Like everything I do, I tend to go overboard, even I guess with my new car I showed a few posts ago.
It started innocently enough with just some Rally Armor mud flaps, then installed the Fog Lights that aren't bundled in the base model WRX. I occasionally go skiing, so picked up the OEM roof rack too, have some ski carriers I had with my old car.
But then I read up of the issues with Direct fuel injection vehicles in the new WRXs and the Exhaust Gas Return system (EGR) which tends to gum up the air intake valves as fuel is no longer being sprayed through those valves which typically cleans the carbon build up on typical engines. With Direct Injection vehicles there is an expensive cleaning process done every 40k to 60k miles where they blast ground up Walnut shells to clean these valves. A typical modification done here at least in the States is just disabling the EGR system by closing the valve that returns the exhaust gases back into the air intake.
So I took my car to a local performance shop that deals mostly with Subaru things, being located near the headquarters of the US Subaru Rally Team has some benefits I guess. Had them do the EGR delete, they also suggested a delete of a Tumble Generator Valve (TGV), which is a butterfly valve installed on the air intake manifold on the North American cars that restricts airflow during start up. In Japan they don't install them, it's just an emissions thing on cold start up, the valve is typically open once warmed up, but that butterfly valve is a huge restriction on the air intake. I also had them install an IAG Air Oil Seperator (AOS), turbo cars tend to have a bit of oil blow by and this AOS system prevent oil getting back into the air supply from the turbo. Basically everything I had done is mostly for longevity of the engine, the TGV valve was only the real performance modification and I wasn't really intending to do it other than it didn't cost that much. A professional tune is needed when doing these type of modifications as it's disabling systems that would typically throw an engine code if it wasn't working, so I expected a little performance bump but nothing major.
The 2.0L WRX base is advertised as having 268HP at the crank, but at the actual wheels it's generally around around 225HP/245fl-lbs torque from several dyno results I've seen online. However now post modification and a tune I'm now getting 283 HP/324ft-lbs of Torque at the wheels and they tuned out the odd rev overhang when shifting from 1st to 2nd in the factory tune. These guys have a pretty cool 4 Wheel Dyno that attaches directly to the Wheel hubs.
So yeah that is all of what I recently bought...