RON, The_Judge, marklemac and others.

Just to update you................if you remember......u did post a reply

"PPP on MY02 in December - my complaint of not much improvement"

Rolling road on Friday and found the following results -
BHP - 219 @ 6240 rpm
LBFT - 184
boost 11.5


Well lane did the boost part of what the garage should have done when fitting PPP!!

Second run got -
BHP - 259 @ 6233 rpm
ftLb - 238
boost 17.5

Now like sh*t offa shovel - well chuffed.

Back to dealers with r/r invoice - lets get ready to rumble!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This is worrying. I just bought an 04STI and had PPP fitted from new. How can I tell if the dealer has fitted and set this up correctly? It is claimed that the PPP puts the BHP up to 305. Is there a way of easily testing this?

I had not dirven an STI in standard form before, so I have nothing to compare it with.

 

That sounds like they just swapped a standard ecu with another standard ecu. Or they swapped your standard ecu with a remapped ecu that hadn't been done properly.

OCD: With the standard STI you will find that it is very laggy at the lower end of the rev range 0-3000/4000. However, after the PPP it should be more responsive and virtually no lag. Well that's what I noticed when I had mine fitted last month.

 

There is no way m8, apart from a RR shootout day , (with other PPP'd cars there as well). Or take it to a RR diagnostic centre, where they can check the power/tourque/det etc .

My MY03 STI has just been EcuTEK'd (to solve an on-going power fluctuation issue since fitting a decat d-pipe) and during the re-map was told my engine was prone to DET, therefore 300+ bhp was unlikely, and they were correct, with low 290's being the final figure without shortening the engine life.
If I am correct (and please anyone put me right if I am wrong) the PPP upgrade is a "bolt on" part provided by Prodrive, fitted by Subaru mechanics, not mapping experts. and so may not actually be ideal for each and every engine, and if my car had been PPP'd without the custom modifications done to the map, I could have been getting lower BHP (sometimes as low as 240bhp) while thinking I had 305bhp.
So having PPP may not always be getting the best/safest power from your engine, but you are of course covered by the wonderful warranty...

 

Hmm - contentious issue!

I have seen PPP'd 03 WRXs only getting 240-250 bhp - but never as low as that!
My 03 WRX hasn't been PPP'd (but does have the Prodrive Backbox), and yet that hits 260bhp ..... weird!

STi's (at the same days) ranged from 290-308bhp ...

 

Powerstation apparently have had an 03STI PPP on the rollers at 246BHP, with a standard 03STI later that same day producing 280bhp.

The figures were repeated on 2 seperate occasions....

There are good engines and poor engines
And each engine requires a different map to get the best from it.

 

MadMark - do you think your back box makes a difference or are you just lucky? Put another way, do you know of any rolling road figures for a standard 03WRX to compare to??

 

I do hope that STI went straight back to the dealer under warranty, then. I'd be absolutely furious if I'd paid for a 300bhp car and found it more than 50bhp down on where it should be.

Can someone please explain (for the benefit of the ignorant ) how come there's quite so much variation between 'good' and 'bad' engines? Are tolerances really that wide? Where does the extra power go?

 

Thanks for the help guys. Seems like I need to get mine on a RR to see what it's really offering in BHP

 

This is the point I am making,
No two engines are the same, let's face it, these are mass produced vehicles, fast but still mass produced, so they do not have the build tollerances of a racing engine, and also are not tuned to the same degree...
So as these engines differ slightly, they rely on the ecu to "self learn" and find the optimum performance (within specified guidlines).
This was fine, and up to a week ago I assumed all STI's/WRX's etc perform to within +-5bhp of Subaru's listed figures.
Imagine my horror when on the cars 1st RR (After the initial map taken from an identical tek3 car producing 300bhp) gave mine a power of 270-bhp...just 5 more than standard.....and it took Powerstation 2 more hours of adjusting, re-testing, re-adjusting, re-testing until the car finally produced the numbers we all wanted.
All of this was done by Powerstation...not the "self learning" ecu.

