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Hi all, recently been turned onto this forum by Ralph.Wrecked.It and have spent a few days marvelling at everyone's builds before thinking about posting mine
For my new daily, I picked up a 2003 Subaru Impreza Wagon with the Prodrive Performance Pack (PPP) added for a decent price back in early October. It had a fresh MOT in late September, but we knew that the radiator mount was rusted out so that needed looking at ASAP. I only have street parking (I am also new to working on cars), so anything other than top down/ interior changes will be left to the pros!
Here she is!
Mods that we noted were,
C-West lip and sill kit,
Exedy Stage 1 clutch and flywheel with less than 1000 miles on
Whiteline lowered springs, only the fronts were installed, however I like the stance so wanted to keep it as is. We have the rear Whiteline springs and stock fronts if we cant to change it up either way in future
Bailey Motorsports blow off valve
Whiteline rear sway bar
Milltek cat back exhaust
Inovit Redline 18" wheels
Roof rails have been removed
Wind deflectors installed
MYSTERIOUS red button in the centre console, as far as I can tell it does nothing
It was booked in with AutoTorque to have the mount removed and a replacement welded in. In the run up to that we tackled a few other pieces:-
One of the rear number plate light mounts wasn't seating bulbs properly, so worked on that in order to get a bulb to sit and light up correctly
The front washer jets were blocked and the rear washer was leaking into the rear of the car, so purged the pipes for the front jets with compressed air and took the rear interior apart to find out what was happening. The front jets were full of algae which wasn't fun! We found that part of the rear washer line had split which was leaking into the cabin. We cut the line and used a plastic hose connector to reconnect the pieces
At this point we noted that the aftermarket arial wasn't completely sealed, so getting a new arial base seal and a sharkfin style arial to cover it
Real basic one, is didn't have the correct wipers on it (the rear one was falling off!), so grabbed an OEM set and sorted those out
Had an intermittent airbag light warning, which was the passenger side sensor wiring. Resecured that and tightened up the seatbelt faster whilst I was at it
Replaced some missing trim pieces
The car then went to the garage to have the radiator mount replaced and they uncovered just a LITTLE bit more rust than we anticipated
Rust holes in the rear arches, we couldn't get our torches on this when we looked at the car (How did this pass its MOT!?!)
More rot in the sills, this was my budget for any other touch ups for the year gone
Whilst they had the car on the lift, I had all the bushings replaced as they were in a sorry state, along with having the rear suspension springs reseated and a brake line cleaned up
They did a bang up job on the repairs and although it went over my initial budget I'm glad I have the piece of mind that it is done and they gave the rest of the bottom of the car a once over to make sure it was OK
On the way home from the garage I then realised my hazards weren't working (cue facepalm). Initially thought it was a broken switch so ordered a replacement before checking the fuses. Lo' and behold the fuse was smoked, lesson learned! Root cause was that the horn had been converted to an air horn, and the compressor was seized. The horn and hazards share a fuse and so the horn had caused the hazards to stop working. The whole horn unit will be getting replaced with a PIAA horn soon
The foglight bulbs were also toast so those were replaced, the housings are pretty bad so they might need to be replaced next time bulbs are needed!
After this I drove the car 370 miles in 24 hours to see how it fared, went without a hitch but the blow off valve making choo choo noises and the car feeling like its falling on its face between shifts was becoming annoying. There was also what I thought was the head unit making a random beep noise, but my partner said to her it sounded more like a whistle... boost leak? Did a load of research and it didn't sound in line with boost leaks for the car, however the sound was coming from that area of the car.
Got hold of a stock recirculating valve and fitted it, along with a Green panel filter and readjusted the throttle cable due to a little play in the pedal. Car feels so much better now, it cruises much smoother and it doesn't loose revs like a dropped stone during gear shifts
The beep/ whistle has also gone! Thank the gods for that
That leads up to now where it is due for a service. Going to also have a new exhaust gasket installed as the current one is blowing a bit, and a new fuel pump. The Prodrive pack is meant to have an upgraded pump, but it isn't on the list of work carried out. So have got hold of a Walbro 255LPH, which is what the upgrade is meant to be.
The plan for this year is to hopefully get the exterior buttoned up. Iit needs some minor bubbling around the arches looked at and a section of one of the wings has paint flaking off it. The C pillar plastic has worn away a bit so will likely get that wrapped to match the B pillar. Will also get the underbody washed and resealed to try and stop a repeat of the rust.
2024 will be performance upgrades if everything goes well, initially larger injectors and a conservative tune, and then keeping on top of the maintenance until it gets to 150k where the engine will need a full tear down. Intention is to get a forged 2.0 or 2.1 short block to replace the EJ205 and a bigger turbo, but as with everything, it is all down to £££
Thanks to everyone that made it this far and I hope to make it to some meets in the future
Cheers!
Aaron
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