Myxalplyx

If your car has a snorkel in the fenderwell, like most scoobies seem to have, cut it somewhere inside the fenderwell. Attach some aluminum ducting to it and route the ducting to an opening in the bumper area. This way, you'll keep your stock look, get cooler air and maximize your air velocity depening on how your aluminum ducting is pointed. How do I know? I tested this out on one of my XT6s. I cut the snorkus in the fenderwell and attached aluminum ducting out through the passenger side foglight. It resulted in better throttle response and less downshifting on the highway at certain speeds. Since it was poined out through the foglight, it resulted a leaner air/fuel ratio. Previous to this mod, the air/fuel ratio would almost remain the same despite my going faster and faster. With the aluminum ducting pointing out through the foglight, the air/fuel ratio got leaner and leaner and leaner the faster I went. At I'm-going-to-go-to-jail speeds, I can't imagine how lean it would have gotten. I haven't tested it up to those limits. The affect of the mod was VERY noticable. I posted about it at XT6.net. Another thing! I tested this out at the dragstrip and it resulted in trap speeds increase at the dragstrip by 2-3mph. Before doing the mod, I could not break into the 80mph range. I always ran 78-79mph. After the mod, I did 14 runs back to back, heat soak (if any) and all and just about all of them (except 1 run) were in the 81mph range. http://www.xt6.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1099&highlight=dragstrip Hope this helps! BTW: If you want to go a step further, purchase yourself a 'used' (they are expensive) PRM air filter (like the Cobb air intakes use) and some aluminum piping. My advice is to get piping that is the same size as the throttle body. You could create your own cold air intake and attach it to the stock snorkus and aluminum ducting for added affect. I'll post my setup on my XT6 (since I'm proud of it. I suck at everything else..hehe).

Very good read Shadow! Kudos!

You are correct! The injectors I have are for a 1.8ltr Subaru turbo. I don't know if it's for an EA81T or EA82T. I do know that's what was listed in ebay when I purchased them. 1.8ltr turbo injector (which I assumed was off an RX turbo) are injectors 2 and 4. 1 and 3 are off an XT6. Question is, does an EA82 injector look similar to an EA82T injector or an XT6 injector? I was thinking the EA82 and XT6 injectors were one in the same and perhaps maybe the turbo injectors where different. Man, I hate theory and 'what-ifs'. Would be more to see more air/fuel ratios and such. Perhaps something is wrong with my car in its current tune. :-\ If it is, I'm liking it right now. Hehe! I'm curious now more than ever to know what these injectors flow. Perhaps someone will post up an injector flow sheet from having their stock injectors cleaned.

HKS downpipe? I never heard of this for our cars. What the hizzle?

What you read was based on this thought. My statement wasn't directed at Subarutex however. There are other posts mentioning that the EA82T injectors flow about 180cc. LIke this one for instance........ http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=240871 What I'm saying is, since the XT6 has 185cc, it's safe to assume that the EA82 (N/A) engine has 185cc also. If this is the case, why would Subaru go to lesser flowing injectors (180cc) for an EA82T turbo if it makes more power than an EA82 (N/A)? My assumption that an EA82 (N/A) has 185cc injectors could be flawed though since I believe the XT6 has a slightly higher compression ratio (9.5 vs 9.7). Ahh...this is meaningless. Somebody hasta get these things flow tested. To sum it up, yeah the fuel injectors may be maxed out but it may run ok like this for a while. I just hope I don't blow anything. I'm taking 'Scrappy' to work tomorrow. 4-8" of snow is expected (Translated: 6-12").

Oh BTW: (I can't shaddup) I know raising the fuel pressure is basically a band aid for getting larger fuel injectors and tuning with an aftermarket ECU. Using the RRFPR just happens to be the most convenient (and cheapest) way for me to reach my goal right now. I'd get some larger fuel injectors and get my ECU reflashed by ECUTune like them SVX folks if I could. Plug-n-play is cool! We just don't have that option right now. As soon as you mention MS&EDS around me, you can actually see chicken feathers fall from under my shirt. I'll wait on the sideline on that one until more testing is done. Have fun!

