When it came time for style points, Gregg went back to Do-Luck, ordering a carbon-fiber hood scoop, side skirts, and front and rear bumpers. He then dumped the car and the body parts on Fix Paint and Body in Anaheim, Calif. Fix left the carbon hood scoop raw, but painted the skirts and the bumpers WRC blue to match the rest of the car and did all the installation.
Although Do-Luck sells an enormous carbon-fiber rear spoiler, Gregg resisted, and stuck with the enormous stock rear spoiler. The graphics are from Garage Graphics in Orange County, Calif.
About now, Gregg called Brainstorm and ordered enough bolt-on engine mods to fill a box van. Reliable performance was the goal of this build, not some senseless peak power number, so the internals of the Suby's 2.5-liter flat four were left alone.
Instead, the brains at Brainstorm partnered up with Air Power Systems in South Croydon, Australia. APS takes tuning the STi so seriously they imported a U.S.spec STi to Australia for development.
First from APS came a 3.5-inch- diameter turbo-back exhaust system with no catalytic converter and a 4.5-inch single round tip and a twin ball-bearing SR50 turbocharger with integrated wastegate. APS offers its S/R series turbos in three sizes, capable of up to 550 hp. The SR50 is the 500-hp unit. APS says the unit's high-strength compressor wheel design, ball-bearing construction and high-nickel-content turbine housing can deliver up to 30 psi of boost. And the unique twin ball-bearing design improves acceleration response and decreases lag. Gregg runs it at 16 psi.
The second shipment from APS was a DR650 front-mount intercooler, a cold-air intake, a radiator shield and a billet dual-vent blow-off valve, which APS says is specifically designed to work with the front mount.
To feed the beast, Gregg and the brain trust at Brainstorm decided on a Walbro fuel pump capable of 255 lph, 800cc injectors and an Ecutek 2 engine management system. Ecutek is also based in Australia, and its reprogrammed Subaru ECUs are a plug-and-play deal.
The gang at Brainstorm Performance gets credit for installing all that stuff, but only Ed Dowell at Brainstorm performed the tuning. According to Gregg, the combination dyno'd at 352 hp and 321 lb-ft of torque at the wheels on California 91 octane, or swill, as we call it at the SCC garage.
So far the tranny is stock, but an Exedy twin-plate clutch and flywheel are now part of the package. Gregg also added Neo Synthetic transmission and differential fluid because Steph Papadakis uses the stuff in his 8-second Civic.
On the inside, Gregg went with a simple approach, leaving the seats, carpet, steering wheel and door panels alone. He did, however, chuck the shift knob and pedals, which he replaced with a titanium STi knob and factory aluminum race pedals with a matching aftermarket dead pedal. He also added a carbon-fiber trim package.