is this a good buy for a 02' wrx?
 

I'd say too good to be true.

Re: is this a good buy for a 02' wrx?
 

yeah, actually, that might be a pretty good find...Salvage title will allow for a pretty low price, and if it ws truly all cosmetic, then you should be fine...

I'm still not sold on buying a car on ebay...just too scetchy for me...

Its got 6 days left and a salvage title. I wouldn't buy a salvage title car, but if you want to, go for it. You should be able to find a nice clean title WRX for $13k.

I would say yes if you could get it for under 5000, but with 6 day left and a salvaged title I would be carefull. He will likely start having friends bid on it to get the price up to 10 - 12k by the end :lol:

Re: is this a good buy for a 02' wrx?
 

Well, a no reserve WRX could be a great buy, but I'm always hesitant about buying cars on eBay.

Also.. a Cold Air Intake will not make that car into a "235hp" car. In fact, on an otherwise stock car, a CAI will *lose* horsepower, since the intake will lean our the Air/Fuel ratio, and cause knock, so the ECU will have to retard the timing to keep the motor from blowing up, which results in less power.

I would think that if you could pick it up for under $10k, you're doing pretty well, but remember, it has a salvage title, which severly limits your re-sale options. If you're buying this as a project/race car, then you're in good shape. If you're planning on driving it for a bit then selling it, I'd stay away.

wow everyone got on that quick :shock: :D

maybe we should pull a few sorces for the new guy if we seeing any while out whoring today :lol: 8)

He can get one from my friend's dealer if he is ready to buy. :)

wow i dident expect that man replys so fast! but i am going to keep a heavy watch on this on just in case. i could always find a stock intake somewhere.

you might want to look here to do some research on what poeple are selling and what to expect to pay:

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=89

sweet, thanks mike. :D

Re: is this a good buy for a 02' wrx?
 

This doesn't make sense to me. Why wouldn't the computer just add fuel to keep the mixture at the targeted AFR with any increased airflow? They have air meters in the intake tract, right? Are the injectors already maxed out at 227hp or something?

Matt is right, under 10K is about right.

Do you know anyone in So-Cal who could check it out.

I read tons of ebay ads, and I would wager this one is ligit. Call and discuss the car with him. The fact that there is a phone number, and offer for test drive/viewing makes it a strong bet.

Also, as mentioned, if you plan to own it for at least 3-5 years or longer, the salvage title doesn't mean much, but if you plan to turn it in 12-24 months, you might be hard pressed to get your money back out.

My red '02 is a salvage car, but it was bought for the purpose of being mostly dedicated to Autocross/track, and with the full understanding of the value issue.

Re: is this a good buy for a 02' wrx?
 

The ECU's uses both MAF and MAP, however, the CAI's just flow too much throught the MAF w/o the MAF voltage changing properly. Up here at Reno altitude, it's not a big issue, since we've got less O2... but in SoCal, where that car's from, it's probably pretty bad.

Essentially, you have to have engine management tuned for the CAI, or it's bad for the car.

yeah i know some people in santa cruz that i could probablly have check it out for me... :idea: but then again i am going to chico today, any one know how far chico is from moreno valley?

you might want to look here to do some research on what poeple are selling and what to expect to pay:


ive been looking around and almost everyone thats withen a resonable distance is modded to oblivion!

The car is actually down near LA. Riverside/Moreno Valley is about an hour inland from the coast. If you bought it, you would fly into Ontario and have a 1/2 hour drive or so further east, though I'm sure they would pick you up. Add $99 to your budget for a Southwest ticket if you are serious about it.

im calling him right now

Re: is this a good buy for a 02' wrx?
 

Is it a problem with the stock MAF transfer function, like it just doesn't go up high enough for the ECU to interpolate accurately once you've changed the intake tubing? Or does the Subaru MAF hardware just give an inaccurate signal past the factory specified range? Either way, that's just strange to me. You can pretty much change the entire exhaust, intake piping, manifolds, etc. on a Mustang and the computer will compensate for it with the stock meter, as long as the injectors aren't maxed out. Just replacing the intake piping in front of the meter is a very small change to whack out the computer that bad...

