Matt's Levorg (Photo Heavy!)

lerroy

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Interesting, what were the price/s on the HKS items? And where from?
I have a friend based in Japan, got them direct from HKS

They weren't too bad, I think was $1200 ish shipping was close to $300 though
 
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tom397

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Next up was the exhaust. I have early starts (4.30AM) and live in a relatively quiet neighbourhood so goal here was to have something that had a nice tone but didn't lower eyebrows.

I opted to try out an STi system since these OEM exhausts are a dime-a-dozen on Facebook marketplace here in NZ:



Of course, the rear STi tips would not fit under the factory bumper (and important to note here: they also don't extend out anywhere near as far as the single-tip Levorg one does).
Cue the "Quattlo Muffler Garnish" from Shining Speed Japan and a bit of work with the angle grinder and dremel:



Now, these garnishes are originally designed to go together with a "single to dual", sleeved exhaust tip conversion which is unfortunately discontinued and I was wanting to use the STi tips anyway for the extra sound, so end result meant that the tips sit a little inside the rear bumper since the OEM tips are non-adjustable.

I also scored a genuine STi Levorg rear diffuser so that went on at same time:



Back under we go with the angle grinder:



The chrome tips come off nicely, as they are only spot welded in a couple of places, leaving a metal sleeve which will later house a clamp-on style exhaust tip (4x) from AliExpress:





I took sound clips with a few variations of the exhaust :
- OEM Levorg midpipe / Levorg tailpipes (The levorg as we all know it, quiet)
- STi midpipe / Levorg tailpipes (Extremely mild increase in exhaust note, barely noticable)
- STi midpipe / STi tailpipes (Marginal increase in sound, however brings a very annoying "booming" drone from 1,200-1,500 RPM with the CVT transmission, purely because the pipes sit right under the rear bumper (EDIT: Confirmed after removing stock tip garnishes and replacing with longer ones above: 30/11/23)

I believe the drone is partly to do with the fact the tail pipes are currently 50-60mm short of where they should ideally be on the bumper.
But also the rear sound-deadening in the Levorg is awful. A trip to Jaycar saw me with some butyl, foam and mass loaded vinyl to help reduce some of this drone coming into the cabin. A work-in-progress pic:



This is currently where I've left things. The two side, flat panels just with butyl have helped TREMENDOUSLY. If you remove your rear trim and give these a tap (I have a video of mine) you will notice how these sound like the side of a tin shed. Why Subaru left these un-deadened is beyond me.

I will get back in soon and update this post with the foam added and finally the mass-loaded vinyl over top.
Of course, once the exhaust tips arrive from AliExpress and move the exit back another 50mm, this will also help.
Hey mate, I've found this STI under spoiler on FB Market place but pretty sure its a sedan one. Do you know if there was a difference from when you were finding yours?
 

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Supafly_NZ

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Hey mate, I've found this STI under spoiler on FB Market place but pretty sure its a sedan one. Do you know if there was a difference from when you were finding yours?
I couldn't tell you sorry mate. I had a friend who had a written off Levorg come across their yard with some goodies so I had the privilege of getting first dibs on a few aero pieces.
 

Supafly_NZ

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So I did the doors with deadener finally. I had some leftover butyl deadener from Jaycar but it was crazy expensive at $50 per 900 x 330 sheet. I had bought I think five sheets of the "Response" sound deadener. A front door took about three sheets so the whole car would take around 10 sheets given the rears are a bit smaller. Projected cost was over $500.

I then found a 4sqm roll of "Shogun" 2.7mm sound deadener on TradeMe for $70 and (what I can only imagine was a clerical error) $10 delivery.
(The roll weighed about 15kg and the other shipping options for same/ similar products were all around $70-100)

The Shogun roll finished my passenger door and did all of my two rear doors. I think a 4sqm roll would do all four doors pretty easily which is amazing for $80 total cost.

Wont reinvent the wheel with a DIY since it's already been well covered online but I'll add some helpful tips.

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I first laid sheets of butyl on the inner door skins and then flattened down with a deadener rolling tool. I tried not to go too overboard here , covered say 75% of the available space.

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I used a carpet protection film which is sticky on one side, to trace the doors and mark with a permanent marker, where the holes needed to be for door card pop-clips, cable tidy clips etc I then laid the film over the deadener to trace the shape and make the holes.

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It was then just a case of pulling cables etc through and widening a couple of holes. I had to do two sheets top and bottom due to the size of the door. They are stuck to each other with about 5cm overlap.

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Rear doors I didn't trace. I ended up using the door card as a template then slapping it on and referencing a before photo to mark the few cutouts. If I wasn't sure about where the hole was I just used the roller and eventually the shape of whatever was beneath would appear through and I could trace the hole or screw anchor. This saved heaps of time but I think was only really able to be done on the rears. Front cards were a bit more involved.