Thanks for all the responses. I just want to point out a few things. I'm not agreeing nor disagreeing with anyone. There's a reason why I did what I did and I'm not sure I was clear initially. I chose to go with the air/fuel ratio that I did because after installing the Techworks header, the car had a leaner air/fuel ratio curve than I wanted. Even when the car was stock, the air/fuel ratio went leaner than it did when I previously did a baseline dyno run and I truly did not like the curve of that air/fuel ratio. If some remember, I dyno'd the RX turbo after I had the Garner pulley installed. The dyno reported I lost hp/torque but I don't know if I could attribute that to the pulley (I'm keeping it on). But if some remembered, my air/fuel ratio curve was LEAN. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=27996&page=1&highlight=dyno http://home.comcast.net/~thomasck/GhettovsKandNHP.jpg It stayed pretty much flat in the 13.25 - 13.75 range throughout the whole dyno runs. This was without an intercooler on 93 octane. The car didn't ping or show any signs of detonation or timing being pulled. The dyno curved showed that since it was pretty smooth. What this mean is that despite the 200F+ temps the car may have experienced at stock boost, everything was cool. We know how hot intake temps can get with no intercooler from All_Talk's previous thread on this subject. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=15554&highlight=intercooler+temps Then I installed an intercooler while the car was still on the dyno. The curve stayed the same but the air/fuel ratio still lingered in the 13.25:1 range and leaner without pinging or detonation issues. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=27996&page=1&highlight=dyno After having the Techworks parts and turbo put on, the car ran leaner still, especially on the low end. The whole air/fuel ratio changed dramatically up to about the 5k rpm range. http://home.comcast.net/~thomasck/TechWorksHP-TQ.jpg All I wanted to do was richen the air/fuel ratio to at least where the stock air/fuel ratio was (which showed it was ok, even with hotter non-intercooled intake air). At the most, I wanted to richen it to where I've read about the WRXs and STis run on some of the dyno charts I've seen. The RX is running around these air/fuel ratios now. No detonation or pinging.....Yet! All I'm trying to say is that the car is running richer throughout the whole powerband (on 93 octane), with an intercooler (cooler inlet temps) on the same boost (manual boost controller turned all the way down...piece of s***). The car is running great off and on boost. The richer curve may be saving my arse with the spikes. It has a full tune-up I'm aware that the fuel injectors may be at 100% but really, no-one knows for sure. If I drop my car off for wheel bearing repair this weekend, I'll request for the injectors to be removed so I can send them off to RC Engineering. I remember one person here saying he had his injectors done at RC Engineering and they got around 190ccs from them doing a slight mod to them. All in all, the car seems to be running well except for the fun and nasty boost spikes. Here's some food for thought on the injector size. I know the XT6 has 185cc injectors since I sent a set of injectors out to RC Engineering. GrossGary here got the same result recently. Some of us know that the XT6 is basically a 6 cylinder version of an 4 cylinder EA82. If the 6 cylindered XT6 is basically a 4 cylinder EA82 with 2 more cylinders, they should have the same injector size (185cc). With this reasoning, why would Subaru go to a lower sized injector (180cc), lower the compression and add a turbo to make 25hp more on an EA82T?

Are you sure about this Calebz? I ask because the more I turned up the fuel pressure, the richer the car ran on the dyno according to the dyno's wideband air/fuel ratio. This would mean more fuel is being sprayed from the fuel injectors. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are saying. :-\

What did you guys connect to for your 12V source? I am downloading the English instructions to the boost controller from the Greddy.com site now.