:lol: :lol:

hehe might want to look at a place like Auto Trader next now that you know what some off the mods are :lol:

cliky.

i just talked to him about the car he said when it was wrecked it was just cosmetic down the whole driverside of the car but is clean now. Unfortunatally he did not know much about the car running lean but did know that it does not knock or make any unusual noises. :)

did you ask him what he was wanting for it?

yea he said he was not expecting to get any more than $10K for it :D

there is also one at norms auto on s. virgina that i might be able to get a good deal on, also has a clean title :!:

autotrader rocks :D 8)

just be carefull that your not looking at an RS 8)

i almost dont know where to begin there is so many great deals on autotrader and there all within a good distance :D

the guy from norms auto is trying to make me all sorts of deals :lol: i still think a private seller is the way to go 8)

cars.com is the other good source. It is where most of the Newspaper classifieds end up. make sure you check out the value on KBB.com

You always want to start at or below the "trade-In" value. when negotiating. This is what is referred to as "wholesale" Kelly blue book. The private party and retail values are worth having as well.

If I'm serious, I will do those for each of the conditions, fair, good, excelent to know where I am barganing from, and to show if I am in a negotiation.

I found the green wagon on Cars.com --- it had been listed in the Sac newspaper. Great source.

Dealers have a lot more restrictions and liabilities when they sell cars than a private seller does. I would always prefer a dealer to a private seller if I could get a decent price.

Re: is this a good buy for a 02' wrx?
 

CAIs basically cause the MAF not to correctly read the amount of air flowing into the engine. most of them will flow more than what the MAF sees, so the car gets leaned out. The WRX will add fuel long term, but when you first get lean, it causes minor detonation which causes the ecu to learn to pull timing, and MBT is more important to making power in an EJ20 than the exact A/F ratio. In closed loop fueling, using the O2 sensor feedback, the ECU does adjust fuel and nothing bad happens. but under WOT/high RPMs when it switched to open loop and goes by the maps in the memory, it's suddenly lean and starts knocking. In open loop, there's not much authority over long term fuel trim, and pulling timing is the first defense against detonation.

Re: is this a good buy for a 02' wrx?
 

So, two questions:

1) How can the MAF not correctly read the amount of air flowing through the intake tubing? It's a closed system, so any "extra" air that the engine sucks in as a result of less inlet restriction has to pass through the meter. Is it an issue with the physical meter placement, right after a tubing bend in the CAI or something? I could understand that, it's sometimes an issue on mustangs since the meter is placed right next to the air filter, and consequently any aftermarket CAI piping bend that comes in from under the fender... if the meter is clocked so that the wire elements inside are on the inside of the bend, they have trouble reading accurately.

2) You touched on this, but it seems wierd to me; do your cars not apply open loop/long term fuel trim corrections based on what it learns during closed loop? That's what the strategy I'm used to working with does...

1) Different tube diameters, basically. Even a millimeter difference is sufficient for screwball reading. Plus, the relationship between air flow and MAF sensor voltage is non linear, so it's also not a simple across the board correction to fix it. I've done some serious soapboxing on this subject on i-club, I'll go find it in a few minutes.

2) It does, but not to the same extent. Another limitation is that the stock ECU can't monitor knock at about 5500-6500 rpm, because at those RPMs normal engine noise is the same frequency as detonation, so the sensor is disabled. That's where CAIs, if they're particularly poorly designed, can cause damage directly.

http://www.i-club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36823

longish, but it's all either a tech-biased post or some stupid ricer saying "my CAI rulZors!" or something, so it doesn't actually waste much time to read the whole thing. ;)

Ah ha. That would be bad.

Okay, on my car the MAF is a distinct tube section of its own, that looks something like this: http://www.pro-flow.com/Product%20pages/univer3.jpg

Even if you change something else in the intake tract, all that extra air still has to flow through the same diameter tube that the meter and computer are calibrated for, and will consequently be going the right speed to give an accurate reading.

Is it a different arrangement on your cars? Does installing a CAI mean people are pulling the sensor hardware out of the factory tube and plugging it into a bigger one or something?

Yeah, on a WRX the MAF is actually bolted to the back of the air filter box. When you put in a CAI, you unbolt it and put it into the tube, which in theory is supposed to match the diameter of the stock tube in the airbox, but...

Also, some CAIs are intentionally larger to allow the MAF to read more air than the stock size can read, but it requires EM, and still can nevcer be fully calibrated perfectly.

Okay, THAT was the piece of info I was missing. :lol:

Silly Mustang driver. :lol: Yeah, WRXs have a lot of quirks with tuning that you need to know about. It's amazing how many new owners show up on our board after owning a DSM or turbo Honda or whatever and can't get it out of their heads that Subarus really are that different. You should read that thread I linked- it'll help you to fell my pain as a moderator. :lol:

well there is still 16 hours left on the auction and the buy it price is at $10,800 so i will have to probabally keep looking if i want to get a clean title. the downside is that i will easily be spending another 5$k. oh well you get what you pay for.