So I had sold off all my cars and as most people do they get the urge to have it back. I searched the old interwebs and found another rs and it was local. Went and checked it out and it was what I expected. It had been sitting for about a year after the previous owner attempted to ken block it and this telephone jumped into his way and crushed the passenger side just in front of the door. I offered him 500 buck and his dad made him take it so he could has his garage back. Rented a uhaul and I went back the next day to get it.
The kid included a manual swap which just included the trans, rear diff, driveshaft and manual ecu. It had the eBay halo headlights and thank god he had the stock lights intact in a box. I happily accepted those as well.
Once back to my shop I started to disassemble the car to find the hidden damage under neath. It was at this moment I knew I had some work ahead of me
The lovely comparison from left and right. That left side was simply crushed. I had to do a lot of hammering and cutting to pull all of that metal out straight again. I managed to get it out and was able to pick up a fender from one the members here. It was a little rusty on the inside but was good for mock up and test fitting/panel gap.
Swapped out the lights for the stock lights and started figuring out what worked and what didn't. It was about this time a kid I worked with needed to get rid of his obs because it was horribly rusted and basically just had a few good body parts but an excellent running gear. This car became my donor and the gutting began. I basically took the entire front end off and put that into the rs.
Front end was finally good to go minus the windshield. Figured that could come later. Next thing to go was the automatic trans it came with. Now I had some reservation about doing this since from what I can gather is a 1 of 587 car for that year but I said screw it and the auto to manual swap began. I'll be honest and say it was a fair amount of work but conveniently Subarus are like legos and everything had a hole to bolt things to. Only real difficult part was installing the pedal box and some minor wiring to make the ecu recognize the now manual trans.
I should have taken more pictures of the swap itself but I didn't. There's a lot of great info on rs25 about this swap if it's something you wanted to tackle.
Continued to strip the obs for everything it had to offer. Got new suspension and lowering springs as well as oversized sway bars that have yet to be installed. Few late nights here and there and she was together and running with a fully operational 5 speed. I did end up using a cable style clutch vs the hydro. A little different that my old rs but I've gotten use to it.
Decided the old girl needed some color so I just used my old plastidip gun and ordered some red dip. Stayed late one night and started the process. I had cut up the old fenders I took off the car originally and made patch panels for the notorious rear quarter rust spots. Yet again I didn't take any pictures but I'll assure you they fit really well.
Now the color didn't come out quite perfect due to the different base color. Maybe you can see that or maybe you can't but it's getting me by for now. I'm currently building a house which I'll be moving into within the month so the car will be torn down yet again and primed and painted properly.
Finally registered the car and got the windshield replaced. Car runs great but I'll need to research how to wire up the vss and speedo signal. Car occasionally stalls when pressing in the clutch and coasting to a stop. Rpms don't recover fast enough sometimes. Not a big job but should be fixed regardless. Would be nice to know how fast I'm going.
Got a deal from Cameron on a set of front 07 wrx 4 pot calipers. Got a rebuild kit and cleaned the hell out of them. Took about 2 days but it's going to be well worth it. Primed and painted and rebuilt. I'll have to say I'm quite impressed. Can't wait to toss them on.
Now of course these won't fit under stock 02-03 wrx wheels so something new was in order. Got a deal on some 17x9 drag wheels with tires. Needs to be repainted but these will make an excellent addition for handling and grip.
Who needs a truck!?
Last thing for now is I ordered a set of fender flares. Just 50mm to cover the small amount of poke they had. Can't wait to get the fenders cut and installed.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
The kid included a manual swap which just included the trans, rear diff, driveshaft and manual ecu. It had the eBay halo headlights and thank god he had the stock lights intact in a box. I happily accepted those as well.
Once back to my shop I started to disassemble the car to find the hidden damage under neath. It was at this moment I knew I had some work ahead of me
The lovely comparison from left and right. That left side was simply crushed. I had to do a lot of hammering and cutting to pull all of that metal out straight again. I managed to get it out and was able to pick up a fender from one the members here. It was a little rusty on the inside but was good for mock up and test fitting/panel gap.
Swapped out the lights for the stock lights and started figuring out what worked and what didn't. It was about this time a kid I worked with needed to get rid of his obs because it was horribly rusted and basically just had a few good body parts but an excellent running gear. This car became my donor and the gutting began. I basically took the entire front end off and put that into the rs.
Front end was finally good to go minus the windshield. Figured that could come later. Next thing to go was the automatic trans it came with. Now I had some reservation about doing this since from what I can gather is a 1 of 587 car for that year but I said screw it and the auto to manual swap began. I'll be honest and say it was a fair amount of work but conveniently Subarus are like legos and everything had a hole to bolt things to. Only real difficult part was installing the pedal box and some minor wiring to make the ecu recognize the now manual trans.
I should have taken more pictures of the swap itself but I didn't. There's a lot of great info on rs25 about this swap if it's something you wanted to tackle.
Continued to strip the obs for everything it had to offer. Got new suspension and lowering springs as well as oversized sway bars that have yet to be installed. Few late nights here and there and she was together and running with a fully operational 5 speed. I did end up using a cable style clutch vs the hydro. A little different that my old rs but I've gotten use to it.
Decided the old girl needed some color so I just used my old plastidip gun and ordered some red dip. Stayed late one night and started the process. I had cut up the old fenders I took off the car originally and made patch panels for the notorious rear quarter rust spots. Yet again I didn't take any pictures but I'll assure you they fit really well.
Now the color didn't come out quite perfect due to the different base color. Maybe you can see that or maybe you can't but it's getting me by for now. I'm currently building a house which I'll be moving into within the month so the car will be torn down yet again and primed and painted properly.
Finally registered the car and got the windshield replaced. Car runs great but I'll need to research how to wire up the vss and speedo signal. Car occasionally stalls when pressing in the clutch and coasting to a stop. Rpms don't recover fast enough sometimes. Not a big job but should be fixed regardless. Would be nice to know how fast I'm going.
Got a deal from Cameron on a set of front 07 wrx 4 pot calipers. Got a rebuild kit and cleaned the hell out of them. Took about 2 days but it's going to be well worth it. Primed and painted and rebuilt. I'll have to say I'm quite impressed. Can't wait to toss them on.
Now of course these won't fit under stock 02-03 wrx wheels so something new was in order. Got a deal on some 17x9 drag wheels with tires. Needs to be repainted but these will make an excellent addition for handling and grip.
Who needs a truck!?
Last thing for now is I ordered a set of fender flares. Just 50mm to cover the small amount of poke they had. Can't wait to get the fenders cut and installed.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
