The pictures I have above was the first picture I took of the car. I was able to drive home but I had to keep putting the car in neutral and rev it up every time I got to a stop light or stop sign to keep it from dying on me.
So after I washed the car I took and parked it into the garage and kept it in storage for about 1 1/2 years until I graduated from trade school. I really started trying to figure out what was wrong with it. I join bbs and I have learned alot from what other people have posted and I soon figured out what my check engine light was all about I found corrosion issues in both my cam, knock sensor and crank wiring and when the car warmed up things went hectic which was causing my drivablity issues. So after I took it for my first long road test the car ended up over heating on me I was glad i have a friend with a big F350 to pull me back home
So I called my friends Dad and asked him how many times it over heated on him and get previous history on the car well this is what caused it. The thermostat on the Left was an aftermarket thermostat offered at Napa Autoparts. The one on the right is the oem thermostat that got from the dealer. The flow thru the after market is about half of the original which was causing the over heat issue.
Since the car had about 123k on the original engine and chassie I decided that it was time for a new Timing belt,tensioner and sti water pump plus supporting gaskets. I ended up pulling the heads on the car and putting new head gaskets since the car over heated 3 times plus i had the heads checked out buy the local Machine shop and had then do a 4 angle valve job. I did replace a failed HLA since it was ticking before plus painted the valve covers and replaced the valve cover gaskets.
Soon after I got the car running great I decided to do a few cosmetic items to the car. The first thing I added was some aftermarket fog lights
After doing a little research on this forum I found some people have done the 06-07 sti lip skirt add on to the bottom of the Bumper. I thought it added a nice look to the front of the car. The blue fender was a long story but it was a replacement for my damaged one. Subaru v.s Ford 350 equals poor fender
After getting all the little corks worked out and after winter I decided what a great time to do a td04 swap so I talked to a few people on Nasioc and found parts for the swap for cheap plus a few parts online to do the swap
Here is a picture of me doing some mock up work with the intercooler to the turbo I ended up rotating the coolant resivior 90 degrease and adding in 90 degree elbows to remove the strain on the coolant lines. It actually turned out really well
I was talking to my friend out in Michigan and his boss owned a 08 sti hatch that he had the full 3 inch catless exhaust the big part for me was the invidia divorced wastegate catless down pipe. He ended up getting the exhaust for free since his boss was converting his sti back to stock to see it so I bought the downpipe off him for 50 buck did a little research and ended up having to take a cute out about 6 inches from the down pipe at the rear and added a o2 bung up at the top of the downpipe. Worked out great
I saw that some one else on the forum did this and it worked out great. I ordered up a 90 degree silicone elbow and added in a small piece of 2.25 exhaust to be able to connect my factory intake
After getting every thing all mocked I needed a way to plumb up the bov this is the adapter plate that was made for me. It was just an idea that I had then it turned into a little project for my dad and his friend they took measurements and created the adapter plate on the computer. My dad then took the computer creation and took it to his work modified/fine tuned it and created a program and ran it on his works lazer cutter. He ended up cutting put 3 different adapter plates with difference thicknesses. I ended up using the 16 gauge stainless steel plate and was able to take a 90 degree brass fitting and run it thru the adapter plate to create what I needed to continue using the factory bov on the 06 tmic
Adapter plate
Bottom of the wrx bov
The adapter plate over the top of the bov
The adapter plate with the 90 Degree brass fitting
Adapter plate all pumped up
During the install of the tdo4 and the intercooler I went online and found a hood scoop of the 04 wrx that I painted to match the car and installed it
Here is the picture of the scoop before I painted it. The scoop as you could see was a light silver idk the paint color for the wrx
At the time that I took and painted the hood scoop I removed the spoiler and redid that as well since it had the clear coat flacking off as you can see I had the scoop and spoiler primed and ready for paint
This was my first attempt at painting with metallic paint which shows if you can see that I forgot to come back and set the metallic once I was done with my first spray and the metallic ended up creating lines or what looks like tiger strips so I had to take and resand the scoop reprime and respray the scoop
2nd gen jdm legacy gt fog light modification to work
The most recent cosmetic Items that Ive done was added in Projector fogs with 3000k 35w hid light plus added on led duel function lights were the turn signals were mounted into the bumper. In the one picture you can see the led strips lit up around the housing of the projector fog. I also did take a wire the other side of the duel function strips into the turn signals and when the turn signal is turned on the lights actually flash amber/yellow for with the pattern of the turn signals. I did take and move the turn signals up to the park light and used the park light wiring to power up both the led strips and also for the hids which is switch with a relay separate from the led strips plus I upgraded the bumps from a little 83 bump to a 1151Y if I remember right to slow down the beam flash since the small 83 bulb didn't have enough resistance so it flashed really flash like a bulb was burnt out so the bigger bulb added the resistance and slowed down the pattern after checking out the patter of the new location I saw what people mentioned by wrong beam pattern so I took and covered the park lights with a few coats of night shade.
Took and decide to paint the Subaru logo in black on the axle cap on the wheel cap
So here is the final product for now. I have been talking to coworker about doing some rust repair soon or after winter
Also did take a do the amber plate removal to the rear tail lights that Is mentioned in a few cheap mod post on this forum
So an update last week I had the chance to go to my old shop and barrow there spring compressor and was able to take and change all 4 of my struts out. I was planning on doing 04 sti spring swap but after doing a little thinking I decided not to just for now. I did upgrade to aftermarket kyb gr2 struts and wow what a difference it made. It was like a night and day difference I dont think that my old struts were really worn out but I noticed that my ride got a little bit more stiff which was what I wanted but not over the top. Also my right high increased about a 1/4 inch due to the new struts. I have been checking the car out on some of the corners around my house like clover leafs and 90 degree uphill and turns and wow I notice that the car is staying more on track. It doen't understeer as much anymore since I swapped and the seems to stay planted alot better. Its amazing how something so simple can change the car so much. One of the main issues that I had before I did the swap was a really loud squeaking noise coming from the rear right strut
After I removed the rear right strut I did a little better looking and found that the strut mount at the top actually was failing which was causing the annoying noise from the rear so after install the new strut and new strut mount the squeak is no more and now allows me to keep my sanity while driving down the road lol
I thought that the pervious owner never did anything to the car but after doing a little inspection and when I did my swap I found that the car had aftermarket monroe struts in it
Struts all ready to go get installed into the car and new strut installed with the new strut mount at the top for the front
Well while I was doing the front struts I guess I hyperextended the cv axle on the drivers side and caused the shaft to pull out of the outer joint after removing the axle and trying to reinstalling the axle into the joint again for 20 minutes I was like screw this and got a new axle ordered up and delivered to the shop and got the new axle installed in no time. While when I was installing the new struts the bracket that supports the abs sensor wiring twisted on me and now I have an abs light on I still need to double check but I'm sure its the left sensor that is messed up
