Yeah I noticed it started couple of days ago for me. I guess they made a change on the 7th where they are no longer hosting images on 3rd party sites unless you pay their "fee"...$400/yr! Are they nuts?! I switched to imagur now, but it's going to be a major pain to fix all of the images in this thread. Unbelievable.
Congrats Joe! You deserve some good outcomes after that fiasco! Glad that she is running smoove as buttah so far. Dayum schedule conflicts! I still wish that i was going to see this thing in LaCrosse.
I know, I wish I could make it. I might try to make the Midwest Subaru Show on Aug 13th. I'd really like to get to one of the Grimmspeed meets, but hard to make it work on a weekday for me. I'm still holding that parcel shelf for you too!
Yanked the turbo last night and made a new gasket from a roll of that Felpro gasket sheet stuff you can get at the auto parts store. Should hold up better than the paper thin gasket that was in there. I gave each side a thin coat of the Permatex ultra copper sealant for good measure too. After I got in there, I realized the source of my leak was actually a combination of the turbo drain like I suspected, but was mainly the oil feed banjo bolt that comes out of the back side of the RH cylinder head. I have IAG stainless steel turbo and AVCS feed lines. They come with a T fitting that the stock banjo bolt bolts through. The top port is the turbo feed and the side port is the AVCS feed for the RH head. The fitting they provide isn't the greatest because it doesn't give you any clearance out away from the cylinder head. So when I tightened the banjo bolt down, the T fitting was actually making contact higher up on the cylinder head, preventing it from being fully tightened. I ended up grinding a bit of material off of the cylinder head and a little bit off of the fitting itself so now it seats properly when tightened down. This seems to have resolved the leaking issue entirely. This is the fitting I'm referring to...kinda hard to see, but gives you visual at least.
I also spent about 45 minutes fixing the images on the first page of the thread. Why did I post so many pictures!? Really hating Photobucket.
You are a good problem solver, Joe. In your shoes I would have cried at least 15 times and only be 10% done with the project.
Seems like I've been working on friend's cars more than my own lately. That fact that my car doesn't really need any immediate work right now is nice, but I just haven't had a whole lot of time to drive it since it's been back together. I got another 150 or so miles on last weekend, about 250 total now. Tune date is less than 2 weeks out. At 250 miles, the engine is likely about as "broken in" as it's going to get, but I want to get as close to the 800 miles that IAG recommends as I can before tuning. Des Moines is about 170 miles from me so there's an opportunity to pickup some miles on the way down there as well. I changed to Motul 10w-40 break in after the first 50 miles and will change oil/filter again with Motul 10w-40 break in around 500 miles on the motor. Hopefully I can get close to that point this weekend if the weather is decent.
I finally caught up on the latest in your thread...what a roller coaster indeed. Brought me down memory lane of the issues (major and minor) that I had with my STI, and reminds me why I enjoy driving a non-modified vehicle (although the FRS has a damn oil leak that I've attempted fixing 3x now. DOH!) Anyway, glad to see it is up and running again! I am very impressed by how quickly you moved on this build, and how clean the result is. Best of luck on the re-tune, and hopefully followed by many trouble-free miles!
The slip joints on my ELH have developed a leak. It's significant enough to hear and has started blowing through my heat wrap. I'm going to pull the header tonight and take them to Sherburne to have the slip joints welded Friday night. I entertained the idea of selling them off as is (or fixed), but haven't had any interest in them. I wanted to pickup the new MAP ELH, but it sounds like they won't have one built before my tune date in a week. While I have the exhaust manifold off, I'm going to pull the front bumper cover and hit my intercooler with some Eastwood radiator black paint. The polished aluminum IC is just a bit too gaudy/flashy for my taste and I think I'll prefer the stealthy, black instead.
...can always go back. Only going to paint one side Yeah, personal preference I suppose. I kinda like the idea of having it less obvious and "in your face" that it's boosted.
