Hi Guys,

Hope everyone is well

I'm new to the forum and so happy to have stumbled across this forum as I also live in Perth and your expert advices is desperately needed

First of all I am new to the performance scenery, in fact it's only been this year I've found my lifelong thrill of owning a Turbo Car. Beginning of the year I bought a POLO GTI 9n3 but found the power to be a little soft and plus to tune the car cost a fortune because there isn't much performance parts available out there.

I then decided to look into fulfilling my boyhood dream car which is the original GC8 WRX, after months of looking through at least 10 GC8 WRX, my heart is not set as most of them have been thrashed until I found this one which I bought right away, so it's a 99 GC8 WRX Limited Edition with Momo Woodgrain Steering wheel and tan leather interior, it's of course 5 speed manual, it has been meticulously maintained, full log book service history, lots and lots of receipts including new exceedy clutch, new suspension etc, the car drives like a dream and is very2 neat and tidy, an absolute credit to the previous owner. The best part is believe it or not I am the second owner of the car from brand new. The car has been kept on stock standard, everything is completely stock even the wheels.

So now I wanted to put a few mods to the car to get a bit more torque. My initial thoughts is to put the following:

VF34 Turbo
Process West TMIC
Exhaust (Not sure which one yet)
CAI (I've got the universal K&N Apollo initially for the POLO)
Tune

SO as you can see nothing too crazy as I'm not looking at a track purpose or anything like that, I just wanted a fun daily drive that will be strong and reliable.

My dilemma is that the car although it is meticulously maintained, it has done 206,000km and some people are telling me that I'm asking for trouble by putting all those mods in a 200k engine, first of all is this true? or is that a load of rubbish if the car is in very healthy condition through years of proper maintenance? Because many people also said to me that 200k is nothing on the EJ20 especially if it's been well maintained and why fix something that's not broken.

If that is true, then what are my options?

I've read a lot in the internet about short block subaru engine but by the time I also do the transmission conversion, I'd be up for $12-13k and my wife would slaughter me if I spend that sort of money.

Or should I do an engine swap from an STI half cut? This seems to be the cheaper way I found so far, but if that's the case what sort of engine and tranny would you guys recommend for 99 GC8 WRX? I've heard people say that you can't put a newer model engine and tranny in GC8 because there's too many difference between them to make it work without spending a fortune and if that is the case I'm not gonna be gaining much as I will be swapping a healthy high km engine into something slightly less km but puts a big question mark on the history

My concern is that I would have about maximum $8k budget to spend, I really love the GC8 in comparison to the newer model, call me crazy but the GC8 has had a big effect on my life and I'm sure some people might say save yourself the trouble and buy a newer version STI with lower km but to me my heart is still set on GC8 and plan to keep it a long time.

With the budget of $8k in mind, I need to be smart with it and that's why I'm asking for your opinions, what I mean by this is that I don't want to end up spending the $8k and upgrading the turbo and bits on the current motor only to have it blow up in the end and then I won't have the budget to rebuild the motor or to do engine swap. I will have another budget to spend next year so if it comes to it I'd prefer to stay on the safe side and do an engine rebuild this year, tranny conversion next year and maybe the year after start looking into the turbo etc. But of course at the same time I don't wanna waste the money if it's not needed on the rebuild or swap.

Just to give you a general idea on the kind of driver I am, I am far from the typical hard hoon driving, I would probably put my foot down up to 6,000rpm at the max 10-15 times a week and that is also not constant gear changing etc, I just love the g force that pulls you to the back of your seats what I do is put my foot down and once it gets to the speed limit or a little over I would let go and slow down as I'm scared to death with getting my car impounded for reckless driving. The reason I'm telling you this is because a lot of my friend said with my style of driving there's nothing to worry about in terms of stressing the current motor with all the upgrades.

Anyway thanks guys for taking the time to read my post and I apologise for what maybe a stupid or silly questions on some of my thread LOL as I said I am a very newbie to the performance scenery and wanted to absorb all the information I can slowly

Hope to hear from you soon.