Hermes: Tim's Daily Driver

[Tim.Flat4]

This is the journal of my 1994 Subaru Impreza L. It's my daily driver and although I am modifying it I plan on keeping it simple.

Noteworthy posts

Intro

Decibel testing before and after removing the stock sound deadening

Inspirations

More Inspirations

Mod list

Exterior
- Yakima roof rack with hella-dope stickers on the fairing
- JDM V1 front bumper skin from J-Hot
- JDM front and rear bumper beams
- JDM clear corner light housings
- JDM V1 aluminum hood from J-Hot
- EDM winter grill (seasonal)
- Rally Armor "classic" mudflaps (seasonal)
- WRC side mirrors from Bakemono (awaiting install)
- Chargespeed lip (awaiting install)
- Orciari side skirts and rear spats (awaiting install)

Interior
- Removed sound deadening
- Sparco tri-spoke WRCesque steering wheel from J-Hot
- JDM V4 front and rear seats from J-Hot
- Flocked dash from Broken Motorsports (coming soon)
- Grey interior conversion (awaiting install)

POWER!!! [/Clarkson]
- JDM V4 EJ20K from J-Hot (awaiting install)
- Phase II EJ22 swap
- Single port header from Supers587
- Catless track-pipe from Supers587
- Custom mid-pipe with 10" resonator
- Prodrive oval tip axle-back
- Group-N motor mounts (awaiting install)
- Group-N transmission mounts (awaiting install)

Suspension
- BC Racing BR Series Coilovers
Dampeners set at 14 F and 11 R of 30
Camber -1.6 F and -1.1 R
Toe set to 0 at all four corners

- Front and rear camber plates from Bakemono (awaiting install)
- Whiteline Plus steering rack, control arm, trailing arm and lateral link bushings (awaiting install)

Brakes
- Porterfield R4-S front brake pads
- Brembo blank front rotors
- Porterfield R4-S rear drum shoes
- Goodridge SS braided brake lines

Wheels and Tires
- Black Legacy mesh wheels w/Toyo Proxes 4 205/55s
- 17x8 +45 Eneki RPF1's w/Falken Azenies 225/40
- Black Speedline Pero-Rs from J-Hot (awaiting install)

Since this is being built on a budget obviously I'm not going to buy elaborate performance testing equipment, but I do need numbers for comparison's sake. Lucky for me I have an iPhone! I'm using the following applications for testing purposes.

- Decibel
- Dynolicious

[Tim.Flat4]

How it all began...

My Subaru ownership history started back in 2005 when I purchased a '00 2.5RS which I later sold to a good friend of mine after deciding to enlist in the military. Fast forward to '07 and hop over the pond to Germany, where I bought my second Subaru, a Euro-spec '96 GL wagon A.K.A. The Radio Flyer. TRF was my daily driver right up until I imported a US-spec '05 STi. I ended up selling both a year or so later with impending orders to return state-side, then I started looking online for another Subaru that would be my DD.

Enter Hermes

I found a white '94 AWD L with a manual transmission (lightest AWD Impreza ever made with a curb weight of ~2,500lbs.) on Autotrader at a used car dealership local to my parents. I had a friend (a rotary loving, AE86 driving, mechanic to put it nicely ) look the car over and although he's rough around the edges he checked out. Yes, my Impreza is a he. Let me explain...

I love older cars. Not a particular manufacturer or niche, just as long as they're old. I also form emotional and tangible bonds with cars, as silly as that sounds. I like to think that cars have souls and emotions although I know they don't. I can't get in touch with said inanimate qualities until the car has proven itself, hence the reason my old GL had a nick name and neither my RS nor STi did. Sure, they were great cars and never let me down, but they never did anything amazing or lead me on an adventure. The Radio Flyer took me to my first WRC event and I slept in the back of that wagon for three nights while I soaked up the Impreza's roots. The STi took me around the Nurburgring dozens of times and over 150 mph on an unrestricted section of an Autobahn but, in all honesty, it felt pretty standard. Hermes proved his worth over a two-and-a-half day death march from Northern Nevada to Missouri, a 1,800 mile excursion made ten times more horrible by one of Subaru's nifty weight-saving ideas; no air conditioning. That's right, I spent over 24 hours piloting a beat-up Impreza through the deserts of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado straight in to the humid region of hell balls deep in sweat, literally. To make things even more interesting my mechanic friend didn't approve of the road trip due to reliability concerns after discovering low compression in the stock EJ18 that had already covered 222,000 miles. We proved him wrong and I couldn't be more proud So, marking the event of this car proving its worth as well as my longest solo road trip he received the name Hermes, the Greek God of land travel.

Here are a few random pictures from the trip:

Day 1: 0600, ready to depart my parent's house in Carson City Nevada.


Give me some Ray-Bans and good jams then I'm all settled for the long haul...


