Rinzler: Tron reference?

Thanks!

LOL! I'm gonna have to meet you after I move to the East Coast next Spring! haha

Appreciate it! It's still not over, just slowing down at the moment. That heel-toe shift kind of moment. ;)

Yezzir! I dunno, it just felt right once I got the car. I don't always name them, but I knew I wanted to name my BRZ.

After looking through countless of journals throughout many years.... This is probably the best and by far my favourite.

As my first post on this forum I believe it was well worth posting it here.

I'm excited to see more! LOVE your car, stories and photos. Keep it up!

Hey! Thank you! Sorry for the late reply, I don't get notifications for this thread for some reason. :( I can't wait for you to follow my stories throughout Rinzler's last winter in Alaska and the journey to Jersey! Exciting times ahead!

Just put in the GrimmSpeed intake!
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At almost 48k miles I can definitely feel the extra horsepower and torque. It's very little, but I feel I'm in tune enough with my car that it's got me all excited again to drive it everywhere! So tonight I just went for a drive, which I haven't done in months. GrimmSpeed is the best!

Nice, I'm a little jealous. Wish I could have made it in on that GB, but I have some wheels/tires to replace.

I hear ya. I'd rather mess with proper wheels and tires first. Spending $290 for a few more ponies seems kinda silly. :lol: But once I get a tune it'll open it up nicely! If I didn't already have the wheels and tires that worked for my needs then I probably wouldn't have purchased this.

What tuning solution are you looking into? I've been happy with my Openflash Tablet, hard to go wrong for the price. Plus it gets you discounts on their other goodies. I really want that header next.

Pretty sure I've settled on the wheel choice, 720Form GTF1. 17x9 +35 at about 17# for about $825. Basically the same weight as my 5Zigens but an inch wider. Not to mention a more ideal offset that won't require spacers to look good.

I honestly know nothing about the OFT and such. I've seen people mention it, but if you don't mind telling me more about it and a ballpark price then I might be interested. Like who supports it and overall cost to start it up. Because having my local tuner mess with my car would be about $1k because I'd be paying for the licensing from whoever has already cracked into the Twins programming. I guess usually that cost is differed by either the shop just paying for it or customers splitting that cost, but NO ONE else wants to do either of those things locally.

I'm assuming OFT has tunes that are sent to me that I can apply myself? That part doesn't really bother me, like gathering my own info from the OBDII and getting tuned remotely. Probably makes more sense than going back and forth to a local tuner, especially when I'm moving AND they're not as familiar with the Twins.

Oh yeah those wheels! I still want the GTF3's!!! One day, when I can let go of this silly "OEM" nonsense, I will grow up into a REAL boy and upgrade to fun wheels! :bellyroll:

It's kind of like an AccessPort for the twins. You buy the tablet for like $500 I think it was. By purchasing it, you get all the off-the-shelf tunes that are made by Shiv at Visnhu Tuning. He's been in the Subie game for a long time and I have a friend in the bay area who had everything on his WRX done at Vishnu and was really happy with the service/products.

You can also pay for custom remote tuning (send data logs back and get revisions) or actually drive to NorCal and get dyno tuned. But I like that you don't HAVE TO. You can just flash and go and be happy. He includes Stage 1 (no mods) and Stage 2 (header) as well E85 maps for Stage 2.

I hear there's also a custome tune in the works for that GS intake.

And if you really want to have fun, you can spring for the OFT300 package: Vortech Supercharger with or without header.

Lots of choices, and I really like that you don't have to deal with the Ecutek license/cable crap and THEN go pay someone to tune it. They may have gotten into the ECU first, but until this car came out, they barely had any Subaru presence anymore. Why? Because there were plenty of other options that didn't rape your wallet.

There's my $0.02.

I'll just leave this here: www.openflashtablet.com

For $500 that ain't a bad deal at all, because at least then I'd have an OBDII port reader for codes and stuff. Thanks for elaborating on that, I'll have to add it to my list. I do see Shiv's name thrown around a lot. I'll see where my money's at come Spring before the big move.

Now, I don't believe it can read codes. But I already have a Tactrix cable from my previous cars.

Don't quote me on that, I haven't messed with it in a while and am not up to date on the new firmware. There are a few threads in the Tuning section that should be able to help.

From your own link: http://www.openflashtablet.com/Autom...FRS/index.html
BAM! Muthatrucka! If it plugs into the OBD and reads anything, it BETTER be able to read and clear some codes. Otherwise it can sucketh my unit.

Hahaha! I'm pretty sure that was added recently, because I don't recall that being a feature in the beginning.

But what do I know? My OFT sits in a bin in my trunk. I got a OBDII extension so I have a plug between the seat and console, but I only plug the tablet in when I want to use it for something.

Ey when s your ass going to visit Seattle again.....

