Put some hours in and got it all buffed out. It's far from perfect, but she cleans up pretty well for a 19 year old car. I have the rear coilovers installed and i'm liking the ride height, but it rubs a little over larger bumps. I need to play with the dampening a little bit which might help. I think I'll roll the rear fenders anyway. Will throw the front coilovers in probably later today. Yeah, it needs a bit of body work...it looks like PO slid into a big rock or something, not sure (sizable dent in the quarter behind the door). I thought I could live with it like that till at least next winter when I planned on fixing it, but I might do something about it sooner. Not sure the best way to go about fixing it. New sheet metal or hammer it out as close as possible and just use body filler. The door and door sill is effected a bit too. Any body guys on here? Maybe just wait and save for widebody panels...
I'm looking into getting adjustable lateral links to help with the camber issue in the rear. Wouldn't hurt bringing the wheels in about a 1/4" on both sides either.
Ouch. Might take several hours labor to straighten out but it doesn't look nearly bad enough that you'd have to replace anything. Tough to say what the cost would be without seeing it in person, but based on a quick estimate I threw together I'd guess somewhere between $1,000-1,500 depending on where you go.
Yeah, I figured it wouldn't be a cheap repair. I may just try to repair it myself for the time being. If the door/sill/reveal wasn't effected, it wouldn't be so bad.
Yeah, doesn't take much to get the repair cost up that high. You'd cut the cost quite a bit if you only paint below those trim molding strips. That may work out perfectly fine but there would be an edge in the clear that could eventually start to peel. It all depends on how well the shop does it.
I had time to throw on the front coilovers last night and make some adjustments. They were setup too low to begin with so I raised both front coils about an inch... Before adjustments: After adjustments: As it sits currently with front and rear coilovers installed: I'd like to lower the rear a little bit more, but I'm already rubbing over larger bumps. I decided against the adjustable lateral links and I'm just going to get rear camber plates and see where that gets me. After that, I should be okay to lower it another 1/2"-ish in the rear to level it out. I rolled my rear fenders on Sunday so hopefully that will help too. I haven't driven the car with the coilovers installed yet, but looking forward to seeing how it rides. Alignment: Is Jeff worth making the 1.5-2 hr trip to the cities to have him set me up? I'm not sure there are really any competent alignment shops around here...
The car looks really good! The rear camber, though. What lateral links are you running? Just from the pictures I'd guess the GC ones, which are shorter....
GD STi lateral links. It's weird because the passenger side the camber is pretty much spot on on the rear, but driver side...not so much.
I've been wanting to adjust the ride height in the rear about 1/2" lower so I tackled that last night. I don't know how I didn't notice it when I installed the coilovers, but the top hole is slotted. I was able to get my rear camber dialed as well as I could by eyeballing. The driver rear was way out of toe too. I had to adjust the toe adjustment all the way the other way (I remember trying to take that bolt out when I was working on the subframe and I must have jacked the toe all up by doing that). Much better...I guess I'll be returning those rear camber plates when I get them. Now I kind of want to lower the front about 1/8". I'm trying to get ride height dialed in before getting an alignment. I finally found the source of my rattle in the rear of the car that I couldn't figure out. All this crap had fallen down into that black hole in between the trunk floor and the rear quarter. And fixed the big dent.
Ermahgerd, sweet compass! Time to velcro that bish to the dash!! And i give you three thumbs up for the body work. If it's good enough for Lola, then it's good enough for me!
I was showing Grace the pictures of your car this morning and she said "that a real nice Suebru daddy!" lol
lol, you should see the video of her talking about "how she loves Suebrus, and how she has one, and it lives in the garage, and that they're real nice..." Also, daddy's is her favorite!
I am hoping that you aren't driving too much without that "adjusted insurance coverage"? Mine was totaled while i was sleeping and it was parked in my garage. So, it's kind of a big deal! I don't want you to experience what i did first hand! It sucks to lose all of the money and hard work put into our cars when we can get the coverage to cover our "investments".
Looks like you have a future rally driver there! Lol adorable! Yes sir, got coverage through JC Taylor for everything I have into the car . Was $415 for the year (Full coverage, $250 deductible) which I thought was pretty reasonable.
Lola ended up taking 3rd place in the Subaru division at the MNCEC Ignition show yesterday. There was some miscommunication and disorganization with the awards. So unfortunately I didn't even know I got 3rd place until I was halfway home so I didn't get my trophy or picture taken. Oh well. Was a fun day and saw tons of awesome cars, many of which I've never seen an example of in person before so that was cool. Got to hang out with some cool people and meet a few people too. Other than being severely sunburned, it was a good day.
I'm glad I got to see your car in person this weekend. You've done a really good job and the attention to detail (from what I saw) was fantastic! Loved the bandaid. Very impreza with the end result.
Thanks man! Was hoping to meet more of you guys. It probably didn't help that I was standing in line for a burger for 30-45 mins, but it was a pretty damn good burger. Yeah, I thought the band-aid was kinda humorous
I've been talking to Joe on the side, but figured I would hop in and show my love for this build as well. Also yes I'm still alive, also also this thread has revived my enthusiasm to make my build more crazy. Builds like this is what make me happy to be a car enthusiast. When you can look at a car and know that the person that built it has passion for what they do and that car is what sets it apart from the rest. America. TL;DR: This build is lit AF.
