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Old 10-26-2016, 06:50 PM   #1
EdgeAutosport.com
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Default Project Blue Boxer - Edge Autosport's 2013 WRX Sedan


Project Blue Boxer

PROJECT INTRO- Feel free to skip ahead if you want. I'm a thorough person. I can't help it.

We've actually had this car for over a year now which is crazy to me but time flies I guess. Originally, we wanted to get to know the platform, showcase some parts with it, and get deeper with our involvement in the Subaru community. We are indeed doing that but the project took a proverbial back seat to our 2013 Ford Focus ST which we've had since it was new and decided to swap to our 3rd turbo, a GTX3582, get a stroked and forged 2.3l engine, and upgrade to a port fuel system in addition to the DI system, among a lot of other things. That was decided on shortly after we bought the WRX. Now that the ST is running again, we're onto the WRX.

We bought the car 100% stock in used condition with about 13k on the clock. It was super clean and a really good platform to start modding. We did some initial dyno runs and custom tuning with the Cobb AP. I'll discuss results below. Up to this point, we've also done some exhaust work between the downpipe and the catback which is also shown below. I'm really happy with the car. As a company, we started off in FWD DI cars but have been anxious to get into a more popular, AWD platform. The benefits are immediate. I think the stock WRX is more fun from a stop and halfway through 2nd gear than either of the big turbo Mazdaspeed 3s or Focus STs we've built for ourselves so far (except when we have slicks on at the track). So I was immediately excited. Ever since we've been tuning and bolting on, the car has been really responsive to changes. I now fully understand why "Stage 2" is so popular with this platform. It truly is a different car.

Now that I've TL;DRed you, I'll get on with it. We have some very specific goals and some not so specific goals but either way, we'd like to share our progress with the project with you. If you have any comments, suggestions, ideas, or remarks about what we're doing, we'd love to hear about them.

As always, we are in this business not just as enthusiasts but as professionals that are here to help you with your parts, as well. We'll link any parts we use and we're glad to answer questions about them. Let us know how we can help!

At the end of the day, we're not doing anything groundbreaking with this project. WRX builds have come and gone. But considering it's not a daily driver and we're going to use the car for fun stuff only, we figured we'd let you in on the fun.

- JP

Project Notes, Updates, Installs, Etc.

Stock Dyno vs. Custom Tuning via Cobb AccessPort (Tuned by us)
Track Day at High Plains Raceway - 10/22/2016
Brake Upgrade, Wheels, and Tires
Intercooler, Blowoff Valve, and Pitch Stop Mount Upgraded
Killer B Oil Pan, Baffle, and Pickup and Grimmspeed Up Pipe Installed
Revised Tuning after TMIC and Up Pipe Install
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Last edited by EdgeAutosport.com; 12-05-2016 at 03:01 PM.
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Old 10-26-2016, 06:51 PM   #2
EdgeAutosport.com
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Baseline Dyno vs Tuned

We were pretty happy with the gains we made with custom tuning and no hard parts yet. The car felt much better to drive after this. I didn’t feel like I needed to bounce up and down in my seat anymore to give it a little extra push. We’re happy with the baseline before parts go on. The gains under the curve are serious business.





Alan is our in house tuner. At this point in time, we don’t have a dyno and we don’t actually provide tuning services for customers. We’re solely a high performance parts retailer. Alan has done tuning on the side for a long time now and maybe soon we’ll be getting a dyno to play with and provide a second service to our customers. Nothing is solid yet but we’ll keep tuning our own stuff for now.

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Old 10-26-2016, 07:17 PM   #3
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Last Sunday I went to one of our local road courses, High Plains Raceway (completely forgot the GoPros ) and gave it the beans in completely stock trim just to see what it would do. I still had the all seasons on from when we bought the car. I knew the brakes would fade badly and quickly. It ended up being worse than I anticipated. The stock WRX brakes were noticeably fading by about half a lap in. All season tires weren't the weak point, believe it or not. I was only able to get 2 laps in during the first lapping session before it ended so they held up okay by then. I went out for another 3 or 4 laps about 30 minutes later and the brakes were slightly worse. I still pounded the car into the corner beyond what most people probably feel comfortable doing. I had a couple pucker moments when I was standing on the brakes at the end of the straights and it was slowing down less than what I wanted. I knew I had one more session left at the most.

30 minutes later went out again for a hard 4 laps and when I pulled off (didn't feel safe going any further), I parked it, got out and immediately got back in the car to drive around the pits. The pads would have probably caught on fire if I didn't. They were smoking....bad lol. So now we have a baseline at the road course. Those STI Brembos sure do sound nice right about now! Although we won't be going that far, we will be upgrading everything but the calipers. Stay tuned for that.

On a positive note, the only STI I encountered on the course was on my rear end in the twisties but I barely pulled him on the straights. So I know the car is making decent power.

We also have a turbo back on the car as it sits but haven't gone to the dyno to get a new baseline. We'll post up again when we do that.

