Car has the winter wheel/tires back on it and is parked for the winter. We got a foot of snow in the Detroit area and now it's just salt city.
Did some other inspecting and it looks like I needed a turbo inlet, so I bought a brand new OEM "Spec C" one, which is the same as the JDM V8 inlet. I'll swap it out along with the VF42 I have sometime over the winter. I have a whole list of things on the whiteboard in the background to get done this winter... valve cover gaskets, hub bearings, tooooning, etc..
Update on the deer hit: Picked up a brand new door and fender. I'll have to get the USDM moulding holes filled in, but it was a pretty damn good deal. Not SUPER excited to swap every little trim piece over to the new door, but it is what it is.I'm just happy to have the parts. Should be able to kick off that work the week of Thanksgiving.
Unrelated to Subaru update: I bought an RX-8! This will be the new race car. It can be beat up without caring too much, unlike the Impreza. I think I'll still take this to the track, but the focus will be on the RX-8 for racing for now!
RX-8 are cool, they handle really well. Its just too bad they have such a crappy motor, I have heard of some shitting the bed as early as 60K miles. Nothing an LS swap cant fix tho
I heard you on wanting a car to use at the track that you can thrash on and not care.
Finally got a moment to get down to the body shop.. They wanted $1200 to paint my door and fender, just bare panels. Also gave me the "it won't ever match unless we blend the whole QP" talk, and basically didn't seem very happy to deal with me.
They hired a new guy for the quoting instead of the owner -_-
SoooOOOoooo... I think I am going to shop around on the body work. Not in a rush I guess, and I am willing to pay top dollar, but I don't want to be treated like I'm the moron for suggesting things be done the way I want them to be.
I've only read the log as far back as page 110; it's nothing short of a proper thread. Excited to get through it all. I Love it, all the detailed logs have me fired up to get started on my own.
I've only read the log as far back as page 110; it's nothing short of a proper thread. Excited to get through it all. I Love it, all the detailed logs have me fired up to get started on my own.
Winter sucks, the RX-8 is eating my time but I was finally able to get this done since I've had the parts laying around for a few months. Nothing special or interesting, just fixing the usual leaks that happen.
The engine is a bit crusty inside though. Certainitely proving my point of having higher miles than advertised (duh).
Great to see the updates! Love the choice of track car. There is a super clean FC3S RX7 for sale locally that is black and so minty. I still want it.....
Yeaaaaaah I just need to go and spend the time to get the new parts painted an move on with my life. It's killing me to see it sit in the garage with a big ol' dent. But I also know it's just gonna keep sitting until spring so.. meh.
The RX-8 is an 04. First year, rusty, standard RX-8 problems. Runs flawlessly... gonna start cutting holes in it soon.
HELLO EVERYONE! Or like the two people that still go to this website. It's spring! Which means I had a panic attack last weekend about all the work I had planned to do on the car over winter, but never did because cold, busy, other cars, etc.
First things, off topic update: Started a new job, RX-8 got build up pretty good (shameless plug: #GRIDLIFE Street Mod Time Attack RX-8 Build - RX8Club.com) and I'm finally ready to focus on the Impreza because I want to DRIVE IT AGAIN now that the weather doesn't suck.
Alright, then. Back to things that matter.
So I picked up a lovely S204 VF42 from a good friend. It's in great shape, but claimed to smoke on the dyno. I'll test that out and see if it's actually tanked. Decided if I was going to be swapping the turbo inlet, I may as well put on the best possible OEM upgrade over the VF37. The VF42 features some roller bearings (yay no more thrust bearings!) a titanium shaft, a SLIGHTLY larger cold side, and it's from an S204, so I guess it gets some scene points too.
Okay, diving in. Since I wanted to replace as many sources of possible boost leaks due to age, I decided to just pull the manifold off. Easy enough, done this loads of times before, only issue I ran into was the jabroni (probably the factory) who was in there before had placed the spring clamp for the BOV hose facing towards the block. Pain.
Manifold gaskets looks pretty tanked, inlet had a nice hole in it, and I got a new turbo oil return line.. because obviously I needed a new turbo oil return line.
Turbo came out without hassle as well, and here is it side by side with the VF42 on the right. Good VF37 vs VF42 comparison shot... spoiler they don't look that much different.
One concern I have is with the boost pill. I am reusing the VF37 one, and I have nooooooo idea what the S204 used for it's pill. I figure what I have will be close enough, and I'll dial the WGDC and turbo dynamics in myself anyways, but it's definitely worth a note.
Turbo went back in smoothly. I also decided to replace the up pipe bolts because I had remembered some being damn near close to stripping out last time I yanked the up pipe. SUUUPER glad I did. Just gonna save myself from throwing a wrench across the garage in the future.
Took a little bit of time to clean up the block, and also knife off the intake manifold surfaces because half the damn gasket was on it.
To replace the inlet (I guess I didn't take any pics of it) I used a brand new OEM Spec C inlet (same as standard V8/9). I also pulled off the fuel rails because I was too busy being in the way. Ended up grabbing new injector seals just to make sure that wasn't an issue later (sigh... it still was). Tossed the manifold back on and bolted everything up. I also found a rip in the evap line to the fuel tank, pesky things, so I ordered a new one of those as well.
I wanted to pressure test the fuel lines before getting everything back together, but... because the poor car was neglected all winter, the battery was dead. I threw it on charge all night and came back later.
Because I'm a lazy idiot, I didn't lube the fuel injector o rings to the rail and had to deal with leaky injectors in the morning. Found this lil guy, and luckily I had some spare o rings laying around. Popped in a new one.
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Went to start the car after putting the IC and airbox back in place and it was not a happy camper. I think it was flooded from all the gas leaking into the cylinders during my injector debug. Finally started and it ran an idled smoother than ever! I was letting everything all warm up and was excited to hear the VF42 spool up... and then I heard something leaking..
-_-
Dropped two and a half quarts on the ground from the bottom of the valve cover I just did in January. Damn it.. I'm not sure why the bottom is leaking.. but like.. obviously it was.
I decided to call that a job for another day, and call the physical job of the turbo swap and boost leak decreasing done though, so I'll probably redo the valve cover again later. Grrrr nothing is ever easy, eh?
On a positive note the turbo is SO much more happy to spin just listening to it spin down after shutting the car off, and I can't wait to load this thing up with more boost.
That's all I have for now.. I still need to address the deer damage.. but.. life is busy.
More later. Tuning stuff later, will be sure to make some more posts on that for sure!
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