turtleman's saabaru

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turtleman

turtleman

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  • #1
    The tortuga randomly snapping a rocker arm bolt when i was 180mi away from home just weeks after i got it all back together and was fine-tuning it kinda inspired me to get another backup/winter car.

    '05 saab 9-2x aero with 135k on it
    20150914_131823.jpg

    I affectionately call it the 'silver arrow' on the rivperformance forum. For those of you normal people that are not riviera geeks, the silver arrow's were like numbered last-gen rivs with unique paint and emblems and whatnot.

    Are there any subaru smartasses in the area that tune and stuff?
    The intention was not to mod this car at all but after looking around a bit it seems like a 'stage 2' configuration is almost silly not to do. It'd be great if I could just get the downpipe, tune it, and not buy the $650 cobb accessport tuner. I saw some tuners in other areas but nobody in the vicinity of chicago-land.
    Click to read more...
     
    IceCreamAssassin

    IceCreamAssassin

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  • #9
    jprophecy said:
    It's the same drive train as the WRX..... It's literally a WRX wagon rebadged........
    Click to expand...

    Exactly the reason to keep it stock.... Or mod it and just be ready to fix it some day.

    Go to NASIOC.com and read everyone's builds, stories, etc.... There are none stock ones with 10 miles on the motor and dead cylinders. There are people who have 100k miles and do exhaust, intake, and a tune... Now rebuilding everything.
    It's not 100% it will break if you mod, but there is a good chance.
     
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    jprophecy

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  • #10
    IceCreamAssassin said:
    Exactly the reason to keep it stock.... Or mod it and just be ready to fix it some day.

    Go to NASIOC.com and read everyone's builds, stories, etc.... There are none stock ones with 10 miles on the motor and dead cylinders. There are people who have 100k miles and do exhaust, intake, and a tune... Now rebuilding everything.
    It's not 100% it will break if you mod, but there is a good chance.
    Click to expand...

    That's with any car though. You can say the same for the God almight LS1.... Most say it's just about bullet proof, but you have those out there that say shit breaks on them all the time. WRX is a widely modded car and I see plenty driving strong with a good amount of mods. I still think it comes down to how you take care of it or beat on it.

    My Camaro for example. I still have stock 10 bolt that everyone says will break under stock power, I have a 402 Stroker running power through it and it's holding up fine. Course I don't do rolling burn outs at every stop light like a 16 yo, but I do put it through its paces from time to time
     
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    I haz dat teddy bear smile.
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  • #11
    I think it's much more widely a problem with them though. It is VERY common for them to eat up rings in the (I think?) #4 cylinder. A friend just bought an STI, didn't drive it more than a couple hundred street miles (it was stock) had it properly tuned by a very well known local and it dumped a ring on the dyno. Keep it stock.
     
    turtleman

    turtleman

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  • #12
    I have heard about the random ring failure. There doesn't seem to be any strong tie to modding though. It just sorta happens.

    What got me interested in the stage 1/2 thing is the reviews people do on them suggest the stage1 tune makes the car a lot more compliant to drive. One thing that annoys me a little about the car is how it does nothing until basically 3000rpm and then you are taking off like the on-off switch effect. I didn't suspect it'd be so pronounced on a stock car with a baby turbo but people say the stage1 tune largely cures that. Stage2 kinda just makes sense too because it's mostly just opening up the primary portion of the exhaust and you get more power and quicker spooling so again, better manners. Plus removing a fail point/heat maker (the cats) and maintaining the same or improving potential gas mileage is a bonus. I can live with it how it is but if I can improve it so easily why not. As is if you make the clutch do some work, it'll get up and go from a stop well but I'm not sure if that's normal procedure or I'm just too eager to accelerate. I also wonder if this characteristic isn't going to be amplified in snow and whatnot which is the chief purpose of the car for me.

    Right now the only thing I'm doing to it is touch screen double din head unit with bluetooth & MHL for the phone and stuff and a bazooka sub and from there I'll see if i can live with the original speakers or not. They aren't terribly bad. I think I'm the only one who'll say that though.

