Unique Motorsports

What is a race friendly core support anyway? Well, I’m not really sure. What I do know is if you want to run a V Mount intercooler and radiator setup then you are going to need some room. The stock bumper beam, upper core support, and lower brace just don’t allow the freedom one needs to run enough radiator or intercooler. As for the bumper, well it was only attached by the sides so we decided to make some more room, make it stronger, and add lightness.

This project actually started a few nights ago. We laid out some general plans based on what it was we were trying to achieve. Intercooler and radiator fitment allow for easy to service and maximum cooling. We also didn’t want to lose any chassis rigidity. When considering chassis mods take into account the actual forces being applied otherwise you might be adding strength and weight with no real benefit. Despite my wifes beliefs about my memory abilities, I was able to reach in and pull some helpful ques from my past.

Corolla lovers, the RWD type from the 80′s, not the newer corollas of today, are big on hanging on to that front bumper or even replacing it with something better to aid in chassis strength. Perhaps it’s an attempt to bring out the inner Takumi or delivery driver, but I just don’t think anyone would have one of these tossable cars and not drive it. They know about chassis torsional flex and do a lot to avoid it. That’s a lot of words to say, we need to keep the strength in the lower bar. To improve on it even more, I pulled a que from Lou, former host of Muscle Car. Well he too was a stickler for chassis rigidity which resulted in chassis tricks for all sorts of unibody and frame based cars. He would basically trim out enough of a factoy connection and place strong tubing or box in key flex areas. I also thought back to a Trucks episode where they shortened a frame and rather than cut it straight, they cut down then over then down again to maximize te welding area. Whoever said you can’t learn something by watching tv?

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Welcome to part 2 of the Greddy Emanage install. In this section, I will cover the support tool, injector harness, timing harness, and a little software information. That’s a lot to cover so lets dive in.

Now that the primary install was complete, it’s time to hook up the laptop and support tool. Originally I was getting errors on the E-Manage whenever the car dipped below 1000 RPM. Once I updated the Emanage with Version 1.39 from the Emanage Yahoo Group it was fixed.

At this point I also changed the correction points for the dial adjustments. Rather than having it start at 2000 RPM, I set it to start at 1000 RPM. Also in the software I set the MAF so I would not get any fuel cut at higher RPM. I did this by using the BC or boost cut setting and set it to 4.85 across the board. Realize this helped smooth out the car, but I still could not get on it without detonation. I couldn’t upload the file so below is a screen shot.

I ran with these settings for a couple of weeks until I got the kahunas to install the timing and injector harness. The Timing harness was only four wires so I started with that. Once it was installed, I started the car and everything seem to run fine so I then installed the injector harness. Realize that unless you turn on the feature with the laptop, the timing and injector harness will be bypassed. This means if you have the injector harness hooked up wrong, you will not get an error until you turn on the feature and upload it to the Emanage. Also note, that I only purchased the timing harness and used the extra wires to make an injector harness so the wire color for the injectors will be different if you buy the injector harness separate. That said, below is how I hooked it up.

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The Greddy E-Manage is a very powerful tuning tool that in it’s most basic form allows you to adjust the fuel. Where the E-manage really shines however is it’s ability to upgrade. With the Support Tool, you have a laptop programmable piggy back fuel tuner. What’s more is with the fuel injector harness, you get a 16X16 fuel table which can be controlled VIA laptop. You can also get timing control with the timing harness and even a pressure sensor for those who want even more tuning. It’s not quite a standalone, but pretty close, especially for the money.

Most of this info was updated when the E-Manage is installed and error free.

OK lets get started.

As with any automotive purchase, the first thing you should do is research. Read the FAQ in the following yahoo message group (http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/emanage/) as well as some of the messages, other installs, etc… The more research you do at this point, the less head scratching you will do later.
I have decided to break up the E-Manage into parts, this way if something should go wrong, I know where to look. For the First part, I just want the unit in the car. This will give me some minor fuel tuning but more importantly allow me to get familiar with the E-manage.

After doing all my research and laying out the parts, verifying the parts and doing some more reading, it’s time to get started. This is the ECU pinout for my 93 ECU, each car is different. I compared the ecu pinout with the wires that need to be installed for the E-Manage, highlighted everything, took notes and went back to the shop.

For other Subaru ECU charts go to www.ravensblade.com

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Tempting fate and with full disregard to the space time continuum, we swap an older JDM WRX transmission and rear differential into a 97 Impreza L. The transmission that we removed? A newer WRX transmission. The day was long, allergies did their best to discourage us, however we pulled through.

The swap itself was pretty straight forward, as with most Subaru stuff, mechanically everything pretty much fit. So as not to upset the ECU, we simply swapped in the original 2.2L sensors. At the end of the day the car is much quicker with the much better matched lower gears. I may add more to this later depending on the comments, for now though enjoy the  pictures.

Some more information from Darin and this post on Flat4:

car ran great on the way home, other than the broken speedo cable not allowing me to revv over 4k…
even with 4.44 final drive, im only about 250 rpm higher at around 70 in 5th and i can feel the car accelerate in 5th gear…

Its still an r160 diff. not sure what you mean by diff covers.
the lsds’ are different, on the usdm wrx diff(on left) the lsd assembly is open, ie you can see the spider gears, while on the jdm suretrac the lsd assembly is sealed. the biggest difference between the two is on the us is a 3.90 w/3.54 viscous lsd rear compared to a 4.44 w/4.44 apsuretrac torsen style diff. the gear ratios in the jdm trans are exactly the same as what i have in my wrx, except to final drive is 4.44.