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Ari's WRB GC8 Turbo Build - Lots of Pics!

239K views 1K replies 78 participants last post by  Ariii 
#1 · (Edited)
Hello there, since I am pretty bored I decided to do a Members Journal.

My name is Ari and I live in Iceland. In 2011 I found this car wrecked outside a garage in a town close to where I live. It had no engine, no gearbox, no exhaust, and every single window, light and body panel was smashed. Right away I wanted to buy it and use the hood, bumper, seats and such to make my Outback nicer.

A few months after I found it I bought it and got it home. When it was home I changed my mind and decided I wanted to rebuild it, thought it was going to be easy, cheap and quick, well in short... I was wrong hah. I finished it two years later, took such a long time because I didn´t want to spend too much money on a turbo engine and tranny so I got a cheap parts car with a 2l N/A and swapped everything over to the GT as we call it here. Then when it was time for bodywork my friend talked me into buying a turbo swap. So I started again... Swapped everything back out again, don´t regret that at all now lol.

I´m not going into much more detail about the process since I already did a build thread on another forum. But I will show you some pictures though :)


When I found it and got it home. Both front wheels, 4pot brake calipers and something more was missing from the car. Might have been stolen since it was there for 2 years or something...



Home sweet home















I´ll skip over to the turbo stuff... Bought an 2l turbo engine, orginally from a Impreza GT and just like the engine orginally in the car. With the engine I got: 5speed GT Turbo gearbox, 3" exhaust, XS Power headers, 4pot brakes, wire harness, ver6 MOMO Steering wheel, ver6 seats (front and rear), orginal RS/GT 5spokes and some more stuff I´m most likely forgetting.









Did some basic maintaince on the engine, timing belt, waterpump, valve cover gaskets, spark plugs, fuel filter changed all oils out for Motul and more.

















Then it was time to swap the harness once again...





Sandblasted and got the wheels painted







Then it was time to take it to a shop where I work were my co-workers helped me with the body work.







All ready for primer and paint









Then the assembly







Painted the lower half of the interior black. And yes, I also painted some parts blue, and I personally like it











Custom made licenceplatelightholderplate (is that even a word?!? :lol:)



Custom gauge pod





Gettin it all together



And on the streets for the first time after rebuild! Oh the joy!





And first time back home after rebuild



New lights arrived





Custom licence plate holder I got made for me





On a local carshow last summer



And here is a roof spoiler I bought way back, it is a bit shorter than the window it self so I wasn´t sure if it would look good enough...







This fall I had a minor accident...



But thats fine, I just got a new fender and it gave me a chance to paint some new stuff, new parts, new look











8000k Xenon installation





Blitz BOV istallation with a custom made mounting plate











New gear knob





Got LED´s for the park lights to match the Xenon







Sparco pedals









And the last thing for now, I started making a trunk lip. Made a thread for that here




Mods

Engine/Drivetrain
XS Power headers
Complete 3" exhaust from turbo
Vibrant Muffler
New radiator
K&N Air filter

Suspension/Wheels
Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.2 17x7"
GT 4pots in front
GT 1pot rear
ABS disconnected
PB Coilovers

Exterior
World Rally Blue
Antenna Delete
Full trunk debadge
Black DEPO´s
Black DEPO turn signals in bumper
Black DEPO turn signals in fender
Fog covers
GT/RS spoiler
WRX Roof spoiler
Spare trunk, Debadged
Ver6 Grille
Blue Logo in Grille
8000k Xenon

Interior
Ver6 Seats
Short Shifter
Sparco pedal covers
Auto Gauge Boost Gauge
Auto Gauge Oil Pressure Gauge
Auto Gauge A/F Gauge
Custom painted interior parts
LED´s in interior lights

Radio
JVC Headunit
Pioneer 400w Speaker in the rear
Stock speaker in front for now
JBL 1200w Subwoofer in the trunk
Toxic 2000w Amplifier

Future plans
Megasquirt and a Remap
Manual Boost Controler - Owned
V6, P1 or C-West lip
17x8" +35 Wheels
STi Taillights


Soooo... Hopefully you enjoy reading this thread and viewing the pic´s. The other thread I made is on a Icelandic car forum. My thread is in Icelandic but it has some more pic´s and details.

