Hey everyone! I moved from Southern CA to Spicer MN this spring to be with my gf. She has an ‘09 Forester X Limited and i drove it a bit on visits through the winter.. i fell in love with Subaru and AWD and decided to get myself a bit of a project/winter car. Found this ‘02 WRX wagon that was tuned by Nuke & Fuji who i have discovered are no longer around.. but it was a good deal and I love it so far! I’ve been a bit of a Honda head my life so it’s fun to jump into something new. Anyone willing to meet up, I’d love to! I hope the photo works.. otherwise I’ll have to add later:
Fixing my rust this summer, hopefully! I was actually tempted to pick up that exact wagon you got, just to have two
Holy moly she looks clean!! Haha did you see the ad for mine in Hutch?! There are some electrical situations in the car that concern me a bit, i have a lot of research to do.. I am also planning to fix up my rust! Luckily it’s pretty minimal on the rear wheel wells
Just don't look at mine too close haha, plenty of hail damage throughout... Yeah I saw the ad for it and it looked like a great deal. I'm such a sucker for bugeyes. Far superior than the blob . I'm in love with mine so I'm forking out the cash to fix the rear wells. Be careful, the rust spreads so fast here . You going to daily it? Any mods or stock? Have you driven much in snow/winter? Make sure to pick up a set of winter wheels to completely transform your rig!
She has been good to me so far!! Runs really really well, just have some electrical question marks. There’s a situation with the infamous “green connectors” under the dash that i don’t understand, i think they’ve been routed to switches.. and somehow when I’m off throttle the park brake and battery light flicker at the same time.. it’s bizarre. I’m trying to not worry about it too much for now and just enjoy how she drives. I drive it fairly regularly, though the daughter doesn’t like it as much as she likes the forester cause the wrx is “too loud” she’ll get used to it, it’s not THAT loud lol It has an aftermarket BOV, turboback exhaust, and tuned by NF (when they were still around) - there may be other bits that I’m unaware of. I’ll be documenting a valve cover gasket replacement in the next couple weeks here, and someday I’ll need a new turbo because the flange to the downpipe is cracked Got to drive in the winter quite a bit on my visits this past winter! But not in anything with power, so I’ll be very careful and definitely take up the winter wheels/tires idea
Drivers side above the hood release. There should be two green connectors unplugged. If they're plugged in there's probably a switch mounted somewhere. Switch on = connected = diagnostic mode used for reflashing the ECU rom
This actually makes more sense than the last time i was under there.. switch on the left is the loop for the test mode - i flip it and the CEL flashes (only did it once for curiosity) not sure what the one on the right does, do you know what the clear/blue connector does? Should i just flip it? Lol
Related. There's a test mode and initialization mode that those 2 connectors are related to. Read more about it here https://www.cobbtuning.com/subaru-ecu-tuning-realtime-vs-reflash/
Haha, sure is. I took it off for a while since it's kind of false marketing but I like the look so I put it back on. The PO had a bunch of STi stickers/badges on it. I think he was working his way there but I undid some of it
how long have you had it? I'm having to undo all kinds of good stuff the POs did to mine.. my first order of business was to take the "flex fuel" badge off of it, lol apparently the car never ran ethanol but after it was tuned they decided to brand it I've got a confusing situation where I just bought a set of OEM subi wheels and they don't appear to fit over my hubs. I need to get myself a digital caliper and do some measurement, but I'm concerned that they didn't just slip over.. wondering if there's some sort of mod the PO may have done to get away from the 56.1 hubs? have been doing research but can't find anything of the sort.
Had it for a little over a year now. Check it out Don't have all the pictures in there of the state it was in. I might have to dig those out sometime if I can find them. Not too bad, mostly just stickers everywhere. If you've got OEM 16s they should fit unless PO put on bigger calipers like @GrawvyRobber said. Do the studs line up?
To be honest I’m not sure, I’ll have to compare to my buddy’s car lol, they do look like they might be a lil bit larger than OEM, but I’d need a point of reference to be sure. Are there bigger brake upgrades that’d also require increased hub size? I’m gonna get a caliper soon to measure so i can be sure
Epic, will be reading!! Yeah the studs line up, so it’s def 5x100- the cars getting an exhaust leak taken care of at a shop currently so once i get it back I’m going to take a closer look - measurements with a caliper should help too so i can see how far off it is
I actually did something similar in my bugeye but used color-coded switches mounted in the factory blank spots.
Mmm yep my calipers are too big for these. Lol the hub is definitely 56.1 Anyone have wheels they’re selling?
I have a set of 17x8 Enkei pf01s that I'd sell. 5x100, +45. There's one tiny chip in one spoke, otherwise they're in fantastic condition. $800 obo.
tempting, but i'm on a pretty tight budget unfortunately especially after wasting $200 on the set that don't fit lol
Post them up for sale and get rid of them! That’s strange. They look like WRX wheels and WRX calipers.
I posted em on fb and so far only interest in MSP, which is a 2hr drive - perhaps I’ll post em here too to see if anyone wants them! Right?! I need to take the wheel off and find part numbers to see what the situation is. Were there different brake packages? I haven’t found anything about that in my searching
Well i found some rust spots when i threw on my new wheels and tires so i cut and ground and sanded and got some sheet metal and had a buddy tack it on. The strut mount is still solid and I’m going to keep an eye on things. Not sure what a more permanent fix would be but i feel better having the crumblies out of the car and at least patched
Nice work! The rust reminds me of my first Subaru project, but I think you've got much better starting point: https://mnsubaru.com/threads/eg-in-a-gg-by-eazy.48428/
Thanks Rich! Awesome thread, i was invested in the black knight and sad to see it sent off to the scrapyard! I’m thinking “Shadow” as I’m calling my wagon may suffer the same fate eventually but I’m going to try to keep her around as long as i can
Welp, after my strut tower rust repair and some cleaning up on my bumper i finally have one side prepped for the rust repair i had initially set out to tackle. May seem silly but I’m following Chris Fix’s Tutorial lol.. MAYBE one side will be done before the lacrosse cruise. Really hoping i have my bumper back on by then