DSPORT Issue #270
Text by APEworks // Photos by Colton Hemphill and Andrew Meneses
The performance automotive world is segmented into factions, each defined by their groups’ penchants for certain brands, aesthetics, definition of performance and even ultimate use of their chosen weaponry. Some choose to display; others choose to attack cones in stadium parking lots; still others choose to slide sideways in a symphony of smoke and displaced gravel.
Pennsylvania native and current resident Nate Silveri sits at the overlapped center of an interesting performance automotive world Venn diagram, one where he’s an enthusiast, a vehicle builder and a racing driver all in the same day. As the co-owner of TPG Tuning, Silveri had access to a unique arsenal of knowledge amassed from experience building personal and customer cars, interacting with and utilizing the talents of other builders and the collective wisdom of an enthusiast community that he has been a part of for greater than two decades. “We set out to build the quickest and fastest VB WRX,” Silveri explains, “and wanted to be the first in the 10s.”
Raising the Bar
While Silveri and his team have been modifying Subarus since 2002, the VB chassis WRX marked a departure from the familiar STi platform that had dominated Subaru performance until the end of the nameplate in 2021. “With the changes for 2022, we knew it was going to be a venerable platform,” he explains. That’s why the vehicle purchased in February 2022 immediately underwent an arduous development and testing phase. By the time they had the COBB AccessPort adjusted for E85 fuel and the basic bolt-ons—intake system, front-mounted intercooler, exhaust system and drag slicks—Silveri was able to click off the first record: 11.2-seconds elapsed time with a 125mph trap speed to set the VB stock engine, transmission and turbo record without nitrous oxide assistance. A flip of the switch later, Silveri and team set the record for the mostly-stock VB platform with nitrous, running a 10.74-second ET with a 133 mph trap speed.
Silveri states, “Pushing the limits on any new platform comes with a lot of obstacles, which is usually finding the first weakest link, fixing and then finding the next.” Having experienced the trials and tribulations of power-enhanced Subarus in the past, the stock transmission and long-block were on the short list of imminent failure items. Luckily for the team, the VB held-up through its numerous testing and track days without a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly of any motive equipment and the upgrading continued.
Swap Meet
“One of the biggest problems we ran into was breaking stock STI transmissions at the track,” Silveri recalled. Still, the numerous stock transmissions sacrificed to the race gods weren’t a total waste. Silveri managed to click off ever-decreasing ETs with subsequent increases in trap speeds, meaning they were headed in the right direction and continuing to set records with the new platform. The first record almost halved the distance to the elusive single-digit ET, setting a record for a nitrous oxide-less run down the 1320 with a stock block, tripping the stopwatch at 10.48 seconds. After swapping out the stock block with a fortified IAG unit, a trip down the strip almost a year to the day later netted another overall record—a mere two-thousandths of a second away from the elusive single-digit ET that streetable drag cars dream of. Still, another swapping of the ETS turbocharger allowed the team to capture the spec dyno record of 761 wheel horsepower and 622 lb-ft torque without nitrous assistance.
After recognizing tremendous performance gains from swapping out engine components, the next step was to re-examine a previous weak link—the transmission. The upgrade from VB WRX transmission to STi transmission helped to an extent, but wasn’t the cure-all solution that would help Silveri into the 9s. “Initially, we broke third gear in two stock transmissions and then fourth gear in a third stock transmission,” he relayed. The next logical step was to contact legendary performance icon John Shepherd who put his ShepTrans secret sauce into a six-speed transmission with an IAG-spec PPG gearset.
Transmission Accomplished
With the new ShepTrans unit in place and Silveri himself behind the wheel, the team was finally able to take home the vaunted 9.88-second timeslip with a trap speed of 142 mph. While this is the latest accomplishment and current record, it’s yet another achievement turned into new performance baseline. “Since (the ShepTrans transmission), we haven’t broken anything else in the car and it was a key component in getting the car in the 9s,” he relayed. “The biggest limiting factor for the platform to make more power, in our opinion, is the stock cylinder heads. We are still running stock cams, but there are a few companies that will have offerings soon.”
Following Silveri’s blueprint for performance is difficult since much of the specifications are of a proprietary specification. Still, a good place to start is with the IAG Performance closed-deck block upgrade. Stuffed full with IAG-spec pistons and rods, the current rotating assembly has room for growth as the factory crankshaft is still in play. In the cylinder head area, only gasket-mating material and hardware are upgraded, leaving another wealth of untapped and undiscovered upgrades available for power production.
A complete ETS turbo system all the way through the exhaust exit replaces the stock components and is anchored by a Garret G35-1050 turbocharger. On the fuel side, the Injector Dynamics 1050X PI injectors are capable of managing the E85 that fuels the WRX down the track, fed by a triplet of 485-lph Walbro pumps and managed by a Motec M150 engine management system tuned by Silveri himself.
In keeping with the streetable ethic, there isn’t much else that will help you parts-wise to achieve this record-setting level of performance. “These cars respond so well to just a few simple bolt-ons,” he admits, “so that’s what we recommend for most of our customers. A quality intake, exhaust and intercooler will take you from stock power… all the way to around 360 whp and 400 lb-ft torque. It’s hard to beat the bang for the buck of a bolt-on VB WRX.”
Onto The Next One
With the goal of a 10-second streetable car with all creature comforts in place surpassed and dipped well into the 9s, it’s hard to say what’s next for Silveri’s team. “We plan to test a few (camshafts) over the winter and expand our research and development for our customer builds to come up with more FA24 power packages for all levels.” The next record and achievement are limited only by whatever goal Silveri thinks is attainable next.