Here is the track layout if you're interested. It's a 2.55 mile course with over 300ft of cumulative elevation change!!! It even has a Laguna Seca ish corkscrew before the Start/Finish, not quite that crazy but not too far off. I had a blast and I'm looking forward to going back this weekend to get a little more seat time before the snow hits.

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Old 10-28-2016, 05:30 PM   #4
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This week, we installed some brake parts on the car as well as a new set of wheels and tires. Here is the breakdown of parts installed.

StopTech Slotted Rotors
StopTech Stainless Brake Lines
EBC YellowStuff Pads
Motul RBF600 Brake Fluid
Russell Speed Bleeders
Konig Hypergram 17x9 +40 Wheels in Race Bronze
Hankook Ventus RS-3 Tires 255/40R17



I was super excited to get this stuff on after pushing the car way past the limits of the previous stock brakes, all seasons, and heavy stock wheels. I've included a bunch of pictures here with notes about each one.

Here are the rotors before we took them off. Clearly, they had been heat cycled to the extreme and began to rust immediately. I've never quite seen it happen that quickly lol. The rotors were warped pretty badly by the end. The car vibrated heavily when braking hard.



After further inspection, the pads we're somewhat glazed and one pad from the front left in particular was worn completely uneven from top to bottom. I would assume that was due to the fluid boiling in the caliper and not allowing pressure to be applied to the top. The bottom was doing most of the braking where the fluid was. I don't consider myself a brake expert so I could be wrong.



Large chunks of rubber coming off of the ridges of the tread blocks. These puppies don't like heat! The rears weren't nearly as bad.



We compared the weight of the wheel and tire setups. We ended up saving 1.4 pounds per corner AFTER increasing the wheel and tire size. We were pretty happy about that.



Continued on next post...
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Old 10-28-2016, 05:31 PM   #5
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The EBC YellowStuff pads are considered a track day pad that can be driven on the street. The StopTech rotors are slotted and probably a slight upgrade in material from stock. I would imagine they have a little higher carbon content. Either way, I'm sure they'll hold up better than what was on before.



We also installed some Russell speed bleeders to make bleeding a breeze. These are a great, inexpensive investment for anyone that changes their fluid on their own or need to do it quickly like at a track day event.



All 4 corners done and ready for some abuse!



After fitting up the wheels, I was a little concerned that I chose a slightly too aggressive offset, mainly for the rears. I haven't gotten it aligned yet so I'll wait until everything is dialed in to fully decide but we rolled the fender for a little extra clearance. We're still on stock suspension but Alan reported that the fender barely touched the tire in a dip at a pretty normal driving speed so we'll just keep playing it by ear and see what happens. We'll try to mitigate any rubbing before we have to think about swapping wheels or tires. I really like this setup. Once we get a new suspension in the spring when the track opens back up, we'll be able to really decide what to do based on results. For now, this will work great.


Last edited by EdgeAutosport.com; 10-28-2016 at 05:56 PM.
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Old 10-28-2016, 05:34 PM   #6
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Looks great.

Personally, I've had bad experiences with EBC. I highly recommend Hawk products over EBC.
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Old 10-28-2016, 06:20 PM   #7
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Subscribed.

I have the same car same year but went with Subaru 4 pot calipers in front (fixed caliper), Stoptech pads, KNS rotors, Stoptech SS lines, and AMSOIL 600 racing brake fluid.
I like the Russel speed bleeder add.
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Old 11-01-2016, 10:23 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Art_Vandelay View Post
Looks great.

Personally, I've had bad experiences with EBC. I highly recommend Hawk products over EBC.
I didn't have a bias going in other than a lot of our customers have given us good feedback about EBC so I tried them first. This is the first car we've tracked on a road course which is weird because I have a shifter kart background and love the road course stuff. The previous 2 were mainly drag raced so we've never had to worry about pads. We'll be finding out more and testing out different stuff so I'll try new things so we have more data to share here, with customers, etc. Curious why you didn't like the EBCs though. I always like to hear about others' experiences.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaceracer View Post
Subscribed.

I have the same car same year but went with Subaru 4 pot calipers in front (fixed caliper), Stoptech pads, KNS rotors, Stoptech SS lines, and AMSOIL 600 racing brake fluid.
I like the Russel speed bleeder add.
I bet that's a great setup. I was sort of curious how these floating calipers would hold up and perform. They weren't bad when paired with way better pads but you can tell there is some feel and consistency left to be desired. I really want some nice fixed calipers and we still might switch. It's amazing how much faster lap times can be with better braking performance.
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Old 11-10-2016, 04:38 PM   #9
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Made a few easy modifications today that should make the Blue Boxer that much better. We wanted to the try the Perrin intercooler along with the Go Fast Bits BOV. While we had the intercooler off, we installed a Torque Solution pitch stop mount to tighten things up a little.

Our impressions and thoughts...



