The car

Well, since its going to be a main focus of my posts here I figure I might as well get this out of the way. My current vehicle is a 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the car, it is powered by a 2.0L horizontally-opposed 4 cylinder engine, turbocharged with a Mitsubishi TD04H-13T turbocharger. It has a 5-speed manual gearbox and delivers power to all four wheels through its symmetrical all-wheel drive system. The engine is rated at 227bhp and 217lb.ft. of torque from the factory. Most car magazines rated the car's 0-60 time in the 5.5-5.9 second range when it was originally reviewed 7 years ago and it can run the quarter mile in the low to mid 14 second range.

My car is a color that Subaru only offered for the 2004 model year called Java Black Pearl. Its a black paint with copper metallic, which in the proper light can make the car look slightly brown and even green at times. It has also had a 3" cat-back exhaust system installed, as well as an AEM cold air intake. The clutch was recently upgraded to a Competition Clutch stage 2 kit, which incorporates a stronger pressure plate and a carbon-kevlar clutch disk, at the same time the factory flywheel was replaced in favor of a lighter ACT Streetlite flywheel which was 8lbs lighter than the factory 22lb flywheel.

Current plans for the car include replacing the factory up-pipe with a less restrictive catless aftermarket pipe, upgrading to the larger top mount intercooler from the STi, installing an aftermarket downpipe which uses high-flow catalytic converters, and having the car professionally tuned with a goal of achieving over 300 bhp, which should net me over 250 hp to the wheels.

Cosmetic modifications that have been made so far include replacing the factory 2004 tail lights with the lights from a 2006 Impreza, removing the factory SUBARU badge from the trunk lid, as well as removing the factory spoiler. Plans include a complete respray in the factory color, the addition of the larger STi hood scoop, a rally-style roof vent, and the factory 2007 limited spoiler.

Hope you enjoy the pictures, much more coming soon.