2005 WRX STI Custom

2005 WRX STI Custom

Boy do I have a story for you guys. I have been shopping around for an STI For a few months trying to find a deal that was good enough to reel me in. That deal finally happened, while cruising the old Craigs List I found a guy and his wife selling a 2005 (the year I wanted!) WRX STI with only 25k miles on it (low miles). The car was listed as modified so I was curious and had the guys bring it by my work today for a test spin. The car is not in perfect shape cosmetically, one of the wheels is missing a letter from the AXIS logo, there is a small ding on the aluminum hood and a few little nicks in the paint here and there. The interrior is in great shape but there is one little burn on the back seat so it would need to be reappolstered to restore to like new (or nice car seat covers). He was asking $26500 cash for the car because he already owned a Lancer MR and could not afford to keep both cars with his new kid and needed the money. So anyways on to the story, he had only owned the STI For 3 months but didn't drive it that often because he prefered his MR over the STI (I sat in his MR, it was a wonderful car) and his wife got him the STI from a friend or something like that. Anyways he didn't realize whta modifications the car had, so I gave the car a good looking over and the thing is completely built!

Rear Sway Bar (not cheap ebay one either)
Front Sway Bar
Injen Cold Air Intake (routed to inside fender)
Zero 1 Coilovers (sitting very low right now)
18" Axis Wheels
4-1 Exhaust Header
Greddy 3" Turbo Back Exhaust
Cobb Stage 2 Tuning Kit
Cobb Acccess Port
TWM Short Shifter
Greddy Turbo Timer
HKS Super Sequential Blow Off Valve

So basically every upgrade I would have done to the car myself had I purchased a stock one. I still don't know if the turbo on the car is stock or upgraded, I need to run the numbers. Anyways I take this thing for a test drive and it idles perfectly, blows no smoke no matter how hard you push it. The clutch is in prestine condition (I also beleive it is upgraded because it engages really nicely and feels firmer then the 07 clutch). And when you push the pedal to the floor the car actually SCARES THE FUCK OUT OF YOU. I could not beleive the acceleration. I have test drove 2 STI's in the past (Brand new ones) and they did not pull 1/2 as hard as this thing does. The only downside I found to the car after putting 250 miles on it today was that the ride is a little stiff and makes me have to piss every so often I'll get some pics up in the next day or so and take pics of all the mods, right now the car is filthy because of all the snow, sand, etc caked on it. But I figure since I was able to save about $3000 over what the local dealers were charging for a stock STI with 10k more miles on it I can put that money towards restoring her to prestine condition, I am very excited. The only down side to the STI so far is that I burned though half a tank of gas (7 - 8 gallons) in two and a half hours of driving because I could not prevent myself from boosting every once in a while just to hear the crazy BOV and feel my eyeballs go to the back of my head, the car defiantly consumes a lot of fuel when your on it. I am going to try and load a economy map on the ECU before going to my parents this upcomming weekend to see how that effects gas milage, anyways I am keeping the turbo Corolla as a contrast car for a different (lighter weight) driving experience and it is in my garage right now so I'll still be a part of this community for sure. We'll I'm off to see what other kinds of crazy stuff my new car has in store for me, I'm also going to setup some time on a Dyno in the next few weekends to see what the BWHP is on this car since it is so freaking fast.

i envy you now. and want your car so bad. gotta love the HKS bov and cobb parts on a subie. caint wait for the photos to go up too.

nice............a pretty good price too. seeing how some mode are done already. def. need too post some pic so we can all see the subie

what are you doing with your corolla?

I will give her a bath and post some pics tomorrow, the car is simply amazing. It also came with a Panasonic CQ-VD6503U head unit that plays DVD's MP3's etc, which is a nice added bonus over the stock stereo that comes in these things. The only thing about the car that I don't like compared to the Corolla is MPG but performance does not come for free. I seriously can't wait to get Dyno numbers because this car scares me with how fast it accelerates I had a MazdaSpeed 3 w/ custom exhaust (dont know what else) pull up next to me on the free way and he gunned it to try and give me the ricer fly by. I pushed the gas too the floor for 2 - 3 seconds and he was atleast 8 car lengths back. I wonder what the numbers are.

Barnacules added 2 Minutes and 34 Seconds later...

Don't really know yet, I am going to toss it in my garage until summer time and then I will finish it up, put the CarPC back in it and tune it with the ESC-1 so I can run boost at a lower AFR to protect the engine. Once I do that I will probably drive it a few months out of the year just to take some milage off the STI. I'm also thinking about taking the Corolla over to my parents house and giving it to my Dad so he has a little tuner car to race with me on the weekends up at the Bremerton Speedway in Washington State, we'll see. I dont think I am going to sell the Corolla though unless someone really makes me a good offer.

Barnacules added 6 Minutes and 44 Seconds later...

Thanks I have wanted an STI For a long time but I didn't want another car payment, I was able to pick this up cash so I own the title outright so this was kind of a gift to myself after a while. The car does need a little bit of work to be perfect but for the price I seriously could not pass it up, if I had to install all the upgrades that were on it myself I would be out a lot of money not even including the time it would take me to install the parts.

