Explore Subaru Impreza Tuning"

The Impreza has established itself as a fun performance car and is loved by tuners the world over. Following the success of the Impreza in Rally (winning the WRC 1995-1997, and drivers championship wins in 2001 and 2003) the car has undergone revision after revision creating the performance car we have today.

The distinctive boxer engine makes a lovely noise and provides a great base to tune up. The WRX and STi engines are solid and reliable and can cope with a reasonable power hike.

The engines come in 2.0 and (from 2001) 2.5 litre guise fitted with turbos and producing 200-350bhp depending on the level of trim. The engines do need to be serviced and you must use the correct grade of oil otherwise they have a tendency to break under heavy abuse.

So onto the Impreza  tuning tips:- The early (1992) WRX came with a 2.0 and 1.8l H4 engine so with the latter it would be worth doing an engine swap with the larger and better base of the 2.0 H4 block.

Power steadily increased over the years and cars were generally heavier as the yers went on and fitted with uprated ventilated brake disks. From 2000 in Japan the model received almost yearly revisions, we would note the 2003 Transmission and the 2005 WRX with viscous rear slip diff as the most notable revisions with the rest mainly being cosmetic amendments and adjustments.

Other markets followed the Jap Spec upgrades and had various limited edition models introduced.  So what can be done to improve the engines on the Impreza? One of the best and easiest mods to do is a remap which can release an extra 30-70bhp.

For bigger gains you need to uprate the other components of the engine such as by fitting a Big Turbo conversion kit or uprating the poorly mounted  intercooler for a front mounted unit. Some early models suffered from fuel starvation on long sweeping bends and this can be fixed by using a revised fuel pick up, for road use it rarely seemed to be a problem though (unless you like cornering at high speeds!)

If you are serious about Impreza tuning then get a set of  fast road cams, uprate the air intake and fit a stainless steel sports exhaust to maximise the flow through the engine. Internally the engine will benefit from port matching and a 3 or 5 angle valve job on the head. The sudden boost nature of big turbos can be tamed with a progressive boost controllers. It makes sense to talk about brake upgrades after all these power mods, it is one thing making the car go faster but you really need to reign in the power with some decent anchors.

Vented and grooved disks do a better job than solid disks. It also pays to get larger disks and 6 or 8 pot calipers which give a greater stopping power and better brake feel. To improve the handling you need to look into getting  suspension kits and there is no shortage of these.

There are some good OEM suspension kits used on limited edition models. For example, the 2006 RB320 had a rather tasty suspension kit fitted based on Bilstein dampers, a 30/10mm front rear drop and new antiroll bar. Alternatively go for an aftermarket suspension upgrade, don't drop the car too much and we suggest adjustable dampers allowing you to customise the handling to your preference.

18 inch wheels are the largest we would like on an Impreza, any more than this and the ride quality and handling really starts to suffer. Further reading. We suggest that if you want a bit more information on 350z Tuning you consult the following sources.

TorqueCars have a comprehensive Impreza tuning article and also a very active, friendly and helpful Impreza forum. If you have any tips to pass on please use our comments box below and we will update this article, after all we are all here to share knowledge. Please also let us know if we've missed out an engine or performance mod that you feel should be included in here.

This entry was posted under Makes and Models. Tags: impreza, subaru
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