Tidgy

never good news 😞 It depends on what you want really, if your sure your not going over 350 then replace with stock and reuse what you can (bear in mind they need to strip it to see exactly whats gone wrong and what damage there is, sounds like heads will need a refresh). If your maybe thinking about upping the power at some point then may as well do the rods and pistons while its apart as it saves doing them later. should be good for mid 400's at that point. The best bet is have a chat with Kev and see what spec he advises, they have built and tuned hundreds of them over the yeas so know whats worth doing and whats not to achieve reliability at certain power levels.

thats good news 🙂 keep an eye on it but sounds liek you may have got a cheep fix 😄

should be a sealed systems so shouldn't be a hissing

you need to get it checked out properly dude, you dont wanna keep trhashing it or you may scrap your whole engine

try clinic they may have one lol

2.5 built right will do 500bhp no problem, built right is the important bit 😉 jdm hawk is indeed a 2.0 twin scroll, bear in mind doesnt have proper forged pistons though, neither does anything newer than bug of course.

06 sti will be a 2.5

not far off, i kjnow a 500bhp silver with amonster spec for £16k

Yep, getting to 350 is relatively cheap, after that you never get much for your money

Best bet, pick a tuner, tell em what your goals are get them to spec it up and price it. They will know what's best. To get to 450 isn't gonna be cheap, is guess 15k ish. The list is gonna be pretty big, Closed deck block conversion is advisable, Rods, Pistons, turbo, injectors, heads will prob need a refresh, aftermarket ecu is advisable, headers, exhaust, fuel pump, 3 port, may as well sack of secondary air system, sack tgv's, uprated clutch, etc etc etc You can get 450 by strapping a big turbo to it, but if you want it to be reliable then it needs setting up right.

Try facebook marketplace or some of the Facebook for sale groups, they sometimes pop up in there.

Belated Welcome

There's some higher milage ones around and some bug's that might be a good buy

not sounding hopefull 😞 get it up to clinic and get em to check it out, should be able to hopefully give you and answer one way or another

have to confess im not sure.

It's possible, but unlikley to be something else unless you had recently changed the rad or something similar causing the airlock. If its the same before and after coolant change then doesnt sound like its an issue with the cooling system itself . Check for any leaks on the rad, they sometimes get cacks and only leak when it gets hot, just to make sure. After that then your onto rebuilds. Clinic can give you an idea of that as you say, but i'd look at replacing the rods and pistons while its apart. Stock pistons are pretty crap and known to suffer ringland failure, stock rods will be fine if your staying near stock power, but anything aproaching 400 and your putting them at risk. Then other options like closed decking depending on how far you wanna go and what your budget is.

yes could well be that, although it's normaly affected by cold weather. Ecu has a default o feck, that aint right saftey cut, first it pulls back boost, second it pulls back fuel which feels like you hit a brick wall. Watch out for mappers removing these saftey features when you do have it mapped, proper dodgy thing to do but i know a few mappers who do it.

2.5 headgasket is a full rebuild job inc bottom end. 2.5k sounds very cheap, you sure clinic knew exactly what you were saying?

i cant see anything on teh rag other than oil?

10 is a pretty tight budget now adays for a decent jdm widetrack, prices have def gone up in recent months.

has it been mapped? sounds like it may be hitting boost cut, aka overboosting. cause could be any number of things.

i'd leave the front alone and upgrade the rear on it, not 100% sure on the standard size on a hatch, sure somene will be along to tell you. doing the rear helps with canceling some fo the understeer, so if you do both you balance it out rather than correcting it.

welcome. would of thought a decent local retrimmer could do it for you?

i know scoobyclinic fit perrin ones. they are a different fitment i believe

2.5 hg is a full rebuild job. Anyone saying anything else I would question their knowledge.