If you've watched a Zero Offset video in the last while, you've seen Adrian's work. You just haven't seen Adrian. He's the one behind the camera, the one who stays back after close to get the last shot, and the one who quietly turned our YouTube channel into what it is today.
So for this entry in our Zero Offset Builds series, we turned the camera around. This is Adrian's Subaru WRX VB: a car he went from Camry to WRX for, built with a tight, well-chosen list of parts that any VB owner can copy.
The Build at a Glance
| Category | Part |
|---|---|
| Aero / Body | STI Style Full Kit (front lip, side skirts, rear pods, rear diffuser) |
| Rear Spoilers | STI Style Trunk Spoiler + MP Style Roof Spoiler |
| Grille | STI Style Sports Grille with badge |
| Exterior | OE Style Window Visors |
| Suspension | Tein Flex Z Coilovers |
| Wheels | Rays Gram Lights 57CR |
| Exhaust | Invidia R400 "Signature Edition" Cat-Back, Black Tips |
| Intake | Gruppe M Carbon Ram Air Intake |
| Blow-Off Valve | Turbosmart Kompact EM BOV |
From Behind the Camera
When Adrian started with us, he didn't come from a film school or a production house. He had no real experience shooting cars, editing, or running a channel. What he did have was the kind of work ethic you can't teach.
He learned on the job, and he learned fast. Every build video, every product shoot, every late night re-cutting an edit because the pacing felt slightly off, he got better. Lighting, framing, audio, colour grading, how to make a lip kit install actually interesting to watch. If you've noticed our videos getting sharper over time, that's not a new camera. That's Adrian.
Spend enough time filming other people's cars, though, and something happens. You start wanting your own.
Goodbye Camry, Hello WRX
Before the WRX, Adrian was driving a Camry. Nothing wrong with a Camry. It's comfortable, it's reliable, it gets you to work. But it's hard to spend your days shooting carbon, coilovers and exhausts and then drive home in something that has none of it.
So we helped him make the jump. The team walked him through the buying process for the WRX, and we took care of selling the Camry for him, so he wasn't juggling private-sale tyre kickers while also trying to hit deadlines. One car out, one car in.
Why the VB? It's a genuinely good base. The 2.4L turbocharged FA24 makes a lot more torque than the old FA20, it's still all-wheel drive, and it's a practical sedan you can live with every day. It's also a car with a very loyal aftermarket following, which means there's plenty to build with. The only thing it was missing was a bit of attitude.
STI Style Full Kit: The Foundation
Adrian wanted his VB to look like the car Subaru should have built: a little lower, a little wider at the edges, and clearly more serious, without tipping over into overdone. The STI Style Full Kit was the obvious place to start.
It's moulded in high-quality ABS plastic directly from the genuine STI pieces, so the fitment and the design language line up with the factory body rather than fighting it. ABS is also a smart choice for a daily: it's more forgiving than fibreglass when you meet the odd steep driveway, and it's built to be painted to match the car. On Adrian's car the kit is finished in black, which picks up the VB's black wheel arch cladding and gives the grey body a sharp two-tone look.
What's in the kit
Front lip. This is what changes the face of the car the most. It extends the bottom of the factory bumper and drops the front end visually, which is exactly where the VB looks a bit tall from stock.
Side skirts. These fill in the gap between the wheels and connect the front and rear of the car. Once the car was lowered, the skirts are what made it look properly planted rather than just "dropped."
Rear pods. These sit at the corners of the rear bumper and give the back end more width and presence. Small parts, big difference when you're standing behind the car.
Rear diffuser. The centre piece of the rear. It frames the exhaust tips and gives the bottom of the bumper some depth, which matters even more once you've got four black tips sitting in it.
A tip if you're doing this yourself: the kit comes either unpainted or painted in selected Subaru colours. If you go unpainted, plan on painting or wrapping it before it goes on. Unpainted parts are in their raw state and can carry small marks from the moulding process, so we don't recommend fitting them as-is. Always test fit before paint, too.
Two Spoilers, One Rear End
This is the bit people ask about the most. Yes, there are two spoilers on the car, and yes, it works.
The STI Style Trunk Spoiler is the tall, upright wing that makes anyone who grew up on rally Subarus look twice. It's the single biggest change to the car's silhouette, and it instantly gives the VB the STI sedan profile it was never officially given. It's available painted in a range of factory Subaru colours, so it matches straight out of the box.
Up top, the MP Style Roof Spoiler extends the roofline over the rear window. On its own it's a subtle part. Paired with the wing, it stretches the whole back half of the car and makes the rear look deliberate and finished instead of plain.
STI Style Sports Grille
The factory VB grille is fine, but it's a bit flat. The STI Style Sports Grille swaps it for a more aggressive honeycomb design, and with the badge in place it gives the front end a focal point that ties in with the STI Style lip below it. It's one of the cheapest ways to change how the front of a VB reads, and it's the first thing people notice face-on.
OE Style Window Visors
Not every part on a build has to be loud. The OE Style Window Visors are one of those mods you stop noticing on the car and only notice when they're gone.
They let you crack the windows open in the rain without getting wet, let some air through on a hot Melbourne day without the wind roar, and keep the cabin cooler when the car is parked. For a daily that doubles as a camera car, that's a genuinely useful upgrade. Visually, they add a thin dark line along the top of the windows that lines up nicely with the black kit and skirts below.
