New BH5 owner, couple questions...

Hey all, thanks for having me. There seems to be tons of info here, but the FAQ is just rerouting to the homepage, and my searches tend to come up with way too many results to narrow things, so I figured I'd just play noobus and ask.

The car is an auto BH5, I bought it for myself and the wife to share as a daily, but I get to mess with it because I donated more to getting it

1. does the WRX STi IC fit? looks like it would, just instead of y pipe you have an inlet from each turbo... I saw mention of it in one of Marky's posts, but couldn't find it.

2. hose 10 mod is seen to improve boost response and make the VoD not so grossly noticeable.

3. 5 speeds, what bolts up? You didn't think it would stay auto long, did you?

4. 4 pots, do the calipers bolt up with everything else stock?

Thanks in advance for any info/links. I'm actually pretty stunned about how little info there is on these cars outside NZ and Aus.. The Japanese know a ton, but finding it online is pretty much impossibru.

There is no benefit in going to an sti intercooler pre newage the tt flow best but the newage stuff is good providing you upgrade the splitter and scoop for best results. Couple of threads on here regarding upgrading the piping which seems to give noticeable gains. Basically read thro marky and rosssubs posts they are the resident bh tt gurus at present.

Any 5 speed box from bc legy thro to v7 will bolt up you just need the supporting parts and correct ratios.

To convert to 4 pots just check your rotor size you may already have 294mm fronts if you do just bolt on the calipers.

Thanks for the info!

Yeah, I just read through the entire thread. Huge thanks to Rossub, going to be ordering the restrictor pills this evening.

I haven't found any definitive info, but it seems at least the GT-B has the correct rotors after reading.

For the price of the calipers it's well worth the upgrade. Bought a defi BF the other day off Yahoo auctions for a good deal so beyond the riceyness of it matching the interior well, it has playback so I can monitor boost pulls a little better. I'll try and get a before and after video once I have my mits on the car and get it rego'd(purchased but not arrived yet out of Japan)

If you have 294mm rotors they are the same as 4 pot ones. I wasn't going to say 100% all your model have them as USDM/whatever you have may be different. Just make sure you use good pads.

Always good pads Evo. I'm sure I could get away with stock brakes and good pads even, but being an auto for now, I'd prefer the extra stopping power since I can't engine brake.

Thankfully not a slop tolerance 2.5 we get over here from the US market. They tend to be poorly maintained, driven into the ground and vastly overpriced used. So I nabbed a rev B GT-B from Japan:

 thermos said:

Hey all, thanks for having me. There seems to be tons of info here, but the FAQ is just rerouting to the homepage, and my searches tend to come up with way too many results to narrow things, so I figured I'd just play noobus and ask.

The car is an auto BH5, I bought it for myself and the wife to share as a daily, but I get to mess with it because I donated more to getting it

1. does the WRX STi IC fit? looks like it would, just instead of y pipe you have an inlet from each turbo... I saw mention of it in one of Marky's posts, but couldn't find it. - Yes it fits, just, it's twice the size of the stock one BUT not sure it serves any purpose other than being a larger heat sink, and unless you find a way to make the intercooler shroud fit the whole thing it's just wank value. My advice is leave it stock or convert to front mount (the V7 cooler got up to 70deg just sitting in a drive through queue or traffic...). I didn't lose any performance fitting it, but I doubt it gained any either. Does look much nicer tho. The stock BH intercooler is identical in all but colour to the V5/V6 STi intercooler for what it's worth. Easy gain in response from just getting a 90 and 45deg silicone bend to replace the stock corrugated pipe - don't waste $200 on the samco bespoke ones, generic pipes can fit

2. hose 10 mod is seen to improve boost response and make the VoD not so grossly noticeable. - Just do it seriously it's a 30 sec thing to do

3. 5 speeds, what bolts up? You didn't think it would stay auto long, did you? - As above

4. 4 pots, do the calipers bolt up with everything else stock?

Thanks in advance for any info/links. I'm actually pretty stunned about how little info there is on these cars outside NZ and Aus.. The Japanese know a ton, but finding it online is pretty much impossibru.

