Hey there everyone, my name is Alex. I'm from saint paul (3m building in back of last pic) I just bought my first subaru and first awd car last month, only took a day in the snow to fall in love with it having owning only front wheel drive VWs. I bought it as a winter dedicated car since my jetta would just snow plow my drive way till it got stuck. I really love awd the boxer motor and a longitudinal motor lay out. Feels like a poor mans porsche! It's a 1996 subaru impreza outback, or OBS if you want to call it that. It has 200k miles on it! The colors are blue and rattle canned silver? I'm not sure what they tried to do with it but I plan to rescue this lovely little machine that I got it for sub 4 figures. The maintenance is up to spec, minus a throw out bearing and sleeve that I need to tackle. And the dash likes to scream at me(yes vocally) when I spin the tires before operating temp. Not sure what that is yet! I went to a junk yard and began to pick up odds and ends I needed. Coolant res was leaking, replaced it. Replaced the broken ripped crappy cloth seats with leather legacy outback seats front and back. Dropped in a red top battery and cleaned/painted the engine bay a bit. Picked up a dodge neon coil pack wire plug for an MSD upgrade to do this week. I plan to lift it on 27 inch tires and forester suspension in the next few weeks and turbo it by next winter. It has some gawty exhaust on it, looks like a truck exhaust tip. The muffler is decent, it sounds proper. Here it is in all its glory! It has a long way to go. I'm really new to subies so I might ask stupid questions!(after I google search) A little about me I'm a diyer, went to school at dunwoody and took the automotive course, work as a service tech now and I'm in the army reserves. I'm a vw guy but I have room for subi too. Here's the one it replaces for winter.
Thanks a lot guys. It's not where it needs to be but I'll get it there. I hope next fall/winter I'll be able to join local events and shenanigans.
I like where your heads at with your build plan, please post your progress! That 'paint job' is pretty unfortunate :-/, let me know if you want any pointers how to get the rattle can ish taken care of down the road. Welcome!
Found a few kinks in the cooling system. The car is not over heating and I still have heat. After some diagnosis I found I have a head gasket leak. This will add more stuff for me to do this summer before I feel it's safe to turbo it. Since I'm pulling the head it only makes sense to do a cam grind and port the head. I replaced the rad cap, flushed the coolant. Picked up some black 8 gauge wire and loop connectors for a ground kit from true value. Great hardware store got 12 feet of the wire I wanted for 6 bucks about. Ordered up some NJK phase 2 ej22 spark plug wires(8691) and an msd coil for a 2000 dodge neon.(8239) Also ordered hella supertones, this stock horn is whack. Picking up some copper plugs to refresh the plugs. I'll drop in step colder iridium after I pull the head. Should be ready for my ignition upgrade and get the hell out of my lane horns this weekend. No more 30 db scooter horn.
Damn, going to be asking to borrow my latter and ****. Picked up the wrong plug for the MSD coil. I guess I shouldn't have trusted "hmm that kind of looks like the right year car(that I have no clue about)" Another trip to the junkyard I go. I could make this one work but it would be and look jenky and that's not my style. Here's pics cause reading is dumb. The thing almost looks okay wet! Note the busted corner light, wrecked bumper, bad paint, dented hood, faded turn signals, no longer black wiper arms. Gives me a nice list of stuff to replace or mold and paint. Also a block heater which I didn't know I had! That might be useful if it's ever nice enough to put in a garage. And ngkpII/msd/neon plug respectively Close fit but I won't be breaking out any cigars yet. Sorry for the lame slow progress notes. It's too cold to do anything too huge just yet.
If you are looking for a full paint job on it, I have had a guy fully coat my old Eclipse, and he currently is re-spraying the WRX I just picked up. SUPER good pricing, and he is located in Howard Lake. https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/15659_423234877792387_1501819898_n.jpg
Can't wait to see this car transform! Never really been a VW guy, but that's a sweet looking ride. Nice work I have a buddy who went to Dunwoody for Auto body who paints as well. He's off of 7th st W and Randolf ave in Stp. Pm me if you're ever interested.
Ended up picking up the proper plug from napa Wired everything up and it fired up first time. I might make a DIY on it since I took enough pics and I think this is a lovely mod. Just going to say, the difference in sound from the motor is a bit crazy. I wasn't really expecting much other than better MPG and power-band. What I actually got out of this is a MUCH lower and throatier sounding beast. I'm not sure if I like it yet since my muffler already was getting rid of most of the high, and now it just sounds deep and throaty with not much of an upper, and barely any mid sound. (but I only put it to 3k rpm so far) I can't really tell about the power from it yet, had too many beers during the little project to hit the road after it, however the idle sounds so much cleaner. This might be because the old plugs and wires look really old, no idea how many miles on it. For a sub 150$ project can't really beat it BEFORE: AFTER: Ha, and horns.
I know, I'm ashamed. I did give it a cleaning in this sub zero temp but it wasn't nearly enough. The guy I bought it from used it as a farm wagon, basically. There was red-brown dirt under all the carpet before I vacuumed it and put the legacy seats in. Car should be getting either a new face or a lift job next week. Forester springs in the basement, getting ready for yellow paint. Yeah, uh huh, you know what it is.
Dirty, lifted and a new corner light ha. Wheels in the basement, tires coming soon it looks stupid with dinky tires. Hub centers are below the running boards. Running outback swaybar brackets, gotta have my swaybars. Thing drives like it's on rails, it's crazy I was expecting a lot of body roll but it's much stiffer than before. People who complain about body roll with fozzy struts must run no swaybar, crappy struts or something. When I took apart the strut towers I found pioneer speakers. They're in the front too. I picked up an amp and a 8inch bazooka sub. The head-unit is a kenwood. Hooking it up tomorrow. Decent little sound system for a case of beer and the rest came free with the car. HA!
This is nice. What struts/springs/swaybar combo did you use? And leather legacy outback seats? Tell me moooaaaarrr!!
Put a fresh coat of black on those, some chrome center caps and you're good But seriously, what size wheels are you putting on there? She's probably a beast in the snow!
