2010 WRX donor?

[StickshiftFreak]

Hi all!

Getting really excited about the impending release of the 818, and so I have a question for you...

Currently have a 2010 WRX sedan. I know FFR says a 02-07 WRX donor is required, but I really REALLY like the powertrain in this car. What would it take in addition to the 2010 to make it work? I'm sorry if this is a repost but I searched for a while and couldn't find anything.

Thanks in advance!

[longislandwrx]

First of all, if your 2010 is not wrecked, why would you chop it up and put in in an 818.

from 2002-2007 Subaru was very standardized. The 2008+ cars are different in so many ways, it would be just 1 more reason not to do this.

You will need at least:

new front/rear knuckles
cv joints
new front lcas
trailing arms
lateral links
steering rack

probably a few more as well.

[Ironhydroxide]

First of all, if your 2010 is not wrecked, why would you chop it up and put in in an 818.

from 2002-2007 Subaru was very standardized. The 2008+ cars are different in so many ways, it would be just 1 more reason not to do this.

You will need at least:

new front/rear knuckles
cv joints
new front lcas
trailing arms
lateral links
steering rack

probably a few more as well.

Front knuckles, NO, you won't need new ones... the 08+ only difference was the BOLT IN BEARING assembly. brakes, mounting ETC are all the same.

the other thing is 08+ is a CANBUS system, which is MUCH MUCH MUCH more annoying to swap into any other car.

rear knuckles, yes you'll need some.

Trailing arms, Lateral Links, Rack, Front Control arms, yeah.

[StickshiftFreak]

First of all, if your 2010 is not wrecked, why would you chop it up and put in in an 818.

from 2002-2007 Subaru was very standardized. The 2008+ cars are different in so many ways, it would be just 1 more reason not to do this.

You will need at least:

new front/rear knuckles
cv joints
new front lcas
trailing arms
lateral links
steering rack

probably a few more as well.

Thanks for the info.

When I bought this WRX it's because Subaru didn't offer this powertrain in a coupe/roadster format, and I was already considering replacing it with a BRZ, but the thing holding me back was the motor. So if I can take the powertrain I love out of something I already have and create the best of both worlds, why the heck not?? Lol Besides, if its not wrecked I can be sure that all the components are in the best shape possible, not to mention not having to worry about the mystery of a salvage car...

[PhyrraM]

You can likely sell the car and buy a same year/model wreck AND most of the 818 kit.

The '06-'07 WRX motor with a turbo swap and a tune is virtually the same drivetrain and would seem the best option in a case such as yours. I bet a '06-'07 donor and the kit would come in well under the sale price of the '10.

[Mechie3]

You will lose a lot of money making the '10 a donor.

[StickshiftFreak]

Front knuckles, NO, you won't need new ones... the 08+ only difference was the BOLT IN BEARING assembly. brakes, mounting ETC are all the same.

the other thing is 08+ is a CANBUS system, which is MUCH MUCH MUCH more annoying to swap into any other car.

rear knuckles, yes you'll need some.

Trailing arms, Lateral Links, Rack, Front Control arms, yeah.

Ah the CANBUS, I hadn't thought of that. That could very well be the thing that derails my idea. Still possible though!

You can likely sell the car and buy a same year/model wreck AND most of the 818 kit.

The '06-'07 WRX motor with a turbo swap and a tune is virtually the same drivetrain and would seem the best option in a case such as yours. I bet a '06-'07 donor and the kit would come in well under the sale price of the '10.

Very good point. The reason I was hoping to be able to go with my current setup is I've already gotten to Stage 2, making 300whp and 320wtq, so the thought of having to do that all over again is just depressing lol

[StickshiftFreak]

You will lose a lot of money making the '10 a donor.

How so? I was thinking use powertrain, then sell/part out the rest. You don't think that after selling all the body, suspension bits that wont cross over, and everything else I won't make up the difference between an 06/07 donor?

[Mechie3]

How so? I was thinking use powertrain, then sell/part out the rest. You don't think that after selling all the body, suspension bits that wont cross over, and everything else I won't make up the difference between an 06/07 donor?

The sum is worth more than the parts.

I'll use myself as an example. I had on 06 with 70k miles, lady ran a red light and it got totaled.
Insurance paid me $17, 413
I sold almost everything possible, separated all scrap to maximize profits, and ended up with $3243 in sold/scrapped items.
Total "profit" (car was paid off by me, so it's not profit per se) of $14170. Enough to buy an 818 and some goodies.

Imagine if I hadn't wrecked the car. I'd be $14170 in the hole before I even buy the kit. A few things sell quickly from cars and they're smaller items and not worth much. The big ticket items (trans, motor, brakes, wheels, hubs) you need for the 818. People rarely buy shells unless it's a college student looking for a cheap car with a blown motor that they can swap and have a fun car for less money.

You're better off selling the 2010, buying a wrecked 06 (bought mine back for $4095) and coming out ahead.

