I bought a brand new 257 block from my dealership and had it drop shipped to my trusted machine shop and they did all the work. boring it out, line honing the block. truing up all the surfaces. youd be surprised how far even a brand new block is out of whack from SOA. Having heard many comments and had many arguments and discussions about piston sizes in subaru engines ive come to the consensus that even at 100mm you are only boring the block over 0.5mm and the cylinder walls in a subaru have proven to hold higher power with the 100mm pistons as long as you are on a good tune because these motors love to play knock knock jokes. There is a tuner local to me that has earned the nickname subaru jesus and has tuned all my turbo subarus. I ask him questions on a regular basis and he gives me no bullshit answers. He said it would be fine and he runs the same pistons in his personal sti. If they are good enough for him to spend his money on and he has had reliable 425whp for 2+ years with almost an identical build. as they say. proof is in the pudding

 

Hmm, ok.

I've been building and tuning these things for the past 10 years, and disagree, but thats...just..my...opinion...mannnnn

PS: read through this thread. I've owned a reliable bone stock block 400whp wrx for the same amoung of time Plots, time slips, and videos all posted.

 

ps: I'm not trying to be mean or a dbag to you, or get in a pissing contest.

I just always question the decision to hog out a block that's already pretty thin (compared to the 2L's, or other cars, anyway)

 

I'm really diggin what IAG and Outfront is doing with all the closed deck blocks.

 

Chris,

Vlad is pretty much as tough love as it comes, but he knows his ****. There's a reason I don't go all noob spazzcakes when he calls me out. Odds are he's right and I'd learn more by shutting the hell up and listening to him than mouthing off.

 

It's all good either way. I really do like all his leggies and am glad we've another subaru nerd on here

 

^^ Post 2,562 , he's gonna be reading for a while!

One day I'll decide to make my outback fast. It has a new subaru STI shortblock with 12k miles on it. Would it handle 400whp on stock motor on E85?

 

Something tells me that was a ring gap too small and/or too much det problem.

 

Street driven, not treated like your miata? I'd say yes.
Mine is still running like a champ. The trans.....not so much

I was illustrating a point with that pic.
Which brings up another point: if/when the current bores need to be clean up, there's basically no room to do it and you gotta start over. Like on the last one I had to re-do for a kid. Was built by EQ (equilibrium tuning) they're pretty popular in the scoob crowd.

But it's not a deal breaker by any means. I'm sure it will likely be great for a long while (if built right and tuned right)

 

Cool. Yeah not gonna be hotlaping it every weekend, just something to have fun with on the street. I still have the EFR7670 laying around and it would be a nice fit for the Outback I believe.
I never really looked into the EJ257. That motor is crazy oversquare. Really uncommon for a street car to have that big of an oversquare design, but that's really cool for making power.

 

Yeah, his leggy's are a ton of fun. I've never been in the sedan but the wagon is awesome. I can't wait to see how the finished build looks on the sedan (and the supra!).

The guy he uses to tune his ish is known in these parts as 'Subaru Jesus'. I've dealt with him a little bit and he's extremely pragmatic and a helluva perfectionist when it comes to part selection and builds. I'm under the impression that he turns away cars where the owners take too many shortcuts or disregard what he says because it's not worth it to him to deal with fuckery and be blamed for issues down the line when something goes wrong from folks completely disregarding his advice.

I'm pretty sure Leafy knows who I'm talking about aka Wicked Matt.

Chris is a big part of the reason I started 'working on' breaking cars in the first place. He's given me the confidence to attempt to do things and is always willing to help and teach if something calls for it. I really appreciate it too.

 

Youre talking about Bren right? Uses the dynapac in that wicked ricer shop in auburn. Brens the only subaru specialist tuner I know of around here.

 

No **** bren. bunch of pigs. matt works out out of dynotech tuning in seakonk.

Vlad im fine with tough love. im by no means an expert and woulnt claim to be. i have a lot of experience but im still learning. open mind thing ya know. Ive seen those problems with the 10mm pistons and aggresive tunes. my LGT sedan im trying to make breathe better so I can have more revs and less boost for the same power numbers. Turbo is going to be a 6062 for this ideration. when it breaks I plan on going IAG closed deck for the sedan and by that point will probably have a semi built motor in the wagon with a bloush dom 1.5.

Thanks for the compliments on the Leggies though!

 

hahaha It's funny to see Bren mentioned:

I actually got into tuning about the same time he did. Maybe a little bit later. This was way back in the day, 04-05 I think? We were chatting all the time and sharing tunes/findings/knowledge, he even helped me tune my first wrx and sti.
We used to troll clubrsx forums together, pickin on the hawnduhh boys
We kinda stopped talking after about 07ish? He was pursuing all sorts of business opportunities and tuning like crazy, and then I see him assemble a whole crew for e-tuning and such? No idea how good or reputable they are.

 

He seemed like an alright guy but blew up my 240z and pushed it off and tried to charge me a clean up fee after he went past the boost level I told him was safe by like 12psi. Ive had some friends I recommended to go to him come back to me like a few months later with damaged motors. His tunes as of lately 12+ seem to have a lot of knock. some people trust him. I certainly don't. But some people have good luck with him. It all comes down to personal preference. I trust Matt and haven't really looked back.

I look forward to learn tuning on my miata. I bought someonline tuning courses just so i could understand things a bit more and it seems to be helping. I feel more comfortable about when maggie goes back together.

 

MS is a lot simpler and yet a lot more time consuming than tuning an OEM ecu.

Simpler because you're making changes directly, there's no silly maf voltages, requested torque, drive by wire, various timing adders, and other OEM stuff (emissions equipment too) to waste time on.

Time consuming because for the most part you're starting with a blank sleight. Most base maps are only good enough to get the car started. The rest is up to you. And it's a lot of stuff: startup, warmup, idle, corrections, etc etc etc.

Completely different approach. But not rocket science. You'll come to enjoy it

 

Or you'll just give up and pay someone to do it

 

that's also an option. I've actually been doing a lot more Miata e-tuning lately.

 

Had i wanted to give up on this project it would have happened awhile ago. before i swapped the harnesses from a parts 95 car into my 96 chassis. and before i bought all the other parts for a vvt turbo swap. lol.

 

Negative. Matt Miner. Aka Wicked Matt.

He tuned Leach's miata as well.