I'm looking to increase the power output on my UK Impreza Turbo, I dont want to spend a ridiculous amount of money,

Am wondering what mods can I do without breaking the bank. Things like full exhaust system with decats, exhaust manifold? performance airfilter?

also the superchip's chip that claims 38bhp? how much will it really give me?

 

Well for a start, leave anything with the name 'Superchips' well alone!!

A decat/downpipe for about £150 and Ecutek remap for £600 will make a huge difference to the performance and see you about 270-280bhp.

 

3 inch decat downpipe £200, a full 3 inch exhaust system £350 - £400 second hand from jap performance parts it would be a blitz nurspec R or kakimoto they always have loads in stock, A decent non oild panel filter around £50 then look in to a ecutek remap from a decent mapper zen performance or andy forrest this will cost in the region of £550 - £750 but will totally transform the car and make it alot safer in terms of engine safety.

 

You don't mention what year turbo you have but as a general guide......

3" decat exhaust system such as the Revolution full system
Walbro fuel pump, and a remap for 93-96 cars or Apexi PFC for 97-00 cars should see you with 260bhp/260ftlbs as a minimum.

 

new down pipe 1st thing. With a decat you might HAVE to get a remap £££ depending on model.

I used a sports cat down pipe and didn't get mapped straight away as I had to save up again.

IMO not convinced you have to go for 3" system though, I've got 2.5" and over 300bhp.

The original down pipe / turbo flange is just rubbish - just chaning this 1 item should give you 20 - 25bhp more and probably better spool up

 

ok the guy said "budget" heres what i got to get 273bhp and 269lbft torque
downpipe decat
centre decat
ninja back box
apexi induction kit
increase boost to 16-17 psi with a dawes device
v power fuel
reset ecu
knocklink (highly recommended but not really necassary, its used to detect knock)

with all this i never saw more then 1 green light

 

didnt need to remap my car if your on a budget then the above mods should be fine( i ran my car like this for 4 years from 60000 miles to now 90000 miles and its still going strong!) sold it! now i have a skyline : )

 

I understood standard induction system good for about 400bhp so whats the Apexi induction kit do for you?

 

By a better set of springs/shocks and brakes before chasing power figures!!!!!!

I've been down the route of power first and wished I spent the money of handling.

I upgraded my brakes for a set of brembos. I'm now braking a good 100-150 foot later coming uo to roundabouts.

Upgrade the suspension for something like the STI5-6 with uprated ARB and Strut braces,droplinks and you'll be able to corner at faster speeds.

It doesn't take much to work out, faster cornering speeds and later braking are going to get you there first.

Once you've got the handling sorted then chase power and you'll have an awesome car

 

its a 97 Turbo (late 97 as i understand this was the change over year)


when I say budget it dont expect to pay a couple of hundred and get massive increases, i just dont want to spend excessive amounts of money, can probably just about stretch to the mods suggested with a re-map.

what happens legally with the decat though? as you have to have them for mot? and if you get stopped by a roadside check what would happen then?

 

really? as I find the car hands really well anyway.

I understand your train of though as I had a corsa before the impreza and went all through that, brakes, uprated arb, strut braces, etc etc and understand the logic, but the impreza feels good enough for me? allthough it does need better brakes (looking at the subaru 4pot setup on the front)

 

Good comment from DannyBoy. I did it all back to front and really appreciate suspension mods.

I couldn't stretch to STi suspension, I have adjustable ARB front and back, soild drop links and ALK / Castor blocks, plus geometry set up. Really makes a difference, much more relaxed driving quickly as it goes where I point it rather than jumping all over the place.

4 pot brakes and braided brake hoses very worthwhile with good pads, mintex, pagid or ferrodo

Also you have 97 car like me - sorry to have to tell you it's a bit of a mongral, i didn't find that out till I started to work on it.

You can't remap the ECU you need to get an Apexi or other ECU.


Of course we pretty much all do things back to front, to make your car go quicker invest in a performace driving course. The most important nut is the one behind the wheel :-)

 

Get yourself a Ninja Sports Cat for £299 from Scoobyworld:

http://www.scoobyworld.co.uk/catalog...products_id=76

Passes MOT on its own without the need for a centre cat.

Quality kit too, I have one on my MY00 Uk Turbo.

Made 273/273 on standard turbo together with Magnex cat-back, JR panel filter after a Tek3 remap.

 

You can get a full decat system (turbo back) from Hayward and Scott, for less than 500 quid delivered.

 

But if you look at his last post, he wants it to pass the MOT and roadside checks!!

 

advanced driving course

 

no mater what you do, stay away from superchips!!!!!!!!!