HKS Super Sequential Blow Off Value - $299
Cobb Access Port - $695
Greddy 4-1 SUS Headers - $680
Greddy Turbo Back 3.5" exhaust - $1,295
Greddy Turbo Timer - $90
STI Strut Tower Bar (Front) - $332
STI Strut Tower Bar (Back) - $268
Panasonic CQ-VD6503U - $500
Axis Reverb - AN Wheels 18" - $1000
Short Shifter - $200

Total : $5359 (Not Including Labor)

That is a steal of a deal even if I have to do a little bit of work to restore the car to perfect condition I still don't know for sure which suspension it has, I suspect Zero coilovers since he has the badge on the car but I'll verify. I keep finding other little upgrades and components. The car is solid as hell, I would not be surprised if I find some other suspension parts on the car that are not stock.

My very first mod I am going to do to the car is install a safety switch for the diagnostic mode on the car so I can easily flip a switch and plugin the Access Port tool to swap maps quickly without having to put the wires togather under the dash and look like I'm hot wiring the car

i know what your talking about when the rolla gets waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better MPG's than the merc. on the rolla i averaged about 30City and 36-38 Hwy, on the Merc i get 13.5 City and 32Hwy @60-75MPH Only on sport mode, comfort can get worse on city.

Man, I envy you too except that I prefer the 02-03 bug eye look over the 04-05 peanut eye. With Cobb stage II, you typically gain +50 HP and +85 lb-ft (93 octane). And with those other modifications I'd say you're nearing 380 hp. Do you have an aftermarket up pipe? That alone can net you 15 hp.

btw, since you were complaining that the ride was a little too stiff, I suggest you buy a set of Helix DNA's and sell the Zero 1's. DNA's are geared more for daily driving and moderate track use. Still much stiffer than stock, but with better dampening characteristics for street driving. Here's a review of the Helix DNA's from the NASIOC forum. You can buy them here. There's a sale going on right now for the 05-07 DNA's which knocks off 100 bucks from the original price. I would jump on it while you still can. If you can sell the Zero 1's for a good price, you probably can get this new set for free. I've been doing a lot of research since I'm planning on buying one soon myself. Check out Gruppe-S. They've got almost everything you can think of for the WRX and they will occasionally have group buy specials on the WRX forums. Good luck and have fun!!


Helix DNA Sport Coilovers

Helix DNA Sport Coilovers are designed to suit the average vehicle enthusiast. Unlike race coilovers which often exhibit harsh ride characteristics, high cost, and sometimes excessive noise, Helix DNA Sport Coilovers are designed primarily for street service with mild track service in mind. Featuring excellent ride characteristics and lower cost, these coilovers are a fine balance of street function and track service. Fully rebuildable and available in multiple spring rates.

Specs:

- Light aluminum Shock Body
- 16 Pt Dampening / Rebound Adjustable
- Full Upper Pillow Ball Mounts
- Camber Adjustable
- 8kg / 6kg spring rates

This is the first thing I am buying for mine as well.

Geoff at Gruppe-S told me Helix coilovers (at least the DNA series) are manufactured by Zeal so yes they are the best bang for the buck. As for them being more comfy than Cuscos, from personal experience I'd have to disagree with you about that one. In fact I find Zero1's only slightly stiffer than factory STi suspension.

I still need to confirm that I have zero-1's on the car, but I appriciate all the feedback. The ride is defiantly $200 more stiff then a stock STI so it might be something else. The car also rides hell low, I'll get some pictures later. As for the HP I would have to get it on a dyno to know for sure, the car has a 3.5" down pipe tapering to a 3" mid pipe then 3" all the way back with a high flow cat. It's a complete exhaust upgrade. And then I have the equal length headers on it. The car is freaking sick to drive, I feel like I'm the most powerful car on the road. I still can't tell how much boost I'm running because when I floor it I have to pay attention to shifting and the road so much I cannot keep my eyes on the boost guage, I've never been in another car that I felt this way before.

congratulations, and have you visited nasioc.com yet? Maybe they have some history on the car.

X

Congrats on your new ride - sounds like a blast. Fortunantly you got the ad in time - that would have been snatched right up in no time. Good price too - I know local dealerships would have a stock 2005 STi with about twice that many miles + worse shape for about $27K-$28K easy. In fact, I believe the trade in value are still around $21K-$22K for a stock Sti with those miles - not too bad.

Also - THANKS - made my day - I was chugging my usual fix of Coke Zero when I read "when you push the pedal to the floor the car actually SCARES THE FUCK OUT OF YOU". Immediately, shot coke out of nose and onto my keyboard and wide screen monitor (I got a pic coming on my work setup). Having a hard time explaining to IT how I f*cked up my stuff that much from just knocking over my drink. Oh well.

ROFL! Glad I made you laugh, but I'm seriously not joking at how much this car scares me. It's going to take me a few weeks to get used to the power. I'm going to take the car to SIR in washinton this summer and race it around on there road track so I can get the hang of it on a closed course.