[Mechie3]

Very good point. The reason I was hoping to be able to go with my current setup is I've already gotten to Stage 2, making 300whp and 320wtq, so the thought of having to do that all over again is just depressing lol

Stage 2 is easy. It's replacing the downpipe and tuning it. The DP needs to come off to pull the motor and tuning is easy. Even if you had a turbo swap and tons of other parts it's much easier to do these with the motor on a stand anyways. Building the 818 is much more work than going stage 2.

[StickshiftFreak]

The sum is worth more than the parts.

I'll use myself as an example. I had on 06 with 70k miles, lady ran a red light and it got totaled.
Insurance paid me $17, 413
I sold almost everything possible, separated all scrap to maximize profits, and ended up with $3243 in sold/scrapped items.
Total "profit" (car was paid off by me, so it's not profit per se) of $14170. Enough to buy an 818 and some goodies.

Imagine if I hadn't wrecked the car. I'd be $14170 in the hole before I even buy the kit. A few things sell quickly from cars and they're smaller items and not worth much. The big ticket items (trans, motor, brakes, wheels, hubs) you need for the 818. People rarely buy shells unless it's a college student looking for a cheap car with a blown motor that they can swap and have a fun car for less money.

You're better off selling the 2010, buying a wrecked 06 (bought mine back for $4095) and coming out ahead.

Thats a great example, just sounded easier in my head I guess haha

Stage 2 is easy. It's replacing the downpipe and tuning it. The DP needs to come off to pull the motor and tuning is easy. Even if you had a turbo swap and tons of other parts it's much easier to do these with the motor on a stand anyways. Building the 818 is much more work than going stage 2.

Well sure, stage 2 is "easy", I was just not looking forward to having to do the build AND do stage 2 all over again

[longislandwrx]

Front knuckles, NO, you won't need new ones... the 08+ only difference was the BOLT IN BEARING assembly. brakes, mounting ETC are all the same.

Not true. The mounting points for the steering are in different locations. swapping would change the roll center geometry that FF designed using the 02-07. Would they bolt up and could you make it work? perhaps but the bearings are not the only difference. I thought I could be mistaken but I called LIC (who has seperate P/Ns for their modified knuckles for 02-07 and 08+) to confirm and they verified the pickup point is different.




Personally, I don't think you will make up the difference (13K in parts?). Trade it in (probably worth $18K) on your BRZ and then find a wrecked 06/07 for 5K.

[BrandonDrums]

Thats a great example, just sounded easier in my head I guess haha



Well sure, stage 2 is "easy", I was just not looking forward to having to do the build AND do stage 2 all over again

I'm not sure what you're considering "Stage 2" but for what it's worth, everything that's involved in a "Stage 2" for a 02-07 WRX you will HAVE to do (aside from the tune) as part of the 818 assembly.

The traditional "Stage 2" concept in a 02-05 wrx is installing a catless up-pipe and a high-flow downpipe, a high-flow air filter and a re-flash. In an 06-07 it's just a high flow downpipe, filter and a flash.

09+ due to the larger turbo you have to also upgrade the fuel pump then do the Downpipe, filter and re-flash.

By simple requirement of the 818 assembly process, you will have to remove and re-install the up-pipe and intake box and you will have to modify the down-pipe to use in the 818. You will also have to pull the fuel tank and as a result you'll have to remove the fuel pump from the tank anyway.

The only thing is the tune and there are off the shelf "stage 2" tunes that will translate to the 818 from www.xpttuning.com and from Cobb.

If you're worried about having to swap turbos...guess what? You'll have to remove and re-install that too.

[wleehendrick]

By simple requirement of the 818 assembly process, you will have to remove and re-install the up-pipe and intake box and you will have to modify the down-pipe to use in the 818.

I'm not so sure about the downpipe. The motor trannie and downpipe can all be pulled together:

IMAG0409.jpg

Although the R has the stock d/p and cat removed (shown in image DSC_0691 in the track testing gallery), I would expect that the exhaust system in the S would maintain the d/p for those registering the 818 in states with emissions requirements.

My plan is to use the stock d/p from my 06 donor (pending what exhaust we receive in the S kit, of course) and use a OTS Stage 1 (intake, cat-back) OTS tune, at least initially.

I agree with what's been stated: changing the d/p at this point is trivial compared to building the kit, and it would be a waste to part out a running 2010 to use as a donor.

[StickshiftFreak]

I'm not sure what you're considering "Stage 2" but for what it's worth, everything that's involved in a "Stage 2" for a 02-07 WRX you will HAVE to do (aside from the tune) as part of the 818 assembly.

The traditional "Stage 2" concept in a 02-05 wrx is installing a catless up-pipe and a high-flow downpipe, a high-flow air filter and a re-flash. In an 06-07 it's just a high flow downpipe, filter and a flash.

09+ due to the larger turbo you have to also upgrade the fuel pump then do the Downpipe, filter and re-flash.

By simple requirement of the 818 assembly process, you will have to remove and re-install the up-pipe and intake box and you will have to modify the down-pipe to use in the 818. You will also have to pull the fuel tank and as a result you'll have to remove the fuel pump from the tank anyway.

