Dibbles00

Wow! What a thread! Immense! I love the way you actually explain everything

Subscribed!

Shaun

No problem Dibbles and thanks for your comments..... they're appreciated.

Shaun

Well..... it was that time of the year again. MOT and annual check-over/service. As per usual API took grand care of all this. Car sailed through the MOT and the routine serviced was completed without issue.

I've owned this car now for nearly (a couple of days short) 4yrs. Doesn't time fly.... especially during car ownership, that has been nothing short of a pleasure.

Now whilst this is a normal road car, it has been incredibly reliable. Certainly when you consider the power level it runs at. In my opinion that's a testament to how good these Newage 2ltr (standard engine) cars are, and also of the trusted companies who have been a part of achieving that power level (490bhp).

I'm no mug (well.... perhaps some others would argue that one ) and I certainly wouldn't advocate that this type of level of tune, on this engine, would enable me to rag the backside off of it round a track. For my weekend blast road use though, it really has been very reliable.

In 4yrs of ownership the only item on the car to fail has been a rear drop link.

The car starts first time; purrs like a kitten; and doesn't use one single drop of oil. Simply awesome!

I have also been using Methanol "full-time" for nearly 2yrs. Again, with no issues at all.

As a performance car..... I'd go as far to say that this has been the best car I have ever owned.

Shame they don't make 'em like they used to.

Devildog

You've just tempted fate Shaun

Lets hope it doesn't throw a rod tomorrow

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

Remind me where you bought the car Shaun, I'd like to give them a call..............

David APi

PS I have an 08 JDM Sti Hatch coming for sale soon, Short geared Dccd, 2.0 litre twin scroll, twin VVT. Less than 7000 miles on the dial if I recall MOT'd SVa'd Thatchamed, complete with my V S00BRU registration

Awesome drive. In metallic black.

Shaun

Devildog,
If you've seen how slow I drive, you'd know the chances of a rod being thrown is pretty remote.

On a serious note, if it did blow it's load after 4yrs, it would still be the most reliable 490bhp I have owned.

Fortune favours the bold... Or is that the stupid. lol

David,
Some old geezer from somewhere called API sold it me.

I'd be tempted on having that hatch off you. Although I'd have to start all over again then.

scoobyboy1

iTrader: (16)

Then you would have to achieve 550bhp on standard internals, raising the bar and all that.

Have always been impressed with this car, and love the fact that you stated its your normal road car so to speak, so no bolt in cages and hard race spec suspension and its all about drive ability which I think a lot of people over look when modding/tuning a car, in the perfect world we all want a 800bhp impreza's to brag about, with no reliability issues, and comfortable to use as a daily drive!!!

Shaun

Scoobyboy1,
Mmmmm.

I'm just "keeping it real".

I made a conscious decision on this car, to only change/upgrade what was only needed. Doing that has kept it a much nicer car to drive.

The best thing is it looks pretty standard apart from the FMIC.

I sure for toffee don't need anymore power for the road. So I'll leave that to the people who don't mind the increased reliability issues.

scoobyboy1

iTrader: (16)

Having driven a mates JDM hawk STi which is running about 360bhp, I dont think you would need much more power(for the road anyway), it comes on to boost quick, drives nice, and sounds stunning!!!

And unlike the UK hawk and more importantly he can clean the rear window with the rear wiper!!!

Shaun

They're certainly great, driveable cars. I love the JDM twinscroll cars.

Infected by sti

iTrader: (6)

How much David?

kennyc

iTrader: (1)

Yeah how much

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

Both Pm'd

User 21721

I am also interested in the price of the hatch.

Regards,

Subaru Collector 555.

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

pm'd

Shaun

Not so much of an "update".... more of some therapy!

Weird it may sound, but now all of the work I set out to complete has now been done, I'm now a bit bored. I find the building up of something more exciting than owning the end product. The mileage I have done over the past 2yrs sort of backs that up. The mileage covered between last years MOT and this years was an embarrassingly low 1200.

This **** needs sorting.

Bye bye Methanol
I've now, as of yesterday, moved back to the VPower fuel strategy.

I know I have previously stated that the use of methanol isn't a major issue, but I think it has impacted the use of the car since switching to that fuel strategy.

For me this car is a weekend toy, so I don't rely on it as my daily driver. Being a weekend toy it's main use should be to go out in to drive and enjoy. Sounds obvious I know, but popping down the shops isn't really how it would be used. It's a ball ache to get it out of the garage, and thus easier for me to jump in the daily driver for any short trips.

I actually "enjoy" driving but with the Subaru it's more of an event, which for me would entail driving some distance..... you know, like to a seaside resort for the day (which is something my mrs and I do quite often). However since using meth this has been done using the daily driver.

An element of this decision not to use the Subaru has probably been a mix of different things really, steming from the usage of Meth. Whilst it's not a major issue to decant the Meth for mixing, it is an additional thing you need to do. If you couple that with the fact that you need to constantly carry Meth around with you, and perhaps more importantly, govern how you fill-up when and how, it starts to make it a slight pain in the ****. I think all that has had an influence on choosing to use the Scoob.

