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My build thread.. Lots of pics that work (Not Photobucket!)

68K views 449 replies 36 participants last post by  Ricco 
#1 · (Edited)
I've had my 2.5 RS a couple of months now and I've decided to start a build thread, hoping it's going to help me get this thing over the finish line.

This RS is my 4th Subaru


My first was a Catalunya special edition, the car I wish I still had, hence the mid-life crisis build :D


2nd was an 09 STI Hatch


3rd is my current DD, a 2016 BRZ


Picked up the RS for $2600 which I don't think was too bad, it's a sedan which I wanted as I prefer it over the coupe and the body is completely rust free. It has been in Houston for 99% of its life and is as solid as they come.

Car did have a few problems from when I picked it up.. It has a ton of dings in the body and has some parking lot fender bender damage to the hood and core support. The sunroof leaked and I also found water in the rear fender wells.

I've done a few things up to now and ordered a bunch of parts. First thing was to replace the sunroof frame as it was rusted out.. I assume the drain tubes were blocked at some point and allowed water to sit in the frame and rust it out.

I also had to have the boxer rumble so ordered some cheap ass DNA headers from Amazon - $100 and there are worth the price.


The problem however was the stock exhaust was too quiet so I still couldn't hear it.


I had a Blitz NUR Spec R on my Catalunya so I wanted one of those again but I was struggling to find one in GC fitment so I ordered a brand new GD one and adapted it to fit the GC



Then they made an adapter to mate directly to the stock NA cat pipe

It looks pretty ghetto but it is welded on the inside so it works fine.
End result


I'm still not entirely happy with it as the GD fitment makes it come straight out the back, perpendicular to the bumper whereas the GC ones come out at an angle which I prefer.. So if anyone has a GC fitment Blitz for sale, let me know.
 

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#182 ·
Nice bits! Since it seems like you're going for Chassis Stiffness, have you looked at any of the Ultra Racing stuff. I have a few products from them and they all seem to be just as good of quality as the Cusco and Beatrush stuff I have. The large front/rear braces took a lot of the chassis flex out of my car. I used to be able to set the car on 4 equal height jackstands in my uneven garage and the car would flex to them. Once I installed the braces I had to use boards to get the car to sit on all four.

 
#183 ·
I have those braces from Cusco too. I have seen some of those white braces on ebay.. I was quite interested in the one that mounts ahead of the front lower control arms but I think it is quite expensive and probably wouldn't do much more than just the Cusco H brace.



We had a fire at the house back in October so I currently dont have access to any of my tools or even access to my garage.. Still looking forward to getting my car back from the bodyshop though.
 
#186 ·
Ahh, should of guessed you had the Cusco units. I'm too cheap for them. As far as the front of the LCAs I went with the Beatrush Lower arm bar. Got it for significantly cheaper than anywhere else by ordering it directly from Japan. It's a nice unit. Install was a real pain. Wish I had done it when I initially swapped all the JDM front end parts in.

 
#191 ·
Nice load! Where's you get the Ohlins from?
The Ohlins came from Japan. Its the only place where Ohlins still sell Coilovers for anything pre-GR Chassis - I just wish they were anodized gold like they are supposed to be. I ordered from RHDJapan.

I just got myself a brand new center console as well.
Gotta get this stuff while we still can.
Yeah, thats what I have been thinking too.. I actually ordered more parts than showed up but after you place the order, they reply saying that some parts are unavailable... It pisses me off when you order both side vents but then only end up with one side. I would love to find a new lower dash panel, the piece that goes underneath the steering wheel, the only new one I found is for RHD.
 
#192 ·
Gold is always better, that's a bummer.

Where do you order most of your OEM parts from? I've ran into that too. I've since been dealing with Brian at Heuberger Subaru and I'll usually give him a list of what I'm looking for and he can let me know real time stock in case something is showing available, when it actually isn't. I need to order the radio surround too before it's unavailable. I already put off ordering window seals, and now they are NLA. :( I'm sure you already have, but I woudl set up a saved search on eBay with the part number for the steering wheel trim piece, and see if anything pops up.
 
#194 ·
I've ordered from Heuberger before but lately I've ordered from Subaru Parts Deal.. Not sure why tbh.. Think I just found better pricing there.


OHLINS is life! Sweet updates, sorry to hear about the fire. Hope it all pans out in your favor.
Thanks man, I've always wanted a set of Ohlins coils, these will be my first so I hope they are as good as the hype!
 
#195 ·
So in an effort to find high offset 18x8 wheels that will clear the 2018+ STI calipers, I went old school and made a template from a PDF the manufacturer sent me..





I test fit against the caliper and was amazed at how much spoke clearance there appears to be.. There is so much clearance that I'm now beginning to doubt myself.. I printed out the PDF and even checked the scale was printed the correct size so not sure if/where I went wrong.