Friday night I picked up a MAPerformance ELH from @Leo@Maperformance who was not only able to give me a killer deal, but was also nice enough to meet me after business hours so I could pick it up the same day. Thanks again Leo! The build quality is excellent and I'd even go as far as saying it's a work of art. Fit was perfect except for one small issue I had. The collector part of the manifold sits a bit too close to the engine so it was contacting the oil cooler crossover pipe (hard pipe that goes from oil cooler to water pump). Because of the angle/pressure it was putting on one of the hoses, it developed a slight coolant leak at the oil cooler. Probably good that I fixed it anyway, so threw a hose clamp on it to replace the OEM squeeze-style clamp. I was able to bend the bracket that the oil cooler pipe bolts to up far enough to create enough clearance. I'd say that's better than having a header that hangs too low. That minor issue is the only complaint I have so far. The header is warrantied for life too. On the car (after about 50 miles on them). Another bonus with this header is there is plenty of clearance around the oil filter. Not only does that make oil changes easier, but I can run the larger diameter Purolator pl14460 instead of the smaller pl14612 that I had to run with my other header due to lack of clearance. Each time I did an oil change I'd have to wrap my old header with tin foil near the oil filter so it wouldn't get covered in oil when removing the filter...so it will be nice to not have to worry about that anymore! This manifold does seem to have a similar exhaust note to my previous manifold, but it's a bit more "raw" sounding (best I can explain it). Possibly a video comparison in the future. I noticed the engine bay and under the car is much quieter now, my old header was leaking pretty bad. I'd imagine the thicker tubing this header is made out of helps keep the noise down around the engine bay better as well. Close ups Comparison to my old wrapped GT Spec ELH (pretty much the same as Tomei, Agency Power, Perrin, others)
I've also still been battling an elusive oil leak...yeah the one I thought I'd fixed twice now. The leak isn't even bad enough that it leaves a drop of oil on the ground when the car is parked for a couple of days, but the crossmember and tie rods have coating of oil on them. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from since it wasn't coming from the oil feed or drain lines from the turbo. Did some poking around and saw this: My AOS hoses are just zip tied. I hadn't given it a second thought, but they were clearly not tight enough where the oil drains back into the crankcase. I threw a couple of hose clamps on those hoses and I'm hoping that was the source of the leak and the last one. After the trip to the cities and back I have about 750 miles on the new motor.
Well after a short drive yesterday I came home and parked the car only to find a small puddle of oil under the car after it sat for an hour or so. I jinxed it by saying it was never enough to leave a drop on the ground. I've probably said this twice now, but I think I found the actual source of the leak. The crankcase vent that is directly under the throttle body that the two valve cover breathers T into was the culprit. The hose was extremely brittle and spit up the side of it. It was a pain to change, but I got it replaced. I'm going to test it tonight, but I'm hoping this leak is finally fixed!
Tuning went pretty well yesterday! Was cool meeting and chatting with Jr and Justin too. So the dyno that I was on previously (Dyno Com) seemed to be reading a bit higher compared to this one. As a baseline, we dyno'd the car with the previous tune and made around 450/330 (I failed to get the exact numbers). Jr assessed the tune that was on the car and it was very aggressive in timing, especially so on the 91 tune. Also...the car was knocking like crazy on 91, but the knock sensitivity was turned way down (or possibly off) so it wasn't being logged/compensated for. Pretty scary. Jr did is wizardry and managed to make about another 30whp and 30wtq on top of the previous tune, with less timing and with boost coming on sooner. The car feels like a completely different car. Even the power and throttle response out of boost is a crazy improvement. Ended up at 488/361 Below is the graph. Blue is Jr's tune, red is the baseline from the previous tune. The RPM on the graph isn't correct...it's off by about 1500rpm. The car falls on it's face around 7600 with the DOM 3, but it's an obvious improvement over the prior tune. Overall, I'm more than happy with it. I said from the beginning I'm not all to concerned with the numbers as long as drivability is good and it's healthy and running well. Now I'm going to try to enjoy it before it blows up again!
Subaru flambé!! lol Sounds great Joe! So i'm curious....why do both of the tunes have such a lower torque number in comparison to the horsepower numbers?
No real explanation really. Small displacement engine. Generally with smaller turbos your hp/tq will be fairly close but with a bit larger turbo you'll have higher horsepower compared to tq. I thought the same thing to be honest.
