My 1994 Subaru WRX-SA Wagon (Race Car to be)
Discussion
Hullo... Ive been lurking here for a while and made very few posts but have read a heap on the forums. I want to keep a bit of a build log of my car and figured why not put it here, so here goes...
I purchased this in early 2009 from a friend who had owned it for 10 years since being imported to NZ, it was fairly tidy and mostly original but with the odd goodie here and there. We also suspected it as being used as a track car or for some form of competition while in Japan due to the following:
-Lightweight flywheel (1/3rd the weight of a standard one as I found out when doing the clutch)
-40 Litre fuel tank (instead of the standard 55)
-Fully adjustable suspension (Was removed from the car and sold a few years prior to me getting it)
-Seats from a lower spec model (had some form of bucket seats in it while in Japan)
-and a few other bits and peices... Additional braces, etc
I bought it to be my daily driver and do the odd track day in it. I ended up doing a track day on the 4th day of ownership and was pretty happy with it.
So I used it for 6 or so months just keeping the oil changed and was pretty happy with it. Then it started having some strange electrical issues, it would just die and refuse to restart, or loose power then get it back again 10 seconds later. It took about 6 months of replacing sensors, engine looms and even the ECU to find that the problem was with the AFM wiring in one of the looms which I didnt replace due to cost and difficulty of replacing it. Here I bit the bullet and threw a Link ECU at it, figuring that it was the easy way out seeing as it just relied on the MAP sensor and rendered the AFM useless
Oh how right I was, ran now ran flawlessly was able to get some more fuel into it and in turn a bit more boost. I started competing in a few Gymkhana events and the odd track day. I really started to enjoy it....
This is where the bug hit of wanting to make it go faster and have a bit more fun. So... out with the old TD04 turbo which would be all out of puff by 5000rpm and in with a TD05 which holds 18PSI all the way to my limiter at 7500RPM. Even with the TD04 I found I was going fast enough at trackdays that the small brakes would be completely cooked after 5 or so laps, so I threw some bigger disks and calipers from a later model on. The car will now do 10+ laps without them fading so was pretty happy. But bigger brakes also meant a need for bigger wheels. My standard 15's wouldnt fit over them so some 17's were sourced.
Ignore the colour scheme for now... just used what was avaliable on my very small budget.
Around this point I changed jobs and got a company car which meant the WRX was no longer needed as a daily driver, so it seemed I was doing some sort of event every other weekend be it Gymkhanas, Autocrosses, Bent Sprints, Hillclimbs or Trackdays. I was out there giving it hell and wanted more!
Somewhere through all of this I ran a few bearings in the gearbox and the clutch was starting to slip, so threw in a 2nd hand gearbox from the wreckers complete with 6 month warrany and a new Exedy Sport tuff clutch kit. During all these events I'd slowly been adding to the car, more underbody braces, Air Con got the bin and various other little bits and pieces. Another pic just for the sake of splitting up all my boring text :P and keeping a timeline
Then.... During a hillclimb around September 2010 the car had been going great all day, I lined up for my last run and off I went, along the run I noticed a bit of smoke coming out from under the bonnet but nothing to be concerned about. Got to the end of the run and found I'd blown out the dipsitck, the crankcase breathers had come off and it looked like I had blown the rear main seal and left a good line of oil down the track... BUGGER! This paragraph bears some importance a bit further along in my timeline of the car
Anyway... got the car home gave the engine bay a good clean and didnt seem to have anymore problems apart from a minor oil drip from the rear of the engine. Figured that I would leave it untill a later date as it wasnt too major.
Here goes another then.... moment. It was around early November, I had entered in the Pukekohe Car Club speed weekend which consists of a sealed hillclimb on the saturday and a gravel one on the sunday. Friday night after work, got home, packed tools, overalls, helmet and did my last minute checks on the car and all was well. A friend invited me down to his place that night and I figured why not, means I only have to drive 15mins in the morning... Well on the way to his place 2nd gear let go while slowing down for a roundabout... F**KING EXCELLENT!!! So there goes my chance to be in the last events for the year. Drove it home without 2nd and proceeded to pull the box out, took it back to the wreckers and exchanged it for another one. At the same time I pulled down my original box and found which bearings were shot and rebuilt it for the pricy sum of $120, put it back in the car and away I went.
Turn the tables forward to christmas day 2010. That night me and my girl friend at the time were off to the coromandel to her familys place, on the way down the car started smoking a fair bit. My guess at the time was that the oil seal in the turbo had gone and there wasnt anything I could do about it down there except to park it up and then in a weeks time drive it home again keeping an eye on the oil level. We set off home, it was stalling at every intersection and was miles down on power, blew the dipstick out every chance it got, but I pressed on even with the cloud behind me getting worse and worse. Halfway along the coast the bearing in the turbo packed a sad aswell causing the turbine blades to collide with the housing every now and again, I set it to low boost and just nursed it along. Got to the intersection of SH25 and SH2. Pulled out onto SH2 and all I saw was a HUGE cloud behind me and I could barely get the car past 50kph. I got it to the top of the hill and called a tow truck...
Got it home swapped out the turbo for my original TD04 and still no luck, lots of smoke and no power... Bugger, time to pull the now 240,000km original motor out. Stripped it down and heres what I found
Theres about 1/3rd of the rings and ring lands missing. Top and skirts of the piston are absolutely mint and there is a tiny mark in the bore. What I beleive happened is the piston cracked/broke during the hillclimb where it first blew the dipstick out and then the broken peice happily floated around in there untill it wore its self out as the remaining part on the piston is completely smooth and I found only small pieces in the sump.
