pixel8r

Ok, I'll bite. It was just an example... anyway, I'm currently running only about 9-10psi, with a turbo (not stock) that will easily take over 20psi if I wanted it to. WRX's are obviously built from the factory to handle the psi. If nissan wanted to run 16psi through their engines they too would use a turbo and the correct fuel/engine management to support this. Fact is, they dont, because they dont need to. They get the same power running a measly 5-6psi even though the engine is capable of so much more. I have the ecu to fix the R&R issue. I have the turbo that can support 16psi. Maybe read through what I posted originally - you misquoted everything i said. All I'd need is a bigger fuel pump (maybe injectors too) and my car could happily run 16psi maybe more...and with over 200kw at all 4 wheels, it'd be a damn quick wagon. 1700kgs is a bit over-exagerated too - its actually 1650, if you want to be technical about it. The thing is, I did have more plans for the stagea, but being the fastest or best was never my intention. I just wanted it to go fast and still be comfortable enough and fuel-efficient enough for everday driving and also long trips. And now, even though its power/boost level does not reflect what the turbo is capable of, its fast enough for me at the moment, its way more fuel efficient than stock (how does 11.5L/100km city driving suit you?), and still very comfortable as a daily driver... So I've kind of put the plans on hold for now. And it is a wagon after all. Say what you like about wagons, but sure if I could practically get by with a 2door coupe I would be more than happy to drive a skyline. But actually I sold my 2 door silvia turbo to buy the stagea because I need more doors and more space, and its paid off many times. Thats just the way life goes. Forgive me for wanting my "whaling boat" to still perform as well as my old 2door coupe (which it does btw). Anyway, my point was simply that STi's do make good power, but when all things are considered, the power is nothing to write home about. Just par for the course. btw aren't WRX's 2.5L these days?

So the "myth" (as this thread suggests) is not a myth after all. Keep using 98 octane or higher fuels people. Dont use 91 octane regular unleaded just because some guy in the uk with a renault clio said it makes no difference. The manufacturer recommends 98-100RON (or higher, whatever they have in japan) so go with that. Nothing new here...move along.

So this would mean that the WRX turbo would flow more air at the same boost? or can this comparison not be made just based on size? I'll admit I got a little carried away in my last post about the nissan engines thing...lol I'll also admit I'm not a big fan of WRX's. I dont know why that is, because I love the sound of them, but just think they're maybe a bit underengineered, and not as quick as the hype would suggest? Of course the same could be said about skylines too (except for the underengineered bit). I wasn't into skylines until I got a bit older and sold the silvia turbs. Only thing was I wanted a 4 door + a boot - hence the stagea...its kind of a skyline, passenger vehicle, and wagon all in one - if that makes sense

I always thought that japan's fuel was more like 106RON. All the same, I think america's fuel uses a different RON rating - not sure about japan though. I just know the higher the octane rating the better. They run great on 98RON and 100RON here in australia so not much to worry about. Just thought I'd also mention - the reason for the low difference in the cars in the video is that those cars were all built for export markets - in this case, the UK. This means that the cars are designed to run on the fuels that are available in that country, and tuned for the same. The difference with skylines etc is that they were not intended for any market outside of japan and so they are only designed for japanese premium fuel. A skyline would've seen even more difference between the fuels than the 3 cars in the video... As a side note, I believe the UK did actually import skylines at one stage, but i'm not sure if these were modified in any way to suit UK emissions laws etc.

looks nice could be from the n/a model - i seem to recall reading this on the forum a while back.

So considering that my nicely tuned RB25NEO will ping on anything less than 98 octane, which one do you think I should use? Seriously though, I'll bet the second two cars in that video aren't actually supposed to run less than 96 octane fuel (manufacturer specs) so the findings weren't surprising there either. Skylines are designed to run over 100RON fuel (available in japan)...so running 91 octane fuel (regular unleaded) in your skyline is not a very good idea in my opinion. The extra few $$ not only gives you more power and better economy (not necessarily the case with cars not intended for premium fuel), its also very cheap insurance for your engine As for the difference between optimax and ultimate, I'd say that varies between cars and even if the cars are the same model and everything. For what its worth I use BP ultimate...but the main thing is that you choose one and stick with it because you'll only get the best from it if you continue to use the same fuel and not mix it with others.

Its not a fixed loss either. It does increase slightly as you put more strain on the drivetrain, but not by the same percentage increase as power output. I'm guessing my stagea wouldn't move very well at all with 81kw. If you were to draw a graph, it would almost flatten out down the lower end. I'm sure there would be some complicated mathematical physics formula to work it out but for the purposes of this discussion, lets just agree that drivetrain losses ARE proportional but not "directly" proportional (ie. graphing losses against power output would not produce a straight line). I'm happy to be proven wrong however...

