- Location
- Cheyenne, Wyoming
So I have found a project that I think I will hold onto for a long while.
In my 4 years of driving I have owned 13 cars. Of two reoccurring trends, I have found that I like Jeeps and Subarus. Having sold my last jeep almost 6 months ago,I switched it up and bought a Subaru.
The Subaru is a 99 Impreza base that has the interior of an 06 Wrx, the block of a 2004 sti and heads off a Jdm sti. The car is a mess of Subaru parts that puts a joyful 350/350 down to the wheels for a nice tame daily driver.
If you guys remember my 06 Wrx I had a few years ago, you would know that I have the lack of control to keep things nice. I immediately wanted to take it fishing and be a rally car, but unfortunately this car is lowered and performs much better on concrete, so instead of destroying this car, I picked up its cousin a month ago.
My new 98 Impreza out back sport.
This thread is going to be for you guys to point and laugh, but also for me to track my work and have it saved in a public forum for others to find on google and learn what not to do.
The goal is to have a car to compete in NASA Rally Sport as well as Rally America in the open light class.
I started with a 1998 obs for $650 that was "running and driving" but the seller said it had a bad clutch and would need to be towed away.
I went down to Fort Collins to take a look at it, handed the guy cash, and then began to piss off my wife by driving it home. The 50 mile trip north told me a few things. The clutch was in fact gone, throw out bearing making a racket, but also 3rd gear had an issue with grinding and popping out, and 4th gear was non existent.
Before I began to fix the transmission and all that, I had a buddy come over so I could fabricate an exhaust for his 09 ram 1500 that we put long tube headers on. He was bored while I did that so he began to strip the rally car. Once everything but the door cards, and dash were out, I used an air hammer with a chisel to chip up the sound deadening material. I did this on my last Miata with the v8 in it but used a hammer and screw driver and this time it went by a million times faster.
I sourced a used transmission and rear differential out of a 2003-2005 forester.
Benefit of this is that the car originally had a 3.9 gear ratio and the new stuff is a 4.44 ratio which will help this old gutless 2.2l on stage.
Few problems:
CV shafts different due to old transmission accepting female CV shafts and new transmission being male CV shafts. I used off the shelf replacement shafts for 03-05 model year forester.
Original transmission was cable operated clutch and the new transmission was hydraulic. Instead of converting the car over to hydraulic which would have required a lot of sourced parts (pedal assembly, master and slave cylinders, and mounts for those) I converted the new transmission over to cable clutch. To do this I had to reuse the old clutch fork and move the pivot ball for the clutch fork. Subaru has changed the transmission from a 4 bolt to an 8 bolt bellhousing as well as changed from cable to hydraulic clutches, but they have left everything to be compatible for swapping back and forth. Subarus are legos.
Speedo pickup on old transmission was 2 wire and new transmission was 3 wire. Simply swapped pickups and was good to go.
Starters on subarus use the top driver bellhousing bolt and then usually have either a stud on the transmission that goes through the starter and then a nut on that, or use another bellhousing bolt into the motor. Original transmission has the first option with the stud. Problem with that is that my motor was made with the 4 bolt transmission so it does not have the additional bolt hole for the second starter/bellhousing bolt. The new transmission was also missing the threads to install the stud since it was meant to have the bolt pass through into the motor. My solution was to drill the starter and tap the transmission for a 1/2" bolt I had lying around.
I had to install the transmission and drop the transmission 3 times due to the throw out bearing popping out of the old retaining clips that hold it to the clutch fork. Finally gave in and spent the $7 for the new retaining clips at the dealership and didn't have the problem again.
Finally moved it out of the garage and drove it around the block.
I work at tnt customs week day mornings to generate some garage money, and on our last order of steel, I grabbed a few sticks of 1.75x .095 DOM which is the requirement for all FIA cages to meet the specs for the two organizations.
It is crazy all of the rules and regulations for this stuff!
Along with the cage I needed to order up some seats so last month I ordered some OMP rs pt 2 seats from rally.build which is a company based out of Denver. They have been sitting in my bedroom since the owner hand delivered them to me up in Cheyenne.
I have the next 4 days off from my full time job, so the plan is to get the cars vin inspection done and get it registered after I get off of work at tnt. Once it is registered and all that I can tear it down completely for the cage. Tailgate, all glass, the roof skin, along with the dash and all the related stuff with that all comes off for the cage and seam welding.
Windshield is cracked all over and all other glass is getting replaced with lexan anyways so the last step of taking off the roof will make it just so much easier to get the cage in tight and fully welded around all tubes.
So to keep me on a strict budget here is my total cost so far
$650 for car
$170 for clutch
$90 for flywheel
$150 for cv shafts
$15 for clips and spark plugs
$60 in fluids
$1300 in seats
$40 in mud flaps
$350 in metal
$300 for Wrx brakes, hubs and knuckles
$30 in wiring stuff
Still need to buy fia approved harnesses, helmets, neck restraints, suits, gloves, shoes, steering wheel, quick release for steering wheel, wheels, tires, adjustable prop valve, hydraulic hand brake, new manual master cylinder, and suspension as well as windshield and lexan for remaking all other Windows.