Can you post installation instructions of both of those Greddy pieces? If you do, I'll get those as well. I could use both of them. I'm not talking about installation instructions from them but from your and your experience. I HATE electronics but I'll try it out. You know me and my million questions. Thanks! *The Timid Mechanic*

Here are a couple of dyno graphs to illustrate the problem I was having with boost spike. BoostSpike runs #1 and #2 I immediately let off the gas pedal when I saw it starting to go past 9psi (it was stopping at 6psi when running right). BoostSpike #3, I tried to keep the fun going by modulating my foot on the gas pedal. I was watching my boost gauge and I was keeping the boost between 8-9psi at 'Part Throttle'. The fun ended around 3900rpm when the Fuel Cut kicked in HARD. Now I finally know how that feels. I was experiencing it the night before while testing on the road. Car would buck hard and a loud 'boom' sound came from the rear. Dunno if it was backfire or something else. I'm going to have to do something about this. Needless to say, even at part throttle at 8-9psi (was probably around 12-13psi), you can see the amount of hp and torque that was being made. Makes me wonder what it would've been on the top end. I'll find out......someday. Remember, the first two boost spikes are at WOT, then I let off. The last one (BoostSpike3) was at part throttle, trying to keep the boost between 8-9psi until fuel cut kicked in. With this at 3800rpm, HP was at 106.47hp vs 80.06hp. This is a gain of 26.41hp. The torque made at 3800rpm was 147.15lb-ft vs 110.66lb-ft (A gain of 36.49lb-ft of torque. Nice!) Man, this car just begs to be making more hp/torque. I'm going to take my time and try to do things right. I'll still concentrate on fueling (possibly bigger fuel pump and cleaned or slightly bigger fuel injector) and a better boost controller. My boost gauge needs to be reinstalled somewhere else as well so I get a truer psi reading. That's all for now.

Car: 1988 RX Turbo (Manual/FT4WD) Mods: K&N Cone Filter Garner Pulley Techworks Header GT17 Ball Bearing Turbocharger Techworks Downpipe 2.5" Cat, 2.5" Custom exhaust, 2.5" Flowmaster Ebay Manual Boost Controller Ebay Rising Rate Fuel Pressure Regulator (RRFPR) I attempted to play with a Rising Rate Fuel Pressure Regulator (RRFPR) I recently purchased off of Ebay. Stock fuel pressure is around 36.3psi or so (according to my Factory Service Manual). I set the RRPFR at 36psi, 44psi, 48psi and 56psi. It is now set at 56psi. Surprisingly, the difference in fuel pressure made very little difference in the amount of hp/torque I am making across the entire rpm range. I'm keeping it set at 56psi because of some unexpected boost spikes I'm experiencing lately out of nowhere. I'm at a loss as to what my boost pressure is. Why? While on the dyno today, my boost gauge read 6psi. The 6psi felt the same as when I was previously at 9psi. As you'll see, on the dyno it makes about the same hp/torque as well. I did add the vacuum hose of the RRFPR on the same line as the boost gauge. I think that's the problem. The gauge isn't receiving the full amount of boost because 3psi or so is constantly going to the RRFPR. I just figured this out while typing this out. Anyways, here's a dyno chart of my 2nd to last run at 52psi of fuel pressure vs my stock fuel pressure (with the stock fuel pressure regulator/Techworks setup) vs when my car was fully stock. Max hp increase from increasing fuel pressure is 117.22hp vs 113.40hp from my previous run. Max torque increase is 126.38lb-ft vs 121.66lb-ft of torque from my previous run. So there's something to be gained depending on your setup but I wouldn't expect anything huge unless your boost is turned up. This run was done with the manual boost controller turned 'all the way down' to prevent any boost spikes that I was getting with the dyno runs I was getting. I'm keeping it this way until I get an electronic boost controller installed. Notice that I have the air/fuel ratio richer than my last run(s) that I did with the Techworks setup and no fuel control. I was concerned about the air/fuel ratio below 4500rpm, especially around 2500rpm or so. It just seemed to lean. However, talking to the dyno operator, he told me that the air/fuel ratio on this dyno is usually off by 1 when you have a catalytic converter installed. With no cat, it'll read dead on. For example, if you used this dyno and got a 13.5:1 air/fuel ratio across the whole rpm range, you'll actually be getting 12.5:1 because of how the cat converter is affecting the readout. If you have no cat converter and you get 12.5:1, then your actual air/fuel ratio is 12.5:1. So I was trying to tune the RX Turbo to be like how the WRX/STis are on some of the boards that I read about. Usually, I see the base reading between 11.5:1-12.0:1 and then it goes as rich as 10.2:1 on the top end. So this is what I went for and it's pretty much what I got. However, I didn't get the hp/torque increase that I was expecting (10hp or more, just off the top of my head). I guess the intercooler is working as it should. It should be safer to run like this though to ward off detonation with the boost spikes. Speaking of boost spikes....see next post---->

