Tidgy

In that case i'd wait and bide your time, instead of dumping a load of wasted money save it and buy a decent wrx in a couple of years,

welcome

you do realise the insurance will prob cost less on a wrx than modding it and then insuring it?

Don't bother, by the time you've done what you need to do to do it properly it will cost more than selling it and buying a wrx that has alot more upgrades like brakes, suspension etc etc

pop back to the dealer and get them to sort it as car will still be under warranty

Welcome, not that many NI owners on here i think so if its from over your way prob unlikley to find them. Other thing is you can go to th4e mot history check and find out where the mot's were carried out, see where the owner was based, may hep find them if possible.

budget a minimum of £500 a side for a proper job, they go from the inside out so if its visible the inner arch is going to be a mess. Cambelt and water pump change (why change the water pump?) will be same as any spec impreza as they are the same setup, have to confess im not up to date on what going rate for these as last two i had were part of engines builds (on different cars i should add lol)

Need to find where the oil is coming from rather than covering it up.

I've got tein Flex z coilovers on always been really impressed, nice balance of firm but not hash ride. Coilovers are one of those things that can come in alot of different varieties that give massively varying rides in terms of how harsh. best advice i can give is see if you can find a local owners club and maybe see if you can get a few rides in cars with different setups to get an idea what they are like

It will need mapping for the new turbo.

First off need to confirm the turbo is fitted correctly and all lines are correct. Has it been mapped for the new turbo? has it been driven without being mapped?

hahaha, i thought torrent was 2000's? dam im old 😞

open source doenst have that inital bump, ecutek is about £175 for a license. but is a one time only purchae for the ecu, which is why there is value in a mapped ecu, even if the map is no use. As far as which to go for, personaly i'd always go Ecutek. If you have an issue with the software (which is nothing to do with the mapper) then the mapper can call the help line and get it put right. In fact i had that very issue with a strange maf overvolt, turned out to be a glltch in the ecutek software which is now patched so i dont get a EML and neither does anyone else for that issue. If it was open source, unlucky.

Ecutek software license, basically a mapping software that is used, interestingly the origins of open source stuff is cracked versions of ecutek.

Alot lol Full forged rebuild, turbo, injectors, etc etc etc Have a read here

It's a shame there is so much false info out there and cowboys. Go on FB and peoples names get branded about as being great, yet go on forums (that have been around waaaay longer than FB) and you find those names don't dare post on them anymore as they have been shown to be cowboys. Few key things for mapping, 1. Dyno maps should always be road tested after being finished. Dyno's are good tuning/diagnostic tools but arn't 100% road simulation 2. Faults can not be mapper round. Sensors are a common one that fail, if one has dropped, it needs to be repalced prior to mapping. 3. It's not all about power. This is for two reasons, 1 the harder you push it, the more likley to fail it is, 2 drive ability will make more difference to have it performs than 5 or 10 extra BHP 4. A decent map takes time, if they claim to be done within 30 mins its highly likley they have rushed it (although i do know very very rare occasions this isn't the case), so if its a 'mapping day' it's doubtful they will take the proper time to map it because doing a proper map can, if things dont go easy, take several hours or more. Slight explanation for the caveat point 4 (ok long explanation haha). Experienced mappers typically start with a base file they apply to the car and then tweak it to suit.. Mappers will see hundreds of cars over a year, say they do only 2 cars a week, that's 104 cars. if they map for 10 years thats 1040 maps they have in their library. So if you take an example of an 2005 sti, with decat, panel fiter and fuel pump (pretty much the starting point of modding) the experienced mapper will prob have 20-50 maps of exactly the same spec car and mods. So they will have a good library of base maps to start from. base maps typically have lower boost, less timing advance and more fuel than the final map (much safer but lower performing map). Those are the perimeters that the mapper can adjust to improve the map for different cars. Or the mapper may take a conservative map he's done before and use that. So you might be saying, the mods are the same so the alterations must be the same for a car with the same setup. The bad news is that isn't the case and that comes from personal experience and im not even a mapper. I used to have a 1999 UK turbo, i ended up having a stand alone autronics ecu fitted to it, so the standard ecu was remove and autronics unit fitted. I sold that ecu to a mate for his car that was same year, very similar milage, same model and same mods (decat and panel filter at the time iirc). Knowing the maps may be out it was swapped at a rolling road day and the car went straight onto the dyno for a check. The run ended up being terminated halfway through the first pull, it was lean, timing was off and it was detting. The ecu was removed and refitted later just before it was mapped (due to a license on the ecu). So now i've waffled on about what seems irrelevant to why very occasionally cars can be mapped in minutes here's the answer, very very occasionally a map is applied and it just works. If the mapper tries to add more timing, the engine dets, he adds fuel, it dets, adds more boost it dets. So the map that gets applied is as good as its gonna get for that car at that stage. But as said this is very very rare the map applied is that spot on..

Decat, panel filter, map and maybe a fuel pump and thats about all you wanna do before you start risking the engine.

Rear brakes are annoying as fook, mine has slightly sticky hand brake shoes so need to get the rears stripped down and cleaned out, quick pull on the HB as you set off and a clunk and can tell they are free'd

Can only echo above, i'm running 380bhp on a panel filter and it's still not a limitation.

When the headgasket goes on a 2.5 there are normaly other issues, crank bearings etc. i'd get it checked out, leak down test etc to see whats going on. might be something simple

Ah decent set of coils will be fine

What exactly was done when the headgaslet was done?

uk setup is pretty soft and also bisualy pretty high, so you get a better ride, but not as good if your pushing on. It's a catch 22 and a case of finding the right balance to suit you.

Vapour has always been there even before the system was introduced. But yeah the system is a bit daft

Ah fair enough, there's alot of myths around aftermarket suspension and coil overs being too hard for the road etc with correct setup (spring rates etc) they are fine for road use. I have flex Z on my daily