Part One i have owned my subaru for some time now and realized i never made a journal for it so here it is (very late mind you). my first (and only for now) subaru. it started out as a slightly modded 2.5rs impreza coupe. i bought it in the spring of 2004. i actually found it on ebay of all places after searching for one for around 2 years (i am very picky). it was located in syracuse, new york. after not winning the bid i received an email from the owner asking if i was still interested. seemed the ebay winner had not come up with the funds or had backed out after winning. i said yes and immediately bought plane tickets for myself and a good friend. we flew out to syracuse and met the owner at the airport....well met the suby first. the owner caught me staring at it and came over. we chatted for a sec and hoped into the car. i actually opted to ride in the back so i could see how well a 6ft 2 person could fit. pretty comfy. the three of us headed over to the owner's, eric, house. looked over his photo montage of the car from the day he bought it brand new from the local dealership. good to see he loved the car as much i would. had all the maintenance papers, and even receipts for the parts and labor on the car. money, title and keys exchanged hands and i was now the owner of a sweet little suby. my friend and i loaded up my now suby and headed off to get a bite. came across a fairly large dinosaur with 'BBQ' written on it and a swarm of harleys parked around it and said thats the place. pretty good dinosaur bbq (the portions were massive). then we set out for the drive from syracuse, ny back to atlanta, ga. great trip......but driving through PN was terrible. there were 3 inch gaps between each concrete slab of the highway for over 30 miles. made my hands numb from the bouncing and shaking. got to 'test it out' through a few off highway mountain roads and eventually made our way home. figured i would share that boring info since most of car buying is done in state and there is never a boring story that goes along with it. if you read it all thanks. so on with the pics: as purchased in 2004. syms sideskirts and rear bumper. greddy front (snow plow) lip. tien flex with edfc. brullen equal length headers and exhaust. STi front strut brace. 22b non-adjustable replica wing. JDM tails. clean tint and a decent stereo. (actual ebay listing pic) by september of 04 the greddy lip met it's match by way of a rain grate and a steeply inclined parking lot entrance. got to see the corner of the lip fly over the hood and nearly hit a pedestrian. i think they chuckled when they saw me picking it up. so i replaced it with the much cleaner Ver6 front lip. pic was taken at a photostudio before it was shut down. a friend worked there and got a bunch of us in for pics. (waiting my turn) christmas was good to the suby that year. mesh fog covers, eyelids, kartboy short shifter and bushings, STi piston shift knob and a JDM license plate which i still have but no it is hung on the garage wall. then barely into 2005 i broke 2nd and 3rd gear on my rs mission......was out with some friends running wild on the streets on new years eve. crested a hill, lifted off the throttle and immediately went into a nice little awd slide. luckily we were the only ones on that particular street and i knew how to countersteer.....but forgot awd does not like throttle when sliding all four tires. with the exception of the few gears everything and everyone was fine thankfully. so i started looking for a replacement. figured if i need to replace it anyway might as well get something stronger this time around. figured the STi Ver6 RA mission would do the trick. started calling around in hopes of finding one and instead ended up with an entire Ver6 STi Type RA in two pieces thanks to Gr8wheels in arizona. and so the full conversion began. everything but the glass and RHD were swapped over to my lil coupe that couldn't giving it hopes and dreams of faster times on mountain roads and teh joy of hearing a turbo go psssshhhhhhhhhh upon throttle lift. luckily the donor car came with some goodies. cusco zero-2Rs, fujitsubo manifold, and a monster sports flywheel. out with the old in with the new november 2005. added some 17x7+44 OZ superleggeras with 225/45 rt-615s, had the aluminum hood painted satin black, slapped on some piggies, carefully placed the GC WRX flags and trunk decal, picked up some V6 STi fog covers, and fabbed my own swing mount for the JDM plate. and then went to nopi
Part Two christmas of 05 brought more love to the suby in the form of stock skirts, PowerFC, HKS turbo timer, and an HKS EVC IV, and got it tuned by doug at TopSpeed. yay for being able to run 93 octane without worries. spring 2006 i finally got around to having my JDM rear bumper and V6 wing/trunk painted, and added the JDM rear spats and FHI rainguards completing the Jspec stock style. also went back to amber bumper lights and sidemarkers, and added the yellow rockblocker film to the fogs. then i bought a drifter (1991 240sx with sr20det) and the suby got put on the backburner until may of 2007 when i hit up Road Atlanta for my first HPDE........and wouldnt know it....the suby was a bit jealous and frustrated with me and decided to blow a few crankshaft bearings on the second day. some pics of the fun before the not so fun. aside from the 'incident' the gc drove very well. handled the corners exactly the way i wanted (well the suspension was a bit too stiff and kinda scary if i ran over the rumble strip in turn 01) and kept up with audi rs4s and passed a couple of e46 M3s. all in all it was a great weekend. even converted my instructor into a suby nut, he was a devout porsche lover until enjoying the fun of subaru awd. pics of the aftermath. the gc was then taken to TopSpeed for a full engine rebuild. this time with a Ver8 STi crankshaft, ACL bearings, JE pistons, and Manley rods. the block was cleaned, the heads were ported, received a 3angle valve job and heat treatment, the intake mani was finally re-coated STi red of course, and some oiling issues were taken care of. once the break in was over i had the car re-tuned by Doug at TopSpeed, of course. then decided to go with a FMIC, ProcessWest oil cooler, ZeroSports thermo, Cusco radiator panel, ARC radiator, Defi Link boost/oil temp/oil pressure gauges, and a Prodrive/Sparco steering wheel. then in fall of this year i finally replaced the stock IHI VF28 turbo in lieu of an AMS GT30R rotated mount kit and got it re-tuned, ofcourse, by Doug at TopSpeed. 353awhp/300tq at 21psi. also added some 17x8.5+30 Work XD9s with 235/45 falkens. still need to take pics of the AMS rotated turbo kit installed. hope you enjoyed my lil journal entry. more to follow.
