[TheBRZsKnees]

Now that I’ve had Full Blown kit on the car for about half a year, I figured I’d post some impressions. To be clear, I’m neither an experienced track driver nor a mechanic, so take my perspective with a grain of salt.


Performance
I’m happy here. This was the base kit with an upgraded GTX28 turbo. On 92 octane, the dyno results seem to be slightly better than most of my friends who had their boosted cars tuned at the same shop.

The kit has a lot more potential. At my tuner’s request, I stuck with the stock injectors and fuel pump instead of the included FBM ones. If I ever get better access to E85 or go with a built engine, I feel like I have what I need to keep using this kit.


Fitment
Ugh. I had two major fitment problems. The first, to be fair, doesn’t seem to have been the fault of the Full Blown kit. My downpipe runs extremely close to my passenger-side cam angle sensor. The first downpipe was up against the sensor. The replacement I got from Full Blown leaves no more than an inch of clearance. After trying two pipes, I’m thinking this could be due to my Ultimate Racing overpipe or front pipe.

The second issue is that the intercooler sits too low, pushing down on the inside of my bumper. This is super frustrating, since the intercooler mounts could have been designed slightly differently to prevent this. I’ll have to modify the plastic piece that’s directly below the intercooler. Bottom line: this kit requires cutting in multiple places.


Driving experience
The car is absolutely transformed. The turbo spools quickly, and the power is as available as I could ever want in a daily driver. Even at a conservative 220 tq, the back wheels break loose easily. I have to be much more careful in the Seattle rain. The turbo and the Tial BOV create a symphony of fun sounds when driving aggressively, but staying under boost is an option when you want to drive conservatively.

My only complaint is that the setup seems to require a vented catch can, which causes quite a bit of fumes when stopped with the windows open, or if the AC isn’t on recirculate. After a while though, this didn’t bother me anymore.

As a side note, if you’re considering this kit, think carefully whether you want the base option for open dump. It makes a super loud, obnoxious sound under boost. I’m much happier with the sound of the car after switching to the recirculating dump. It’s pretty easy to find videos on YouTube.


Working with FBM
Full Blown gets a D for communication and a B+ for service. I had to call them several times to get updates on my order, and it was hard to get answers to my installation questions or fitment problems. They also sent me a basemap for a manual car, even though I had told them I had an automatic. Considering my general inexperience with this kind of install, they weren’t the resource I hoped they would be.

By the end though, they worked with me to get everything I needed to complete a stable installation. I feel like they were appropriately accommodating. I’m satisfied with the experience.


Closing thoughts
The only real issues I had were with fitment, but I’ve heard the same from owners of most FI kits. I can confidently recommend the FBM kit. I learned a lot about the cost and complexity of forced induction on this car. Some of those lessons were hard, but I’m happy with what I now have.