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2005 Impreza STI


Fonzey
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Hi All, as promised in my newbie post - here's a summary of my progress to date.

I bought the car in November 2012, it was the third Blobeye STI I'd been to look at. This one wasn't strictly for sale, however the previous owner got talking to me on Scoobynet and eventually we decided that the car needed to be mine :)

This is a picture of the car the evening I collected it:

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Drive home was uneventful, but fun.

I'd already bought a double-din head unit, so that was my first job on day #1:

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Picked up some other vital supplies:

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My first niggle with the car was the headlights. They had been detango'd in the past, and sprayed black - but not sealed up particularly well as demonstrated here:

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With that in mind, out they came...

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...and in they went:

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Once split, they had a good clean and then were resealed properly. Voila:

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I still wasn't happy though, the lights were really badly scratched (I think they had been left face down on the floor when detangod...) so got some new ones, and some new bulbs:

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Also sorted some new plates with proper spacing, and a grill/pink badges:

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Before:

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After:

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Next up the eBay fairies delivered me some clocks and a convertor from a JDM import:

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Before:

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After:

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Even reconfigured the head unit to match...

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My next niggle was on the body work. When giving the car it's first proper clean in my ownership, I felt considerable amounts of what I thought to be overspray on the panels near the wheels... looks like the wheels had a paintjob, whilst still on the car :(

I tried my best with hand polishes and clay, but ended up talking to Mike @ Deeper Detail who's based in East Yorkshire - and he took my car for a 3 day detail.

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(full thread here if you're into that sort of thing: http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=297421 )

Needless to say, Mike nailed it and the overspray was no more.

Next up was a re-badge of the rear.

Before:

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After:

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Also sorted decals for the fog covers:

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At about the one month mark of ownership, I decided to take the car to Scoobyclinic for a health check and a dyno run.

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Car had a few issues, a balljoint needed replacing, top hose was about to blow and some other minor niggles - so got them all sorted and found the engine to be running sweet.

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The car was a PPP spec, and the previous owner had it to Andrew Carr.

On the way home from SClinic, I heard a new whistle whilst boosting. To cut a long story short, I spent weeks troubleshooting this... had the exhaust off, gaskets changed, checked all pipes, went back to SClinic... couldn't find anything. Eventually, in the snow I went to Richard Henry Auto's in Bradford and we found a snapped bolt on the inlet manifold. Andy & Co refitted my manifold after drilling the bolt and voila... whistle fixed.

One weekend whilst cleaning, I found a disturbing piece of the cars past history under the carpets...

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I keep telling myself it fell out of his pocket whilst on the way to his mistress or something, but deep down I can just picture him spooning in a flacid ***** on the back seat :(

To take my mind off of it, I bought a new part:

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For some reason, in all my photographs there isn't a finished picture in this part of the timeline... so you'll have to wait!

Since buying the car, I'd had the infamous rear strut clunk. I wanted to try the nipple mod before buying coilovers, so I picked up some cheap struts and prodrive springs on SNet - and got to work nipple modding those instead...

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Fitment day came, I'd never changed suspension on a car before - but I'd read a million guides and had the torque specs in memory!

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Yucky old:

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A bit nicer to look at...

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On the final corner, disaster struck...

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My driveshaft inner CV fell apart inside the boot

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Luckily, a friend was on hand to help rebuild it with some new grease:

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Back on all fours:

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Car felt much better, and quieter!

Next up was some bonnet struts:

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I decided to get all sparky next, and sort out my mishmash of dash lighting. My red clocks and head unit looked ace, but the other green crap didn't.

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Before:

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After:

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The LCD clock would annoy me for some months to come...

Next up a delivery from Godspeed:

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...and Chris @ CDF!

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Brake fitment day:

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Old hose:

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Braided hose:

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THE WORST DAMN THINGS IN THE WORLD:

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Needless to say, I snapped two bolts which were seized in the Brembo's. I was SO annoyed and ended up being a week of car on stands. Luckily, Steve @ SD Motorsports is quite local and helped me out with some drilling and tapping.

Disks:

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There we go...

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I was terrified of more trouble on the rears, so decided to let Andy & Co have a look at those at Richard Henry. As it happened, they needed a bolt drilling too. Teeheee.