Awesome, I love the panda look. That is kind of how I want my car to look except with a painted "L" hood. What kind of power were you making with the vf28?
thanks for the comments. once i get the radiator fans replaced (after switching to the gruppe-s v2 manifold the wires got melted, the fujitsubo left more space between it and the radiator) i will be driving it more often and cant wait to get a photoshoot done. have some friends that are really good with cameras just itchin to shoot it. also front windscreen needs replacing. plus a couple of other minor things. then i dont plan on messing around with it, just enjoy driving it. somewhere around 280whp at 18psi. my stock turbo had seen better days before it came to rest in my engine bay so i never really pushed it too much.
thanks very much for the comments guys. it has been great working with some of you on my suby; decker, trey, jason, and doug. without you guys the suby would not be where it is today.....and valerie for being a great conversationalist future plans: -get my new fans installed and run the wiring far from the exhaust manifold so no more melted wires. -switch over to the "L" hard brake lines -run a shorter suction pipe so the air filter isnt sitting 3 inches off the ground -replace my cracked windscreen -work on slightly softening the suspension -install my STi braided brake lines -get a custom sub box fitted into the trunk and wire in my sub amp -drive the crap out of it at more HPDEs
Very nice build! Gr8wheels hooked up me a few years ago as well, those guys were the shit. How bad is the lag on the 30R compared to the VF28 and does it pull hard to 8K?
Awesome! No disrespect but I was surprised to see you aren't making more power with a rotated 35r and a built engine. I can't wait to see this car in person.
He's on a 30R and with the high revving 2.0s with big turbos, its not as much about big power but a bigger powerband than most 2.5s.
oddly enough not much difference at all...even with the fmic. guessing its due to the built block, ported heads, and the low boost i run. kicks in around 3300rpms and pulls all the way to like 7800 before power starts to drop off (according to the dyno sheet, but not my butt dyno).*****forgot to add that the boost is acting up right now. not sure if its due to a bad boost solenoid, vacuum hose, or loose wastegate. sometimes it comes right on and pulls smoothly all the way to 7800, then other times as soon as i hit 4k the car studders and i have to left off the throttle and upshift. at other times the boost spikes to 22psi almost instantly (before hitting 4k). so i have been running it off a manual boost controller, but it still spikes and does everything else it did with the electronic boost controller. so confused. need to get in there and pull all the hoses and check the routing, make sure there arent any "T"s and then run new vacuum hose and a new electronic boost controller. prolly wither the apexi avcr or a greddy profec b (have that in my sr'd 240 and have not a single issue with it and i run the crap out of the 20g on my sr20 at drift events). wish gr8wheels didnt end up closing shop. they rocked!
oops. thanks for the correction. fixed initial posts. AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS AMS i think i got it stuck in my head now....
I liked it better with the white hood. I only really see satin black hoods looking good on old school muscle cars, not japanese econoboxes
understandable.....sometimes i kinda miss the white hood (still have it, but its in storage and weighs twice as much as the JDM aluminum hood). went with satin black because it was a ton easier (and cheaper) to get it satin black than to try and have the custom championship white with blue pearl matched..especially on something so prominent as the hood. if you really look at my rear bumper, trunklid, and spoiler in comparison to the rest of the paint you can see its not quite a perfect match.....one day i will repaint it, prolly go with the same white and blue pearl but have the whole car done so it all looks proper even up close (hood included).
LOVE IT...if you ever sell it I will buy! I am going to have to agree with brian I liked the original all white look as you got it but to each their own I like it as it sits too.
and so it's been 2yrs since last post and oddly enough (and sadly too) i am considering selling the GC. i just dont drive it anymore and hate seeing it all lonely. havent really done much to it. added some prodrive harnesses and the boost now runs solely off the wastegate. drives great and still pulls like a sonuva-b. if somebody does buy it it will come with a bunch of spare parts and parts i never got around to installing. ver8 intercooler spray trunk tank. usdm hood. spare trunklid. syms replica rear bumper. and more parts i cant think of right now. has two sets of tires. advan ad08s for track and fk452s for daily duty. this car has not been obdII since the ver5 ra sti conversion and has no cats so it will not pass emissions in fulton county as is(dont know other counties emissions rules). since i know people are going to ask for a price, in a perfect world i would like 25k. if you have to ask "whats the lowest you will go?" then this isnt the car for you.
and 2 yrs later I am officially posting it up for sale. picked up a new boost controller which fixed the boost creep/spike issues from the old controller (bad solenoid). car is now completely non-ABS. big hunk of ABS metal removed and conversion lines made. boost is currently set at 14psi and the car made 293whp at TopSpeed. will be going back for a high boost tune soon. turning it back up to 21psi and Doug is sure it will cross over 400whp.