Haha, cheers Ryan. The old silver plastics are looking very tired so it was either spray them or wrap them. Naturally I chose the harder option lol. :lol:

I'll do the others tomorrow, too tired now. I just can't believe how much better it looks!

Nice job!

Looks like things are really starting to move along again with the Wagon. The Carbon wrap looks smart but you should try a brave pill and try wrapping the tray lid too, I think it will top it off nicely.

Thanks Rob 👍 I think you’re right, I was too tired last night to carry on but I might try it later when I do the other bits. It won’t be hard to do as it’s a straight forward shape.
Will look awesome when it’s all done.

Great job. Always admire people who attempt these really tricky jobs. Wish I had the confidence and patience. Well done.

It's one of those DIY jobs that I've always been afraid to try. But, if you mess it up you can heat the wrap up and remove it so can always start again. I watched a few videos so decided to take the plunge. Paid off! :ok:

Coming along nicely , are they the pro sport gauges?

Agreed with Monsieur Frenchie :agreed: looks great and you should try and cover the lid as Rob suggested.

They are indeed! 52mm. :ok:

Well, today I finished the others off. However, it was very tricky to get into all the recesses in the stereo fascia.

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I really don't like the outcome, there's too many imperfections. Around the opening for the double DIN was terrible to do, it's got so many different 'levels' to it and there wasn't enough vinyl no matter which way I cut the opening.

To me it seems too... 'chavvy' now. :lol: Like it belongs in a citroen saxo with Ripspeed alloys! :lol:

I'm contemplating removing it all and just settling with Gloss Black spray paint for the whole lot, at least there won't be any imperfections. At least not this noticeable.

I did the same on my Bugeye - Using a Heat gun rather than hair dryer helped but burnt my fingers!

Eventually in summer mine kept coming away at the top of the stereo surround so in the end I went with satin black with a satin lacquer over the top - I know others have used Plastidip which would be my preference but I had the black and lacquer lying about.

Not sure how much hydro dipping is these days, seems to be a popular choice on many materials and surfaces on cars.

It’s a shame the final outcome wasn’t as you had hoped for but you gave it a good go and some of the first parts you did looked the business.

Yeah that’s what I thought. It’s starting to peel with the heat from my blower so I think I’ll go Satin or Matt black.

Shame but hey! I’ll look into hydrodipping but in the mean time I’ll spray it.

This. Heading to B&Q now :lol:

If I'm not too late make sure to use a satin lacquer if you want it to not pick up shiny patches from sticky fingers when I just used stain black it marked terribly!

Oh dear! I shall see how it turns out. Thanks mate. :ok:

Just don't let any kids in the car - especially with fresh cooked fairground doughnuts (Yes that is personal experience!).

:lol: I try not to give my little boy something that has that much sugar! He’s madder than a box of frogs as it is! :lol:

So bit of a rubbish update, I gave up painting my fascias as I'm not very good at spraying from a can :lol:

The gloss black I used was a rather thick paint, it ran and made a horrible mess of my plastics. I didn't have a proper primer so used some Citadel acrylic based brown that I had laying around. So, I've rubbed them back and they're now with my sprayer... Not sure what it will cost but he will still need to rub them down and he's going to put a high gloss black on them for me.

Will be worth the money in the end! :lol:

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Proper Rally style now! Haha :lol:

Best thing to do.

Good on you for giving it a go.

It's a shame the carbon wrap didn't work out as the early efforts were great. Far better than I'd be able to do, that's for sure!

Personally, I think the carbon fibre looks a bit fussy when on small areas and surrounds like that, so for me it'll look better painted anyway. :ok:

Haha cheers Stig. It looked awesome on the surround for the gear stick but was so tricky to do on the stereo surround. At least I can say I attempted it! Happy that I’m getting it done professionally though, I like to do things right with this car. :ok:

New goodies arrived today!

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:ok:

I had a JDM hazard switch fitted on Tuesday whilst service,mot and other bits being done. Now have 2 UK switches spare :ok:

It'll look nice when I get the fascias back all nice and shiny gloss black :ok:

Although, it look's like all the switches start as red because the back of my old one is... it's like it has been painted over. :cuckoo:

More goodies from the internetz!

