WRX Performance Tricks

Here are a few WRX performance tricks that I have come across that may give you that extra punch next time you pull up next to a Corvette at a stoplight. Please keep in mind that sometimes making a few extra ponies for any car comes down to some common sense.

Change Your Oil

Let's start off with an easy one shall we? How about changing your oil? I can remember my father always telling me, "make sure to change that oil every 3000 miles!" Nowadays, most cars don't need their oil changed quite that often, but if you drive hard, it never hurts to put some fresh synthetic oil in there to help things run a little smoother. The Subaru WRX manual says to change the oil every 7,500 miles under normal driving conditions or every 3,750 if you drive hard. I suggest the latter.

Fresh, Properly Gapped Spark Plugs

Spark plugs that are inspected, cleaned, and gapped properly are another easy way to keep your WRX running in tip top shape. The proper spacing for an '02-'03 WRX is 0.028"-0.031" (0.7-0.8 mm).

Clean Air Filter

Some of these things are so basic, however, their merit repeating. Ensure that your air filter is clean. Imagine trying to breath through a dirty pillow. Sounds hard right? That is what your vehicle is doing every day unless you make sure to clean your air filter. Better yet, upgrade your intake system to some type of Ram Air kit to allow your WRX to inhale as much air a possible.

Premium Gasoline

With gas prices as high as they are right now, saving those extra pennies as the pump looks mighty good, but don't do it. Spring for the premium. The higher the octane, the more power that can be made by your precious engine. There is a reason why race cars run on high octane fuel, MORE POWER!

The next few tips may be a little more involved than the last couple, but are still cheap and provide extra performance with relative ease.

Insulate Your Fuel Lines

By insulating your fuel lines, you can reduce the temperature of the gasoline entering the cylinder a few degrees. This helps because the cooler intake charge allows more air and fuel to be jammed into the combustion chamber resulting in more power!

You can insulate the fuel lines with refrigerator/air conditioning insulation easily purcahsed at a hardware store.

Put Your WRX on a Diet

There are few modifications that can be done to a car that will improve all physical dynamics at once. By reducing excess weight, you are increasing acceleration times, reducing braking distances, improving your cornering ability, and increasing gas mileage! Basically, all you need to do is remove everything that is unncessasary. Don't have kids you say? Yank the back seat. You don't antisipate getting a flat anytime soon? Get rid of that heavy spare. You get the idea.

I hope that these WRX perfomance tricks have given you some ideas that you can easily implement that will help make your WRX perform to its full potential.