The STi Wagon- taking care of business

My story starts about this time 2 summers ago. I needed a small city car since my F-150 from high school was too big for daily driving in Atlanta. My mom ended up actually picking out the car since it was a cute little wagon that would be super functional for a college kid. My dad test drove it and talked to the salesman for a good length about the car. Salesman told him about "how the car was owned by a catholic priest" we all thought this was BS at first . . .

It was dark when I first saw it so I didnt get a good look at it. I knew it had an exhaust and a larger intercooler (there's no way that the stocker says Air Power Systems across the top of it). A couple of days later after driving the car I started looking around the engine bay and noticed that the turbo was an IHI unit and had a little eureka moment after remembering the stock turbo was a Mitsu unit.



I decided to get on Nasioc and see if I could track down the previous owner. It worked out pretty well, the salesman wasn't bullshitting, he really was a Catholic priest out in Carollton, GA with a passion for muscle cars and drag racing. We worked out a time to meet up and go over the history of the car, it was good for me to learn all about it and he was enthused that I knew what I had and would take great car of it. He traded my car in on a brand new GTO (last I heard he was installing a 410ci built block and a 200hp shot of nitrous) again in an automatic tranny.



Official Mod list at this point:
APS 70mm intake
APS TMIC
Vishnu UP
APS turboback
IHI VF29 turbo
Dastek Unichip tuned by Cobb Tuning
Vishnu fuel rails, STI injectors, Walbro FP
Protorque 4100rev High Stall torque converter (back in the days rockin the 4EAT)

The car ran really well, he ran it to a quickest time of 13.2@105mph. About 7 months after I got the car the 4EAT blew up. I always wanted a manual in this car so I began to weigh the options of a build 4EAT or a 5spd swap . . .

I ended up getting a 98 STI transmission (ver5 non-RA) and getting Bob up at SoG to swap it all in. Subaru of America said that the 4EAT to 5MT swap could not be done but I wasnt convinced, I scoured a lot of junkyards for months trying to find parts to make the swap cheaper. A million months later I got my car back and nabbed a used Ecutek licensed ECU and had Scott Siegel tune it.

A couple months later the RE92s started getting pretty bald so I picked up a set of Prodrive P7 wheels wrapped in Bridgestone S03s from Veck on here.


^The other car is AWD_Tigers^

Since then I've gotten an STI scoop and painted the inside of the headlights gunmetal to match the wheels. I'm about to pull the roof rails off and trade them away in the mail to a 9-2x owner.

The next performance mod is going to be springs then struts, then some car audio. I think I'll be done with her after that, or at least until I graduate and get some serious $$$s and get the EJ207 swap I've always wanted.

 

13.2 with the auto? If so, very nice. +1 for wagons

 

Nice writeup. I did the wagon roof rack delete. Fairly easy and very seksi.

 

:jerk: very nice! you scored big with all the extra parts when buying that car!

 

and holy water sprayer for the big IC

 

Every thread with dancing yoda makes my browser cry. 556KB ftl.

 

Espelir GT springs came in today, will be installed as soon as I get the car straightened out from the shop. Going to be paired with some 04 STi struts, I'll let you know how the install goes with putting sedan struts on a wagon.

 

Definitely get some pictures of it afterwards. I'm curious about the stance, but more so just about the appearance of your car in general. I haven't really seen it that closely since the the roof rail deletes and the painted headlights.

 

Headlights are brand new now after my little wreck, I need to re-bake them.

 

Looks like STi side skirts and blacked out mirrors are on the horizon. Spec C wagon bishes! This is going to be quite the transformation once I get the car back.

 

is the car is the shop again?

 

Yes. Long story short, Progressive's reccommended shop did a half-assed repair job so its at another body shop getting fixed properly. Hopefully it will be done within the week.

 

watch your camber bobby, especially on the rears. you're putting some 1cm longer ears on the struts so make sure to get it aligned asap. Also, i'll let you know about installing the helixes, maybe we can hit up your springs the same day now that alex's plates are in.