Andy also fitted my CDF stuff whilst the car was there, and gave me an alignment setup:

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Oh look, my wheels are off again... time to get them powdercoated :)

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Whilst at the painters, I cleaned and re-undersealed my arches:

Before:

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During:

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After:

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My KMH-MPH convertor had been intermittently failing, so ended up with some HawkUK clocks:

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With my wheels back home, got them lathered up with Poorboys:

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aaaaand fitted:

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It was coming up service time, so bought some extra gubbins:

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Sparkplugs, 255lph fuel pump and 3port boost solenoid.

Oh and some decat bits and a deresonated centre:

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Awesomeley wrapped by me. Cable tie came off, it was just to hold it whilst I lockwired it:

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Then it was time to give the car a DIY detail, it had been about 6months since Mike had the car:

Before:

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During:

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After:

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Finally it was service/remap day:

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Ultimately gained about 8bhp with the decat over the PPP sports cat. Yeah!

Next up was an amp install, to give the speakers a bit more... noise. (it had aftermarket cheap pioneer speakers in it):

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Went out for a drive with a friend, got some photographs. I like this one:

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I picked up an engine bay dressup kit at somepoint:

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And some solid gear linkage bushings from AS Performance:

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I have to say, in hindsight - NOT a fan of this mod. Transmission NHV is just on the wrong side of acceptable for me. Still looking for OEM bushings to return to standard tbh.

I then did a bit more shopping...

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Familiar sight!

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Why no droop?!

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Roll centre kit:

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New ride height:

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Got it aligned locally, car felt excellent when pushing on - possibly a bit too firm/focussed for the ride to work though.

I had Trax and some track time coming up, so made my own camera mount from a second hand dome light fitting:

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Trax was an EXCELLENT day, track time was a bit intimidating though - not much etiquette to be had and I was VERY slow tbh! The car was great on everything other than braking. I killed my Kevlar pads within three laps :(

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The track bug had bit though, so a bit of shopping awarded me:

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In "race" trim :P

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I then got a day booked at Cadwell Park. So much fun, absolutely loved it and the car didn't miss a beat.

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Back home, apologised for beating it so hard and rewarded with a wash!

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Next up, finally after months! Red clock:

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It's an EVO7 clock with a red filter.

Did a DIY 6month oilchange:

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... and spent some more money!!

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It's a Harvey Smith TD05 20G. Plans are to have it rebuilt with a billet compressor wheel, then fitted along with a FMIC, Headers, Uppipe and Injectors some time later this year.

Steering rack bushing kit went on, much better:

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Then Disaster :(

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I thought I'd blown my headgasket, turns out my radiator was just leaking. The Rad was actually only 11months old, forgot to mention in this thread but Richard Henry had replaced my old rad as the old one was leaking. This meant warranty fix, love it!

Then my car got treated to a trip to Stafford, and the team at Chevron. I'd never been completely happy with my BC's on the road, so give them the challenge of setting up ride heights, alignment and damping rates to try and fix that.

After a couple of weeks, Simon and the team had provided me with a job list they'd like to do - so I let them rip:

1) Replace CDF stuff with Whiteline, my control arms were rubbing on the ARB due to how much castor I was running

2) Custom Chevron control arms for more castor

3) Setup and Rideheight

Went with Whiteline adjustable links too:

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Next up, well the red LCD clock was shortlived...

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:D

Control switches in the ash tray.

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Even after the cash spent at Chevron, and all their efforts - I'm still not happy with the BC's. They're quite noisy due to solid top mounts, and are slowly wearing me down. I saw these come up on eBay - so took a punt:

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They're KW Variant 3's. In certain need of a rebuild, so got them off to KW as I type this. I've also got the springs off to a powder coater.

I plan to fit these with Group N rubber top mounts to quieten things down for me on my daily drive, and hopefully sell on the BCs. They'll be an excellent track car addition, but they're not for me.

Phew, that's a lot of crap - sorry. There has been LOADS of other minor tinkering I didn't bother mentioning, but hopefully there will be more to come this year :)

If you got this far, get a life - but thanks for reading :P

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Very nice thread loved reading down it :D

And Cadwell not far from me been a couple of times not as much as I would like to though :(

And like that Evo clock idea with the red filter changed it nicely. Top thread :) 

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I appreciate the comments, thanks team!

This is the first car I've actually worked on before, so pretty much everything I've done has been a learning experience. I've made a few mistakes with choice of parts for my application which has cost me money, but it's all part of the fun!

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