Alex's 2004.5 STi! -- 12/15: S204 Performance Damper Ordered! :p

yeah, ported the hell out of that thing

 

Not much to update with I suppose, but thought I should check in. My old vf39 is now back in the car, and the other vf39 is changing hands more than an Amsterdam whore on payday. The hellas are in, they're fun. The invidia is about to go, I just cannot stand the volume anymore. My days of a riceboy are numbered I'm afraid. I will most likely be taking the prodrive back off Andrew's saabaru and using that with the invidia resonator piece. I may throw the invidia on his wagon for giggles, we'll see. I will be calling the tint guy this week as well as getting some new tires for the 5zigs. In case I didnt post it, one of them blew out on meh, so yes, I am rolling around on the stockers once again. Hopefully, I will take care of tires next week. If I ever get a free minute, I'll swing by SOG to pick up some pads. Need a new set for autox/track so either going to pick up hp+ or some xp9s. We'll see. Hmm, what else. I havent forgotten about the sound deading, I just havent had much time as of late with the new house and all.

Pictures of the house are available here if anyone is interested, http://subiezine.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=13

Cheers,

 

I was planning on tuning in the next 2 weeks, however, I feel I should address this issue of wheel bearings and all that jazz. Ive been experiencing some sever knockback after heavy turn-ins, and Im venturing a guess the bearings are starting to go on me.

Now, I am deciding if I want to simply buy new bearings and go with a higher-temp grease or move towards the 05 swap.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

 

04 -> 05 Hub Swap (Info, Ideas & Updates)

Could it finally be time? I am leaning towards yes. Sure, it pushes tuning further back, but I feel like its finally something to address. The bearings are starting to go, and the knockback is quite present after sprited turns. Of course, that leaves me with a few options...

Ive received a handful of questions regarding the swap from a few members and I wanted to address some of those questions right now.

Why go to the 05 hub? Beefier bearings designed for the heat produced by the brembo bbk.
Why sell my current wheels/tires? The 04 STi (as well as all WRX's) run the 5x100 bolt pattern, while the 05+ STis use 5x114. Thus, the old wheels with the 5x100 bolt pattern will not work on the new 05 hubs.
What exactly do you mean when you say swap? Check out the information below from Javid for details.

Updates:
8/14 -- Called Hoppe to discuss the swap and got a great deal of information from him. I will be ordering the kit from him soon.
8/15 -- Buy my old stuff!
8/24 -- Purchased first set of 5x114.3 wheels (thanks Ross!)
8/25 -- New tires! (ty Trey)
8/26 -- Found a connect on 05 rotors
8/29 -- Will be ordering Kit once new wheels arrive!
9/05 -- Wheels will be here tomorrow, ordered the rotors this evening


Anyhoo, on to the information!
Information from Javid on the swap

I now agree 100%. After 3 track events of full fury, the bearings are definately going and the knockback is most fierce.

Some additional information on the differences between 04s and 05s

 

Yeah, parts alone will run me between 700-900, and yes, I know I would lose the brand new wheels

 

I replied in my other thread, check it out.

You'd think so, but there's not too many dealerships willing to give the appropriate trade in value on the 04s.

I spoke with Siegel and basically the quick fix to the issue is replace the hubs with 04 hubs and 04 bearings plus higher temp grease. This is a quick fix and no one really knows how long it will withstand the larger breaks (the whole problem in the first place). For this who dont know, the 04 sti basically uses wrx wheel bearings + the bbk from brembo and to make a long story short, the extra heat generated by this larger setup and the lower temp (wrx grade) grease make for a poor combination once heavy use is employed (ie track, autox).

It seems like around 400-600 for hub and bearing replacement or 1200-1400 for 05 tmr kit (both include install from SOG).

I could sell my 04 wheels for say 800, and basically sell the zig's for what I paid and replace them for 5x114 for no real additional cost.

05 Hub Conversion

 

I have every intention of keeping the JICs (despite everyone's rants, I still love them). They need some slight work, theyre knocking a bit b/c of a loose bolt, I just havent had time to put a gun on them to fix it. I am going to try and pick up the ear for an 05 (or see if I can swap one with SOG).

Regarding the rotors, I am going to see if there are any totaled stis or anything, I just, this is the one part I am completely unsure about. It'll require more sitting on the front porch (work closed today) and thinking it over. As I just said, optimally, I'd love to find a totaled 05 and just get some rotors cheap!

