Subaru Part Review: GrimmSpeed Up Pipe for 02-10 WRX

I got a GrimmSpeed uppipe today and I'm very impressed with the quality. I already have a GrimmSpeed crosspipe and this is right on par with the quality I expect. The welds are perfect, the flanges are thick and straight, and the coating is perfect. It's boderline artwork.
I was so impressed I decided to get some specs on it and post them up.
The inlet port to the upipe (exhaust manifold outlet) has a radius nearly 10mm larger than stock. The pipe tapers smoothly to the outlet (turbo inlet) where its radius is about 4mm larger than stock. The stock uppipe weighs in at about 7 - 7.5lbs and the GrimmSpeed piece is about 3 lbs lighter.

The lowdown:

• thicker flanges
• ceramic coating for to keep the heat in
• mandrel bent pipe vs. stock crush bends
• ~20mm diameter larger inlet (94.56mm) & ~8mm larger outlet (86.76mm)
• 3lbs weight savings

An STI uppipe will weigh less than the stock WRX as the catalytic converter, but no one would be buying this piece for the weight savings. I'm actually replacing an STI uppipe I put in because the heat sheild on it has rusted and it's loose and banging around. I think it may also have a leak.

If you're on the fence about this part hopefully this info plus the vendor info pushes you over the edge. It's a solidly built piece and you won't be disappointed.

If you're in Canada, support Touge Tuning. I've had nothing but excellent experiences with them and from what I can tell their prices can't be beat!

MS DTC Problems With Oracle Linked Server & Windows 2008 x64 R2 Cluster (Server: Msg 7391, Level 16, State 1)

If you are getting this error (Server: Msg 7391, Level 16, State 1) trying to run a transaction using a linked Oracle server then I may have the fix you're looking for. I had to troubleshoot a problem with a new Windows 2008 Enterprise R2 x64 cluster today that was a real pain.

To get things ready normally you need to at least do the following:

• install the Oracle drivers & reboot
• set "allow in process" on the provider in SQL
• ensure the default DTC is the clustered resource
• enabled DTC for network access and set correct authentication.

Normally things would work at this point. No such luck today though! No matter what I did I couldn't get a specific stored procedure a user wrote to without firing off the "unable to enlist" error. Other DTC transactions worked just fine.

The solution was simple (but tricky for non-Oracle DBAs); I had to install the "Oracle Services for Microsoft Transaction Server 11.1.0.7.0" service and reboot.
Now, I *could* have re-written the query but since it was already working on another QA box and the user is going to be re-working the whole solution shortly I didn't see much point. Plus I wanted to know HOW or IF it could be made to work on this cluster! ;)

Hope this helps someone else out there!
-A