Dude! I plan on driving down there the week of May 4th, 2015. I was planning on messaging you when it got closer to that date. I may or may not have my mom with me and/or lady friend as well. The future is full of possibilities, but it could be a quick and busy trip. Still, I'd love to grab lunch or something! Congrats on your new ride, btw! Everyone should own an STI at least once in their life. I did it, and I still miss it sometimes.

Lol nice. Well u still got my number hit me up when you get here. By then my so should be somewhat modified

Sounds like a plan, Sir!

Nikon D5000
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Samsung Galaxy S III
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Sick shots. Bring reindeer meet when you visit :D

Fur sure! :D

Dis all I got right now. Next week should be rears and the rest of my emblems and stuff, and stuff.

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Damn, I miss Anchorage.
Car looks great!

Where you get the caliper with red STI?
How do you feel the brake compared with the stock?
Thanks.

I think I'm gonna miss it too eventually. How long you been away?

Custom. I felt that staying TOO true to OEM would be kind of boring and I've never agreed with having white STI lettering on the calipers. Since there's no white in or out of my car, I had special red made to most closely resemble the cherry blossom red that STI uses. The true STI red is a bit darker, though, and wouldn't POP! on the calipers, so we picked a slightly brighter red.

Getting bigger calipers really just means you want less brake fade over an extended period of use. Guys that track their cars regularly will upgrade to bigger brakes so that they can track consistently for longer stretches of time. I have no time or money to track, so for me these are purely a visual upgrade. I do hear that ANY big brake upgrade will help stave off brake fade, but the stock STI Brembos are pretty much bottom of the barrel when it comes to quality because they're not true performance Brembos. They're very much street-oriented. So for me, they work just as well as the stock calipers, which I actually liked a lot, but just hated how small they were. I wish Subaru did solid calipers like back in the 2006/2007 WRX days.

Ah, good old 4/2-pots! I have a buddy parting out his GC (recently got smashed) and has a set of those that I'm considering. Like the BROs, they bolt right up, but the rears are more complicated and less of an improvement (if any...?).

He hasn't even gotten them back from powdercoating and now won't have a car to put them on.

Next month will be 4 years since I left. I went back for a month in July 2011, I haven't been since.

Those look really good! They have even less improvement over the OEM Brembos which are barely over stock, but at least they look splendid. If you can get them at an affordable price I'd jump on them.

You think you'll ever go back? What do you miss most? I plan on making Alaska a place to visit, but I'm pretty much done living here. There's a whole world out there for me to tackle!

Where you get this customize red STI caliper and how much for that?
Thanks again.

It's a local shop here in Anchorage called CCA Motorsports. They primarily do window tinting, clear bra and vinyl decals. They have painted calipers before for high-end cars, so painting my paint-stripped and naked calipers seemed like an easy enough task. HOWEVER, I dropped them off late November of 2013 and have only just NOW gotten them back... It's been a crazy year for them, switching shops, having an employee leave then come back, and just general good business flow. They felt terrible enough about it that they're installing them for free and paying for everything (fluids and replacing the missing shims). So I honestly couldn't tell you how much it cost me. I do know it can price out to about this much per task:

Used Brembo Kit (calipers, rotors, rebuild kit)= $1,400

I sold the 2004 WRX/STI rotors and WRX adapter brackets I didn't need, that was maybe only $150, though. Then I had to buy proper rotors and adapters for the BRZ (KNS Brakes.com). That was about $500.

Labor for rebuilding the calipers would be about $200.

Brembo installation about $400.

Red STI lettering is vinyl overlaid on the calipers and glossed on AFTER the calipers were painted black and treated.

So if you can do your own labor, you'll save about $600, which is beautiful. Because then you're under $2,000 for Brembo calipers that make the car look 10x more serious. They're completely unnecessary for a daily driver and I actually really enjoyed the stock brakes, but I just hate how floating calipers look.

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It looks happy. Haha


Sent from Tandy 400

Always happy to have fresh shots! It had been pretty warm for a while in Anchorage, almost mid-to-high 30's, so I was thrown off a bit when I went out to take these pics and it was about 7 degrees!

Newest shots.

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Killing it with those STI wheels! Looks awesome ;)

Renato
Team TWM Performance

dope car and pics man. came through the city one time

Thanks! Some people aren't a fan of the wheels, but they've grown on me. When I look at the 18" BBS I had, they look kinda too big. 17" seems to help with giving this car the proper sporty look.

Thank you! I'd love to drive down to SD again, especially since I reconnected with an old friend there and my cousin lives there. We shall see! I might not be moving from Alaska as soon as I had originally hoped, but eventually I WILL leave this state, and I want to do another road trip when I do. It's expensive, but it really is the experience of a lifetime! :D

I concur! 17s give it a proper stance.

Renato
Team TWM Performance

Hell yeah man. Just reading this thread makes me want to go on a road trip. Hopefully everything works out for you. Can't wait to see more of your amazing shots. :thumbup: