After arriving home from offshore my attentions turned to giving the Impreza a 'performance' make-over. However, before i could tear the car apart i had to get some painting out of the way first. This involved painting the inlet manifold i modified last month, painting the inside of my bonnet scoop matt-black and giving a fuel filter i modified (with a -6AN outlet) a coat of glass-black.

Once the paint fumes had cleared i parked the car in the garage where it would stay for the next week and a half! The strip down went well and i got almost everything that was being replaced removed within the space of a day. The only part removed that didn't end up being upgraded was the air-conditioning system, this was stripped out altogether to save weight.

Over the course of a week or so i fitted new NGKPFR7B plugs, some lightweight under-driven pulleys, a Walbro 255l/h fuel pump, Nismo 555cc injectors, an SX fuel pressure regulator along with an A'pexi AVC-R and Power FC.

On top of this i wrapped the hot-side of my TD05-20G turbo. Luckily, when i went to fit the turbo i found the standard VF24 heat-shield needed only a little modification to fit the 20G. However, my decision to use the turbo inlet pipe from a Newage car created a fair bit of work. The bigger inlet pipe not only requires relocation of the PAS reservoir but needs a solution for where to draw metered air for the idle air control valve. I chose to put my welding skills to the test and modified the dump-valve cross-pipe. Using a Phase 1 IACV (the inlet of which orientates downwards), this makes for a fairly neat solution.

While the car was in pieces i also took the time to bypass the throttle body and IACV 'coolant' supplies and applied a liberal dose of heat-reflective insulation tape to the induction tract. I also re-made my fuel lines with Earls Pro-Lite 350 fuel hose (insulated with their own brand of flame-guard protection).

All in all i managed to get the car up and running less than 12 hours before it was due to be remapped! The only area i wasn't completely happy with was the induction kit. A great deal of effort went into cutting and welding a flange onto the Roger Clark induction trumpet so it fitted the STi 4 MAF directly. Unfortunately a Samco hose i was waiting for didn't arrive in time so the K&N filter is left unshielded while the intercooler water spray reservoir is sat on my garage floor. I hope to get the filter installed permanently and water-spray reinstated as soon as the hose turns up.

So all that was left was for Andy Forrest to work his magic on the cars A'pexi ECU. While doing this he helped to sort a dodgy idle as well as pin-point another failed AVC-R install - restrictor in reference line this time!

All in all the car is much more exciting to drive now. The 20G turbo is making an impressive 1barg by 2900rpm and 1.5barg by 3200rpm although i suspect top end performance is being sacrificed somewhat by this early spool. Hopefully i'll be able to get the car on a rolling road next month to find out how it's performing.