Whats the diff in size between the stock STi turbo and stock skyline turbo for example? I would've thought these were similar. EDIT: I think people misunderstood when I mentioned turbo upgrade on a GTR. I just meant something comparable to the stock turbo but with steel wheels in order to handle that much boost - i wasn't meaning BIGGER as such...sorry for the confusion. All I was saying is that the subie 4cyl needs a lot more pushing to get the same amount of power as say an RB25 NEO or RB26. Not that they're a bad engine, I think they're quite good and sound awesome. Just that in my opinion Nissan get more power (and sometimes torque) from their engines - compare the VQ35HR power output with practically any other 3.5L n/a engine in the world (offtopic i know...). I realise that different size turbos flow different amounts of air at the same boost level, but I thought the WRX turbo was about the same size as a skyline one...? yes or no?

Its because you get to know some of the people on here (not often in person tho). IMO one of the coolest things about owning a stagea is being part of this section of the forum. That and giving and receiving a wave from fellow stagea owners on the road

I thought it was around 16-17psi. Compare that to a GTR and then try pumping 16psi through a GTR (with supporting turbo upgrade of course) and see which has better power output. interestingly the Mazda3/6 MPS also runs 16psi stock, which is where all the torque comes from. But again, even in my stagea if I were to run 16-17psi of boost I could probably come close to a STi and beat a Mazda3 MPS easily...

You cant use a percentage for drivetrain loss... for example, if the standard losses are ~80kw (which is roughly true for stageas, so maybe a touch less for a GTR, say 60-70kw?), adding more power isn't really adding any more losses to the drivetrain. The losses may increase a little as you go up in power but not as much as if you use a percentage like 30% or something. So my guess would be to do 209+70 = about 280kw at the flywheel. That doesn't seem too far out to me. So in short, if you gain 50kw at the wheels you'll probably have gained something pretty similar at the engine.

I very much agree. Its just as easy and a lot cheaper to just leave the engine running a bit longer (1 minute is plenty) if you've been thrashing the turbo a bit just before stopping. If you're just cruising around at 60 the turbo's probably half asleep anyway so you can safely just turn the ignition off. Running the engine while the car's not moving, particularly with the A/C on, will likely result in engine temps actually increasing. If you've been driving on the highway at 80-110km/h for any length of time its just a matter of remembering to leave it running for about 1 minute once you stop. Most of the time you'd be stopping for fuel or something so a turbo timer wont help you here. Besides, its illegal to walk away from the car with the engine running (turbo timer or not) so for the sake of 30 seconds to 1 minute of your time, its just as easy to switch it off yourself No need to worry if the alarm will activate correctly or if the immobiliser will work etc. Also note that with a turbo timer, you wont get the beep sound when you leave your lights on and turn the ignition "off". I had one on my last car (nissan silvia turbo) and found it to be more trouble than its worth. By all means get one if its what you want, but as others have said, they are unnecessary.

doesn't boost98 have ethanol? better for the environment yes but potentially worse for your car. 5% ethanol is probably ok but beware that too much ethanol will corrode your rubber fuel lines. You probably already know this however. I figure that my car gets very good fuel economy for its size so therefore must be tuned very efficiently and puts out less harmful emissions than when it was stock

not sure if thats me or not in the white stagea. Mine looks completely stock and is a series 2. Very rarely clean unfortunately doesn't get the regular washes it deserves I go to and from work via main north road. I live in the Salisbury East area (east of Main North Rd) and work at Mile End.

the point is to have power when you need it but ONLY when you need it. When you're just cruising around, the turbo is irrelevant, and you're better off minimizing boost in these conditions. We'd all love to thrash our cars to bits every day but its just not practical. And for the drive to work, I'd definitely prefer fuel economy to power. All other times, the turbo is awesome. Hope this makes sense. Its not that we want our cars to drive like a prius...its just that we want the best fuel economy possible for a stagea without losing the ability to boost it up whenever

