2002 Subaru Impreza WRX

[redgatemodels]

I suppose it's time for a bit of an update. Not much has been done with the car since the new rad went in. It's still working fine. Had a trip to the NEC and back with no issues whatsoever, so here's hoping the cooling issues I have had since I got the car are now gone.....

Back in October I got the winter wheels out of storage for a quick respray. They had not been on the car for two years and 3 were very flat (more of that later). This made the bin bag masking very easy






They came up quite well, went for a dark grey/gunmetal finish this time. White was a silly choice for winters



First weekend in December came the time to fit them. This happened on the first locking wheel nut



yes, that's the key broken, with bits of broken locker still stuck in it. After many phone calls I found a new to me great little tyre place in Mansfield who very matter of factly removed all 4 lockers and replaced with standard wheel nuts for 6 quid a wheel. I got on and dropped the wheels on the following day



It soon became obvious though that the three that were flat would not hold air. I was having to pump them up every day and despite a large amount of hope they didn't get any better. Back to Glenns Low Cost Tyres last Saturday and got them taken off, alloys cleaned up and tyres re-sealed, balanced etc for £14.95 a wheel. These guys really are my new go-to tyre place. Nothing phases them, they have a calm "no problem" attitude and charge very reasonably.

In hindsight I should have just got them to remove the tyres and I could then have cleaned the rims up myself and resprayed without having to use 4 bin bags. Oh well, bring on the snow. Tyres are Avon WV7 which I'd recommend to anyone for winter tyres.

[redgatemodels]

Santa brought me some new speakers this Christmas. About time too as the rears were very poor and the fronts not much better. Clearly the 20 year old paper cones etc were past their best.

Now they were supposed to be a drop in replacement from Bass Junkies, fronts supplied with adaptors etc. Yeah right.

Thought I'd tackle the fronts first, so off with the door card and out with the speaker




Here’s the new speaker fitted to its adaptor, looks right yes? Erm, no. Mounting holes are way out. Good job I have a pillar drill…








So fronts all fitted and sounding good, on to the rears. Door card off and I was greeted with 4 hole fixing speakers fitted to adaptors. Great, the new ones should just drop in right?



Our survey said uh uh looks like the stock speakers are 4” and I’ve got another pair of 5.25”. Did some digging and although Scosche do 4” (HD4004) they are only available in the USA. Bigger is better anyway, so make them fit!

the hole in the door was not big enough to allow the new speakers to sit flush with the door panel, though about cutting metal but decided to make up some spacers instead. I got some random bits of tut from the workshop and cast 8 spacers using hot glue















new fixing holes drilled and speakers secured in place using the supplied self tappers. The clips supplied served as washers to stop the heads of the screws pulling through the mounting brackets





finally I added some duct tape to seal the gap between the door panel and the speakers 





I can now turn the Android head unit up to max without the speakers crying out in pain 😂

[redgatemodels]

So as I've said on Matt88's topic forum.retro-rides.org/thread/223501/uk2000-impreza-turbo-gc8-fixed
the Bugeye is off the road for a couple of weeks, it's popped a hard coolant line that means inlet manifold off etc - not for me to do and my preferred Impreza expert can't fit me in until February.

Thankfully the boss has let me use the pool fiesta to commute 

It's going to be expensive, parts are pretty cheap but there's going to be one heck of a labour bill ......

Might get him to swap the nearside front coilover spring while he has the car too.

[redgatemodels]

So car is safely with QED Automotive, drove it there (about 8 miles) with no issues. Mike's going to strip off the manifold and pressure test the cooling system to see where the leak is and take it from there.

More time in the Diesel Fiesta ........

[redgatemodels]

Not much of an update, car is still at QED. Mike tried to save me money by just replacing the two hoses that come from the water pump, but no, my initial suspicions were right, one of the two steel pipes has sprung a leak.

As the inlet manifold has to come off, so it does not need to be done again, I have ordered all new steel pipes and rubber hoses that go under it - get the lot changed while we are at it. I've also ordered a new stock turbo inlet as Mat88 discovered they tend to disintegrate at the turbo end when disturbed.

Over 200 quid down so far and Mike's labour bill will be a lot more .......

[redgatemodels]

Things progressed yesterday, Mike took delivery of the order from ICP and then did this to my baby




I hope he remembers where all this lot go when it comes time to put it back together