Introducing Mertle

I bought my 2002 WRX in July of this year and have been chronicling the upgrades and repairs I've been doing to it as I go on www.i-club.com. The site doesn't get a ton of traffic though, and my friends rarely check it since most of the members are from the Bay Area. Over the next few days, I plan to copy/paste my posts from my I-Club thread into my blog, and I will continue to update it as I change things and progress with my car. Everything below this point is from my I-Club post on 7/12/11.

I've been a GD owner since December of 2001, but this is my newest and most involved project, by far. I've been wrenching professionally since 2002, both building Subaru motors and working as a dealer tech for BMW, but I have never owned a highly modified car. I'm used to diagnosing and fixing stock cars, and I didn't build this car, so I'm learning as I go.

The car is a 2002 WRB WRX wagon with 34,000 miles as of today. Mod list is copy/pasted from the for-sale ad, and it's only what is installed to my knowledge. I find more and more every day.

Engine:
-STi shortblock
-Element rods
-Wiseco pistons
-Nitride coated crankshaft assembly
-ACL bearing kit
-EJ20 heads ported and polished
-Jun 272 cams
-Cosworth oil pump
-Ferrea valves, springs, and retainers
-GT Spec headers (unequal length & ported to match exhaust ports)
-TurboXS intake manifold
-TurboXS 3” inlet front mount intercooler
-TurboXS 3.5” v-band exhaust
-TurboXS 4” v-band down pipe
-TurboXS rotated v-band 35R kit (.82)

Fuel:
-Dual Walbro pumps
-TurboXS fuel rails
-1000cc injectors
-Aero fuel regulator
 
Transmission:-5 speed PPG straight cut dogbox
-PPG output shaft
-ACT 6 puck clutch
-PPG output shaft assembly
-Kartboy short shifter

Suspension/brakes/wheels/misc.:
-Cusco coilovers
-Stoptech BBK in front
-Volk CE28 17x7.5
-Defi boost, EGT and oil pressure gauges
-Blitz boost controller

Looks like the majority of the work was done by Andrewtech in Maryland (nice guys, by the way), and they work closely with TurboXS, hence all of the TurboXS parts. It came to me with a TurboXS wideband and Utec, but today Harvey (TheBoostCreep) and I spent the day sorting out the wiring and installing an AEM standalone. I consider this car a good starting point, or as my friend called it, a "pile of parts", but there are a lot of little details that I would like to sort out before I'll consider it "done" (hah, as if a car is ever done). The list grows every day, but I'm excited to chronicle it.

My priority right now is getting the car safely tuned for the altitude here in Denver. My initial tune will be for pump gas, but in the long run, I'll probably switch to E85. It also desperately needs a quieter exhaust. Once I establish that the car isn't going to blow up, I'll work on that. That's enough for now...here are some pics from the seller's PhotoBucket...hopefully he doesn't take them down. Dyno sheets to come early next week.