Of course I could be talking out my ****, but there's only one way to find out.

It's out with the new and in with the old!
It's perhaps worth a quick overview of the process I undertook to make the move back to my VPower only map.

I suspect I went about this with a 100% **** approach, but when changing fuel strategies you do need to be careful. Running the wrong fuel strategy map is one thing, but you can also run the wrong fuel (a half way house on mix and map use) - it amounts to the same thing I suspect.

Let me explain......

Let's say I had 1/4 tank of Meth mix left in the tank, and let's assume that is around 20ltrs. Based upon my mix ratio of 1:4 (20%), 1ltr of Meth to 4ltrs of VPower, on 20ltrs I would have 4ltrs of Methanol in there.

If I then proceeded to fill the tank with VPower, again assuming 40ltrs of VPower to brim the tank, I would then have 56ltrs of Vpower and 4ltrs of Meth. This would equate to a Meth mix of 6.6%.

Let's assume that at this point I re-program the ECU with the VPower map. This would run a richer fuel mixture (AFR's) and have reduced ignition. However, because Meth affects the burn/AFR's anyway, the VPower Map AFR's would run leaner than expected. So whilst the VPower map would have expected ignition retard and by nature of the VPower map, run at richer AFR's, the actual AFR's would be leaner due to the impact that the Meth content would have.

I don't have the information to hand as to whether the impact of a leaner Meth mix at any %, would cause issues with the map I was running and possibilities of subsequent increased heat (EGT's) and det.

I know that the OEM ECU is one funky piece of kit and the knock strategy is pretty awesome. Andy Forrest previously alluded (on this thread) to the fact that he had one map, which he used regardless of whether he was using Meth mix or VPower on it's own. Utilising the OEM ECU, appropriately mapped AFR targets and usage of the knock strategy. Effectively meaning that the ECU would dynamically retard ignition, dependant on the fuel "quality".

I then took this thought process one step further and considered brimming the tank as soon as the fuel warning light came on.

Assuming that equates to 10ltrs of Meth mix, 8ltrs of VPower and 2ltrs of Meth, so filling up with VPower would equate to 58ltrs of VPower and 2ltrs of Meth. This would work out to be a 3.33% Meth mix.

I suspect at that level of mix the VPower map and ECU would be 100% fine, but since I wanted to start logging the engine as soon as the fuel strategy had been changed, and I didn't want any logging to be influenced by an incorrect fuel mix, I decided to go the full **** approach. Effectively emptying the tank!

Get it! Got it! Good!

The switch over......

How hard can this be then...... not hard, just needs to be given some consideration.

Unfortunately if you're physically having to reprogram your OEM ECU with a different map, it's not just a simple case of "flipping a switch". You can of course utilise a dual map facility on the JDM Newage ECU's. Whilst this is literally a "flip of a switch" to move from one map to another, it's possible to do this by mistake (coupled with what has already been discussed above). This is why I've adopted a more failsafe approach of not having the possibility of a multiple fuel strategy map to be accidently switched - I have to reprogram the ECU.

Using ECUTEK's EasyECU (now called ProECU - but effectively it's the same) you need to set your car up to write a new map file to the ECU (you're pretending to be a mapper!). This requires a laptop type device, programming dongle plugged into the ODBC port and more fiddly, the test and programming plugs underneath the dash connected. The latter is a bit of a pain in the backside, because if you don't do this "thing" often you'll probably need to get on your hands and knees outside of the car, to enable you to peer up underneath the cowling to connect the plugs up. Not really something you want to be doing in the middle of the road, when you need to swap the map over as you've just ran out of your Meth mix!

I ran the fuel down until the low fuel light came on, reset my trip meter and thought I should have around 40-50 miles worth of juice left in the tank. I thought the safest place to be hanging my **** out (on my hands and knees) of the open car door, would be on the hard shoulder of the motorway. So I put another 30 miles on the trip meter and then made my way to the motorway.

For information I managed 53 miles from the time the low fuel light went on, to the time that the car just started to get fluffy on the throttle. At this point I pulled over to the hard shoulder and did the swap over. It's a 5 minute job in reality, including me putting 10ltrs of fresh VPower in the tank.

You don't really want to run the fuel system dry, so hence why I did the swap as soon as I felt slight hesitation on the throttle.

I did the swap and off I went to the nearest Shell station to put another 20ltrs or so in.

Surely I felt the massive differences between the two fuel strategies (i.e. power) and felt cheated as a result?

I travelled about 10 miles from the point of swap over and getting to the nearest Shell station. During that time I only used part throttle and no real boost, just to be sure I had spent any residual Meth. I then put another 20ltrs of VPower in and shot off down the road on a fairly spirited run, then pulling over to check the ignition/fuelling correction tables. All was fine, so I went off for some full gear acceleration runs.

1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th didn't really "feel" much different. Richard Bulmer's VPower map always felt quite aggressive in those gears anyway. Doing what could be considered as a back to back test, gives you a better considered feel in my opinion (running Meth on full acceleration runs only a matter of hours before).

