What’s up guys,
I decided to start a journal style thread to keep track of history on repairs & upgrades to my car. But 1st, a quick little background of my history with Subarus. I’ve been driving them since 2006. Here’s my 1st one, a 2000 Impreza RS:
It was totaled by my younger brother in 2008 when he decided to take it for a joy ride to Orchard Park with a friend and hit a deer going ~ 60mph.
In 2009, I scored another 2000 Impreza RS. I needed a winter car as my daily was a 350Z at the time (which I sold the summer after)
I ended up putting into a fire hydrant @ ~30mph in my local neighborhood during the winter of 2013. It was entirely my fault as I thought it would be a good idea to try to have some fun in the snow on questionable tires and very slippery roads. I made contact with it at the very center of the car. Had my buddy pulled me out of the ditch and I drove it home like this:
With my daily totaled, I started looking for a replacement GC8 chassis so that I could start over fresh. This turned out to be a difficult task as all the ones I found were either molested or the sellers were asking an arm and a leg for them. At this time, I had completely given up on a GC8 replacement. So I said “fuck it” and started looking for a WRX instead. A few weeks of research payed off and I found a clean, base model 2011 WRX HB in red with 22k miles in Dover, DE. My wife and I left town @ 3am on January 8th of 2014 with a certified check from my bank, and made it back home with the ‘new’ car the same day by 10pm. Here’s a few photos I took of it at work the following day:
The car came with 5% tint and the original summer tires, which were slightly dry-rotted. I ended up (carefully) riding the rest of the winter out with those tires and bought a set of Goodyear Eagle Sports in May:
The brakes needed some attention as well. They were pulsating under hard breaking, so it was time to replace them. Bought a complete set of PowerStop rotors and pads from RockAuto:
I was not taking ANY chances for the winter of 2014, so sometime at the end of September I purchased a set of 16x6.5 steelies wrapped in General Altimax Arctic (215/55) from Discount Tire Direct and was ready for battle this time around!
Here’s a video made the night of SuperBowl XLIX. It’s nothing special but it was a lot of fun!
2015 was a boring year for Chester (like Chester Cheetah - wife’s idea). I didn’t do anything to it other than some new wiper blades. I did however score some ‘better’ winter rims. I got these from a guy in Rochester for a pretty good price. Transferred the winter tires over to these and gave the steelies to my brother for his 2011 2.5i.
This year is when I really started to invest some time and money into the car. I’ve always wanted an aggressive wheel/tire combo on my GC8 but never got around to do it 
Kids these like to ‘stance’ their cars with retarded wheel offsets, crazy camber and stretched tires. I’m not about that life. I like some meat on my wheels and full functionality of my stock suspension. I was torn between 3 different style of wheel: Y-spoke, concave 6-spoke or split 6-spoke. It came down to the Rota Grids, Rota MXR or the Enkei RPF1 - all in gold of course. After days of debating I decided to go with the true and tried RPF1. I got them in 18x9.5 et38. Researched a bunch on what tire to wrap them in. Ended up getting BFGoodrich Sport Comp-2 A/S (265/35). I bought the A/S version of the tire just in case I EVER get caught in the snow with these wheels on. I simply didn’t want to take any chances.
The best thing about owning a hatch - I was able to fit the rims with boxes and the tires to go get them mounted at the Super Tire Change Bros (great guys, I’d recommend them to anyone!). Got them back home and installed them the following day:
A quick comparison shot of the stock wheel vs my setup:
I quickly found out that the rear tires were rubbing over slight compression of the suspension. Ordered an eBay fender roller which ended up not working. I returned it, got my full refund and purchased the Eastwood roller instead. It worked like a charm! I ended up applying some seam sealer and touch up paint to help keep the moisture out from between the two layers of sheet metal.
Everything is perfect at this point except for one thing. The larger wheel looks really weird with the stock, rusty looking calipers. It was time to start looking at my options for 4/2 pot conversions. As many of you know already, I powdercoat in my garage, so I knew that I wanted to buy remanufactured calipers from A1 Cardone as they are fairly cheap and come in a bare metal finish which makes it super easy for the buyer to lay down their own color. After weeks of searching, I’ve decided to go with the Subaru 4/2 pot. I chose these mainly because there’s a shortage of Brembo cores at A1 and a used set with unknown condition are selling between $650-1000. The Subaru 4-pots are currently in the same boat. I took my chance on a used set of those from a member on Nasioc and bought remanufactures rear 2-pot A1 from RockAuto. I also bought StopTech SS lines to complement the conversion. Here’s a bunch of pictures I took during the whole process. From the day I started prepping everything for powder, to the day I installed them on the car:
I’ve had no issues of any kind since I did this conversion and I’m well over 1000 miles on this setup now. All the hard work paid off. I’ve got no leaks, the pedal feel is amazing. I don’t miss the old setup AT ALL. In case anyone is wondering, I torqued the front caliper halves in 3 steps to 42ft/lbs (28, 35, 42). Since the rears are cast aluminum, I torqued them down in 3 steps to 35ft/lbs (21,28,35).
I returned my rear cores to RockAuto for a refund of $125. The front set was powder coated black and sold to a member on rs25.com, which yielded $150.
So here’s what my total cost was for this whole conversion, this includes everything: the calipers, pads, rotors and SS lines:
$848
-275
$573!
Can’t beat that!
I haven’t done anything to the car since. It’s actually been sitting most of the summer because I’ve been enjoying the crap out of my 350Z. I’ll be using it a lot more in the coming weeks though. I’ll do my best to keep updating the thread. It’s nice to have the whole history of your car in one place 
Here’s the latest photo of Chester:
Wait what? New wheels and shrunken? Haha nah, that’s my 1/10 Kyosho EP Fazer Rally with their WRC Rally Concept body
Here’s the REAL most recent photo of it
