My Story:
My love of Subaru's began 7 years ago with a ride in a friend's Legacy GT Spec-B in Calgary as a 17 yr old BC Kid. I was hooked after that ride along, and began saving and searching. Two years later, and after much research, I found myself in a stock 06 Hawkeye WRX. I modded that car to stage 2 and enjoyed every second of it! But I dreamed of having an STI.
I bought my 2010 STI in Oct of 2015 after finding it for a very good deal at a dealer surprisingly! It was already stage 2, came with the accessport, and had good compression and leakdown results, so I pulled the trigger! My dream car was mine!
I decided to get an e-tune to get the car off Cobb OTS, but for some reason, I couldn't change maps with the AP. I got this message "Accessport cannot communicate with ECU." I went back and forth with Cobb shooting ideas of what could be wrong back and forth and testing each. Low battery, bad AP dongle, bad OBD2 port, wiring issue. I even paid for an upgrade to a V3 AP as they thought my V2B was bad. No bueno!
I eventually decided to pull my ECU and ship it to them. While researching how to pull it, I came across a thread on NASIOC about a guy who was removing his because of a bad Cobb map. Apparently, when Cobb first released their stage 2 maps for the 2010 STI, after uploading it would lock out the ECU! I figured that had to be my problem. Got my ECU back and it was finally fixed!
I added small mods like intake, wheels, 3M, and an e-tune from Stephen at IAPerformance, and planned to keep the car like that. Ran solid, looked great! My first winter I ended up with a lot of "boost spike", so I kept my eyes open and eventually found a Grimmspeed Up-Pipe + EWG. After install I had the car re-tuned by Stephen who was great! Always answered my emails promptly and answered all my questions.
I drove the car for a year like this.
Then came a sound which started off so small, I thought it was just injector tick. "Tick, tick, tick!" that increased with RPM. My brother in-law (who is a Journeyman Mechanic at a Toyota Dealership) thought I was crazy for thinking more of it, and I took his advice. A month went by and the sound got louder and louder. Finally took the step of dropping my pan, and low and behold....
Rod bearing it was!
And to top it off, my AP was stolen from my car! The engine never actually gave out on me, but I knew it was only a matter of time. I babied it and drove sparingly until the day came for the open heart surgery. Then came the deliberation; "what to do?" I took a month to research and think, and in the end I decided I didn't want to move on to another car, and I didn't want to end up in this same boat down the road. I decided I would build it. Then more deliberation; "do I go for more power, or just replace the block?" Research, research, research...I picked a goal of 400WHP (or what many dyno plots led me to believe was) and planned out my parts. I waited until Black Friday for deals to come up on parts and purchased everything I could think of. I went with an IAG block for two reasons: I wanted the car back up and running fairly quick, and I wanted the assurance that I wasn't going to screw it up. I have confidence in my abilities (especially with my brother-in-law helping), but couldn't shake the feeling that I'd end up with a lot of money spent, and always the chance I got a measurement wrong or forgotten nut etc. Then came the long wait for parts. I had everything shipped to the border as I got free shipping on everything, as opposed to the $900 it would cost to get it across! The day finally came and I travelled down for pickup! If you go this route, don't forget about duties! Talk about a kick in the nuts on that one....
By November of 2016, it was time to build! We got the car to my friends garage, and began the teardown. Of course, last winter was one of the coldest in the Okanagan, so we relied heavily on a propane heater and wood firestove!
3 Hours later, she was out!
Then came teardown!
And rebuild!
A few days later, we threw 'er back in the car, bit the bullet and started 'er up. Purred like a kitten!
We tore out, tore down, built, and re-installed the engine in roughly 25 man hrs, working on the car after work, and was driving the car 2 weeks after pulling the engine.
Or so I thought...
CEL's started popping up. After sending some logs to Stephen at IAPerformance, he and I noticed my LH Exhaust Cam Gear was very slow to react, and actually sticking in place at times. I tried testing the OCV, switching the OCV, and even replacing the OCV, but nothing fixed it. I ordered a new Cam Gear as a last ditch hope that it was jammed. It oftens happens with bearing failure, though I took apart and cleaned both intake and exhaust gears. Flipped the new gear in and voila! It was fixed! Hallelujah!
