I recently bought a 02 WRX and I love it but I want a little more torque. Its great through the turbo but as soon as I shift especially first to second there is just to much lag for my liking. I'm no street racer but I like to have a little fun. I want something that is still pretty reliable where I wont need to worry much about hurting the life of the engine. So far I have been debating on getting a little bigger turbo and then a cobb tuning accessport and or cold air intake. I'm not rich and I am not the best with tuning but not completely stupid either and these dont seem to complicated. So does this seem like the way to go or is there something else I should try? Also if I was to do the turbo am I going to need to worry about having to change injectors (I am not going to go alot bigger) or have to change out or re-tune anything else. Any suggestions helpful.
exhaust and a talk to bullwinkle for tuning. if you go with a bigger turbo you will get more lag so if you don't like the stock lag don't go bigger
Do a downpipe and tune with an upgrade solenoid. This will let you max out that stock turbo and injectors. Then decide from there what you want to do. Access port is nice but not needed if you don't use the fun stuff that comes with using it. Open ecu tune is the way to go nowadays.
A Bullwinkle tune has pepped up my near stock 02 WRX much to my personal liking. I have a 2.5" catless TBE, GM boost solenoid, and K&N drop in filter and that's as far as I want to go since like you, a reliable daily driver is what I want but with a little extra. The whole thing can be done for around $500-$1000 depending on which exhaust you go with.
The TRUE fact is that you will get over a stage 2 feeling within 2 weeks....so beware that down the road you will want MOAR power
I would say an uppipe, downpipe and a catback if you want the subie rumble along with a tune would keep you satisified .... for a few weeks and then you'll be wanting more
As far as exhausts go, you can get some great deals on used stuff. I have an 02, and I'm running a TurboXS Stealthback mated to a Prodrive muffler. It's about as quiet as you can go for aftermarket exhausts but it'll make noise when you want it to. If you want to do other little things to help the spool, a silicone Y hose for your intercooler will remove the restrictive factory piece. It's not going to add much for power, but it is going to help smooth the airflow delivery over the stock Y hose. You'll want to find a catless uppipe so that you don't have pieces of the cat breaking up and going into the turbocharger. You can still run a hiflow cat in aftermarket turboback exhausts, so if you're concerned about the enviroment or the increased smell that comes with a catless exhaust you've got options. There are plenty of us running Stage 2ish setups on the board, it's a fun and not too expensive way to improve your performance and still stay fairly reliable.
no one said this so I will throw it out there. DON'T BUY A COLD AIR INTAKE FOR YOUR CAR! waste of money for what you are doing for the car. search around on the forum. see what other people have done to their cars in the same year. if you search intakes you will find out why you don't need an intake as well. just trying to save you some money.
Best bang for the buck. Downpipe, high flow cat pipe (or catless) and a tune. The catback really isn't going to get you much power. Just those mods alone will max out your injectors. You should be able to do a downpipe, catpipe and tune for under $300. Russ
Aside from these suggestions I'd like to toss out a suspension tweak in the form of a rear sway (antiroll) bar, end links and bar mount points. I think the '02 wrx sedan (you didn't say what you have - sedan or wagon) has 20mm rear bar but look at those endlinks. They are made of plastic and flex a bunch under load. Stage 1 tune and a rear sway/endlinks were my first mods.
ok thanks for all of the suggestions I probably couldve added that I have the up and down pipe and full exaust I didnt think that it actaully made that big of difference but I havent drove one with stock exaust either so, so far I think from reading off here and talking to other guys the access port and putting the stock BOV back on is the way to go for now
If you have the up pipe and turbo-back exhaust installed on a stock-tuned car, you're not utilizing ANY of those--you might get 10 HP. GET A TUNE, and your car will be a whole new animal. WITH BIGGER TESTES.
Pretty much whatever everyone else already said. Best bang for the buck: Up-pipe (really helps with the lag you don't like) Stage 1 tune (so I hear...I skipped straight to stage 2).
Well, if you have a full exhaust, the next things you need to look at are the fuel pump and larger injectors. With a good tune, you will max out the injectors around 5k. At that point, the only thing you can do is pull boost to keep it safe. Russ
