Swapped GC8 Back From The Dead

[Iant333]

I’ve had this car for a while but it should be back on the road pretty soon, like within the next few weeks.

Bought it almost exactly 1 year ago and it looked like this pretty much:

It’s a 2000 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS with an 04 WRX engine swap.

Came with some stuff like A Koni/GC suspension setup, perrin rear sway bar, WRX front brakes, it had some more stuff when I bought it but I dont remember exactly.

5 monthes after I bought it I ran head on into a gentleman driving in the middle of the road on a blind corner. The car looked like this:

So then I bought a little 2 door 96 Impreza which looked rust free. Started taking it apart in order to swap it with all my old stuff and basically the only thing holding it together was bondo so I just sliced the front end off it and put it on the 2000, which looked like this. I think this was taken around Julyish.

I think it came out really good, i’ve never done intensive body work before but I was familiar with the idea and I found all the datum points in the FSM so it wasn’t that hard to do. All I did was a new front tie bar and rad support and welded in some new metal on the one corner by the battery tray.

I’ve been working on it since then and this is what it looks like today:

The only stuff stopping it from being road worthy is I’m waiting to get a little spacer from Japan so I can run my coilovers with my camber plates and it needs the hood put on it. Sometime over the winter it is gonna go back off the road for a few weeks for a new paint job, as it is now most of the front is primer black. I also would like to throw a carpet in it too but have yet to order one.

Mod list as of now:

Current Mod List
EDIT 11/21/12:

Engine:

EJ205, brand new 100% rebuild that I did mostly myself w/

Wiseco forged 0.20 over pistons
Eagle H beam rods
04+ cross drilled crank
ACL race bearings
11mm JDM STi Oil Pump
Brian Crower Valve Springs
Stock Cams

VF-30, Ported
Perrin BCS
Perrin Fuel Rails
Aeromotive Adjustable Fuel pressure Regulator
Walbro 255
DW 750cc Injectors
Perrin Short Ram Intake
Perrin Turbo Inlet
APS Catless Turboback Exhaust
Invidia Up-pipe
Group N motor mount
Perrin crank pulley

Transmission:

JDM 96 STi RA takeoff
Group N Mount
Kartboy Shifter bushings
ACT Streetlite flywheel
Competition stage 2 clutch
DSS Aluminum Driveshaft

Suspension:

Koni/GC combo
Perrin 22mm rear sway
Cusco Camber Plates frnt/ GpN mounts in the rear
Most bushings replaced with poly

Brakes:

Bugeye WRX Fronts
Hawk HPS pads all round
Brembo Blanks all round
Wilwood Hi temp 570 fluid
96 Brighton Master cyl (No ABS) and single stage brake booster

Other:

A bunch of prosport gauges (
WRX dash swap
WRX seats
Schroth Rallye 4 point Harnesses
No AC
Some other useless junk stripped off, like ABS sensors, ABS tone rings, ABS block, sound deadening tar, interior insulation mats etc…
JDM Front Bumper and the lightweight beam.
03 Bugeye Wheels w/ Toyo Proxes 4’s
Battery moved to the trunk.

[MoonMan]

looks like a nice car. hopefully once its painted it will look like it did again in that first picture

[Vovchandr]

Very neat!

Keep us updated.

[Iant333]

@MoonMan

looks like a nice car. hopefully once its painted it will look like it did again in that first picture

Hopefully it will look better hahah, one of the PO’s sideswiped something so the front door and fender were repainted but as you can see in the pic the match was awful.

[MclarenGP]

nice work, looks straight.

[xdsmlaser93x]

Very nice settup! This thing has to be a blast to drive.

mad jellies.:eek3

[MoonMan]

@Iant333

Hopefully it will look better hahah, one of the PO’s sideswiped something so the front door and fender were repainted but as you can see in the pic the match was awful.

oh yeah i see that now. gunna repaint the original color? i like it on that car

[cazwrx187]

Welcome back Ian. The car looks good. I’m especially liking the V1-4 front bumper. let me know when the car is for sale lol.

[Skidplate]

why are subarus always so clean looking, even when royally fucked up?

[Iant333]

Yeah I’m painting it the same color, it’s an uncommon color so I’ll keep it. And yeah its definitely straight, I checked it when I was mocking it up to weld against the specs in the FSM, all the dimensions that matter were perfect, there were a few that were about a 1/4" off around the driver eye socket but now that all the stuff is in place you cant tell.

And it’s always for sale for the right price I guess.

I think I’m gonna bring it to Albany Speed Shop in a week or so for a “race” alignment and corner balancing. I just have to wait for some stupid set of spacers to come in from Japan before I can drive it. A few weeks after that i’ll have it tuned once the motor is broken in.