There is a uk legacy forum (uklegacy?), which is semi useful, they just use funny words like mapping and measure things in BHP which I believe stands for Bull****HP. The SL-i forum is kinda handy (USA based) but 90% of the TT info on there is reuben telling people to just convert to single - I think he ragequit from here a while back? Can be found on DOBC also which is a kiwi forum which has the point of difference of not being clubsub

Thanks for the direction on the top mount Mark.. I reckon if I'm going to go anywhere with it, frontmount will probably be it...but for now the topmount should be ok. Might get a ZeroSports or knock off diverter to help it though.

UK folks are decent enough but most tend to err on the side of stickers and wings. Not to fault those that don't but here the community is small enough that it's not a bunch of people saying they know someone who knows someone who says that this or that is true..it tends to be first hand from the person who discovered something.

Rage quit, and named after a terrible sandwich? Tough times. But appealing as ST is, it seems I can apply what you and Ross have done and make the twins good enough until I want to go down that road.

Errgh. Should have bought a manual one to start with, and a revision D at that. Not entirely sure of the rational of importing a specific car and not going for the best one???

No point upgrading the callipers & rotors from stock unless you are into heavy track work or they are ridiculously cheap. Decent pads and fluid are more than capable on the street.

Front mount, exhaust and boost control is about all you can do. Try the hose 1 mod to help with VOD.

Canada has a rule that only a car 15 years or older can be brought in so rev d is out. That and finding a decent manual one is literally twice the price. Going to do the hose 1 and 10 mods. Will be attacking all fluids once I get it.

 thermos said:

Canada has a rule that only a car 15 years or older can be brought in so rev d is out. That and finding a decent manual one is literally twice the price. Going to do the hose 1 and 10 mods. Will be attacking all fluids once I get it.

Ah fair enough on the Rev-D. I would have though both manual and auto are cheap as chips - they certainly are in NZ.

Let it breathe and fiddle with the VOD and then start saving for a single conversion

All good calls... and more or less the direction I'm headed. I'll post more pics once it's landed...

So I've finally taken ownership of the car. Looks great but it's a bit of a slug. Feels like the primary spools when it wants to and once in a while it'll make it through the VOD and pull like a banshee, but not often. No Check engine codes, going to clean primary boost solenoid and then bbod if no change as a starting point.

Also, it binds up a bit when reversing.. Center diff issues? It's a low K car so I find that odd.. but could be I guess? Will swap to manual, at some point.. but I'd like to give the old wallet a break.

Just want to make sure I'm not missing anything super obvious... no CEL either?

Thanks,

Kelly

My one binds a bit in reverese, but had no issues with it otherwise. Didn't both me to be honest.

Grab a boost gauge and see what it is doing.

Do the hose 10 and hose 1 mods. Clean out the solenoids etc.

Mine was pretty **** when I got it as well.

Also: plugs, filter, oil service.

Ah fair enough... Yep plugs trans filter and fluid, as well as engine and diff oil will be done shortly.

Did the hose 10 mod and didn't really see a huge difference.. Probably need to reset ECU.

I cleaned the BBOD and the primary boost solenoid.. mild improvement. The big issue with drivability is that the auto trans can't find it's ass from a hole in the ground. Along with fluid change I'm going to yank the positive overnight to reset the ECU since it's probably been confused for some time now. The restrictor pills are ordered, and I got half way through installing the Defi BF boost gauge I have but this Flu I have got the better of me so I called it a day.

Tomorrow, the progress will resume.. Also I'll post some more pics.

If the ECU is throwing any code will it trigger the CEL?

There are certain scenarios where it won't show CEL but has logged faults.

A constant fault though should show a CEL.

Apparently it blinked the cel quickly on my wife when switching to secondary and it bogs. Exhaust is sooty so it's not getting enough boost. I suspect the secondary bypass valve. Ill investigate when I'm back home Monday.

If the CEL flashed it will have a stored code, probably 65 or 66. Connect the black plugs under dash to check it.

Thanks Ross! I'll give it a try once I've mended from this flu...