Just to underline, the Meth map produced 490/475 whereas the VPower only map produced 440/440. Peak figures don't tell the whole story, but it gives a level of indication.

Where I felt a difference, was higher up in the mid-range (if that makes sense), there was a difference in how "strong" the acceleration felt. It wasn't a "Jesus this feels slower" type difference, more of a "this doesn't feel quite as strong".

If your set-up rev's cleanly and quickly through gears anyhow, I think the advantage of increased torque (at this level) doesn't appear to be felt as much. 5th and 6th definitely felt slightly flatter compared to the Meth map, which felt more urgent.

When I had the Spec C with the 2.5 engine in it running around 550ftlb, it was in 5th and 6th you really felt the difference with all that torque. Since these gears are taller (obviously), the extra torque made a huge difference to how you accelerated in these gears. It was similar in this current comparison, but not to the same orders of magnitude and "feel".

On my VPower map I do have the full twin map facility available (on the Meth map both map slots were the same, as I didn't have a need for a second different map). MAP A is the full fat and MAP B is the diet version.

Switching is easy and can be done whilst driving. In my case Map B has been dyno tested to provide 360/360. What you would consider a JDM STI to be capable of on a good day, utilising the standard set-up.

I'm going to be straight here.... MAP B feels as flat as **** in comparison to the 440/440 map. The difference in feel is black and white, chalk and cheese, night and day!

You'll probably thinking..... "No **** sherlock! It's an 80/80 difference in power/torque." Of course you'd be right, but what I'm trying to highlight here are three things:

1) To "feel" a difference I would suggest you need to increase figures by a fairly high overall percentage.

2) Don't get too bent out of shape if your car is down 10-15bhp (say when you start modding your car, and figures attained compared against some others).

3) Seriously consider the actual difference any modifications will make to how your car feels/performs, versus how much hard cash the modifications cost. Moving to Meth is fairly inexpensive, but imagine if you'd decided to change your turbo at this level to attain the same kind of results. I personally wouldn't be blowing Ł2k+ on a new blower and remap for this level of increase - which many people have done. It's a good example of diminishing return.

Everything needs to be put into context.

So I'm back to a lowly 440/440 but in all reality it doesn't really feel much different. I actually felt like I had got the monkey off my back, switching back to VPower. As I at least know I don't have to faff around with decanting Meth, carrying it with me in the car and concerning myself with how many miles I have left in the tank till the next governed fill-up. I'm hopeful this will energise me to use the car more over the next 12 months!

It's quite weird as I feel over the past 9yrs (I can't believe it has been that long) since modding the Spec C and this Hawkeye, I've done the full on track car build, pushed a standard engine set-up as far as I dare and come out the other side and decided:
- I'd never go down the full bore/high power engine route again (he says)
- I'd never go down the stripped out racer set-up again (he says)
- I'd prefer to not ideally be messing around with Meth, even for a 10% increase in power
- I'm fine with reducing the power I have available, at this level

It's either utter maturity or a drastic case of being an old ****.


But I still come back to the original point I made:
Although if you take into account what I've said immediately above, it doesn't leave me many options does it!

What do you think?

johnfelstead

Hopefully you are joking when you chose to run out of fuel on the motorway?

I now run V-Power on the road and only put the Methanol in when doing a sprint, you have made the transition sound far too complicated.

Shaun

Well.... I didn't actually run out on what you would term as the motorway, but the M45 which is a very quiet and very long dual carriageway approach to the M1. With the added benefit of having a hard shoulder.

Like I said John, I was probably being far too **** about the swap over...... but that's the way I roll!

johnfelstead

Sounds ideal for a sleepy truck driver then.

Hammer man

iTrader: (25)

I can sense a "project" coming on

Shaun

Well I'm sure it beat me conking out on some A or B road, hanging my **** out in the carriageway, whilst some chav loon came round a bend hitting me up the ring. Don't worry, I had the mrs stood in the carriageway waving the traffic down with her top off!

Shaun

Not sure I have the stomach for that anymore Cliff.

johnfelstead

Strangely I've never had the need for any of that palaver either.

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

I have always said that running a meth mix on a road car is a right pita.

Sounds like my word has at last reached the outer reaches of Daventry. Not bad in 4 years of preaching.

Smug of Harbury.

Shaun

I wouldn't quite go that far David.

gussy

iTrader: (2)

Shaun get another set of bollocks mod the ****e out of the hawkeye as you have quoted (he says) (he says) or just sell it get a pair of slippers and an armchair and put your feet up

Shaun

It's not the bollocks that's the problem, it's just the fact that I know it's a potential world of pain, and I'll end up regretting it.

gussy

iTrader: (2)

Just do it Shaun you will only grow old thinking ????? if only I had done it just once more…mmmmmm

joz8968

iTrader: (13)

Never Mind The Bollocks

johnfelstead

Unless you intend competing, there is no point going for any more power than you have Shaun. And even if you are intending to compete, it wont help.