Now, my other big thought is the resale value of some of this stuff. If we replace the rotors, then we have 4 04 rotors which are available for sale, perhaps wrx owners interested in a bbk would be interested? Apparently, the hubs and knuckles are resellable as well; once again, wrx owners looking to move up? The bearings would be trash of course.

I cant really wait that much longer, my only limitation is money at this point (which I have for the project, I just enjoy a nice fat buffer). I will find the time. I need to get something done because this knockback is killing me. If I take any sort of spirited turn, I lose all brake pressure. This isnt exactly the most comforting feeling from time to time let me assure you.

The other bit Javid mentioned in his thread is that when you do the rears you get 1/2" wide track. However, you cant really take advantage of this with the stock 04 linkage, so Ive been trying to figure out which trailing arms to go with to go ahead and get that extra 1/2". Adjustable or no?

Which set of wheels is a wholenother question. Now that I can go wider, I'm wondering what I want to go with. I may try and get another set of 5 zigens, but I think 17x9 for the street is a bit overkill. I may just shoot for another 17x8 or x8.5 wheel again. Anything larger than say a 245 on the street imo is unecessary as well (they also break the bank). I am going to borrow Joes (Jl889) takeoffs for the time being till I figure this out.

Ive been trying to put together what other costs we'd run into. Of course, a new alignment is in order, mainly because we would be fiddling with the linkage so much? There's shop time to do the rear bearings. Potential machine shop time to drill the rotors. The cost of the new bearings themselves of course. Beer required to complete task. New tires for the wheels. Rolling the fender might be required since the 04s have such tight asses compared to the 05s.

I'll think more on this today, I definately do not want to go into the project without considering every aspect of the swap.

More to come,

 

I'll be keeping the next updates within this thread for now one, I'll go ahead and merge the two at this point.

 

Updated post #157 timeline. Not much else to report, may be buying tires off Trey soon as well.

 

Definately dude! You, ped and myself can get together one weekend in the neare future and tackle this

 

Update: New wheels should be here tomorrow. rotors should be here by Friday or monday next week

 

Couple updates

• WRXatlanta.com will receive another article in an upcoming SubieSport!
• Wheels delivered today, pictures to come this weekend
• Rotors ship tomorrow.
• Invidia is going to Chip, prodrive is going back on the sti

All that's left really is buying the hubs, knuckles and bearings. I am quite close to completion!

Cheers

 

Rotors will be here monday; bearings, hubs, knuckles on Tuesday. I'll see if i can knock the rest out of it this week in time for NOPI.

 

To go ahead and address this; basically the kit is the price equivalent of doing 2 bearing jobs. That'd be another 10 hours of track time ea. I figured I would go ahead and nip this in the bud from the get go.

 

Well rotors were dropped off today and depending on whether or not I want to bail on NOPI, I can get it all done this Saturday and solve this pain in the ass once and for all.

 

Alrighty well Sat. fell through. I am shooting for this upcoming Saturday. Let's see, I have been thinking about cheap yet entertaining mods to do with the car and its led me on a conquest to see if I can fit the 05 console into the 04 setup. I figured I might as well throw a few more 05 goodies into the car to complete the 2004.5 setup.

So yeah, cheap yet fun things. I am thinking of ways to do intake and brake ducting that is still aesthetically pleasing. The 06 guys have such a nice fog light housing, whilst we 04-05 owners have the not so nice one.

 

Here are some ideas...

sexy 06 duct


04 stylee (non jdm fogs)


04 jdm stylee



most sexy 04 duct -- chargespeed's cf bezels. somewhere, Ive seen a non-cf version which is much nicer.

 

Yeah, it definately does the trick. Who knows, its a tough call. You could use both fogs for brake ducting as well. Optimally, you'd want to run zero tubing underneath the car, so, its basically either or for that. Ben from IWSTi took an interesting approach and just straight up cut a whole in the fender to feed the intake :keke:

 

Exactly, I was thinking you would need tobasically put several small holes in the piping to drain water out. Let's just say the piping looks like a "J", we'd need to put a hole or two in the bottom of the hook so the incoming water has an appropriate exit.





Hah, here's another one

 

Which one? I have absolutely no information on the headlight one lol.

 

Welp, I will be up at SOG with mr WJM tomorrow, 9/29, working on the car. Its nice to finally know the hub swap is going through to completion This will actually allow me to come up to the morning caravan for petit as well.

Anyways, I'll be there for a good bit of the day if anyone wants to come chillax.