You ever try to pull a quick hack on a car's onboard computer just to see if you can make it run smoother?

Nice, just keep the battery disconnected before you poke around. That way you avoid short‑circuits or accidentally sending a live signal to the driver. If you’re looking for specific tweaks, let me know what model you’ve got, and I can point you to the right pinout and a few reliable diagnostics tools.

If you’re going to poked into a ’18 Impreza’s i‑Connect, the only thing you really need is a good OBD‑II port. The 16‑pin connector is standard – pin 6, 9, 14 are ground, 5, 8, 12, 15 are +12 V, and pin 11 and 15 are the CAN high and CAN low signals. Once you’ve got the scanner in there, you’re looking at a CAN‑bus interface. A reliable pick is the OBDLink LX – it’ll read the ECU, pull diagnostics, and even let you flash maps if you’re that deep. If you want more advanced hacking, a J2534 adapter like the vCAN or a cheap K-Line converter will give you full bus access. Just make sure the battery’s disconnected before you start twisting around anything, and keep a multimeter handy to check the grounds. That’s about it.