 

Sounds like a plan. I at least need to assemble the springs and struts. Just picked up the new mirrors today, hoping that they'll plug up to the 02 harnesses, if not I'll splice them up.

Should look similar to this except I'll have painted headlights, STI scoop, and fogs.

 

Back to stock. . . not for long :evil::evil:

 

Spot the three differences in this pic and the last one.

 

lookin good bobby!

 

looks good man

 

I like the foglight covers. I'll have to put those on my list. right after the roof rail delete.

Whats the third difference?

nevermind. rearviews...

 

I just went with the ebay knockoffs, they didnt fit quite right but after some playing around i got them to squeeze in there but for $35 I cant complain. I've got some other stuff in the works for the next couple of weeks.

 

i got my fog covers from mpjperformance back when they were first getting up and all the painted knockoff stuff was redicu-cheap ($60) . but if you want to paint them we can do it, if i can match srp in a rattle can i know we can get that white

 

Someday but only if I can find them on super sale like before christmas time. Joel, thanks for the offer but I like the black look for now.

 

$35?? Maybe I should bump that up to before the roof rail delete! Thats a bargain!

 

Yeah they were an impulse buy. The tabs were just a little bit too thick to snap onto the bumper but a little sanding got them small enough. They also dont bolt into any bracket but they snap pretty hard into the bumper, I dont think they'll fall off but somebody could easily pry them off if they wanted to steal them.

 

So where exactly do you live? :naughty:

 

Pics courtesy of Imbosile on IA.

 

Lookin Good

 

Espelir GT springs, Noltec camber plates, and STi struts are on now. Gotta get an alignment ASAP. Drop isnt as much as I was expecting but everything should settle over the next couple days.

 

you need an STi hood scoop soon :dirty:

 

Oh yeah put that one on a couple weeks ago. Rocking some hood pins to hold it on too:naughty:, jk I just had to drill some holes to attach it. 2 exposed boltheads on either side of the scoop but its not too noticeable.

 

^^ +1... lets see some pics

and what kind of allignment specs are you looking to get??

 

My digital cam sucks but here are some pics.



Front wheel before:


Front wheel after:


Looks like a solid inch lower all around, front sits barely higher than the back but otherwise its dead level. Passenger side front seems to sit a little higher than the driver's side but I'm sure it'll all settle out. I'm expecting the car to drop another 1/4" or so as everything settles.

Maxing the caster out on the Noltecs made a noticeable difference in the overall wheelbase. You can see how much farther it pushed the wheel forwards. I'd guess ~1/2" more wheelbase.

 

Looks real good!
Yeah, I was expecting more even fender gap when I put in my h-techs, but the front still has a slightly larger gap. Its really not that noticeable though.

Where did you get your JDM hood scoop?

 

CF LIP ... ...NOW BOBBY NOW!!!!

 

seriously, get more black on that thing, hood scoop (hell maybe the whole hood and leave the scoop white) hatch , front lip

 

Long story short, there used to be another mod on here named Mike. Mike was trying to sneak into Milo's neighborhood and the gate smashed the scoop, it made a bunch of paint flake off so he took it off the car. Then he traded in his car and gave me the scoop for free, it was black but I had it repainted white. Subydude has them, Subarugenuineparts.com, etc most of the major vendors sell them.

 

Wagon guys, sedan struts dont make for happy alignments. With Noltecs and stock camber bolts up front I only made -1 degree of camber, with Ingalls bolts in the rear struts I made -.5 degrees.

I'm planning on resuming my old habit of searching junkyards for wrecked 02+ WRX sedans to pull the following parts from: front control arms, front sway bar, front swaybar endlinks, rear lateral links, rear axles, front axles. If I can find those parts for a broke-college-kid price then I'll make my own widetrack wagon, should gain around 20mm of track and be able to get a kickass alignment. I WILL be rolling my fenders before doing this as I'm fairly certain I will rub if I push the wheels out 10mm per side.

On a side note, just installed some super ricey blue lugnuts; they look kickass on gunmetal wheels.

 

Same route I'm goin bobby except I'm using sti v8 control arms. Hope you find what you need. If I see any I'll gladly point you that way