With so many choices available for turbo upgrades we sat down and thought what would be the best for Vivid Racing. Should we put a VF30 on the car, PE1820, AVO450, get a STI RA motor? Well knowing that our cars are built for all around performance, the idea of creating a car with 300 wheel power for daily driving, track use, and street racing is easy. So to push our limits, we said forget all of those! At that same point we got a press release from HKS USA about their new WRX turbo kit.
The large GT2540R ball-bearing turbo kit included the intake, downpipe, uppipe, and all fittings. With dyno figures showing big horsepower increases and nobody having it on the market yet, it was only our decision to be the first and take it to the next level.
Besides taking nearly 2 days to complete the entire engine transformation with the fuel system, manifold swap, turbo switch, and header install, the results of the swap were outstanding. The side mounted turbo bolted perfectly in place with no fitment issues. The downpipe was beautiful with a split collector on the large turbo and connected to the catback with ease. The intake used a HKS filter and ran straight into the fender well with a perfect position for the stock MAF sensor.
As you can see from the picture, we laid out 3 of the turbos side by side. The stock TD04, VF30, and then our HKS polished turbo. The widely popular VF30 turbo is not as big as the HKS. With max power at about 325 wheel horsepower it is great for most users. Since we used that on our Project WRX I we wanted something to compete with our EVO. Since the HKS turbo is ball bearing and the cat in the uppipe has been deleted, the turbo should spool rather quick at around 3600 RPM’s.
Now that the engine has been completely transformed with the fuel system, turbo, headers, and more, all we have left to do is the front mount intercooler and tune that sucker. Stay tuned for the install of our Perrin FMIC and the UTEC by Turbo XS as we put the power to the ground.