 
#433 ·
So in an effort to find high offset 18x8 wheels that will clear the 2018+ STI calipers, I went old school and made a template from a PDF the manufacturer sent me..





I test fit against the caliper and was amazed at how much spoke clearance there appears to be.. There is so much clearance that I'm now beginning to doubt myself.. I printed out the PDF and even checked the scale was printed the correct size so not sure if/where I went wrong.



Just wanted to ask if those 6 pot calipers need brackets to mount on to a gc8. I haven’t been able to find any information on it or anything except for what you’ve posted, thanks
 
#196 ·
Subaru Parts Deal does seem like they have the best prices. I'd love to support my local dealer, but they won't even budge on pricing. Everything is MSRP, so that's my last resort.

I like the print and test fit method. Seems like tons of clearance if the scale is correct.
 
#197 ·
So the Wideband gauge quit working and my ABS light came on in the Coupe.. I checked for codes using the Cobb AP but nothing (related to ABS came up). So the next obvious thing to check was fuses right? Well anyway, with the help of my A+ assistant, we set about pulling the ABS sensors and cleaning them off.. did the fronts, test drive.. ABS light still on.. Cleaned the rears, test drive... Light still on.. what did it turn out to be? A fuse of course!

Cleaning the sensors still wasn't a waste of time since they all looked like this.. and we also tightened up the steering column clearing up the dead spot in the center.



And we used the opportunity to get an idea for how the P1 wheels will look.



Hired help reinstalling the ugly ass old wheels.



We then spent the next few hours assembling the HF blast cabinet.. We siliconed the bejesus out of it.. Hoping it might be sealed well enough to use INSIDE the garage :D

 
#198 ·
Made some more progress on the Blast Cabinet. Going to wait for the replacement light to show up before I mate the hopper to the cabinet - Should be here tomorrow. ?




The guys arrived this weekend to redo my garage floor after the fire

I decided to go with a solid color for the main part of the floor this time as it is impossible to find bolts that you drop on the flakes. I'm keeping the flakes on the sides and step up but changed up the color scheme.


Visited the car at the shop and dropped off the P1 wheels to get refinished. They will go onto the blue one and the BRZ wheels will go to the coupe.. I hate the wheels that are on it and I'm so sick of it rubbing because the tires are too wide. ?



Took some pics of the car, still got a few more items to take care of, including taking delivery of and painting new hood vents as the shop seem to have misplaced them o_O


 
#199 ·
Couldn't come up with any better options than this so bit the bullet and went for it before another GC8 product gets discontinued.





GC8 Intercooler spray tank came from Italy but I realise now that I may not be able to use it as it occupies the same space as the ABS pump. TBD.
 
#208 ·
Thanks!

I used goof off on some Q tips for the badge.. Just rub at it and after a few seconds it will melt. Take your time and be careful not to damage the stars. I also recommend thoroughly taping up the front side to prevent the plastic finish getting marred up by the goof off.
 
#209 ·
More parts.. This is getting boring :rolleyes:

All the rear wiper parts I could find on Japanparts.com



Cusco front strut brace.. Unfortunately, these are aluminium bars wrapped in wrinkled up carbon fibre, I wish that Cusco made a proper carbon brace for the front to match the one I have for the rear.. I'll either go with this or the pretty common STI carbon bar.


Stickers for the P1 wheels.


Front and rear subframes, as well as trailing arms and T bar from TSSFab.
 
#210 ·
The car is getting soooo close at the bodyshop.. It just seems that it is almost always one step forwards and two steps back..

I dropped off the tires for the P1 wheels and found out that they had lost my bonnet vents..


Fortunately they had ordered some new ones from Subaru and had paint matched them.


The other set back is that someone had backed into the car so now the bumper comes off for another session in the booth.. The silver lining is that they will also fill the screw holes in license plate recess while they are fixing it.
 
#211 ·
Wanted to change out the wheels on the BRZ so I could take the Nismo wheels for a refurb and get new tires put on.. As always, nothing is easy and I quickly found out that neither the STI BBS wheels nor the Rota's would mount to the front due to the lack of clearance at the back for the stock studs (I'm running 11mm Project Kics conversion adapters on the front)..



I think it would have looked good with the BBS Goldies..
 
#212 ·
Finally moved back into our house, even though the garage still isn't done.. So I still dont have most of my tools.. I did go and raid the trailer so pretty much all I have is a set of Gokart tools :cry:

Anyway, lack of tools didnt stop us making a start on the dissasembly.


Finding that all of the aftermarket parts on my donor STI are either Cobb or Perrin.


Needless to say that the exhaust is off (and for sale), as well as the rear sway bar and the Perrin Intake.

The actual swaybar is Perrin too, just didnt grab a pic.


Thinking I'm going to need an 80mm adapter to mate my Blitz SS air filter to this Perrin MAF tube and then onto the Agency Power hard intake pipe.

 
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