I have a stock 2.5i and I'm wanting to start some mild customizing. I currently have stock 16" steel wheels and wheel covers, but want to upgrade to Subaru alloys or wrx/sti rims and will consider partial trade. Also needing info on power add ons, because all I find are for WRX/STI. In Virginia Beach area, but any good info welcome.

 

It's not worth the money to do power add ons. You will not get the gain in power you'd see out of modding a Wrx. Your best bet is to beef up your suspension

 

I'm in the same boat. Honestly, I have only dropped $300ish for a Nameless Performance Muffler Delete Axle-back (which is amazing), and thought about doing an intake with a shop tune, however, I'm saving my money for a wrx, so I'm just modding suspension as I go along in mileage on the car (i.e. as struts/springs wear, I'll upgrade those). Other than that, don't waste hundreds of hours searching, because I already have. Sorry

 

Power add ons are not really worth it. Make a hybrid intake and exhaust just for sound. Suspension is where you want to put your money. I have BC BR coilovers, Hankook RS3 tires (245/40/17) and my car kept up with my buddies stock bugeye in the mountains. I need a bucket seat because my car grips so good it throws me out. lol Cant wait to get sway bars and strut bars. If you wanted to be fast you should've bought a WRX, but dont get me wrong, you can make your 2.5i very fun to drive. Any questions feel free to pm me.

 

Agreed!! You car handles amazing Trevor! With the right selection of parts you could have a fun car to drive in the twisties

 

agreed with power add ons. only thing ive done is CAI, knowing thats all ill get unless i cam and hybrid. youre better off spendinf that cash of aesthetics and handling

 

I will echo the sentiment that the HP Gained per $1 Dollar spent on upgrading a non-turbo Impreza is (arguably far) less than it would be if you had a WRX or STI in the first place. However, that does not mean there are no options.

I've spend countless hours researching this forum and others looking into power upgrades for my 2010 OBS. The most effective and I think reasonable (albeit a bit pricey) solution is a supercharger setup.

Pros? Slightly less expensive than just getting a WRX/STI; Unique; Fun if you do the work yourself and can take care of it right.

Cons? Less bang for your buck; Higher risk of damage to the car if not careful; More difficult to source parts since 99.89% of parts out there are made for WRX/STI's.

There is a possibility of running an N/A motor with a Raptor supercharger at low (6-9) PSI with stock internals and not blowing the thing to pieces. You would still need to upgrade the exhaust and such, and get open source tuning since I don't believe they make an access port for it. Last I read Cobb stopped putting those out a several years ago and even then it was hard to find one.

If you figure $3000 AUSD ($2700 USD) for a Raptor SC Kit (Google Raptor Superchargers, it's first site to come up. This seemed to be the most promising, not to mention the only company I found that made a setup for the more recent model years,) plus exhaust, intake, labor, tuning, you're already looking at well into the $5K range. Add the intercooler option (recommended) and closer to $6-$7K. Add a transmission swap and engine internals if you really wanna go nuts and you're looking at $10K easy. But even going nuts, you still run the risk of doing damage because the engine isn't meant to handle that much juice.

Basically, if you have money to burn and are not looking for 270+HP, you could probably swing a supercharger set up for not too much over $5000 if you did it right and caught a deal here and there. But you'd still probably be looking at only 240ish HP which is less than a more stable, stock WRX/STI. I really had my heart set on prudently supercharging mine, but I don't have the time or more importantly, the money to do all that.

Even if I had $8-$10K lying around though, I'd probably trade in my OBS with a hefty down payment on a sparkly newish old WRX or STI and have fun with that