I gently drove the car, following precisely what IAG recommended for breaking in the block. Soon enough my break in was finished and I booked a tune appointment with Classified Motorsports in Kelowna, BC. Two weeks before my tune, my car was broken into again and my AP stolen!
I ordered a new one along with a few other parts recommended by Kyle at Classified, installed and tested my Aquamist kit, and waited patiently for my dyno day.
I reached my goal! Car is a complete beast from 3800RPM up! The day after I got the car back, I took it on a road trip up to Quesnel. Perfect conditions to test out some highway pulls
Now for the difficult part. Most people don't want to do this step as it is pretty heart wrenching to admit how much you spent lol. I've outlined below a cost for all parts for the associated build. I hate to say it, but its not cheap. I have kept track of the complete build, and there is a lot of small parts that really add up when doing a build. I knew going in it wouldn't be cheap, especially with our crap $. I really had a hard time deciding whether to just buy a new SB, fix it and hope for another 100k kms, or to build it how I always wanted. In the end, I had the money to do a light build, so I pulled the trigger. Looking back, its tough to say that I shouldn't have gone rotated (the big debate everyone has!) but my goal wasn't a 600whp monster as its my DD, just something fun for the street, and the area of 400whp seemed like the best place to stop. Every part you add usually leads to another part to make that part work best ie. upgraded turbo = bigger injectors = bigger fuel pump etc. I was a little restricted on funds as well as I got married a month before ordering all the parts lol.
Almost everywhere, you will see someone saying "I built my 500WHP STI for $XXXX." I have personally found a lot of those numbers to be grossly underrated. I bought almost all parts for the build last year on Black Friday for some savings and I had it all shipped to the border and traveled down for pickup as that saved me around $900. I did what I could to buy through Canadian sellers, but some parts there was quite a large price difference so the major stuff was brought in from the US. As I already stated, my car spun a rod bearing, and I could have pulled my engine and built my own block, but I felt leaving the crucial block to the professionals and going with IAG was the right thing to do. It also lets me build my old block back up down the road for a spare engine and perhaps that 600whp monster everyone dreams of
. That being said, my build includes a lot of maintenance parts because of that. I will try and break it all down accordingly:
Spun Bearing Parts + Costs:- IAG Stage 2 Block
- Moroso Oil Pickup
- OEM Master Gasket Kit
- IAG Oil Feed Lines
- Gates Racing Timing Belt Kit
- OEM Oil Pump
- OEM Oil Cooler
- Machined Stock Heads + Flywheel
- Company 23 Cam Tools
- Motul Break In Oil for entire break In process (6 Oil Changes)
- OEM Subaru Oil Filters
- NGK -1 Step Spark Plugs
Total Estimated: $6k
Go Fast Parts + Cost:- Cobb AP3
- Competition Stage 3 clutch
- Blouch 1.5XTR 10cm
- Aquamist HFS-3
- ID1000
- DW65C
- HKS ELH
- Grimmspeed IWG Bracket
- Grimmspeed IC Hose Kit
- IAPerformance FPR Kit
- Grimmspeed Up-Pipe + Tial EWG
- Grimmspeed CAI
- IAG Speed Density Kit
- Cobb Turbo Inlet
- Grimmspeed EBCS
Total Estimated: $7.2k
Nice to Have Parts + Cost:- IAG AOS
- Zerolift TGV Delete
- PRL Air Pump Delete
- SMY Clustermaker
- SolidMods Vent Pod
- AEM X-Series Wideband + Oil Pressure Gauges
Total Estimated: $1.6k
I'm sure there is some small things I am missing, but that is about as honest as I can be about my build. That doesn't include my Cobb AP being stolen 3x times now also (don't even get me started on that...) which has its own costs associated. We definitely get screwed with our $, and of course you can source parts used which I highly recommend as it will lead to massive savings on some items.
So there you have it! If you made it to the end, good on you! I hope this provides insight to anyone who finds themself in a similar situation, or just as a reference for anyone wondering what it takes to build a Subaru up. I'm certainly not a professional by any means, and everyone has their own abilities and goals. A big thanks to my brother-in-law and wife, who happily sacrified their own time to help me out! I've been driving on the protune for 3 weeks now and couldn't be happier! Happy driving gents, and keep 'er between the mustard and the mayo out there!
Sp3nny