So how can a PPP ecu, just popped into the car, with a semi-decatted exhaust system, produce a quoted 300+bhp.......everytime..... not posssible, not without some custom adjustments.
I've seen posts on SN, with owners of PPP'd cars, complaining of power fluctuations, rough running, lacking in power..etc..etc..
Everyone assumes that because it's been PPP'd then everything "ecu wise" is sorted... and the problem must be something else.... I feel that is not always the case.

 

exactly why i went to the r/r........
couldnt believe £1600 wouldnt improve things.
now i know where i started and where i finished.
spyr0

 

the ecu was changed...... first thing to check.
it was an 03 ecu remapped to an 02....... look for the felt tip pen scribble.
i presume it was 'worked on' - 40 hp up
spyr0

 

I`ll keep my STI standard, bar the Afterburner Vortex!!! If standard ones where running 280.

It`s quick enough for me anyway!

 

lol-good idea

spyr0

 

The biggest argument for re-mapping the standard car is the torque curve/torque increase....
Forest, believe me, once you have driven a mapped car the standard one feels VERY laggy...., with very little hapening until 3,500rpm.
re-maps just open up the usable power zone to between 2,200 and red line, with smooth power all the way up.
Peak figures are one thing , but flexible power is totally different!!

 

This isnt correct, far from it, if every car needed a different map then no car would run, how do you think your car runs to start with? the map is the same as the car next to it that came off the production line... now when you start modding that car with different pieces of exhaust, induction kits etc, yes you will need to map the car to that. The PPP on the other hand is produced just like a production map, its designed with more correction and much higher safetly limits than that of most remaps thus actually making it safer for the car than most others
As for the STi with the PPP that only pushed out 246bhp, well that shows there is something wrong and that the car should be taken back to the dealer to find out what it is (it could be as simple as a loose pipe or blocked solenoid), this is about the best thing rolling roads are good for, fault finding as power on the road with airflow can be higher than a rolling road that may be giving slip

Tony

 

Speedmeister - the others I have seen / heard of were between 226 and 230bhp as bog standard (not bad).
The only other car I can compare it to had a full (turbo back) APS exhaust with a sports cat and he got 273bhp with no other mods. Most of the tuning companies seem to think I either have "a good one" or the factory has been playing with a few Prototype ECUs. Apparently sometimes this is done for "press" fleets .......

Either way she is quick and I'm lucky!

 

Now I am confused. Should I take the time to put my 04STI with PPP on a RR or not?

I have to say that up to 3,000 rpm it's not very exciting but post that it pulls like a train and 6,000 rpm comes up in a flash.

 

OCD - get it on some rollers to check, but probably leave it until after the car has had it's 10,000 service - you wouldn't believe how tight most of the subaru engines are until they have done a few miles!
Between 9 and 16,000 miles my car jumped up 8bhp on more accurate rollers (G-Force). Most people there with STi's were pretty happy but one guy only got 290bhp - but it had only done 7K .... go figure!

 

How many times has it been said - rolling roads do not give a reliable indication of the power output of an engine. There are too many variable factors to compare one car to another.

D.

 

DJB - nope but it gives a good enough approximation for us mere mortals .....

 

hmmmm..... maybe, but I couldnt just drive out of the r/r knowing I was sooo close but yet sooo far - if u know what i mean.
Besides if they want to invalidate a warranty because someone else crimped a brass nipple then so be it, but I wont let it rest at that.

spyr0

 

Sorry for the delay in replying to you guys. I work up in the City and don't get regular time to come on the net.

I apreciate the guidance. I think, in summary, that I will wait for the car to put on a few more miles and then put it on a rolling road.

Before I bought the car, one of the guys on scoobynet said I should run the car standard for a while and then bolt on the PPP later. In that way I would have had someting to compare with.

At the moment, other than putting it on a RR, I have no way of seeing if the PPP was set up correctly or not.

 

spyr0,

You mentioned 'because someone else crimped a brass nipple'.

What exactly hadn't they done properly when fitting PPP the first time ?

Ta,

Chris.