I'll try that. Thanks! BTW: I forgot to mention I gapped the plugs to between 1.0-1.1mm. I think that is the correct gapping.

Somehow, this sounds like a painful statement. :-\

Oops! How could I forget him? I had talked about him in this thread: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=21362&page=1

No pics? Shame on you! :cool:

Changed my spark plugs yesterday and I goofed. Now the car won't start. I need to have the car running by tomorrow morning (dyno). Our silly RXs disty caps only have 1 number on it and that's to cylinder #1. Counting clockwise from the #1 cylinder spark plug wire hole on the disty cap, what are the numbers supposed to be? Clockwise, my disty now is setup like this: 1-4-2-3 <-----Is this correct? I'll deal with it when I get home from work today. If this is the correct order, it'll save me some time in problem solving why it's not starting. BTW: When I changed my spark plugs, I tried to start it and heard a small 'pop'. My #3 and #1 spark plug wires were mixed up. The car didn't start. I don't know if that 'pop' had anything to do with anything but I thought I'd share that. I just thought all I had to do was simply switch the spark plug wires (1 and 3) and be done with it. I'm thinking I'm all mixed up now. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out. This would be only the 2nd FMIC setup that I'v seen here. The other was a botch job somewhat but it was affective.

If you want it done right, be sure you KNOW everything is done the way you want it done. If you aren't sure, maybe it's best to take the route that'll make you be sure. That's easy for me to say since I don't be digging into engines.

Skip, your picture helped me a ton. Thanks! I have to point out a couple of things though. 1: The 'Fuel in' in this pic is my 'Fuel Out', 2: The 'Fuel return' in this pic is my 'Fuel in'. That's where my fuel filter is connected too. 3: The 'Intake Manifold' line goes to the driver's side of the car down into some abyss. ?????? 4: There is a 4th metal line about an inch down from your black line pointing to the 'Intake Manifold'. It's behind that little black wall there in the pic. That line connects to the EGR thingy that I asked about earlier. I'm sorry my picture wasn't expanded large enough for you to get a full view. My bad! If I didn't you'd probably have seen the extra line or so or maybe pointed out differently. In my ignorance, I did not know that was a FPR. I assumed a fuel pressure regulator would have the 'Fuel In' line coming from the top or the side and the 'Fuel Return' line coming out from the bottom of it. I kept feeling for the 'Fuel Return' line on the bottom of the FPR and couldn't find it so I thought it wasn't a FPR. At any rate, 'Scrappy' is running great. Feels like wings are on the side of the car. I tested it at 5-6psi around the neighborhood and down some streets. I turned the RRFPR up from '0' psi to 48psi. It idled fine at '0' psi and I was stumped until I remembered it's measuring fuel pressure after the stock FPR. So, if you see '0' psi, don't be alarmed. It's just letting all the fuel return to the fuel tank that's coming from the stock fpr (which is regulated at stock fuel pressure). I'm not sure how to tune it this way since putting any pressure on the fuel return line should raise the stock fuel pressure. I set the RRFPR at 48psi and drove around like this. I thought about this at home and will be taking it back down to '0' psi (which should be stock FPR) and going from there on the dyno. I'm thinking 48psi on the fpr is actually 48psi on TOP of the stock fuel pressure. Now that the RRFPR is added, new ignitor, new spark plug wires, disty/rotor and new plugs (will add spark plugs tomorrow).....time to go back to the dyno to see what fueling can do for your RX turbo. Stay tuned!