The Perrin intercooler is a really nicely finished piece. It fits really well on the WRX and has plenty of clearance around everything to fit well. The little plastic lip on the back of the shrouding comes over the top of it when you're closing the hood but easily slides over the back of it and allows the same airflow from the hood. We're excited to see what sort of changes in the motor it makes. We'll see what the cooler temps do along with a little better flow.



The Go Fast Bits is great. This is the Dual Port that is adjustable between 0-100% VTA and anywhere in between. This really lets you customize what your BOV sounds like and how it functions. As far as the adjustment goes, it's a matter of opening the hood and reaching to twist the lower section of the head of the BOV. It's as simple as simple gets. The atmospheric venting sound doesn't sound super annoying like some valves but it is loud. It's a crisp sound though, I like it. We'll mess around with it and keep it somewhere in the middle so we still get some function out of it. We're not all about sound but we're not against a little extra personality.



The Torque Solution pitch stop mount is immediately noticeable when you start the car, mainly because of sound. The solid style bushings transfer noise from the starter into the car much more than the stock mount but it's not a big deal at all. It doesn't vibrate at all at idle or cruising (haven't tried it with the A/C on yet at idle but I can't imagine this mount is going to be harsh in any way). You can definitely notice it's there though, although it's subtle. The car feels slightly more tightened up as the motor moves so I can tell it's doing its job. Nothing crazy to report with this one though. However, I'm sure the engine moves less as a result which is what we want. We might upgrade the other mounts later too, not sure yet.

Last edited by EdgeAutosport.com; 12-05-2016 at 02:56 PM.
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Old 12-05-2016, 02:11 PM   #10
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Last week, we upgraded some of the oiling setup with a Killer B Oil Pickup, Baffle, and Oil Pan. We knew some track time would be coming up again before long so we wanted to at least get this on the car while the track was closed. We'll also be installing oil temp and pressure gauges in the next couple weeks. With how hard we are pushing at the track, we can't afford not to look at the condition of the oil. Our water has stayed in check just fine but we can't see oil without gauges, obviously. We'll post up when we do those.

While we were in the area, we decided to throw on a Grimmspeed ceramic coated up pipe. We're super happy we did because the car immediately woke up in the spooling region. We're not sure what the entire piping is like but at least at the inlet and outlet flanges, the diameter was 5mm larger than stock, around 12% larger.














Last edited by EdgeAutosport.com; 12-05-2016 at 02:57 PM.
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Old 12-05-2016, 02:40 PM   #11
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Here are dyno results both before and after installation of the Perrin TMIC and Grimmspeed Up Pipe. We retuned a bit to make sure we were optimizing what the car can safely do and this is what we came up with. We're still on 91 pump gas. The car is super fun right now and feels great. Let's hope those pistons are still happy right now!



We also wanted to do a comparison of where we started. This is the car with no hard parts and a Cobb OTS Stage 1 map compared to where we are now. Quite a difference!

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Old 01-11-2017, 08:04 PM   #12
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We took to the wrenches again this week and put on a few simple but functional modifications. Here we go.

Whiteline 20mm Rear Sway Bar with Adjustable End Links









We can't really get enough use out of this right now with the way our roads are. We'll try to post back up after we hit the twisties for the first time in a little bit.

Grimmspeed Brake Master Cylinder Brace

This one provided the most immediate change. When you step on the pedal, it just simply feels stronger, like you're pressing up against a stiffer surface and not so much of a soft, mushy pedal. It definitely makes the brakes feel more confident and predictable. I like it.



Subaru OEM Vortex Generator

We got this mainly because we like to generate vortexs while driving. But seriously, I was always really curious about what the heck these things are good for since this is our first car where they are popular and readily available. I went on a decent internet hunt and tried to find some actual technical info on this. I'm not an engineer and I'm not super educated on aerodynamics so what I'll do is leave you the decent information and discussion I found about them. Check these out if you are curious like me. I enjoyed reading about them. I think at the very least, we might experience a little top end speed gain on the long straights at the track. I'm curious if trap speeds at the drag strip change with this too.

https://www.physicsforums.com/thread...e-cars.533828/

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=113219

http://www.vortex-generators.com/vortex-generators.html

At the very least, I do think it's a pretty cool, visually appealing part that adds a lot of character to the car and when you pay somewhere in the $75 range for a Subaru OEM one, I figure we're not too invested if we want to take it off. After putting it on, I really like it and we'll probably keep it on the car.
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Old 01-24-2017, 03:41 PM   #13
GalaxyBlueDude
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What endlinks are those? Never seen them before and don't see any branding?
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Old 01-25-2017, 11:59 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GalaxyBlueDude View Post
What endlinks are those? Never seen them before and don't see any branding?
They are also Whiteline!
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Old 09-30-2019, 10:20 PM   #15
2_Wrxxy
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Default Awesome post, awesome car!

Thanks for posting your mods and progress. Gives me ideas for future modifications to my car! Great work! Sounds like it is a very fun car!
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Old 10-28-2019, 10:58 PM   #16
jatran661
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Sick car. Love it.
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