[ipodwinner31]

damn dude…i now know you on 3 forums XD love this car. yours and brendin87 (idk if hes on here?) but youre both local with swapped RS’s. (no offense, i like his more cus its a coupe ) still extremely sweet car lol

[Skidplate]

@ipodwinner31

damn dude…i know know you on 3 forums XD love this car. yours and brendin87 (idk if hes on here?) but youre both local with swapped RS’s. (no offense, i like his more cus its a coupe ) still extremely sweet car lol

four doors for more whores.
never forget that.

[ipodwinner31]

i have nothing against 4 doors (i have one lol) but the coupes are sooo sexy…although i agree with your statement

[cazwrx187]

Paint it Acadia green lol

[Iant333]

Oh hey I drove it on the road today.

And its done. Just gotta put the hood on it tommorow and bring it to school for an alignment and to screw with the ride height on Tuesday. It took a few month’s to get a little spacer in the mail to make my camber plates work so I just let it sit until about 2 days ago when I got it in the mail finally. Now it drives great, no CEL, no wierd noises, no overheating. Now just cant wait to have it tuned :lol:

[cazwrx187]

Sick man. Congrats!

[Iant333]

I brought it to school yesterday for an alignment. Went fine I guess, final specs are

Went for 13.5in from center of the wheel to the fender as the ride height. Basically lowered exactly 1 inch.

Toe:
Front: pretty much zero, there is like a 1/4 degree of total toe out which is almost nothing.
Rear: Exactly zero with 0.00 thrust angle

Camber:
Front: -1.4 degrees driver side, -1.3 on the passenger, couldn’t get the passenger to have more and stay that way and didn’t feel like loosening up the camber bolt on the other side for 0.1 degrees.
Rear: -1.3 Degrees on both sides

Caster: I have the camber plates set all the way in which should give me max caster, well both sides are about 3.0 degrees which is the bottom of the factory spec so I think the camber plates have an offset and were put on the wrong side because I should have more than that. There is no other way to adjust caster short of maybe getting an extra 0.2 degrees by loosening the x-member and control arm and moving them forward a tiny bit.

I’m gonna swap the camber plates across and see if that makes it better, I wanted more caster and more like 2 degrees - camber up front.

Drives pretty good on the road otherwise. But its gonna get a carpet and the interior back in soon. LOUD doesn’t even describe riding in this thing.

[Iant333]

I did some things.

Was planning to paint the whole car but I don’t have time to do the whole thing and rather than half ass it I just did the shit that was new + the trunk.

I had to paint and strip the trunk 3 times before it came out to my satisfaction, kept having runs and obscene amounts of orange peel. I watched a video about auto painting and then that cleared up my problems. Then I sanded/buffed it and whatnot and came out really good, basically as good as factory paint. The bumper, fender and grille I just did this morning and came out alot better, zero orange peel and hardly any dirt to sand out.

I got a Moroso battery in the trunk kit. It was one of the cheaper NHRA certified ones. Its too crowded under the hood and that should clear it up pretty good. I also got a floor, vinyl was waaaay cheaper than a real carpet, fitted vinyl was $70 vs 200+ for a carpet so I just got vinyl.

Gonna bring it back to school before the year is over and align it a little better and fix a couple other things up. But basically once I slap these panels on its back to being my daily driver, really want to get the last 750 break in miles on it so it can get tuned, been waiting for that for a while. In 6 days it will be exactly 1 year since it was in the accident so its pretty fitting to have finished it now.

[Iant333]

Here is a pic, color match leaves a little to be desired but I have to say i’m beyond caring that much now. Maybe i’ll do something about it if I decide to paint my CF hood. Car is pretty much going to be used 75% track, 15% driving for fun, 10% commuting, 0% show, so I can put up with it for now.

And I brought it to school today. The CEL is OFF but according to the snap-on scanner there are 9 codes and most of the monitors arent set so I need to go through and figure out why that is with romraider, even my $99 code reader detects 9 codes so it obviously wont pass.

I aligned it better though. 3.5ish caster, -2.2 camber front, -1.3 rear camber and zero toe all round. Understanding that the retaining bolts on the camber plates can be moved up a slot helps alot with getting more camber lol. I cant wait to get it tuned, I missed out on the entire autocross season last year and i’m hoping to go to as many as I can this year. Want to bring it to LVD once I can too.

And i’m pissed I missed the exactly 1 year to having this back on the road by 3 days, car spent 368 days broken.

[Iant333]

I decided i’m gonna put a whole new wiring harness in it.