1994 Subaru impreza wrx sti acropolis

i,m on my 5th impreza now- 4 classics and 1 newage -and i,ve always found them to be very good bang for buck and simple to repair cars -
i would have to say though i would,nt be so quick to diss a mildly and correctly tuned car -the tdo5 turbo in your car is a pretty laggy flat turbo as standard and the slanty intercooler is very prone to heat soaking especially at higher motorway speeds as the air passes over instead of through the small bonnet vent -let alone when sitting in traffic when you,ll reguarly see inlet temps of 70+ degrees through it.(i used to log temps on my 1995 car)

simple stage 1 mods like a decent uppipe(smaller) and ported standard headers and a proper air intake to the standard airbox make a huge differnce to the mid range laggy zone (2500 to 3500 when the turbo wakes up lol).
for me it was always about drivabillity more than top end power-the standard exhaust is fine at this level but the standard back box and cats slug top end response.
a clean up of the bent fins in the intercooler and and a wash out of the accumulated oil will make it feel more perky anyway.
The ESL piggy back ecu is a easy cheap way to get decent fueling and a custom map to smooth out the factory mapping which is flat as a pan(even if your not tuning the car)and can be set up to run 95ron fuel or duel 95-99 maps .the standard ecu is early 90s tech and is a limitation for these cars imo

a nicely tuned car will pull from lower and give strong mid range torque and response even from a 1.15 BAR limited standard map sensor while delivering better mpg at motorway speeds ....all win win i say.
lovely car tom -nice to see it on standard wheels for a change