I am already noticing the difference after first drive. Doors now have a satisfying "thunk" when they close and sound less "plasticy" when you yank on either door handle.

I had previously tuned the EQ to get about as much as I could out of the speakers before they would start to rattle and distort, immediately I noticed I could turn the volume up another 4 clicks (26 to 30) before I was noticing some rattles. Even then I suspect if I could dampen those rattles there would still be some headroom to go higher but this is plenty for me.

Road noise I can now tell there are some weak spots left in the car, particularly around the wheel wells. Prior to the deadening it was a pretty wide spread of road noise throughout but now I can actually tell that the door areas are quieter than other areas in the car. More work to be done here.

I have ordered some of this acoustic foam with the intention to cover the inner wheel wells and door panels as shown. It's $5 per 800x25 sheet on AliExpress. I grabbed 10

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In a perfect world I would add a MLV layer for isolation. I may do this once I have scouted the rest of the car for areas to add deadener and added a foam layer.
 
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lerroy

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nice work, man one of my pet hates is the road noise. interested to see how you go with the foam layer on wheel wells
 

Supafly_NZ

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Boot and rear quarters deadened.

Photos are a bit deceptive as the larger sheets are tucked in and hidden behind the panels (damn having large hands for this job).

I used a lot of offcuts to patch any front panels that had a hollow effect to them when tapped.

Another road test confirms that the majority of sound is now clearly coming from the front of the car.
Once my foam arrives I'll tackle the front with deadener and foam then work my way backwards to retrofit the foam on doors and boot. I need to get a few more panel clips and I will also tape the clips to stop any potential rattles in the door cards once everything is out on for the final time.

I am tossing up the kicker component upgrade for the dash but ideally I'd like something similar that isn't ridiculously expensive. I would then do a simple 45W RMS speaker upgrade in the front only (leaving the rears).
 
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Supafly_NZ

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Foam arrived. Was pretty fast to install, maybe 15 min per door.

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Initially this was my coverage but I did end up removing some areas where the door cards were getting resistance.

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Eventually this is about where I left it as far as coverage goes. (Rear door card). I used 8 sheets at $5 each ($40 for all door cards).
I will do another order of perhaps 15 sheets and complete the boot and the inner guard liners behind the wheels.

I also went through the effort of putting a little bit of PVC tape around each of the pop clips on the door cards (and replacing any that had gone missing).

Results :
It's really hard to tell yet.
I've only recently been getting used to the new in-cabin quality, post-deadening (perhaps 5-6 drives) so it's hard to now detect another change when it is more subtle than the last. I still have yet to do the rear of the cabin also. I will report back.

I want to say that the clarity of stereo very marginally improved. Song choice for testing is Skrillex - Supersonic (My existence).
I have tried turning the stereo turned up another 2-4 clicks (around the 32-34/40 mark) and there are definitely some rattles still in the doors that I need to locate but the stereo and speakers will perform at this level.
For further context, it's probably worth noting that audio at this volume is of a level that is absolutely heard by nearby pedestrians and cars.

I am more than happy with the quality of audio and I think if I wanted to crank it any higher or EQ in more of the low freq then I would invest in an underseat subwoofer.
 
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Supafly_NZ

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I also picked up a GFB hybrid blow off valve for giggles. Wasn't sure about putting one on an auto but it sounds great with the CVT. I get noise only when stomping on it or overtaking and letting off.

Edit: wasn't worth making a new post :

This is somewhat bitter-sweet but I've managed to blow both my rear speakers... :p

I don't think I mentioned in my earlier posts that I upgraded the front speakers to some Sony 6.5 3-Way's.
They sound great, and turns out on turning up the volume (to find rattles in the door cards), I pushed it a little too hard and the rears just couldn't keep up. Stoked that I have managed to push the volume that high and my doors/cards were solid but obviously a bit bummed I now have to replace the rear speakers also.
 
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Supafly_NZ

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So after blowing a rear speaker, I opted to go out and buy a set of components for the rear. Plan was to only utilize the 6.5" woofer in order to get a bit more mid-bass.

My headunit allows me to select which frequencies go to the front/rear speakers and this worked perfectly with a hi freq cutoff set around 5kHZ in the rear.

Initially I had no plans to do anything with the front dash tweeters but since the rear components left me with a new pair, I thought why not try them out.

I had already upgraded the front speakers to a set of 3-Way coaxial speakers so wasn't sure how changing the dash tweeters would go. I did notice however that on removing them they are a 6 ohm speaker rated at 35W. The new tweeters are 4ohm and 45W with an inline filter (8kHZ, 6dB/oct).

