 About 10 years ago, Ross of AVO came over to the states for an extended R&D trip, creating one of our most famous turbo kits for the Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS. The 2.5 RS was a great car from Subaru that had all the trappings of the STI turbo models in Japan with it's aggressive hood scoop and sporty 2-door styling. Unfortunately, the situation under the hood was not quite so sporty, as Subaru opted to only offer it with a 2.5-liter non-turbo motor in America. Given AVO's 38 years of turbocharging cars that hadn't been turbocharged in the first place, this was a natural job for us.
That project is, as they say, history. We still provide the kit to RS 2.5 owners, and it's been a steady, strong performer through this entire time. While it is still available, there is less and less 2.5 RS Impreza's available as the years go by. We had been looking at doing a turbo kit for the newer models from Subaru, but have been waiting for the right timing. With the release of the Accessport for the 2008 Impreza 2.5i, the timing was now right. |
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 The West Coast Subaru Show is a fantastic annual Subaru lovefest put on by Tex and the rest of his crew in late summer. Held at the Skamania County Fair Grounds between Friday, August 28th till Sunday the 30th, it's a little gathering that grew to epic proportions. This year, over 220 cars were pre-registered for the show. When I arrived at 9am on Saturday, it looked as if the majority of those cars were there.
I got set up from early on, but it took a little time for people to start stumbling in to the event all - literally. From all reports, the parties went on well into the early morning on Friday night. Between the rampant alcoholism and late night impromptu fireside karaoke attacks, few people actually got much sleep. Not a worry, by 10am everybody was starting to get some feeling in their faces again, and the entertainment of the day was awaiting them. |
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 One thing we see a lot more of in Japan than any other country is turbocharged Subaru Forester owners looking for a bit more power. It's not that the Forester is that underpowered, but with only a 2.0-liter motor vs. the 2.5 overseas, it just doesn't have that torquey feel appropriate for a mini-suv. One such customer came in with their 2005 Forester turbo that had a Prova ECU and STI Genome rear muffler. |
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 On the international scene, AVO puts a lot of parts in a large variety of cars. One of the latest ones to pull into the shop in Japan was a 6MT Forester STI with the 2.5-liter flat four. The motor is identical to the American Forester XT actually, but STI does add their ECU to the mix with a slightly more aggressive tune. It also comes with a few other STI bits - 6MT transmission, Brembo brakes, STI exhaust, and STI seats.
As good as all that was, though, it just wasn't enough for the owner. He felt it was time for a bit of a boost in power as the standard STI Forester just didn't quite feel as exciting as the name implied. So he came to Ross in our Japan office to see if there was something that could be done about that.
He already had had a Syms turboback exhaust system installed, which is frankly not the best for performance. Not only do they use two cats instead of a quality high-flow single, it necks down to 2.5" in several locations. While we couldn't do much about that exhaust, we certainly could about everything else - and so we did. |
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 Today we did the AVO 30kW package on a customer car at the Melbourne, Australia shop. This car included the AVO 30KW package with a AVO Flex joint Up-pipe tuned on 95 octane. As you can see the boost pressure was not raised - so how did we make the power??
With the Subaru one of the biggest gains to be had is with a good Turbo-back exhaust system, as the stock system is quite restrictive. That OEM stock was holding the beast back due to the 6-8psi of back pressure that it has. The AVO TBE with a cast nickel-iron outlet with a wastegate splitter and AVOs 200 cell per inch High-flow metal-strain cat converter removes that back pressure, that is where we gained the power without upping the boost.
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 Ross in Japan got a chance to drive the new Legacy GT 6-speed. Response was fantastic - there was no lag on the 2.5-liter. 4th gear, from 1500 revs it just pulls. It wasn't the most exciting pull (ahem) he's had in 4th gear, but enough to be interesting. 4th gear/1500 rpm was about 40km/h. Doesn't feel like there is any lag at all, but really needs some opening up of the intake and exhaust. While it gives an impression of being heavier, it does not feel heavier on the road. Steering, reflexes felt lighter than his 08 WRX. It feels like a really well-balanced car.
Suspension feels a bit like the 08 WRX, but far more refined. Brakes are fairly average, nothing special about them, nothing bad about them. Ross really didn't get a chance to push it hard, so cannot really comment about body roll. The front suspension has been redone. One of the areas of complaint on the earlier Legacy, the somewhat wobbly steering response in corners, feels like it has been eliminated. Sort of like an older legacy with the lower arm bushings replaced with AVO upgrades. |
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 RalliTEK of Portland, Oregon had their big garage sale event on a balmy Saturday in June. Well, not that balmy in the morning, when a fine mist reminded everybody that Oregon is indeed part of the Pacific Northwest. But if you are a Northwesterner, a fine mist is nothing more than a reminder why a 24-oz latte is integral to starting the day off right. Especially if you got up at 6am to put up a tent and lay out some swag for sale - in our case, a bunch of JDM parts we had lying around from the Japanese office. |
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