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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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#45 ·

I have a little update for you guys :) Finally made the Rally Armour replicas :) Think they look really good, just need to fasten the rear flaps a bit better



Front



Rear



And a "few" pics...




















Man do I need to get center caps! :lol:
 
#48 ·
Haven't been active at updating but this is what's new

I got a new air filter a while ago. Bought a K&N filter, had a crappy ebay one before.



Tinted the lower half of my tails red.



Got a EZ Lip which I really like and I think it made a huge difference :)





And all the side windows got tinted, had 5% in the rear side windows and 20% in the back before. Now I got 15% in the rear side windows and 35% in the front :)



The wiper arms were starting to look pretty bad and the horn as well so I sand blasted it and painted it black













Got myself a roof spoiler :D





Aaand some pics in poor quality since I don´t know how to post photos from flickr... :)











Also, I almost forgot! I am going to buy PhatBoy coilovers this month! Ordering them the 15th and they will be here in 10-14 days, can't wait! :D
 
#57 ·
Hey thanks man! I think the spoiler is just known as a WRX roof spoiler. Although I could't find any pics on google. And now that I think about it I haven't seen it on any cars for except here in Iceland, and there are quite a few that have it. I think they are meant to be for the bugeye models :)
 
#63 ·
If i may ask a question... When you disconnected the ABS, did you just simply unplug / not wire in the ABS system.. or did you just condemn the entire unit?

Reason I'm asking, is i've been getting an issue with my brakes, the pedal never sits well sometimes when I apply brake and I always get a vibration between the speeds of 80kmph-50kmph, when apply brakes between that range... I've tried installed brand new DBA rotors, servicing the calliper etc and i've gotten the same exact issue. Im actually thinking something inside of the ABS pump is giving me the issue. I've disconnected my ABS, as it was not rewired into my car however the lines are still connected (i.e. pressure would still be going through the pump)

Any input or guidance i'appreciate it a lot.

Thanks
 
#64 ·
Hey man, so what I did was just remove the front ABS sensors. The whole system otherwise is still installed. Did you change the rotors yourself? Just make sure that the surface under the rotors is clean, if it isn't it might cause the vibration. Your problem does sound more brake/wheel related than the ABS. So if the surface under the rotors is clean I would checÄ· if your wheels are bendt or if they need balancing. Hope this helps :)
 
#67 ·
A little update I guess, haven't posted in a while... So funny thing, just soon after my last post when I joked about getting a v6 spoiler I actually accidentally bought a v5 STi replica spoiler :blol: I think I like it a lot better than a v6 one, not to big, just right :) And I also got amber corners which I love! I also got a free hawkeye STi lip that needs to be repaired but since its missing a piece and its made out of polyurathane which I can´t seem to find anywhere I haven't been able to repair it yet :_sure:

Anyway took some pics :)





















 
#72 ·
Yeah well... Haven't updated in a while but about that front mount thing... I guy who was renting a garage with me had a fmic and he was moving so he said he would just give it to me. I was super excited and started to look into front mount setups. Then he moved and didn't leave the cooler and I didn't have his number and ****. So thats kinda not working out as of now... BUT, anyway I still really want to do a fmic setup so I'm still looking into this and planning my setup for next summer. I have plenty of time since the car is stored for the winter.

What I'm going to write next will be sort of a memo for myself and letting you guys know what I plan to do :)

So the setup I want to do is similar to Birdie's setup but not as much "all the way" thing (you should really check his build thread if you haven't already) :) Also since my car is a GC the ECU isn't re-mapable so I would either have to get a standalone or get a WRX harness and ECU... That is the option I am leaning towards. I'm really optimistic about getting some decent power out of my stock engine since I had a chat with a guy that had a full WRX swap in his GF8 and he was running 22psi on a stock WRX engine (not built) and a 20G turbo iirc (I actually have no idea what that means, I have never gotten that whole number and letter thing for turbos... I don´t know anything about them :p) So I think I might go for a 16-18psi tune if I get what I need and go through with this :)

So here is what I need to get and what I need to do:

Front mount intercooler
WRX harness
WRX ECU
WRX Intake manifold
WRX Air flow sensor
WRX Oxygen sensor
WRX camshaft pulley (for the ECU to read correct values)
WRX crankshaft pulley (for the same reasons)

Thats all I can remember for now. There will be some more stuff to do since I want to do a reverse intake manifold setup so there will be some custom work and some things to figure out. And I'm not quite sure how the WRX harness swap will work out but I'm still doing some research on this whole thing :D

Some "up to date" pics :) I am closer to getting the manifold of now but don´t have any pics of it...





Ohh and the mess is because my steering pump was leaking and thats another thing I am working on, taking care off all the maintaince stuff :)

Altough much of my time is going into this turd these days. Getting it painted, currently just got the primer on so next up is sanding the primer down and then paint. And of course getting the whole car back together... Having done this before I know I have plenty of work ahead of me :unamused:





 
#75 ·
Well, last night I got my manifold off. I started to think how to do this. I got kinda nervous about all the vacum hoses and that stuff that had to be re-routed but that was mainly because I wanted to give the manifold a little shave and remove all mountings and stuff that didn´t have to be used. Anyway that shouldn't be a problem. I did turn the manifold around to see how it will fit. I still have to remove the harness and fuel lines off so I can get a better idea of how it will be. Also I'm still trying to figure out how I will route the intercooler piping...

Manifold is off



And reversed



And this is a manifold off a 2.0l non turbo engine that I had laying around at home so I mounted it to get an idea of the clearance for the turbo and such





I made this in paint... I was hoping to be able to route the piping from the turbo on the right side and the piping to the intake on the left side but if that won't be possible then this might be an option..



I'm going to do some work tonight and take everything off the turbo manifold and do some more thinking :)


 
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