Also, since this was an impromptu weekend idea, I had no brackets or wiring adapters at the ready.

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OEM tweeter is a deceptively tall unit.

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I separated the speaker housing from the bracket with a cutoff wheel.

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Since I had to reuse the original plug also, I opted to remove the capacitor and bridge the open gap it left behind with solder. I possibly could have left this in place but decided my headunit didn't need it.

Right: An almost complete unit with the inline freq filter (needed to bridge the capacitor gap here still). I hot glued the Sony tweeter housing to the original bracket.

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Tweeter back in.

For a "cheap" upgrade I will say the sound quality is absolutely worth the money spent. The added bass from the new rear woofers as well as the improved clarity of the highs in the dash now work perfectly together to create a great sounding front stage with the midbass I was previously missing.

I had zero intentions of adding an amplifier and spending money on a "built" audio setup but for the $70 front speakers and $120 rear woofers/ tweeter components I am super happy with how this has turned out.

I will say however I don't think you would achieve such a good result if your headunit lacked the same EQ functionality as this one has. Setting my EQ back to default made the system sound a little bit flat.

Cost came to approx $210 with front/rear brackets and adapters (AliExpress).
 
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Supafly_NZ

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Next project is to convert the interior to the red-glow & WRX/STi theme.
Some of this is a direct plug/play, some requires some wiring work.

For the downlight/cubby LED , I am going from blue -> red.
There is an existing article here with someone that has swapped simply the bulb itself (they went red to blue).

The fall-back alternative is I just buy the RED pocket lights online (Part No: 66237SA120) :

I've since found the LED's on AliExpress :

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Edit: I went and compared this to the footwell illumination LED's in my '08 hatch, exactly the same (hatch has red) so I've just pinched the LED unit from there and I'll grab more from Ali.

There is also an overhead LED that comes off the Eyesight module. I will replace this with a RED SMD chip.

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I have a 2018 MFD unit (Part No: 85263VA020) on its way and I am in the process of fabricating an adapter harness for it.

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Retrofitting front/side cameras is a task I have on the backburner also.
(Part no for the correct "MFD scroll/enter key" is 83056VA020 ) This is only a visual change.

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I also have the red-illuminated heater controls on their way also :

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Following on from that is the WRX dash. I did consider holding out for an STi item but for the price difference I wanted to try this first.

Probably the only hard conversion out of the three items as I do have to get in behind the panel which involves very carefully removing the cluster needles then finally desoldering the cluster EEPROM and swap it with the one from the Levorg. A process I have done before on other cars.

I will paint the chrome surround on the dash cluster in piano black also. Same as the door card plastics.

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A lot of hidden or really visually-subtle changes (to the untrained eye) on the car of late but it's starting to become the "OEM+" daily I was hoping to achieve.

Exterior-wise :
- I am still waiting on the RH STi front fender/guard to arrive through Subaru here in NZ (August/September), once it's here I can arrange to have it painted and then fitted with the STi sideskirts.
- I will get some CS Style skirt extensions for the car. The shipping for these from AUS is horrendous so it may prompt a push to add a few other goodies to the mix.
- Finally, later in the year I hope to finally get some RSR Ti-2000 springs on.

Lots of work to go on the hatch also.
It's been off the road for nearly a year now but I am now simply just waiting for a time slot to bring it in to my local certifier. Once it's legal again I have some tidying up on the tune to complete after having made some further improvements to cooling etc, we hope to squeeze a few extra ponies out of it on the next dyno session.
 
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lerroy

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Nice I've been toying with the mfd upgrade but couldn't find any sellers of the harness when you make yours be sure to take plenty of photos :)

Where did you get 2018 unit from?

Good luck with the guage cluster looks like a pita. Do you know if you get a replacement unit, if it reads the milage from ecu or is it stored in the guage cluster?

Cheers
 

Supafly_NZ

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2014 FA20 Levorg, 2008 600HP 6MT Impreza STi
Nice I've been toying with the mfd upgrade but couldn't find any sellers of the harness when you make yours be sure to take plenty of photos :)

Where did you get 2018 unit from?

Good luck with the guage cluster looks like a pita. Do you know if you get a replacement unit, if it reads the milage from ecu or is it stored in the guage cluster?

Cheers
If you're interested in the MFD upgrade there is another one that popped up cheap here ($296 NZD) :
Edited, since the time of posting. Lerroy has advised these MFD units via Ebay are usually USDM parts so will display imperial units.
(The harnesses below are universal though - so anyone reading will need to source a MFD unit locally or ex Japan)

Then it's a simple case of buying this connector:

Job done ;)

And the mileage is stored in the cluster itself, so the EEPROM unit needs to either come across (or be cloned by read/write) using a tool.
I may investigate the tool method if I can source an EEPROM clamp and a serial to usb adapter for cheap, otherwise I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron. Either method involves carefully removing the needles though and this is the hard part, rubber gloves and a swift movement are key.
 