    I'll check P&L out.
    I joined NASOIC last night it looks like the tuners come and go often for as low as half the cost of new. It's strange how different their vehicle license structure is from hptuners that I'm used to. You buy their more expensive tuner and it only works on your one car basically which sucks but on the plus side it works well as a one-piece scanner (no laptop or tablet needed) and they just give you their proprietary shelf tunes with it.
     
    IceCreamAssassin

    IceCreamAssassin

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  • #14
    Look man I'm not trying to talk you out of doing anything to your car. I loved my Subaru and have been around them for years between my cousin and friends. My cousin made it to 140k on a Cobb stage two build. The guy he sold it to blew it up in a week. He also bought a brand new 2014 WRX and then got rod knock at 4K miles on a 100% stock car.
    You're correct every car has their horror stories, I'm just letting you know these motors have many many more horror stories than most others. Maintenance and tune will be the most important thing for you. I really hope all goes well for you, but if it doesn't I've pulled enough Subaru motors I could probably knock it out in about an hour or so lol.

    Also for tuners Cobb seems to be the way to go unless you get it tuned my PnL... AMS used to tune them but not sure they do Subarus anymore.
     
    Bob Kazamakis

    Bob Kazamakis

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  • #16
    IceCreamAssassin said:
    Look man I'm not trying to talk you out of doing anything to your car. I loved my Subaru and have been around them for years between my cousin and friends. My cousin made it to 140k on a Cobb stage two build. The guy he sold it to blew it up in a week. He also bought a brand new 2014 WRX and then got rod knock at 4K miles on a 100% stock car.
    You're correct every car has their horror stories, I'm just letting you know these motors have many many more horror stories than most others. Maintenance and tune will be the most important thing for you. I really hope all goes well for you, but if it doesn't I've pulled enough Subaru motors I could probably knock it out in about an hour or so lol.

    Also for tuners Cobb seems to be the way to go unless you get it tuned my PnL... AMS used to tune them but not sure they do Subarus anymore.
    Click to expand...
    Because they blow up so much. I remember being at AMS where they said 9/10 a subaru that would come in for tuning would have low compression on the #4 cylinder :rofl:
     
    turtleman

    turtleman

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  • #22
    ilikemtb999 said:
    It has nothing to do with gaskets :rofl:
    Click to expand...

    I didn't really mean that with regard to the saabaru - just in general. Like the 3800 is rock solid once you take care of the original intake gaskets and stuff that inevitably fail.
    I just watched an hour long video of a subaru tech assembling a new shortblock. It looks to be pretty easy. I'm not saying I want to do it but it's not out of the question if it comes to that.
    Anyway I'm just gonna change the oil religiously and drive it and hope for the best. There weren't really any other options for cars that give you what this one does for anywhere near the money.
     
    turtleman

    turtleman

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  • #23
    the sound stuff i did


    Although I really wanted to keep the stock deck in, I decided it just made much more sense for the sake of usability to get a new one. This thing does it all! and I put a slick saab background in it :cool:


    I put in a Bazooka sub. If I need the room, I can take it out without tools in like 20 seconds. It's actually a hybrid of a BTA10250D & a BT1224DVC (that's another story)


    I cut out a hole to install the sub control knob. I didn't really want to do that but there was just no other place in the car to have it that worked well. It didn't fit in the empty button plates by the foglight button and stuff either.


    pic of cutting the hole
     
    SnailBums

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  • #24
    Do the stage 2. Most of the Subarus with cyl 4 failure are the STI's, majority of the WRX's were not affected. Different engines between the 2. I had a stage 2 wrx for 3 years with no problems and same goes for my friends. I definitely miss that car! Your biggest issue will be not blowing up the transmission with harsh driving/launches.

    Also as for you not wanting to spend $650 on a Cobb, that's ok. You don't have to. You get get the car open-source tuned with the stock ecu but you will need to buy/borrow a Tactrix cable. I can let you borrow mine if you need it.

    If you wanna talk more just shoot me a PM. I can also recommend a tuner if you dont have one.
     
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