I hate all of you. My car is a rust bucket even though it runs great. I'd just be putting nice new bushings on for an excellent ride until I actually fall through the floor.

Well, I drove around the neighborhood tonight so I could take my spark plugs out. 2 of them just 'clicked, clicked, clicked' when trying to take it out while the engine is cold (Don't do this. I wouldn't recommend it anyways). Anyway, I took the spark plugs out and got a good look at them. #1 spark plug was kind of dark but not sooty. Looked like it burned well but just a tad rich, #2 spark plug was the same as #1, #3 spark plug had some hard/greenish looking crap on the end of it. The tip of the spark plug wasn't perfectly angled/squared like the other ones. It had the figure like a burnt match of sorts. It was kind of rounded, #4 spark plug was a perfect light brown color. It burnt clean and good. #3 cylinder always have seemed to plague Subarus for various reasons (Sometimes #4). I have plans for more fuel. I never heard any detonation/pinging and the car ran great, even with the #3 spark plug looking crappy. My camera couldn't capture the detail so no pic. Those of you that noticed similar/bad/strange things on your spark plug on #3 cylinder, what are your thoughts on this?

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Yeah that was stupid. Since I'm stupid, I don't know so I guess that evens it out. J/K If they are firmer bushings than your stock bushings you ar replacing, then you will feel MORE vibration from the road. The bright side of this is your car's response to your input (steering, turning, etc) should be quicker and give you more feedback. If they are factory type softness, than you should feel less vibration from the road IF the bushing(s) you replace are worn/bad. You should still experience a quicker response in the way your car handles than the worn/bad bushings you replace.

*sigh* I'm starting to feel like an idiot. I play with car some 15 minutes or so every other day because I'm working like a pig for an upcoming project. So there's little time to work on the RX. Today, I was just trying to locate the fuel pressure regulator. I thought I found it previously but.......I was wrong. You see, one of the pics I provided above is the EGR as DoItSideways stated. The other two pictures I provided is not the fuel pressure regulator. The piece I'm pointing at in the two pics is just to the right of the EGR. This this is connected downstream of the fuel filter. It's called a 'Damper'. What is strange is that my Factory Service Manual (FSM) doesn't show the 'fuel damper' downstream of the fuel filter on the MPFI turbo'd cars. It shows the fuel damper downstream of thefuel filter on the SPFI RXs. On an SPFI car, this damper then connects to the fuel pressure regulator which then goes to the fuel injectors. On an MPFI turbo car, the fuel filter goes through a fuel delivery line right to the fuel injectors. The FPR is connected somewhere else between the left and right sides of the fuel injectors. I'm stumped! SPFI = Fuel Filter ->Fuel Damper ->Fuel Injectors MPFI Turbo = Fuel Filter ->Fuel Delivery Line ->Fuel Injectors My RX Turbo = Fuel Filter -> Fuel Damper -> Fuel Injectors I can not find the fuel pressure regulator to save my life. Teh Newb! I have a 1987 FSM but my car is a 1988 RX turbo so maybe that explains some things. Besides the diagram in the FSM, nowhere else in the FSM is there any mention or picture of the FPR. So I can't determine where it's at on the car. So I am seeking higher wisdom from the higher ups here. Can you tell me where I can physically find the FPR (or what it's next to), so I can install my RRFPR? Yes, I'm slow so please forgive me. Thanks!