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lerroy

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Awesome thanks ordered harness :)
 
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lerroy

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If you're interested in the MFD upgrade there is another one that popped up cheap here ($296 NZD) :

Then it's a simple case of buying this connector:

Job done ;)

And the mileage is stored in the cluster itself, so the EEPROM unit needs to either come across (or be cloned by read/write) using a tool.
I may investigate the tool method if I can source an EEPROM clamp and a serial to usb adapter for cheap, otherwise I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron. Either method involves carefully removing the needles though and this is the hard part, rubber gloves and a swift movement are key.
Hey Supafly_NZ. bought both the harness and the MFD thanks again

After reading your post you've made me look at all the blue lights now and i cant unsee haha, I have the red ring climate controls which is handy :)

I have been able to find some STI speedos on beforward

https://autoparts.beforward.jp/detail/Electrical-Parts/Speedometers/PA87032320/?buynow=1

I'm not that good with a soldering iron, do you think you could swap the entire circuit board from GTS speedo to STI ? or am i dreaming... \

Update : looks like the circuit board is actually the lights needles and everything so not really easy swap...maybe we can go halves in a EEPROM clamp that might work ? :) looks like its a 93C76 EEPROM


hmm this might be outta my league :(

 
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Supafly_NZ

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Hey Supafly_NZ. bought both the harness and the MFD thanks again

After reading your post you've made me look at all the blue lights now and i cant unsee haha, I have the red ring climate controls which is handy :)

I have been able to find some STI speedos on beforward

https://autoparts.beforward.jp/detail/Electrical-Parts/Speedometers/PA87032320/?buynow=1

I'm not that good with a soldering iron, do you think you could swap the entire circuit board from GTS speedo to STI ? or am i dreaming... \

Update : looks like the circuit board is actually the lights needles and everything so not really easy swap...maybe we can go halves in a EEPROM clamp that might work ? :) looks like its a 93C76 EEPROM


hmm this might be outta my league :(

Nice work grabbing the parts. I've decided to grab the harness also to save some time.

I'll try swapping the cluster once it arrives with no other changes and see what error codes I get in the car. Obviously odometer will be out but I'm interested to see what happens with immobilizer as I was told it wasn't an issue.

There are a few local guys who have done the swap already so I'll reach out and see what else was required.

I think an Eeprom clamp from AliExpress is cheap enough so I may do that also.

Here is the before and after for the AC controls. I had already done the cubby LED:

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Supafly_NZ

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2014 FA20 Levorg, 2008 600HP 6MT Impreza STi
An alternative approach for the dash is a custom gauge face from the likes of Illumaesthetics


Then you could simply replace LED's on the circuit board for red ones where necessary...
 

lerroy

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Nice work grabbing the parts. I've decided to grab the harness also to save some time.

I'll try swapping the cluster once it arrives with no other changes and see what error codes I get in the car. Obviously odometer will be out but I'm interested to see what happens with immobilizer as I was told it wasn't an issue.

There are a few local guys who have done the swap already so I'll reach out and see what else was required.

I think an Eeprom clamp from AliExpress is cheap enough so I may do that also.

Here is the before and after for the AC controls. I had already done the cubby LED:

View attachment 2317View attachment 2318

Awesome looks great,

wonder if we could make the MFD button red as well..

The clamp just connects directly to the EEPROM on the back of the speedo and then just need to program to change milage ?

Yeah thats what i found as well mention of immobiliser but not confirmed.
 
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Supafly_NZ

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2014 FA20 Levorg, 2008 600HP 6MT Impreza STi
Finally got around to installing the replacement SMD LED.
These things are a PITA to solder without a hotplate, especially when the contacts are below the chip and the chip measures only 2.8 x 3.5mm in size! It took some trial and error but got there.

(https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005005688434326.html)

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MFD Update: I had the retrofitted 2018 MFD working for about 5 minutes but the cable failed when installing back into the car.
It was returned and I am set to receive the replacement this week so will update once it's back in the car. However from the limited time I had using the new unit, I was really impressed by the display.
 
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Supafly_NZ

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My replacement MFD adapter arrived and I quickly swapped the units once more to get it working:

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Massive improvement over the stock MFD. Nice having the animations when scrolling between the views too.
I did notice that there are a variety of new settings that are presented to the user when going through the maintenance settings (Oil/Filter replacement schedules, some hazard settings etc).

Super happy for what I got it for ($220 for unit, ~$125 for the cable with shipping).
 
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