Hey guys what's up? I am currently stationed on Okinawa and will be returning soon! (Nov 2012) I just wanted to get my local forum set up before I come back. A lil history: Sometime in late 2008 I bought my first Subaru out here. It was a 1996 Legacy RS twin turbo. It had a few issues and didn't last long. I got it dirt cheap so that's all good I guess. It fried the piston rings and at the time they were very scarce and the twin turbo (read: CRAP) engines were hard to find. For some dumb*** reason I immediately bought a 1999 Legacy B4 which is the same 5spd twin turbo chassis pretty much with a new body and more weight. This car lasted a good while and I eventually raced it out here. It was quick and all but not a great track car. At that time my wife bought a 1998 WRX. Thing was (is) a BEAST! I was hooked. Unfortunately I was t-boned and forced to fix my doors, fender and rear susp. I bought a 1992 Skyline GTS-T for a daily driver until the B4 was fixed. So lame. After selling the B4 and Skyline I wanted a beautiful V7 STi (bugeye). It had all the little things done to it and more.. I drove it. Not cool. Suprisingly it was very underpowered and 3rd gear grinded every time. They would not go down on price and I was screwed. I sold my cars assuming this car would be amazing. So the very next day my wife and I went looking for STi's. The first one I saw hooked me good. A 1997 V3 STi V-Limited. Some other military folk ordered it from mainland and put 500 down on it, but got deployed! So I scooped it up for 500 off, paying a whopping 5500 dollars!!!:yumyum: 4 days later with ZERO hard driving I barely drove her back knocking like crazy. My ears hurt it was so loud! They rebuilt the motor under warranty and without a brain. They set timing wrong and messed up one of the heads, I forget which one. Eventually I got it back. It made all kinds off tickys and creaks, but it ran. A HKS turbo-back, FMIC, and Intake later she blew yet again. I wasn't too hard on it. They blindly told me they would fix it AGAIN! when they started working on it they realized I modified it and said they'd fix it, but this was the last time. This time a whole different motor! It ran great! I was so pleased. The turbo was a little messed up (full boost around 4500?! on a VF-23). I had the TMIC back on for lag purposes and added a front oil cooler for reliability as my warranty is DONE! Never looked back. Raced her hard and she keeps asking for more. One last thing: We have always had 93 octane on base and that was all fine and dandy, until this whole nuclear plant thingy. We just got 86 octane until the relief effort is over. Oh Noes!!!!! Please don't knock to death yet again?!?!:eek4:
Good story and thanks for sharing! I would love to see some pics. Are you planning to container the V-limited? Best thing to do is stay out of boost. I imagine that you won't be able to get Jap juice either. ~Dan
I was planning on boxing up my engine/drivetrain and shipping with TMO. But I think I changed my mind, it's still up in the air. I can get haioku off-base, but it will be a fortune to fill up! Edit: I'll get some pics soon!
wow, that's "soon?" You must really be ready to get out of there :lol: Welcome and thanks for sharing. I'm sure someone on here will want your engine if you ship it and end up not wanting it!
Well you know what's sad is that I am looking to buy another EJ20k on top of the two I have for only 300 bucks, but how the hell do I get them home?! That is why I'm planning this stuff early. I have read COUNTLESS forums on all the importation rules and am NOT going to bother. I wanted to sell my wife's car (minus the turbo as mine is going soon) and pack mine up in lil boxes and build a impreza L or something. But I would be so lost in some areas: Wiring. And LHD vs RHD. Any tips? I can get TMO (traffic management office) to ship all my boxes of car parts as my "household goods" but the labeling and re-assembly and need for oem gaskets and what-not would be too much headache. I am only recently getting an account here for advice. I could just build a Stateside STi into a GC chassis and enjoy the torquey 2.5 right? And Stay LHD? I am very stubborn to change chassis as GC8 is my fav lil beast. Thanks for the welcomes guys, no homo but I am excited to meet some new peeps back home. Oh and since my profile says Okinawa, I am from Stillwater. I will prob move to Minneapolis!!
Probably because he's in Japan? I say find yourself a nice stateside GC unless you have a latent masochistic streak.
There were actually 3 links there. Yes my wheels are SA-70 17 x 7.5 and the wife's are Work Emotion CR Kai 17 x 7.5 I forget the offsets, but I rolled the fenders as they rubbed a lil. Hopefully if it's still there this weekend, I am buying a VF-22 from a junkyard. It'll go on quick like, but won't be driven until I get good gas
Well I am actually in Okinawa (south of Japan) I don't see too many newer models. I have seen like 3 droop-eyes and no hawk-eyes. Lots n lots of GC8's and Bug-eyes.
So I ended up selling my STi. My wife still has her WRX, and we plan on selling it. I am looking at buying an RSTi when I get back (Sept). Any good places for a former data-Marine to get a job out there???
I'm not sure what data marines do. But I had luck going through Orion "Headhunter" (search for 'orion headhunter' on google) They do tech job placement for military electronics techs. Depending on what you worked with in the service, you would be surprised what you are qualified to do in the tech world. I went from weapons guidance, radar and gatling gun repair to medical ultrasound field engineer work. Turns out alot of the tech is the same or similar.
S203/S204 seats come up on YAJ every so often in the 2500-4k range for the complete interior/fronts. These would be worthwhile to bring back ecspecially since you would have no shipping costs to derail the purchase on.
So I have been back for a couple of months now. I ended up buying a 98 STi and stripped the whole thing down and brought it back. You can see my Build Thread Here. I bout my 98 L off a member on here yesterday!
Long time update again, I swapped my 98 STi that I shipped back into my 98L. Take a look through my build thread if you'd like. I am always willing to help out with JDM questions, problems etc.
Wow, you're awesome. Complain about my behavior in another thread, just to mimic it in my thread. Hypocrite.
Anyways..., back to my thread Is there any interest in a spare EJ22EZ motor? It has a lot of miles ~250k and ran decent, just leaks a lot. If no interest I will prob have fun doing a supercharged build maybe for the fozz idk yet. If anyone wants it, I could let it go for maybe 200 bucks or so, not sure what is fair. 98% complete motor. It came out of a 98L so singleport heads.
I'm keeping the motor, sorry for the confusion. I think it will be fun to do an N/A build like Storm from RS25.