After driving to the cities and back this past weekend, I now have a little over 500 miles on it. Tonight I changed the oil for the 3rd time since first start up. The oil that was in there has been in there since about 50 miles and looked surprisingly pretty clean. No glitter that I could see even after filtering it through a paper towel. Ideally I would have changed the oil before making the trip to the cities, but my shipment of oil that was supposed to be here Saturday was "damaged in transit" (go figure). So I didn't get new shipment of oil until today. I have a tentative dyno date set for 5/30, but I've found myself in a bit of a pickle. I REALLY want the Cobb GD Flex Fuel kit that is (supposedly) being released next week. That's $800 with the fuel pressure sensor kit...$800 I didn't budget for and quite honestly, don't have at the moment. So now I don't know if I want to wait to buy the FF kit, install it and then get tuned. Or save the extra money and just run dual maps. Kinda just thinking out loud here. I've run dual maps...it's kind of a pain in the ass. FF would be sooooo nice, but I'm getting antsy to get the car tuned. Ahh, first world problems. Edit: I also got my front alignment dialed as best I could by eye. Until these latest adjustments. my steering wheel was cocked to about the 2 o'clock position.
I decided to just spring for the FF kit now before getting tuned. I'm hoping I can get it by next weekend so I can begin install and then get some driving in on the new base map before making the trip to DM. Install won't be as simple as it should be. I'm going to have to modify the fitting that currently goes to my return chassis hard line. The Cobb FF kit comes with the "quick disconnect" fitting on the line to connect to the factory hard line. Well...when I did m fuel system I actually cut the OEM quick disconnect flare off of the hard line and used compression AN fittings to make the transition from the braided fuel line to the chassis hard lines. I'll likely have to swap my 90* fitting to a straight or 45* -6an fitting with two female ends and then get a -6an fitting with the quick disconnect flare on it. I need the kit in front of me before I'll know for sure what I'll need. An entire week for the install will be nice because I know I'll need some fittings and will need to order them. Also, trying to be tidy and cutting the unneeded TGV connectors off my engine harness has come back to bite me in the ass. Turns out the FF kit piggy backs off of these connectors for signal/power. So I'm going to have to play a game of "Find the TGV wires" and unwrap parts of my engine harness to dig them out. In other news, I'm fighting a power steering issue that I can't figure out. I can get about a half turn on the wheel before it starts fighting me. No pump whine, fluid full, no leaks. Tried bleeding the air out (turn lock to lock) with car off, car on, on the ground, in the air...no luck. Even replaced the o-ring on the return line on the pump. I have a feeling I have a bad rack. It's drivable, but still something I need to figure out and fix. And a couple of random photos I found from last weekend's car show ^Photo credit: Photos by E ^
Good/exciting news (for me anyway)...because the 07 STi shares the same TGV plugs as the 08-14 STi (04-06 STi are different), the 08-14 STi Cobb FF harness and brain will work on an 07 STi! The mounting bracket for the ethanol sensor will be a bit different when they actually release the GD kit, but I'll be on my own for custom mounting regardless. I have a plan in my head (and a crude drawing) of what changes I need to make to my fuel line routing to integrate the ethanol sensor. Good news is that because I can use the 08-14 kit, I don't have to wait for the GD release. This will allow me more time to get fitment figured out. If I had to wait for the GD release, I'd only have a few days before my tune date for install and it would be difficult to order/ship any fittings I might need within that time frame. Less than 2 weeks to dyno day! Also, the tune and FF kit are (hopefully) the last substantial expenses for this build, so that's a bit of a relief.
I'm disappointed that I just came across this thread now. But I read everything and drooled at your pictures for almost an hour. Seriously, this was an awesome build! Congrats man!
Thanks man! I'm really looking forward to the next phase of the build; enjoying driving the car! Can't wait for tuning, I'm having EWG withdrawals.
My car has TGV connectors once again...lesson learned there. Flex kit will be here Monday which should allow plenty of time for install and ordering any misc fittings etc, if necessary. It sounds like the "official release" for the GD kit and software is Monday as well so once I get it installed I'll have Graham get me a FF base map created. I want to be sure we are getting correct inputs from the TGV wires (functional fuel pressure and ethanol content readings on the AP) and everything is good to go before making the trip down there.
FlexFuel and fuel pressure sensor kit is in! I was able to cannibalize the quick connect fittings off the fuel lines that were included in the kit that mate to the ethanol sensor. It kind of felt wrong taking apart such a nicely put together kit, but it had to be done. I didn't need to use the included fuel pressure sensor adapter since my FPR already has a 1/8" NPT port on it. Pic of the custom line from the sensor to the chassis hard return line. I was able to just simply shorten the line that runs from the FPR to the sensor and put the quick connect end on it. I found a nice spot for the sensor to mount on the driver side strut tower. Install was pretty clean really. Now I just need to get a FF map and confirm the ethanol and pressure sensors are working...
HAHA! I think we have a small group coming up to Boost for Boobies at MAP on June 3rd if any of y'all are gunna be there.