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- Afterburner Wrapped De-Cat Up-Pipe And Studs
- K&N High Flow Panel Filter.

Ready for the full de-cat exhaust fitting on the 5th February! :ok:

Awesome :ok:

should have used a "trick" up-pipe..............:wink:

I didn’t want to say!

Oh dear! Now you’ve got me worrying!? What’s the difference?

The bore size , it's to large for stock turbos so floods them and reduces spool.
I belive stock sti is 42mm bore don't hold me to that ,

The 'Harvey' up-pipes sold by Alan make a massive difference to spool by accelerating the gas flow into the turbo and reducing spin up time - When I swapped mine (Magnex) I was about about 250rpm quicker to 1 bar.

Hmm, well I've spent the money now so I'll have the de-cat up-pipe fitted first with the exhaust system, have the car mapped and see what happens. I'll be replacing the injectors at some point so I'll change the up-pipe then and tweak the map. Thanks for the info guys :ok:

Okay, so I've had a couple of days with the car off the road having some work done. On Tuesday it was in with SMD having a Walbro 255lph fuel pump and full decat exhaust fitted

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During the fitting Simon found the up-pipe too short and the flanges not correctly aligned, so the original was refitted. Unbeknown to me was the fact that the Hawkeye WRX already comes with a decat up-pipe, so I was happy to keep the original but unfortunately it wasted an extra 2 hours altogether.

It wasn't until everything was all bolted back into position that Scoobyworld replied to my message that the up-pipe actually had a slip joint to adjust the length! Ah well.

Overall happy with the look and sound, definitely sounds more manly now!

Video with sound:

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No more stealth approaches for me!

Then today I carefully drove up to Surrey Rolling Road in Farnborough for Duncan to have a play.

After 5 mins or so it was clear the car was losing boost, on investigation Duncan and Charlie found the intercooler and filter box clamps all loose, every single one of them! It's rare that the car comes out of SMD in this state so not sure whether to ignore it or not!

After the clamps were replaced and/or tightened, Duncan set about the tuning and power runs.

Really happy with the outcome, a picture paints a thousand words so here you go:

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And after a few final tweaks:

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It made 287.1 BHP and 360 lb ft of torque!

Sooo much more fun to drive now, pulls amazingly through the rev range. :ok:


And on the way home, treated myself to a V10 STi TMIC... fins are pretty good, needs a good clean but should come up nicely.

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:ok:

Sweet! Nice power too

It's a completely different car now, amazing power and pulls so well. Really happy with it. Duncan was saying the Hawk WRX comes with decat up-pipe and STi injectors as standard, so a turbo swap for a bug or blob one should see some incredible figures!

Can't wait to come to some meets this year now... :ok:

Just finished cleaning the TMIC:

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Will fit once I'm certain the water has dried from inside. :ok:

Very nice some good power there and bet it pulls great from low down,
The Sti cooler and vf43/8 will make it even better but be prepared for things like a clutch etc and read into head gaskets etc I'm not really up on 2.5's,
Is it boosting 1.1 tailing to .6?

Nice one. The pink pen on the tmic tells me you visited JPP in Crawley ;)

Very strange re: the issues with SMD, who worked on the car? Brent or another one of his guys?

Yeah Duncan didn’t want to go more than 1.1 but it’s on demand pretty much, feels amazing and pulls really well! I am prepared for the big bucks once I go silly power haha. :lol:

Haha, they were a god send when I had my imported DC2! But yes, picked it up for £255 with mounts, happy with the price. Although I believe I need a different silicone turbo to y pipe?

It was a guy called Simon, never had issues with Brent. I’ll put it as a one off as I’ve never had any issues with them before.

I'd be really chuffed to fella. 360ft makes it a lovley road car I bet.
Will you need a Sti under tray too for the cooler ? I know the scoops are the same just the tray ?

God yeah, the torque is fantastic. The power feels a lot smoother now.

I believe so, I was discussing this same topic with a blob wagon owner earlier today. I think I’ll end up getting an STi scoop as it seems to have a bigger mouth than the WRX and I’ll source an undertray too after I fit the cooler, provided I can get it to fit that is! :lol: