jrzsuspension.com/index.php?products_t4m

you gotta call and ask. for the evo, it starts out at $4k. they're in the same building as RCE these days running their Porsche race teams.

[DaveSTi]

Originally Posted by nissamax

dont mean to clog this thread witha stupid question. im a poor student going to psu. i really really wanna lower my car. what should i look into? maby finding some brand of coilovers used? i was considering getting Tanable springs.or Tien. but according to u i should avoid them

honestly, its a pay to play game. you could buy some used BC Racing coilovers that would be better than the lowering spring game, but they're still going to cost $600 on up and you'll still run into the issues I've mentioned before.

When I was in college, I had a Mustang. Suspension to the vast majority of those guys is an OEM Cobra or Bullitt model part away so it was a lot cheaper of a car to modify. I ran Tokico Blues with Ford C Springs and thought it was awesome, haha. Unfortunately, such an option doesn't really exist from the factory for the Subaru since STi springs blow out WRX struts and don't lower much either.

You gotta weigh the benefits. You want a lowered car but can't afford to do it the right way so you'll have to determine how important shock life and ride quality is to you. Up front, you may save on a set of springs by a good $500 over used budget coilovers, but how much will new struts cost you?

Just something to consider... Personally, my advice would be to save up any way you can and wait it out...it is just a car.

[CHAOS]

this is all lies.

[DaveSTi]

All done barring revisions down the road. Enjoy!

[ATTI2D]

This deserves a bump. Dave I see no zzxyz in the co department?

[DaveSTi]

Originally Posted by ATTI2D

This deserves a bump. Dave I see no zzxyz in the co department?

Thanks!

Are they still in business? Last I heard they weren't.

[ATTI2D]

"temporarily out of production". These can still be found used also.

[DaveSTi]

Originally Posted by ATTI2D

"temporarily out of production". These can still be found used also.

ah ok..well honestly, all they ever were were Koni dampers with custom mounting bracketry. They offered the SA Koni in nice packaging with custom valving options available, but most are off the shelf valving in a nice shell.

The $$$ set were nothing more than the DA Koni damper.