A faster grocery getter - 04 WRX Wagon

[Recoil889]

I received a call from the fab shop today. The car is finished. I'll be headed up tomorrow morning to take a peak at everything and make sure it's ready to leave.

Today I'll be cleaning and prepping the garage for the car to return. I got some plastic drop cloth at Home Depot, so I'll be turning half the garage into a 'booth' where I can sand and work with the body filler without making too much of a mess.

For the time being, here's a preview of the new strut tower bar. More photos after I get it into my garage and settled.

[Recoil889]

I'm happy to report that the car made it home safe and sound. All the fabrication work turned out great. I'm happy to be able to spend some time on the car myself doing the body work. It's going to be nice to get my hands dirty again.





I was able to get some plastic hung in the garage, too. Hopefully this will keep some of the dust at bay from all of the sanding that's in my future.




I haven't done much to the car since getting it back. There is still quite a bit of tear down left to do (removing the rest of the harness out of the car, the glass, etc). I did decide to drill out the radiator support. The WRC Subarus have the radiator support in a bolt on configuration rather than spot welded, so I'll go with that route.



In other (way) more exciting news, I fully dry fit the widebody and rear bumper today. My friend was also kind enough to let me borrow his BCL wing and dry fit it on the car. I have been flirting with the idea of hatch mounting one for a while now. I'm in love and planning to contact big country labs tomorrow to talk pricing.







Until next time..

[Camip]

I was just thinking about a hatch mounted wing the other day can't wait to see what it looks like.

[smiles]

Until next time..

That wing looks pretty rad man, very badass project you've got going on!

[Recoil889]

I was just thinking about a hatch mounted wing the other day can't wait to see what it looks like.

Yeah, I've got some ideas to mount it based on some things I've seen on sedans. I went over to talk to Gabe at Rampage Fabrication today to come up with a game plan.

That wing looks pretty rad man, very badass project you've got going on!

Thanks, man! I'm starting to really like the direction the car is going.

[Recoil889]

Alright, I've got a little bit of an update:

I sanded, cleaned and sealed up the new metal in the engine bay in a 2k epoxy.


I started working on sanding down the rear driver's side door to get it prepped to panel bond the widebody.


My 6 speed showed up from Japan. I placed an order for a longer 5th and 6th gear out of a Legacy Spec B and carbon synchros for 4th, 5th and 6th gear on Ralispec. With the steel shift forks that come stock in the Ver. 7 6 speed, the taller gears and the carbon synchros, I should have a pretty bulletproof transmission set up that will allow me to push power through 4th and 5th gear really well.
I need to get in touch with the drive shaft shop and order a set of high horsepower rear axles. That should just about finish up the drivetrain on the car minus bushings and fluids.

I picked up an EJ257 short block real cheap from a buddy of mine that I'll use to send into Benson to get machined, sleeved and o ringed.



In the mean time, I ordered 20mm wider front fenders from Chargespeed. I chose these because they add more on the front end, but still work with the stock STI bumper. In order the change the look of the front end a little bit, I also ordered a Chargespeed lip that deletes the factory 'splitters' but retains the foglight bezels (so I can run the JDM multi-color foglights).



Sometime in the next couple of weeks I'll try and get up to the dealership and get a new STI bumper so that I can start piecing the exterior together.

[Peeunit]

I'm really impressed with this build.
I'm a massive impreza fan, and this is just brilliant.

I think my favorite part though (and I dont mean any offence by this) is that duct through the headlight. Serious man points for doing that yourself

[KyleBour]

YES. Bcl wing on a wagon? That is going to be killer!

[SnazzyQ]

Until next time..

Holy shit. DO EET.

[Recoil889]

I'm really impressed with this build.
I'm a massive impreza fan, and this is just brilliant.

I think my favorite part though (and I dont mean any offence by this) is that duct through the headlight. Serious man points for doing that yourself

Thanks man! Getting that headlight lens cut was pucker inducing. I still need to make some fine adjustments to it, but I'm not in any particular hurry on that part of the project.

YES. Bcl wing on a wagon? That is going to be killer!

Holy shit. DO EET.

I'm glad the BCL wing has been so well received. I'm meeting up with a buddy of mine this weekend to come up with some mounting ideas.

In the mean time, my front lip and new bumper showed up. Still waiting on the Chargespeed fenders.

[12vsex]

Super super impressed . Im not a super huge subaru fan , but this gets me all giddy . Love it

[Recoil889]

Super super impressed . Im not a super huge subaru fan , but this gets me all giddy . Love it

Thanks, it's good to have guys from other platforms checking out what I've got going on here on this build.

[chucky332]

Very impressed by this build. Nice to see that you're doing what you want, not what every other Subaru guy has already done.

Sticking with silver I'd assume?

[Recoil889]

Very impressed by this build. Nice to see that you're doing what you want, not what every other Subaru guy has already done.

Sticking with silver I'd assume?

Thanks!

I'm actually changing the color of the car completely. I'm planning to go with a battleship gray. Think something similar to this color, but with flake instead of a flat color.

[Recoil889]

Small update here - no photos.

Unrelated first: I picked up a 2013 Forester last week as a new daily. Now I know what everyone loves about them so much. Great car!

Parts update:
The Legacy Spec B 5th and 6th gear set came in the mail today. I also received my new carbon 4th-6th synchros too.

I picked up a new OEM front bumper. I'm going to install some high(er) end quick releases on this one. After ripping the last one off countless times, I think it's worth the investment.

I'm still waiting for the fenders I ordered from Chargespeed to show up. Last I heard, they still hadn't shipped from their California warehouse. Thus far, I'm not impressed with their customer service at all. It's a shame, because they make bitchin' parts.

I did a rear hub swap with my friend over this past weekend, too. I needed these hubs to run the Wilwood rear brakes that I was able to get a hold of. They've got somewhere around 150k miles on them, so I'm going to replace the wheel bearings just to be on the safe side.

In other news, I'm pulling the coilovers that are on the car now and selling them. Fortune Auto recently released an aircup set up, so I'll be ordering new coilovers with aircups installed. They'll provide two inch actuation and still provide the handling benefits that come with coilovers. I'm just not looking forward to having a goofy ass tank in the back of the car, but worse things could be happening I guess.