Hi dmonic1 and welcome to the forum! For all of your tuning needs, and pretty much anything mechanical on your stagea, head to Boostworx! They know their stuff and will give you an awesome tune at an awesome price. Although, if you're wanting a tune, you'll probably want to get an Apexi SAFC first so there is actually something to tune. Cant do much with it when its stock, just base ignition timing and thats all. As for fuel economy, dont take too much from my figures... I've been averaging 11.5-12L/100km daily driving to and from work etc. (about 30-40 mins both ways). On the highway its around 10.5L/100km. The lowest I've seen is 11.3L/100km city and 9L/100km country... Why so low? well firstly, I have a bigger turbo (GT30 - see my sig), exhaust, SAFC, and the boost is fairly low at the moment...which all adds up to give me really good fuel economy. This comes at a cost and that cost is responsiveness at low revs. I wouldn't say its slow by any means but just not quite as quick onto boost as when it was stock. It will start boosting from around 2500 rpm but wont hit full boost (currently 9-10psi) until about 3700rpm... The bigger turbo means its off boost when cruising around town, which is why this is where I see the most benefit. In the country I dont think the car is on boost anyway so that hasn't really changed. Its still a lot quicker overall than when it was stock and will keep up with your average latest model V8's in the right conditions. However, coming into summer now it struggles a bit in the heat (not much torque until the turbo kicks in - only downside of the RB25's etc) and my fuel economy figures are up a little - closer to 12-12.5L/100km and power is as expected for hot days with climate control on. The easiest thing to do to help fuel economy is get a 3" turbo-back unrestrictive exhaust, a boost controller, and apexi SAFC (piggyback ecu) and then a good tune. Not only should you see a 20-30kw gain at the 4wheels, you'll probably be getting better fuel economy at the same time, due to the free flowing exhaust and safc to tune Air/Fuel ratios. Good luck

That dont sound too good... so which parts would you recommend? Would you say the camber/castor bushes were worth it over the stock items? And my impression from your post is that the whiteline swaybars, whilst making it drive flatter, actually make it worse to drive ?? Just wanted to clarify in case I ever get the urge to upgrade any of this stuff.

Every stagea I've seen has a tiny spot of rust just below the passenger mirror. Not sure what it costs to fix, i've yet to fix mine but so saying I should get onto it...

Is the turbo sound a high pitched whistle? or anything similar? When I bought my s2 it had more of a whine than a whistle but still sort of high pitched and quite audible from inside and outside the car (though not deafening either). It was a lot louder than the turbo should sound and we ended up replacing the turbo and it disappeared. However when the turbo was replaced there were cracks in the exhaust manifold and that was replaced as well, so there's a chance that this could have been all it was. But all the same I'd not touch it if its anything turbo related. Will cost a minimum of $1000 to fix and could be as much as $2500 depending on what you need done. The brakes shuddering could just be pads or at worst maybe the discs needed machining or something? dunno. But yeah like others said, unless you got a really good price for it I'd keep on looking around. (you can pick up a good s1 from japan with ~$130,000kms and auction grade 3.5 or 4 condition these days for ~$12000 or maybe less)

I can recommend morpowa also. Boostworx are my first choice for tuning especially and I'll hopefully be booking my car in there soon for a 100,000km service. However, being out north I have been to morpowa several times, mainly just for regular servicing - since they have an auto trans specialist right next door and you can book into morpowa for a service and get the auto trans serviced at the same time and morpowa handle the whole lot so its just one transaction and your car is off the road for just one day. Their prices are quite good and I've been happy with their work.

Pretty sure avenirs are not listed in SEVS and only the turbo stageas can be complianced due to minimum power-weight restrictions.

I know the feeling. not looking forward to summer for the hot drives with climate control cranked up and the car struggling along all the time... winter was so much fun. Hey Art you're one of the few on here that gets to use the 'snow' feature a bit...does it work well? I've tested my stagea on many wet roads and dirt roads and traction is unbelievably good - is it ok with snow?

hmmm sounds good. might be worth looking into.

If you're getting (or have already fitted) a bigger exhaust and planning on raising the boost a bit, your car will probably run quite rich (they already run quite rich from the factory and with these mods the ecu will try to counter any increase in airflow etc by dumping more fuel than necessary into the mix. Probably the best option is to get the Apexi SAFC2 - you may find them 2nd hand on this forum or off ebay for something around $250-300ish. These can be used to tune your Air/Fuel ratios on a dyno, giving you more midrange power and possibly more top end power and better fuel economy, depending on how rich its running now and also how you drive. It will allow you to run 10-11 psi easily without worrying about boost cut or running rich/lean etc. They are very effective and well worth the money Helps to get the most from your other mods. Fitting a 3" free flowing exhaust will likely raise your boost level a bit, and bumping it up to 10-11psi with just the stock ecu may see you running into R&R (rich and retard) problems, which is where the ecu detects "too much" airflow etc and uses a "failsafe" fuel mapping to protect your engine. You'll know if its doing this cos it just all of a sudden loses power and in some cases you may find it will cut ignition briefly during hard acceleration. I've experienced both and its unmistakeable. An SAFC will be your easiest option for getting around this.

Cant comment much but I've been to both and boostworx are cheaper and IMO better. Dont pay for stuff that doesn't need doing.