It can be said that Aaron Vaccar was born with gas in his veins, or perhaps that his father injected it into him. With a gearhead for a dad, it didn't take much for Aaron to inherit the automotive obsession. At 16, most of us were driving Mom's used and abused Volvo 740 wagon...the turbo model at best. Not Aaron. Not with a father like Carl Vaccar. Carl wanted the best for his boy, the best ultimately meaning the fastest car in town. A '55 Chevy Nomad with 455 hp under the hood seemed like it would fit the bill, and it did. Aaron was officially the fastest prepubescent kid in all of Ohio. Indeed he was the king of the streets, but as time would have it, things changed...Aaron changed.
Aaron was gearing up for college and he needed something more reliable to get him there. As much as he loved his Nomad, he was growing tired. Tired of adjusting the carburetor on those cold mornings. Tired of getting 11 miles to the gallon. Tired of crossing his fingers in hopes that the car would start. Aaron was also getting bored of just going fast in a straight line; he wanted to turn. And what better car to turn fast in than an '04 Subaru WRX STI? [No offense to the hot-rod heads...but let's be honest, there is zero comparison].
When it came time to square away the terms at the Subaru dealership, Aaron opted for the extended warranty package having decided on leaving the car bone stock. That didn't last long. Three months into his ownership, Aaron was hit at an intersection, leaving the STI battered. With insurance cash in hand, Aaron decided to make all his Subie dreams come true.
Repairing the car doesn't simply mean replacing the smashed panels; it means adding a complete Chargespeed body kit. While the kit makes the car look mean, it in consequence makes the stock BBS wheels look microscopic. In a crowd of forged Japanese wheels, Aaron dropped big dollars on 19x8.5 HRE 441Rs partnered with Pirelli's PZero Nero tires. The well-qualified factory Brembo brakes stand their ground, still managing to bring the larger wheels to a halt.
STI owners often cringe when another takes suspension modifications into his own hands. Being that millions of engineering dollars were spent to acquire the precise STI setup, it's hard to blame them. But Aaron knew what he wanted; a lower stance and the ability to make fine adjustments to compensate for varying driving conditions and the new wheel and tire combination. After a swipe of his credit card, his hands were full of Cusco products. The car went up stock on the lift and didn't come down until it was dropped on Cusco Zero-2E coilovers. Each corner was capped off with Cusco's E-Con system, giving Aaron the ability to control dampening settings directly from inside the car while driving. APR Flex Control Bars bridge the gaps of the strut towers-further increasing rigidity. The car now had its looks and its handling, but was missing a stereo.
Thousands of dollars later, Aaron's stereo was so loud that even the deaf gave him props. A Clarion in-dash DVD player feeds the speakers with music and the rear Nesa 7-inch monitor with visuals. MB Quart component speakers are mounted up front and a coaxial setup delivers to the back. A majority of the mobile entertainment is housed in the custom trunk enclosure. Two MTX 12-inch subs are sunk into the trunk yielding solid and precise bass hits. A total of three MTX amplifiers are mounted in the trunk, and to monitor their temperatures, Aaron custom built a rear window deck lid that houses Cyberdyne digital gauges. The stereo requires plenty of energy, so it has its own Optima battery hidden in the enclosure. At this point, the only thing left to upgrade was power. Good-bye factory warranty.