The making of Frayz's Prodrive edition V7 STI.

frayz

Thought some of you guys might like to see this, i hope you enjoy reading.

Well at the tender age of 21 after owning my Ford sierra sapphire cosworth for 2 years it was time to move on. The car was of reasonable stage 3 spec and was running 350+bhp.
It was my pride and joy and an absolute thrill to own and drive. I was offered the right money at the right time and the cossie finally had to go.

Heres a pic of the old love of my life.


Now obviously i had the major task of filling the cosworths shoes. I wanted something newer, better built and basically the most for my money.
Having explored the likes of escort cossies, evos and skylines etc. I finally decided i wanted a Subaru. These represented the best value for money
I did what homework i could and it came down to a bugeye STI.

I wanted the 6 speed box, brembos etc... but above all it had to be black.

After a month or so of searching id found the car. It was based in Essex and was a totally standard, unmarked black Prodrive edition bugeye sti. She had one owner from new FSSH and only 21K on the clock.
The guy i bought it from was a city trader and used the train everyday. For this reason he simply didnt use the car enough and decided to sell.
After a few negotiations i was lucky enough to drive home with this.

The day after i picked it up.





The plan was to keep it as standard as possible, but as you can guess, that was not to be the case.
to be continued...

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kylejennings05

that cossie looks stunning

frayz

Well after a week or so of onwership, i made my few changes. These came in the form of some carbon fibre wing markers, smoke side repeaters and small reg plate for the front of the car. The initail plan was to keep the mods simple and to a minimum.



After driving the cossie, the sti felt slow and uninvolving. I also couldnt get used to how quiet it was. After asking about on my local forums for exhaust systems i went to Hayward & Scott and picked myself up a centre cat delete pipe and a rear silencer. This gave the car the unmistakeable Subaru burble we all knew and loved.




Next up was a braking improvement on the front end. This was in ths form of G88 Tarox grooved discs and their fast road pad setup




I also didnt like the fact that there ware no gauges in the car for me to monitor the essentials with. Unable to afford the Defis i wanted at the time, i purchased some affordable items from Autogauge.

I also wanted a carbon fibre dash pod. However, the only carbon pod i could find at the time was a 60mm variant. My gauges were 52mm so i machined up some adapter rings to mount in the pod.




In the quest for more power and learning about my car i decided to buy a decat downpipe and wrapped it before fitting.



It seemed to grow quite quickly...

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F1 CJE UK

Interesting read looking forward to the next up date…..

richiewong

Nice

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It's too orangey for crows

B0DSKI

Great reading. Nice one Frayz

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B0DSKI aka Boyd is STILL looking forward to his next taste of Mocom Magic

dazzlers82

nice one frayz love the cossie mate

Silver Scooby Sport

That's the quote of the thread Frasier

Well you started off with a great base car... I wonder what the first owner would make of it now.

Adidas

I'm looking forward to AP brakes installment

Brewski

As a fellow Black prodrive owner iam looking forward to the next episode!!!!

Butty

What made you take the lights off the top?
They give it an olde worlde charm

Nick

StuS

frayz

Ha ha Butty

I didnt think they were the right period for the car mate... still on the lookout for some nice antique replacements.

If you look i had some newer design lights on the Saff

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frayz

Well as im a bit of a clean freak, i decided to get some mudflaps on the car. These were sourced from performance creations. I also thought the bootlid looked rather busy with all the badges so i decided to partially debaged it. I left the STI/TypeUK badges in place.
The car stayed like that for a bit while i decided how i was going to further improve the car.




Next i decided that the cars handling was particularly lacking, more importantly that dreded understeer. So i decided id go for the Whiteline adjustable rear ARB to start with. I complemented that with the Noltec billet droplinks and heavy duty mounting kit.

This is where i formed my relationship with Mocom Racing. I had ordered the setup from Zak at Mocom, and after chatting to him on the phone, we got talking etc etc. I asked if he was local and couid i come and pick up the kit to save on postage. (worth a shot i thought??)
I told Zak that i was an prototype engine builder working in Dunton Essex. He said he had a client he was due to see that was also in that direction and he offered to drop my things off to me.
(wow, hows that for customer service??)

Sure enough we met up and got talking about the car and what i felt it was lacking... basically lacking everywhere IMO lol. We agreed to go out for a mapping session and just see how the car was performing.
So the bond with Zak and Mocm Racing was born and little did i know the car would change dramatically from here on out.

I fitted the rear ARB setup. Which dramatically improved the cars agility, but i knew it needed more... more to come later.

We decided the car could do with more air to the airbox so i made a foglight mounted duct with a direct RAM air feed into the OEM airbox. This was coupled witha Green cotton panel filter.
I got another foglight cover from Saj @ jap performance parts and fitted it with a 3" dia stainless trumpet. The whole lot was then painted to the colour of the car.