August 21, 2008

Went to pick up the car tonight and as I came around the corner of the shop I saw my car going up on the lift. Apparently as Konrad started it up to pull it out the oil light was on, so he quickly shut it down. It was the pump. Something fouled the plunger so they replaced it.

August 25, 2008

We figured out what was going on with the oil pump. MSPT suspects the turbo is on it's way out and blowing out some crap which is clogging the oil pump. Three pumps failed now and the turbo is making a weird noise.

August 21, 2008

Went to pick up the car tonight and as I came around the corner of the shop I saw my car going up on the lift. Apparently as Konrad started it up to pull it out the oil light was on, so he quickly shut it down. It was the pump. Something fouled the plunger so they replaced it.

On my way home the gauges/stereo/lights started flashing, flickering and resetting themselves. I though it was weird but the car was running ok so I left a message for Dave from my cell and figured it was a loose electrical connetion.

Edit: The oil light was back on again the next morning so the car got towed to Metric.

August 19, 2008

Matt G from LSC was kind enough to hook me up with lines and fittings tonight. Thanks Matt. Too bad Dave and Konrad already pulled a set off of a vf43 and made it work. Now I need to give these back. LOL

August 14th, 2008

After chasing after deadbolt, I finally got the turbo back. It looks like the compressor wheel isn't new because of some discoloring and chips on the leading edge of the wheel. Deadbolt claims it is new though. Hmmm. We shall see. Oh, and they forgot to send back my oil and water lines with the turbo, and now their shop is closed until Wednesday. Grrrr. Time to source them from somewhere else.

July 29, 2008

I orderred a bunch more goodies while I wait for the turbo to come back. I sourced JDM STI wagon lower control arms on NASIOC -- wooo hooo! I also got a new whiteline front strut bar, whiteline roll center kit, noltec endlinks, whiteline front strut bar, and dropped off the Energy suspension hyper-flex kit to be installed. Dave is hooking it up with Perrin rear endlinks as well.

July 16, 2008

The car was dropped off at Metric today. The turbo is getting pulled out and shipped to Deadbolt right now. We're leaving for Maine Saturday so might as well maximize the downtime.

July 4, 2008

As you can see from my recent purchases, I'm gearing up for the next round of mods. Only one more thing to do really: remove the turbo and sent to deadbolt to be converted into a PE1825f clone with porting, ceramic coating and an upgraded wastegate actuator. it will go out after my car arrives at the shop and will be a two week turnaround from deadbolt. Then it's getting a new tune to finish the car off. It should be good for 360-400whp with full boost around 3500 RPMs.

Hopefully by the time it is back from the shop I should have my new Sparco harness bar and harnesses in. They're on order from JNJ Associates and the bar is big-time back-ordered. I'm crossing my fingers though.

July 2, 2008

I just orderred the GrimmSpeed Ported Intake Manifold and TGV deletes, and they're going to be ceramic coated blue. Man, these things are going to look sweet and be good for a few more ponies.

July 1, 2008

I dropped off the 4/2-pot calipers tonight to be ceramic coated silver. I should have them back soon. I'm gearing up for more work. Yeah, yeah, I know... how much work could I possible to to this car?

June 23, 2008

My Bilstein Pss9 coilovers arrived today! Too bad I couldn't get excited about them... I woke up to the horrible news of George Carlin's death that stuck with me throughout the day. He was one of the most intelligent people and an icon, not just to comedy and entertainment, but to our modern culture as we know it. Goodbye George. You will be dearly missed Long live the king!

Oh yeah, and here are the coilovers.

June 20, 2008

I met up with Bryan Jesia at JnJ Associates today to pick up my Whiteline camber plates. Coincidentally they left for the hospital shortly after I left to deliver their new baby girl Congratulations Bryan. Welcome to fatherhood. And thanks for the great deal on these.

BTW, ignore the stain on the rug. It's just par for the coarse when you have kids. :p

June 7, 2008

Sadly, I was rear ended tonight. Truth be told, it was a cops fault. It happened on rt. 347 near rt. 111. The cop decided he was going to put his lights on and pull out of a break in the median with not enough of a warning for me to stop. The last minute he sees me and stops. Just then, a 17 year old girl locks up her breaks and comes sliding towards me from the rear. So I put it in gear and made an attempt to pull away from her. I put another car length between us but it wasn't enough. Good thing I moved because there was only scratches on my bumper and my license plate cover got cracked. That was it! Thank God no one was hurt. But the cop pulled away and left the scene of an accident he caused. Isn't that a felony or something? Anyway, minor damage so I let the girl go and didn't ask for restitution.

Time for a new bumper, and maybe get the JDM waiste spoiler I always wanted.

May 5, 2008

I decided this week that I was going to change my interior trim over to look like the JDM STI Spec C in flat black. So after doing some research I found a thread on NASIOC.com where a user used Plassti-Dip to paint their trim. Plasti-Dip is a rubberized paint which has many uses, but it is typically used to coat the handles of tools for better grip and protection. So I thought "why not." Luckily I had some extra trim laying around that I collected over the years and all I needed to buy was a new STI shifter trim ring and a new Autometer 2-gauge pod cluster trim. After some it came out pretty sick!

I still have to install the STI shifter trim and Autometer cluster trim but I am loving how it turned out. And it feels so cool.

April 23 , 2008

My new LED backup llights came today.

And man, are they bright

April 20 , 2008

A group of us from the Long Island Subaru Club got together today to roll the rear fenders of our cars. "Rolling the fenders" is a modification made the the lip of a fender arch to allow more wheel clearence. By using a heat gun to avoid the paint cracking, and tool (or sometimes a baseball bat) is used to gradually turn (or roll) the lip to tuck it away from the tire. The rear fenders on WRX wagons specifically have clearnece issues and this process is necessary if you wish to run tire sizes wider than 225 widths without rubbing, especially if your car is lowered like mine is.

While we were there I swapped out my blue lug nuts for some new Vision aluminum gunmetal lug nuts. In case you're wondering the standard size for the WRX is 12x1.25mm.

March 11, 2008

New shoes added to the wagon. I just picked up a set of 17" STI/Enkei wheels which came off a 2008 Subaru Forester Sport XT. They only had 3000 miles on them and are mint. So I got some Toyo Proxes 4 225/45/17 tires to round out the package. I'd say the made the car look a million times better, don't you?

October 22, 2007

It was obviously more than a week wait but it was well worth the wait. Except for a little shuddering with the new clutch (it needs to be broken in), and some added noise I picked up from the lightened flywheel not having load applied constantly, the car is performing like a champ. Current estimates are right around 335whp/350wtq. That's good enough for me. Hopefully the tranny can handle it.

My initial impressions of the new motor are "holy crap. Where did the turbo lag go?" As I suspected, the increased engine displacement from the 2.0 liter ej205 to the 2.5 liter ej257 increased the power band upwards and outwards, giving the car more grunt off the line and everywhere else. I just can't launch it from a standstill or my weak 5spd will suffer the same fate as countless others have. But once I hit 2nd, it's full steam ahead. Even better, mashing the throttle at 60 mph causes the car to lunge forward as if I were only doing 20 mph. I can't wait to get this thing on the track. I suspect I'll feel the torque pulling all the way to the limits.