 

Power costs, no two ways about it. Certainly if we're talking about reliable power!

Best I could suggest for power on a budget would be Ninja sports cat DP, H&S Straight through centre with resonator and H&S original design backbox. This will certainly give you an earlier and quicker spool and could liberate anything up to 25bhp. It's also a safe mod on a UK car run on SUL.

Really though, you alos want an uprated fuel pump and a remap. This should give you around 270bhp and simmilar torque and will make for a ver responsive, quick car. THe above is often referred to as a stage one upgrade.

Stay away from Dawes devices and Superchips etc IMO... If you're going to increase boost then fueling and ignitiion parameters need to be adjusted to suit.

Ns04

 

not exactly...

Im just wondering what the implications are, as the cats can be put back on come MOT time... but what would happen in the instance of a roadside check? would I get a fine? points? or at worst car impounded?

 

I thought mine handled pretty well (and I live on the edge of the breacon beacons with all it's twisty road) until I changed to STI6-ltd shocks and springs, with Uprated droplinks and a host of whiteline goodies (ARB, Stru braces) It's the differance between light and day

Your wheels will depict which brakes you can have, Some early style wheels won't allow 4 pots let alone something bigger.

With good brakes and suspension I can knock a good 15 minutes of an 80 mile journey over the mountians!!!!!! with the same amount of power which in my case is around 330BHP

 

so exhaustwise if I went for the ninja sports cat downpipe at £300, afterburner de-cat centre section with a rear box ninja/ninja2/vortex at another £300,

would this run fine with that standard ecu? as i have a late 97 turbo i'd need an apexi ecu at £800?

also what about air filter, are oem panel filters good enough? or should I look at something like a pipercross?

 

General concensus is to swap the panel filter for a K&N, STi, Green or JR (amongst others).

As far as exhaust it should run fine until you can get a remap.

When I bought my car last year it already had a Magnex centre decat and backbox.

Swapped the filter for a JR, and swapped downpipe for the Ninja.

Drove like that for a week or so and then had my remap.

It was producing 230bhp before the Tek3 remap, and 273bhp afterwards.

Apexi would produce similar results, and I think Apexi FC supplied, fitted and mapped is about £800.

 

My 1st mod stage was Miltek exhaust system with single sports cat in down pipe, plus flowed headers provided by magic ebay.

No remap and it was fine. up from 208 to 240bhp, road dyno and top speed figures not rolling road, but some rolling road figures are massaged for feel good factor, so be careful what you beleive.

i know of another 97 car that had a full decat and he's been getting over boost and fuel cut - a nightmare for poor guy as he now needs an Apexi ECU and map.

By the way, if you do get an ECU you will need a 3 port boost solenoid.

More than happy to give you the full run down on what I have done and found out given its the same model year, PM if you want - everyone else would get bored :-)


STiX is spot on, that's pretty much the set up i had for a while with about the same figures. The turbo you have ie TD04 will only go upto about 270bhp, so no point doing anything more unless your're going to start turbo swapping. I've done mine 5times - learnt the hard way :-(

 

Forgot about the 3-port, yes I did have to have one of those!!

I don't think you HAVE to have one, but it seems like a lot of people have ended up needing one. I did as the mapper couldn't reach the target boost without it - 1.25bar.

Here's my mapping experience with some pics if anyone is interested (post #106):

https://www.scoobynet.com/group-buys...station-4.html

 

3 ports allow more agressive boost and fine tuning of said boost - worth having it re-mapping

 

whatever you choose to dp get a walbro fuel pump first as thats the heart and soul. not enough fuel means broken engine..det can kill a car in a very short time and is unoticable till its too late.

 

what about a Dastek Unichip rather than going for a full replacement ECU?

 

You can also pick them up nice and cheap 2nd hand. Essential pre map mod IMHO!

Ns04

 

Ah I see you didnt really have a performance car before this
Right, classic UK cars GRIP well, they dont handle that well though.
Forget the subaru 4 pots, they aint that good (my car previous to my classic impreza was a 306 GTI-6 and that stopped better than my scoob )
For the brakes, my first scoob got a 305mm AP setup with brembo calipers (the sort you see on pug 406 coupe's) on a floating setup, now that stopped really well
Point your thoughts to decent tyres, brakes, handling, then go performance, though a full decat exhaust will free up some more horses and its pretty cheap as mods go
The last thing is driver training courses, personally I dont need one (well i think I dont need one but other people think i do ) so its a worthy investment there also (its not performance related, it just enhances your view of your surrounding whilst your driving, ie mud on road, concealed entrance etc which most drivers overlook).

Tony