Hopefully in the next few days I can make some crazy progress.
In my 4 years of driving I have owned 13 cars. Of two reoccurring trends, I have found that I like Jeeps and Subarus. Having sold my last jeep almost 6 months ago,I switched it up and bought a Subaru.
The Subaru is a 99 Impreza base that has the interior of an 06 Wrx, the block of a 2004 sti and heads off a Jdm sti. The car is a mess of Subaru parts that puts a joyful 350/350 down to the wheels for a nice tame daily driver.
If you guys remember my 06 Wrx I had a few years ago, you would know that I have the lack of control to keep things nice. I immediately wanted to take it fishing and be a rally car, but unfortunately this car is lowered and performs much better on concrete, so instead of destroying this car, I picked up its cousin a month ago.
My new 98 Impreza out back sport.
This thread is going to be for you guys to point and laugh, but also for me to track my work and have it saved in a public forum for others to find on google and learn what not to do.
The goal is to have a car to compete in NASA Rally Sport as well as Rally America in the open light class.
I started with a 1998 obs for $650 that was "running and driving" but the seller said it had a bad clutch and would need to be towed away.
I went down to Fort Collins to take a look at it, handed the guy cash, and then began to piss off my wife by driving it home. The 50 mile trip north told me a few things. The clutch was in fact gone, throw out bearing making a racket, but also 3rd gear had an issue with grinding and popping out, and 4th gear was non existent.
Before I began to fix the transmission and all that, I had a buddy come over so I could fabricate an exhaust for his 09 ram 1500 that we put long tube headers on. He was bored while I did that so he began to strip the rally car. Once everything but the door cards, and dash were out, I used an air hammer with a chisel to chip up the sound deadening material. I did this on my last Miata with the v8 in it but used a hammer and screw driver and this time it went by a million times faster.
I sourced a used transmission and rear differential out of a 2003-2005 forester.
Benefit of this is that the car originally had a 3.9 gear ratio and the new stuff is a 4.44 ratio which will help this old gutless 2.2l on stage.
Few problems:
CV shafts different due to old transmission accepting female CV shafts and new transmission being male CV shafts. I used off the shelf replacement shafts for 03-05 model year forester.
Original transmission was cable operated clutch and the new transmission was hydraulic. Instead of converting the car over to hydraulic which would have required a lot of sourced parts (pedal assembly, master and slave cylinders, and mounts for those) I converted the new transmission over to cable clutch. To do this I had to reuse the old clutch fork and move the pivot ball for the clutch fork. Subaru has changed the transmission from a 4 bolt to an 8 bolt bellhousing as well as changed from cable to hydraulic clutches, but they have left everything to be compatible for swapping back and forth. Subarus are legos.
Speedo pickup on old transmission was 2 wire and new transmission was 3 wire. Simply swapped pickups and was good to go.
Starters on subarus use the top driver bellhousing bolt and then usually have either a stud on the transmission that goes through the starter and then a nut on that, or use another bellhousing bolt into the motor. Original transmission has the first option with the stud. Problem with that is that my motor was made with the 4 bolt transmission so it does not have the additional bolt hole for the second starter/bellhousing bolt. The new transmission was also missing the threads to install the stud since it was meant to have the bolt pass through into the motor. My solution was to drill the starter and tap the transmission for a 1/2" bolt I had lying around.
I had to install the transmission and drop the transmission 3 times due to the throw out bearing popping out of the old retaining clips that hold it to the clutch fork. Finally gave in and spent the $7 for the new retaining clips at the dealership and didn't have the problem again.
Finally moved it out of the garage and drove it around the block.
I work at tnt customs week day mornings to generate some garage money, and on our last order of steel, I grabbed a few sticks of 1.75x .095 DOM which is the requirement for all FIA cages to meet the specs for the two organizations.
It is crazy all of the rules and regulations for this stuff!
Along with the cage I needed to order up some seats so last month I ordered some OMP rs pt 2 seats from rally.build which is a company based out of Denver. They have been sitting in my bedroom since the owner hand delivered them to me up in Cheyenne.
I have the next 4 days off from my full time job, so the plan is to get the cars vin inspection done and get it registered after I get off of work at tnt. Once it is registered and all that I can tear it down completely for the cage. Tailgate, all glass, the roof skin, along with the dash and all the related stuff with that all comes off for the cage and seam welding.
Windshield is cracked all over and all other glass is getting replaced with lexan anyways so the last step of taking off the roof will make it just so much easier to get the cage in tight and fully welded around all tubes.
So to keep me on a strict budget here is my total cost so far
$650 for car
$170 for clutch
$90 for flywheel
$150 for cv shafts
$15 for clips and spark plugs
$60 in fluids
$1300 in seats
$40 in mud flaps
$350 in metal
$300 for Wrx brakes, hubs and knuckles
$30 in wiring stuff
Still need to buy fia approved harnesses, helmets, neck restraints, suits, gloves, shoes, steering wheel, quick release for steering wheel, wheels, tires, adjustable prop valve, hydraulic hand brake, new manual master cylinder, and suspension as well as windshield and lexan for remaking all other Windows.
Hopefully in the next few days I can make some crazy progress.