Hahaha! I was just wondering as I've always had pretty even numbers. But i've also never been over 300awhp either!!
Congrats on getting it running again! The MAP header was a nice choice and nice upgrade for your set up, I'm sure helped with those gains and spool up as well. The low torque was most likely the dyno, every dyno reads different. The dyno is more just a tool to get the car running right. Our dyno reads lower hp numbers but slighty higher torque numbers it appears compared to others from what we have seen.
I ditched the cherry blossom red "i" emblem and robbed the stock emblem off my USDM grill too. Matches the car better imo.
I can't get over how sweet those headlights look. Not usually a fan of the "older" front end like that, but the big projector lenses just make it look mean. Like Terminator style almost.
They are amazing at night too! Much better than my 07 STi stock HIDs even. And I was thinking more Johnny 5ish maybe lol
I changed the thread title a while back and dropped the name I had chosen previously...just didn't fit. Maybe it should be dubbed "Johnny 5". This is my 5th Subaru too haha. No disassemble!
As I mentioned earlier, I've been battling a leaking steering rack and intermittent loss of power steering since the car was first together. The rack is leaking out of the end seals on both sides, causing a slow leak out of the ITR boots/bellows. That rack I bought on eBay months before the swap was completed so by the time I had it installed and realized there was an issue, it was too late to return it for a refund. Last week I purchased another new to me (used) 05-07 rack, this time from Subaru Genuine Used Auto Parts (subieautoparts.com) and received it yesterday. It was just the bare rack, no tie rods, no high pressure lines...which was fine because I'm using the Chase Bays kit for lines and I have brand new inners and outers anyway. Before I took the time to put the tie rods on this new rack I mounted the rack up and hooked up the lines, topped off fluid and tested it. With the car off I went lock to lock slowly several times, trying to bleed any air out...no leaks so far. Started the car, did the same process, and in no time I had large puddles under both sides of the rack...this one is leaking worse than the last one! It was advertised as "The item may have some signs of cosmetic wear, but is fully operational and functions as intended." So I contacted SGUAP on facebook and they gave me the run around about how it has to be installed by an ASE certified shop in order to honor the warranty. I argued that the rack was going to leak regardless of who installed it. After some back and forth he said he'd honor a one time exchange for a different rack. I'd prefer a full refund and return of the rack, but I'm not sure he'll honor that; I'm waiting to find out. The reason I'd prefer to just return it and get a refund is because if I get another rack from them and that one leaks too, he's not going to swap that one out or allow a return because it's not being installed by an ASE certified shop...stupid. He has a few 05-07 racks for sale on his site, but I already picked the cleanest looking one. The others are pretty rough looking so I'm doubting they'll be in any better shape. Kind of thinking out loud as I type this, but I think I'm going to just keep this rack and rebuild it myself if he won't let me return it for a refund. I don't want some rusty hunk of junk replacement. I have an AC Delco rebuild kit coming from RockAuto so I'm going to try to tackle a rebuild in the 1st leaky rack. If all goes well, I'll rebuild the 2nd one too and then sell them both and just buy a brand new 15+ rack. If trying to sell them is taking too long, I'll probably end up just keeping one and running it, at least temporarily. I suppose another option would be to file a claim through PayPal if he won't let me return it for a refund. Hopefully I'll have the rebuild kit tomorrow so I can start working on the original leaky rack this weekend and see how it goes. Frustrating. The car is still running great though!
Interesting website. It reminds me of slidegood which is in MN. http://www.slidegood.com/subaru/wrx?part_type=547 I've ordered things from them before and even used their "Make offer" button and got a good deal. Looks like they don't have many racks currently though.
It seems that remanufactured steering components are getting very spotty lately. I've talked to several of our suppliers, as well as a couple other shops in the area. It doesn't seem to matter who makes or sells the rack/pump, you're almost guaranteed failure. The last 2 remanufactured racks we've installed ended up getting warrantied out immediately, and replaced with OE. Subaru doesn't offer remans. Only new, and complete, including outer rod ends. So they're very expensive. So yea, I'd recommend trying to rebuild one of them yourself. Subaru offers a Seal kit and Repair kit for them, so that's an option, although list price is about $80 for both.