They're an easy job at home too. We've put together an install walkthrough on YouTube if you want to do it yourself.
Tein Flex Z Coilovers
A body kit never looks right with a big wheel gap, so the next job was ride height. Adrian went with the Tein Flex Z, and for a daily-driven VB it's a really sensible choice.
Here's why:
- Full-length ride height adjustment. You set the height by moving the whole shock body, not by compressing the spring, so dialling in the drop has very little effect on ride quality.
- 16-level damping adjustment. One dial adjusts compression and rebound together. Softer for the commute, firmer for a fun drive, and it takes seconds to change.
- Twin-tube design. Twin-tube dampers have a longer stroke and a gentler feel than a typical mono-tube, which is what you want on Melbourne roads that are more patch than bitumen.
- A sensible drop. Tein quotes spring rates of 8.0kg/mm front and 7.0kg/mm rear, with a standard drop of roughly 35mm at the front and 30mm at the rear, and room to go lower or higher from there.
That last point matters with a full kit. Go too low and you'll be scraping that new front lip on every driveway in town. The Flex Z let Adrian close up the wheel gap and sit the lip at a height he can actually live with.
Rays Gram Lights 57CR
Every good JDM build needs a proper JDM wheel, and the Gram Lights 57CR is about as iconic as it gets. Gram Lights is the cast wheel brand from Rays, the same Japanese company behind the Volk Racing TE37, and the 57CR is one of its best-known designs.
It's a one-piece cast wheel built to Rays' JWL+R Spec1 standard, with a strong five-spoke design that starts right at the rim well and curves inward. That shape adds rigidity and keeps weight down, and it gives the wheel its signature concave look. You'll also find "RAYS" and "57" engraved into the spokes, a small detail that photographs beautifully.
Adrian went black, with the orange 57 spoke decals adding a single pop of colour against all the grey and black. On a VB with an STI-inspired kit, the 57CR just makes sense. It nods to the rally and time attack Subarus that made the badge famous, without feeling like a costume.
Invidia R400 Cat-Back with Black Tips
The FA24 is a strong engine, but stock, it's very quiet. Adrian wanted something with more character, but this is still his daily, and he's in and out of the workshop carpark at all hours. Nobody wants to be the guy who wakes up the street.
The Invidia R400 "Signature Edition" hits that middle ground. It uses specially sized resonators and muffler baffles to give a deep, rich tone without drone or excessive volume, while keeping a high-flow layout with minimal bends. It's built from 304 stainless steel with robotic welds and cast flanges, and Invidia Australia backs it with a limited lifetime warranty.
The black tips were a deliberate call. Sitting inside the STI Style diffuser, they keep the rear end clean and stealthy rather than shiny.
If you want something quieter, the Invidia Q300 is the more subdued option for the VB. If you want louder, talk to us about the N1.
Gruppe M Carbon Ram Air Intake
Under the bonnet, Adrian went with the Gruppe M Ram Air intake, one of the most respected intake makers in Japan. The system uses a carbon fibre airbox that shields the filter from hot engine bay air, plus an air guide that feeds fresh, cooler air in from the front of the car. Cooler intake air is denser air, which is where the gains in response and torque come from.
The other big win is sound. You hear more of the turbo working, especially when you're on and off the throttle, and that sets up the next mod perfectly. And when the bonnet's up at a meet, a carbon airbox looks a lot better than a black plastic one.
Turbosmart Kompact EM Blow-Off Valve
The final piece is the Turbosmart Kompact EM BOV, a direct plug-and-play replacement for the WRX's factory plastic diverter valve. You unplug and unbolt the factory valve, and the Turbosmart goes straight in its place with no adaptors or extra hoses.
It's billet-machined, has its own onboard solenoid so it works with the factory ECU control, and uses Turbosmart's Boost-Balance design, which seals better the more boost you run. That makes it a smart upgrade even if you're not chasing sound, especially if a tune is on the cards later.
That said, we won't pretend the sound isn't part of the appeal. Combined with the Gruppe M intake, every lift off the throttle is now a lot more entertaining.
The Finished Car
What we love about Adrian's WRX is how achievable it is. There's no widebody, no engine rebuild, no year-long wait on parts. It's a smart, well-balanced list: a full STI Style kit, wing and roof spoiler for the look, Tein coilovers and Gram Lights for the stance, a few practical touches like the visors, and a set of bolt-ons that give the FA24 the voice it should have had from the factory.
It still does the daily run. It still carries camera gear. It just looks and sounds the way a WRX should.
And for a guy who taught himself everything he knows about making cars look good on screen, it's pretty fitting that his own car finally gets its turn in front of the lens.
Watch the Build
Want to see it come together? Watch the full build on our YouTube channel:
Watch Adrian's Subaru WRX VB build on YouTube
Build Your Own
Every body part on Adrian's car is available through Zero Offset, along with the window visors, Tein coilovers and Invidia exhaust. Want to start smaller? The STI Style grille, front lip or window visors on their own are an easy first step, and you can build the rest of the car around them later. We also offer fitting at our Clayton workshop, and Afterpay and ZipPay are available at checkout.
Shop the full Subaru WRX VB range at Zero Offset
Got questions about the STI Style kit, paint options, or which coilover setup suits your VB? Drop us a message. And if you're sitting in a Camry right now wondering if it's time, you know where to find us.
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