Unique Motorsports

Finally a chance to build something using melted steel. Not sure what it is about basic fabrication work, but it’s almost always a good time. Add to that, I haven’t actually made anything in a while so it’s nice to keep the skills fresh.

The project started by loading up my welder, 4.5” angle grinder, electric die grinder, wire brush, gloves, welding helmet, porting bits and a few other misc fabrication tools into the Skittle and headed off to James for some work on his Beastly rear wheel drive Impreza.

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After making this picture video collage, it makes me wish I took more pictures. I’ll be replacing this post with a small write up and images later. For now though, here are the install pictures set to Linkin Park.

I have installed a few different types of headers and there are two brands that stand out for quality and fitment.The GT Spec Header and Perrin both stand out above the rest. Here are some photos and information regarding a pair of GT Spec headers on a WRX.

GT Spec made a beautiful header and up pipe combination. The welds look great, the gauge of the steel feels strong, the collectors are formed well, the 3 bolt flange for the up pipe while being difficult to bolt down should keep it from leaking. My only complaint and I’m hoping it just didn’t make it into the package is they do not include studs to bolt the up pipe to the turbo. We had some issues removing stock studs so we made it to Subaru minutes before closing only to find out, they don’t actually sell up pipe studs. We had to get the studs which mount the headers to the exhaust manifold. Not ideal, but it did get us through the install. If you decide to go with this well made setup, you might first get some studs from here.

Installing the headers proved to be a little tricky. Even with loosening the expansion joint, only 5 of the six bolts would line up. We tried Darin at one side and myself at the other, still no go. A pry bar didn’t do much help either. I decided to put a little back into it as they say and borrowing from a jiu jitsu move I placed myself sideways under the headers, locked my elbows into my hips and thrust my 115 pound frame up and into the driver side header which created enough force it actually seated all the way onto the studs. And with that and a simple “yeah, who’s your daddy now, BITCH” it was mounted.

Now the next challenge was bolting the header to the up pipe. The location of 2 of the three bolts require a bit of patience to tighten down along with 2 14mm standard box end wrenches. As I’m writing this, I wish I would have taken a picture, but suffice to say it can be done.

Torque everything down, reinstall the down pipe, reinstall the heat shield, check to make sure everything is good. Start the car, listen for leaks, reinstall lower splash guard and take for a test run. Pauls initial reaction included exposed teeth and comments such as “I don’t even have to get on it to feel the difference.” I’ll be adding the GT Spec header and up pipe combo to my recommended list based on this install and his reactions.

Most of this install is straight forward, there are however a few things to watch out for.

1. The lower cross-member will need to be modified to clear the headers. When I first heard about this I was a little concerned; however, after seeing how much it’s really not a big deal. Basically, just tap a flat piece of the cross member in less than a quarter of an inch. I used a 2.5 pound hammer for this and with a couple of gentle taps it was done. Picture number 6 kind of shows this.

2. The 3 bolt flange is great for avoiding an up pipe leak between the exhaust manifold and the uppipe, however getting to those bolts is no easy task. Don’t let this discourage you though as the end results are well worth it.

3. Get some studs before starting this and have them installed as reusing the stock studs does not always work out.

4. We had a bit of an issue with the spacing. 5 of the 6 exhaust manifold bolts were groovy… the last, not so much. I used a simple jui jitsu toss where an elbow lock and hip thrust was able to massage everything into place.

That pretty much covers it other than the standard exhaust manifold and up pipe install. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments.

Due to a lot of requests, I decided to make another up pipe and let it go to the first buyer able to Paypal $200 which includes shipping. Depending on the demand I might be starting up production again.

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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