In anticipation of needing another reliable daily driver car, and having always wanted to build a GF wagon, I've been looking for a clean wagon for a month or so. This past Friday I purchased this 1998 Impreza L wagon to be the basis for the project. I'll use this journal to document my plans and mods as we go, slowly at first. With no further ado...
Current
1998 Impreza L Sport Wagon
Purchased on Friday May 5th, 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona
Brilliant Red L wagon 5MT with no factory options
127,643 miles
Goal: a quick, fun to drive wagon for less money than a good used WRX
$116 in materials. Dynomax mini bullet muffler, Thrush Hush muffler, 3" tubing and flange, and some half inch hangers.
Blackulated for stealth.
And Voila.
Not too bad. Sound is good, still has rumble and a good tone. Volume is MUCH less, maybe just louder than a stock STI. Much better suited for daily driving, although there is still some drone on the highway, probably due to wagon.
Started the first stage of rust proofing today. The idea here is to get ahead the game and seal this baby up before it ever sees it's first salty Michigan road. It still feels sorta bad to plan on diving a pristine chassis through a Michigan winter, however I'm sure with the right measures I can make it last longer than normal. And after all it took my Coupe more than 10 years in the Midwest for rust to rear its ugly head. That, and this IS a daily and that's the point.
Moving on! SEM Cavity wax with a 3 foot 360 degree spray wand. This is designed to be shoved down the rockers and coat all sides as it's pulled out. So, rockers is where started.
Removed all the plastics, taped over the holes, shoved 'er on in and blasted away.
This stuff has got to be the best option for this. The fact that it came running out of the pinch weld highlighted two things: 1.) the rockers are obviously prone to getting salt spray into them as they obviously aren't sealed very well and 2.) this cavity wax will fill in those gaps and congeal, effectively sealing the rocker as planned. Awesome.
And here's how it looks on a test piece...
definitely getting another can and gonna go hog wilds.
Stew's '98 L wagon - V4 STi Swapped + Standalone ECU Daily
This just reminded me I have a full can of that stuff I never used from when I fixed my coupe. I planned on spraying a few spots up front....but didn't even think about the rockers. That's a really good idea.
Just been driving and working on tuning the last few weeks. So far the car feels very strong, but lacking midrange and spool.
This is a second gear pull, so not the best data. Virtual dyno says 241/228 even with some wonky AFR's. Should be able to easily pull that peak torque value up and some power near redline. Definitely going to have to check for boost or exhaust leaks though.
Okay, I got a couple of decent 3rd gear pull in this morning. The first one (yellow) was on an on-ramp so not a perfectly straight shot. Results are close, spool is still later than I think it could be. Can anyone with a EJ20K or VF24 on a 2 Liter comment?
Stock EJ20k w/ VF24 tune has boost come up a bit before what I am seeing in your bottom graph. I'll have to double check, but I am usually seeing .7bar just before 3500RPM if i lug it a bit and 1.4ish (call it 20psi) revving it out.
Doesn't look too awful at all though.
AFR seems a bit lean, but I know the OEM tune shoots for like a 10:1 at WOT. I have no data to back this up on an EJ20k ECU though.
I will say that there is a pretty large spool differential based on ambient temp and a heatsoaked IC. They V4 IC really kind of sucks, so I blame that.
Also no AVCS like in newer cars and an engine really designed to be revved leads for just a TAD of lag when everything is super hot.
I'd say you're not too far off stock at all. I'm also pretty sure the Microsquirt uses BETTER electronics than the OEM ECU has from 1998 haha. Super interesting.
I'd just worry about a 12:1 AFR at full boost a little. Dats a lot of heat!
Powerwise, if your power graphs are correct, you're right on the money for what people have dynoed stock EJ20ks at and it also goes with the theory that the 276hp at the crank they were rated at is pretty much BS haha.
Normally a pre-requisite of mine before I'll tune a car is it HAS to have an EGT measurement to safely do WOT cal's. Since this is my car, and I've done a number of Subaru's before, I felt pretty safe targeting 11.8 - 11.6:1 and going blind on exhaust temp. If she melt's down its my problem to deal with :lol:
It should be fine with the forged pistons, and as long as there isn't any engine ping.. run it!
I'd be interested in going for a ride in your car to compare it to my stock 20k... though I've been thinking of getting one of those ESL daughter boards and having a play at making it go a little faster...
I'd be interested in going for a ride in your car to compare it to my stock 20k... though I've been thinking of getting one of those ESL daughter boards and having a play at making it go a little faster...
I was trying to get to Grattan on Monday, but I don't think I'll have everything set to go, and forgot I made other plans to work on other people's cars this Saturday. MEH.
I'll definitely be around the Kzoo area more and more as time goes on so, that's not too far.
My local Subaru network came through. $50 OBS hood in Brilliant Red. Scoop and vents are badly faded and the hood itself is pretty well scratched up. But for 50 bucks it's all one color!
Extreme rust proofing part two is complete. Here's the arsenal...
I removed the rear bumper to get access to all the surfaces where the bumper meets the body. I wanted to coat these with rust bullet because it's super tough and will prevent scratches into the metal.
Look at that beautiful virgin Impreza goodness.
I sanded the areas I wanted to paint including the lip of the fender and then masked it off.
Rust bullet automotive in the areas you won't see, and rust bullet blackshell in the areas you will.
Next comes the cavity wax. I've already done the rockers, now to seal the rear inner fenders.
Then I did the doors and hatch
Anywhere I could get the 3' nozzle i buried it and blasted away. Any hole that led into the bowls of the chassis...
I even blasted it down into the bumper holes/frame rails
I also swapped over to the Motul 8100 5w-40 after the Rotella T6 formula change. It runs well when warm, but when still cold the motor seems to shake more than with Rotella. It's weird.
But after about 10+ autox events, it's doing well. I'll keep using it and get an oil analysis done on this first test sample.
I'm interested what your test results might show. All the UOA's I've seen for Excess looked really good.
Before, I was on Castrol synth 10-40. It's starting to get pretty cold here, especially for morning start-ups and I had noticed a little more "mechanical clatter" in the cold. Probably the 10-40 was too heavy for these temps. Either way, the engines a bit quieter now on cold start. Hopefully it holds up!
Had my winter tires swapped over to the WRX wheels and installed them over the weekend. I really like the look. Car still needs a drop...
Also picked up a be-winged hatch over the weekend for cheap. I’ll use the mid wing for sure and scavenge the brackets for the top wing. Hopefully I’ll get a JDM sti top wing at some point, but for now I’ll probably use the baby top wing, just cuz.
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