Nevada's seemingly endless desert.


Utah!


Somewhere in Utah, post nap and first major stop.


Then I didn't care to stop in Colorado or Kansas because it was so damn hot. No matter, we made it and that's all that matters. Later I will go on to make this same trip multiple times.

[Tim.Flat4]

Interior

Only a few of you really know me, so I’m going to fill the rest of you in on something. I’m incredibly indecisive when it comes to cars. I have a medulla badidea but acting upon it takes great strength on my part. As some of you may know I recently sold my project Spec E30 which leaves me with Hermes as my one and only car. Watching the E30 fade off in to the distance on the back of some guy’s trailer brought this crystallizing moment where I decided I’m going to act on behalf of my non conventional judgment and try out some of these ideas I had when I first bought Hermes. First up, the Colin Chapman treatment, or at least phase one of it.

For those of you not in the know, Colin Chapman was the founder of Lotus, one of, if not the coolest car manufacturers to date. His philosophy was simple and perfectly summed up in this timeless quote of his, “Simplify and add lightness.” Sure he also said, “Any car which holds together for a whole race is too heavy.” But his team also went on to win the Indianapolis 500, seven Formula One constructers’ titles and six drivers’ championships, all in a matter of 16 years. If that’s not impressive, what I’m attempting here won’t woo you one bit.

As I mentioned in the intro to my member’s journal, Hermes weighed 2,500 lbs from the factory, which is the lightest AWD Impreza to date. He has power nothing, no fancy traction control, no 27 speaker sound system, he’s a true featherweight. (He’s not a bantamweight because the early FWD models were lighter, and technically Imprezas, but we all know better…) So, we’re already off to a good start in the weight department. As you can see, I’ve already installed an early JDM version bumper skin, and as most of you know, the USDM bumper beam cannot be used with this skin. For those of you that don’t know, that USDM bumper beam is really heavy and with good reason. I did away with it knowing well and good the risk I was taking. I wish I would have weighed it before junking it, but there are numbers floating around the forums of the USDM bumper beam weighing around 40 lbs, whereas its’ JDM counterpart weighs a scant 7 lbs.

Since this is my daily driver and will continue to be a street car I have to make it tolerable to drive. However, I needed to drop a significant amount of weight. A combination of a weight loss, a gross interior, and common forum hear-say led me to a no-cost weight reduction exercise; stripping the interior. I drove a half stripped E30 BMW for a while and it really wasn’t that bad, especially when I had music to drown out the increase in road noise, so I knew what I was getting myself in to. Since I started in the afternoon and I wasn’t literally ripping the interior out I only go about ¾ of the interior removed. Basically, from the front seats to the rear bumper is now stripped. For comparison’s sake I took decibel readings before and after at both idle and 60 mph on a rough road. The results may surprise you...

I used an iPhone application called Decibel for a sound measuring tool. The iPhone's mic maxes out at 105 dB but I'm concerned with the average, which is the center number that appears lighter than the others.

Full interior at idle: 61 dB


Full interior at 60 mph: 85 dB


3/4 stripped interior at idle: 61 dB


3/4 stripped interior at 60 mph: 87 dB (yes, I have a soft CEL, I know...)


For visual reference, the interior looks like this...




After testing I went to weigh my car again with a half tank of gas (about 42 lbs.) and Hermes now weighs 2,530 lbs wet. *30 DEC 08

Today (08 MAR 09) I've finished stripping the interior sans dash. All of the interior sound deadening is gone aside from the transmission tunnel, the carpet is gone, the trunk sound deadening is gone, and if the rain lets up I'll drop some more weight by removing my stock steering wheel and airbag which will be replaced with a Sparco WRC inspired three spoke wheel (pictured below). I don't have any pictures of the interior due to the rain like I said before, but I do have some upgrade pictures.

Here's the new steering wheel that I plan on refurbishing.


I purchased front and rear Version 4 seats too.


The Flock Master is working on dash for me too. As soon as it gets here I'll swap it in, put the steering wheel on, remove the passenger and rear seats and hit the weigh station again.

[Tim.Flat4]

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[Tim.Flat4]

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[2.5RSMatt]

Herpes?

Can't wait.

[GC8.Love]

Ew, Matt. Start taking your Valtrex in advance.

I think I know what this is about, though.

You finally get to have fun with it, Tim?

[TheReason]

Is this for the E30 or the Subaru?

[Tim.Flat4]

Originally Posted by 2.5RSMatt

Herpes?

Can't wait.

You would...

Originally Posted by GC8.Love

You finally get to have fun with it, Tim?

Yep, and it's been quite an adventure so far. (no pun intended)

Originally Posted by Carisma

Is this for the E30 or the Subaru?

The Subaru, drr! The E30 is floating across the Atlantic, I hope...

[2.5rsleeper]

looking forward to pics. Subaru's with character kick ass!