The only thing is the tune and there are off the shelf "stage 2" tunes that will translate to the 818 from www.xpttuning.com and from Cobb.

If you're worried about having to swap turbos...guess what? You'll have to remove and re-install that too.

I consider Stage 2 to be intake, uppipe, turboback, fuel pump, and protune. All of which are currently done on my 2010. Hence my hesitance to just walk away from all that and start over.

HOWEVER, I agree with what's been stated here to the point that probably not enough would be able to swap over to make it worth trying to do the 818 with my 2010. So I suppose that when the time comes, I will have to sell her and get some mystery donor and have to swap turbos and all that nonsense.

[bnr32jason]

I consider Stage 2 to be intake, uppipe, turboback, fuel pump, and protune. All of which are currently done on my 2010. Hence my hesitance to just walk away from all that and start over.

HOWEVER, I agree with what's been stated here to the point that probably not enough would be able to swap over to make it worth trying to do the 818 with my 2010. So I suppose that when the time comes, I will have to sell her and get some mystery donor and have to swap turbos and all that nonsense.

But that's the thing, you aren't really "starting over" at all.

You will have to remove and re-install those items anyways. All you would have to get done over again would be the tune, but really you would probably want to get the tune done over again anyways because the exhaust routing and intake temps are going to be different once all the components are installed into the 818 chassis.

If you are set on using your 2010 as a donor, by all means go for it. Just know that your parts may not fit without modification and some may not fit at all. Factory Five officially supports 2002-07 Impreza/WRX (not-STI) donor parts in the PDF instruction manual (not yet released) so using one of those will be your easiest route.

I'm in a somewhat similar situation as I'm using quite a few Japanese spec parts and STI parts so I'll have to do some modifications I'm sure but that's part of the fun, being unique. Your 2010 may provide even more headaches, or it may be fairly simple. Just remember that you are going against the "officially supported" route and forging your own path which is sometimes a huge PITA.

[Tim@ajwperformance]

Id prefer to have an 02-07 motor over the 08+ motors anyways. With the tunes and weak pistons they used from 08 on youll have much more reliability with the earlier years anyways.

[BrandonDrums]

Id prefer to have an 02-07 motor over the 08+ motors anyways. With the tunes and weak pistons they used from 08 on youll have much more reliability with the earlier years anyways.

The pistons are actually the same, it's 100% the tune that caused the piston issues which really started in '07. The shortblock is unchanged between 04-current STI's aside from the crank which went to a nitride hardened unit around 09 then to a heat-treated one in 2011 or 2012 I think.

The tune is the issue. The short explanation is that the factory tune starting in 2006 and really going haywire in 2007 on both the wrx and sti tried to make better fuel economy by staying in the closed loop sequence more causing the car to run dangerously lean on boost quite frequently.

The longer explanation is here:

Closed loop fueling is where the car continually uses MAF and O2 Sensor data to target STOIC combustion to reduce emissions and is active only under partial throttle. Starting in 07, they made the logic to switch from Closed to Open loop really complicated resulting in many driving conditions where the car would be producing high boost with STOIC AFR's.

STOIC (for gasoline that's 14.7:1 air to fuel ratio) is where there's perfect combustion meaning every molecule of fuel gets burned leaving no raw hydrocarbons left in the exhaust stream. However, STOIC AFR's are very energetic and are more prone to "knock" or detonation and also burn much hotter than richer fuel mixtures.

By trying to get the cars to run in closed loop longer, people were getting much hotter flame temperatures and knock on the stock tune because they would build boost but not taper AFR's. This wore out and cracked the stock pistons at alarming rates. Before 2007, there were not nearly as many cases of stock engines eating pistons. Things started to go wonky on the 2006 model years and just went to hell in a handbasket in 07 and stayed that way until the last couple of years.

Because of this, people used to claim the 04-05 STI's were built better. Newer WRX/STI owners don't know this distinction and say pre 2008 models were built better. They weren't, they just had oldschool tunes which didn't care about fuel economy and would give the engine the fuel it needed to survive boost. Tuners could just turn up the boost and dial in some timing and fuel at WOT and the cars would take it because there was no 'logic' delaying the transition to the tuned portion of the map.

Before this was widely known, MOST of the time, tuners won't mess with the closed loop to open loop transitions when tuning these cars, they only worry about boost, timing and open loop fueling at and around full throttle. If you're only getting a dyno tune, the tuner may never even see the closed loop transition on any log or readout because they'll be punching the throttle way past the thresholds in most cases. Even if they did see it, they would have to get a full road tune to dial that stuff in which requires several hours of driving the car around town and down the highway under light throttle. So they might reduce the throttle threshold but due to the more complex logic on the 07+ ecu's that wouldn't solve the problem. Hence all the burned out pistons.

Anyway, to the OP, you might want to see if your tuner fully dialed in the CL/OL transition on your 2010. If he didn't you might want to have that fixed. Otherwise around 60-90k miles you'll be in the market for pistons too most likely.