The key to human flight is to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

Neither of us should have ever said "I'm not in a hurry"

Its under my workbench, I need to go dig some stuff out of the way so I can take pics. I'll get it done before the end of the week

 

Well i need to buy it before I impulse spend the rest of my paypal monies.

 

I must work quickly!

 

i <3 teh cornz

 

stock block?

Some days I am anxious about breaking a piston. Today is one of those days.

 

Yep.

Proper tuning and e85 make a world of difference for the power these things can hold down.

The 5 speed on the other hand.......

 

Maybe once I read enough on tuning I'll run E85. Its been a long time since I tuned my Miata and this seems infinitely more complex.

 

Bottom line: unless you want to learn it cause you love it so much and willing to sacrifice years of your time and thousands of your money to do it, then it's not worth it.
Few hours + few hundred
vs
Years and thousands.

Anyone that says it's easy-peasy to properly tune any newer platform is either lying, or is a HACK, or just using a canned tune and making sure it doesn't knock or make the car flip out blatantly. It took me so many years of messing with Subaru's, evo's, and Miata's before I even touched anyone elses car that I don't even have the energy to start over with the mustang. My '15 GT, I'm probably not even gonna spend the effort to re-learn the platform. I'm gonna have a really good tuner tune it for me, and enjoy it. That's right, not a type-o. It's not worth it.

Some of the self-tuned roms I've looked at over the years blew my mind. I was genuinely impressed that the car was still running and didn't blow up.

 

ask vlad how many times i called him with help getting my head around it.

 

Yep, stock 91 and E85 Stg 1 OFT tunes on the BRZ.

Logging shows everything is good and the car runs much better than the stock tunes.

Could a dyno tune get another 1-3% on an NA platform? Possibly, but why?

 

Rethinking what I'm going to do with this car now lol. I'm the most indecisive person ever
My end goal is be able to do track days occasionally (like twice a year if that) without shitting my pants thinking about knock.
I should probably get a catless downpipe. maybe.
and im such a sucker for the sound of an intake even though I keep reading that stock intake is best.
I'm just gonna have someone else tune for me and learn how to log for my own peace of mind/if something goes wrong.
Who would you take your Subaru to if you were to have someone else tune it?

 

I would take it to me.

I definitely wouldn't take it to some of the "t00ners" in the bay area.
I'm not gonna name names.
Not the point of the convo

 

If you are down to do this I will compensate you accordingly. I sort of set an appointment at EQ in fairfield but its not really set in stone nor do I know if this is a bad place to take it.

 

Let's do it.
And if you want my opinion on EQ you can pm me
Or just do a little research on icrub

 

Be sure to ask him for a sticker

 

so how do you do this? do you street tune it or do you use someones dyno?
really just need to make a decision on if i want to do this catless or not.

 

Offtopic: Why the hell does everyone praise the hankook RS3s so much? I had them on my Miata and they were ****, had terrible grip, were basically useless when cold. Apparently they had an update at some point so I thought maybe I'll give them another try. Got them on my STI and they are significantly worse than the Dunlop ZIIs I had on before, still have **** cold grip, and they are so unbelievably loud even at slow speeds. They legitimately sound like offroad tires. They also inspire 0 confidence. Never again.

tl;dr **** RS3s.

 

Up to you, but road tuning works best imho for all but the really high power setups.

IF you're gonna track your car, even rarely, there are several things to consider. Here's my take:
1) tune, obviously to keep those pistons intact. Also think about running e85 or W/I to keep temps in check and prevent det even under the hottest/harshest conditions.
2) replace the oil pick up tube. this is a big BIG issue that absolutely has to be addressed sooner rather than later
3) air/oil separator or catch can, because you're gonna blow-by a significant amount of junk under hard cornering and track use

That's really about it for the STi until you start making more and more power and going faster and faster, which is when you'll start breaking more parts. But at stg1 power levels, the above would be my 1st concern.

 

Oh and this goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway cause it's so important:

I CANNOT even BEGIN to stress how important preventative maint is. 9 out of 10 kids that I've helped come over thinking their car is tip-top, just cause it's not smoking or caught on fire. 8 out of those 9 have at least some minor issues that need to be addressed or looked at soon. NO ONE thinks they need a proper boost leak test unless their car is making next to no boost. NO ONE EVER appreciates how many vacuum lines and gaskets and other stuff there is on these cars that deteriorate over time, get old, crusty, leaky, etc.

When I tell people to make sure all that stuff is 100% tip top, they think I mean: " glance over the bay, and if nothing looks crazy out of place or broken, it's kewl dawg" .

Then they come over and we go through their bay with a fine-toothed comb, and they get really embarrassed when I point out 10-15 things wrong (usually).


The rare instance when someone brings me a car with high mileage or 10+ years old and everything is really tip-top, It absolutely blows my mind. Like, it's a celebration. I never stop telling those people how awesome they are when that happens

 

I'm obviously not one of the latter people. :P