Icelandic Members Journal
 

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#143 ·
Got a hose instead of the pipe and it works much better, looks better too imo





And I welded a pipe for the hose on the intake, it's not pretty but it's ok. Also this is like, my second time ever TIG-welding and I'm not an experienced welder lol







 
#146 ·
Yup, will be running a MAP setup. Guessing MC is master cylender brace? Never heard of it before and I will probably just be keeping the filter on the same place it is now. What are the pros of a mc brace?

Anywho, mounted the box, and I love the look of this :)









 
#147 ·
I think the silicone is perfect to help with intake temps..

As for the MCB, our firewalls are very thin, so pushing on the brake pedal actually flexes the firewall outwards, thus countering the force of you pushing on the pedal.

The brace pushes the opposite direction to keep your firewall from flexing outwards.

Also, I am sure you can keep your filter there, the OEM one still fits.

Here is my grimmspeed one.

 
#153 ·
Got it together to figure out how the fuel lines will go and how the hell I'll fit the harness under the manifold..,



Kind of a problem here... If it would be ok then I would run the line down and back to the firewall and that way to the right... a long way but might be the best solution?







And the harness



 
#160 ·
There are a few spots that can be used for the vacuum on the brake booster, and some need to be closed

Here is the one I'll use for the booster



Here is another one



And another



Aaaand another



And this will be closed off on both sides ofcourse



 
#165 ·
Fabbed up a "bracket" for the ignition coil today, along with some other stuff

Getting a little better with the welder, managed to make a decent weld imo :)













And I started wiring the wideband gauge, but my phone decided to not save the pic I took of it -.- I'm getting a Samsung next time...
 
#168 ·
Haha yeah hadn't taken the time to post here! Anywho, pics :)

Installing the aem gauge







Wired the wires for the battery, the power is the one closer to the middle and the ground is to the right



Ground goes under the seat to a cut off switch (ignore the nasty carpet and seat)



Switched to a silver ring around the gauge



Realised Subaru used Takata seat belts



And two random pics because I love the colour in that lightning :)



 
#169 · (Edited)
Sooooooo yeaah... Kinda been busy, and last week was stressful. Last wednesday or so I ordered a plain ticket for a guy to tune my car. He would be arriving at 08:00 on friday morning and had a flight back on saturday at 16:00. On friday at 12:00 he already finished wiring up the MegaSquirt and I hadn't even started assembling the car.... We still managed to get it running 23:00 and he started to tune the startup and idle about 09:30 the morning after. We finished tuning it at about 15:20 and got something to eat as we hadn't eat'n the whole day. He safely got to the airport about twentie minuted before the plane went. Anywho, didn't remember to take many pics with all this going on but I'll post some :)

Dad custimizing the coolant lines for the turbo









Cut off switch installed



Connections for the battery in the engine bay



BOV flange welded






MS2 installation



Assembled for the most part













We tuned it for 18psi but for the first runs we set the preload on the wastegate too much so above 6k rpm we got 20psi instead of the 14.5 we were running then and it hauls ass on 20psi! Unfortunetaly my clutch couldn't hold it and smelled after each run... but, 18psi is fun and I love how it drives! I've been dealing with the idle tho... it runs about 1,5k rpm and 3k when cold, I'm afraid we might have failed when we modified the manifold but for now I'm cheating on it with a restricting throttle body gasket. Anywho, hope you like :)
 
#173 ·
Pretty sure it's not a leak... It might be that that the stock manifold had this small chamber for the idle air prior to entering the manifold it self? Not sure... also I tried a brand new idle air control valve from a friend (probably an ebay one) and it ran just the same... I'm pretty lost on what it might be to be honest :$
 
#174 ·
Got my oil catch can. It's a chinese ebay item, wonder if it's okay for them to stamp the GReddy logo on there...



Also made fastenings for the filter









And I wired an USB cable from the standalone to the glovebox so now I can datalog and tune the car!



If I knew how to that is... I really want to learn tho :)



 
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