Where to from here... During the last year I had been thinking about fitting the car with a full rollcage, race seats and harnesses and getting serious about using this as a race car, well the motor was already out so I continued to pull it apart
These pics were taken Saturday (12th March 2011)
Just have wiring looms and sound deadaning to remove, then its off to have a rollcage fitted. Once thats sorted I'm leaning towards throwing a cheap 2nd hand motor in it and then saving my $$$ to build the motor that I want.
Sorry for the epic speil, but its my story and I hope some of you enjoy reading it.
I purchased this in early 2009 from a friend who had owned it for 10 years since being imported to NZ, it was fairly tidy and mostly original but with the odd goodie here and there. We also suspected it as being used as a track car or for some form of competition while in Japan due to the following:
-Lightweight flywheel (1/3rd the weight of a standard one as I found out when doing the clutch)
-40 Litre fuel tank (instead of the standard 55)
-Fully adjustable suspension (Was removed from the car and sold a few years prior to me getting it)
-Seats from a lower spec model (had some form of bucket seats in it while in Japan)
-and a few other bits and peices... Additional braces, etc
I bought it to be my daily driver and do the odd track day in it. I ended up doing a track day on the 4th day of ownership and was pretty happy with it.
So I used it for 6 or so months just keeping the oil changed and was pretty happy with it. Then it started having some strange electrical issues, it would just die and refuse to restart, or loose power then get it back again 10 seconds later. It took about 6 months of replacing sensors, engine looms and even the ECU to find that the problem was with the AFM wiring in one of the looms which I didnt replace due to cost and difficulty of replacing it. Here I bit the bullet and threw a Link ECU at it, figuring that it was the easy way out seeing as it just relied on the MAP sensor and rendered the AFM useless
Oh how right I was, ran now ran flawlessly was able to get some more fuel into it and in turn a bit more boost. I started competing in a few Gymkhana events and the odd track day. I really started to enjoy it....
This is where the bug hit of wanting to make it go faster and have a bit more fun. So... out with the old TD04 turbo which would be all out of puff by 5000rpm and in with a TD05 which holds 18PSI all the way to my limiter at 7500RPM. Even with the TD04 I found I was going fast enough at trackdays that the small brakes would be completely cooked after 5 or so laps, so I threw some bigger disks and calipers from a later model on. The car will now do 10+ laps without them fading so was pretty happy. But bigger brakes also meant a need for bigger wheels. My standard 15's wouldnt fit over them so some 17's were sourced.
Ignore the colour scheme for now... just used what was avaliable on my very small budget.
Around this point I changed jobs and got a company car which meant the WRX was no longer needed as a daily driver, so it seemed I was doing some sort of event every other weekend be it Gymkhanas, Autocrosses, Bent Sprints, Hillclimbs or Trackdays. I was out there giving it hell and wanted more!
Somewhere through all of this I ran a few bearings in the gearbox and the clutch was starting to slip, so threw in a 2nd hand gearbox from the wreckers complete with 6 month warrany and a new Exedy Sport tuff clutch kit. During all these events I'd slowly been adding to the car, more underbody braces, Air Con got the bin and various other little bits and pieces. Another pic just for the sake of splitting up all my boring text :P and keeping a timeline
Then.... During a hillclimb around September 2010 the car had been going great all day, I lined up for my last run and off I went, along the run I noticed a bit of smoke coming out from under the bonnet but nothing to be concerned about. Got to the end of the run and found I'd blown out the dipsitck, the crankcase breathers had come off and it looked like I had blown the rear main seal and left a good line of oil down the track... BUGGER! This paragraph bears some importance a bit further along in my timeline of the car
Anyway... got the car home gave the engine bay a good clean and didnt seem to have anymore problems apart from a minor oil drip from the rear of the engine. Figured that I would leave it untill a later date as it wasnt too major.
Here goes another then.... moment. It was around early November, I had entered in the Pukekohe Car Club speed weekend which consists of a sealed hillclimb on the saturday and a gravel one on the sunday. Friday night after work, got home, packed tools, overalls, helmet and did my last minute checks on the car and all was well. A friend invited me down to his place that night and I figured why not, means I only have to drive 15mins in the morning... Well on the way to his place 2nd gear let go while slowing down for a roundabout... F**KING EXCELLENT!!! So there goes my chance to be in the last events for the year. Drove it home without 2nd and proceeded to pull the box out, took it back to the wreckers and exchanged it for another one. At the same time I pulled down my original box and found which bearings were shot and rebuilt it for the pricy sum of $120, put it back in the car and away I went.
Turn the tables forward to christmas day 2010. That night me and my girl friend at the time were off to the coromandel to her familys place, on the way down the car started smoking a fair bit. My guess at the time was that the oil seal in the turbo had gone and there wasnt anything I could do about it down there except to park it up and then in a weeks time drive it home again keeping an eye on the oil level. We set off home, it was stalling at every intersection and was miles down on power, blew the dipstick out every chance it got, but I pressed on even with the cloud behind me getting worse and worse. Halfway along the coast the bearing in the turbo packed a sad aswell causing the turbine blades to collide with the housing every now and again, I set it to low boost and just nursed it along. Got to the intersection of SH25 and SH2. Pulled out onto SH2 and all I saw was a HUGE cloud behind me and I could barely get the car past 50kph. I got it to the top of the hill and called a tow truck...
Got it home swapped out the turbo for my original TD04 and still no luck, lots of smoke and no power... Bugger, time to pull the now 240,000km original motor out. Stripped it down and heres what I found
Theres about 1/3rd of the rings and ring lands missing. Top and skirts of the piston are absolutely mint and there is a tiny mark in the bore. What I beleive happened is the piston cracked/broke during the hillclimb where it first blew the dipstick out and then the broken peice happily floated around in there untill it wore its self out as the remaining part on the piston is completely smooth and I found only small pieces in the sump.
Where to from here... During the last year I had been thinking about fitting the car with a full rollcage, race seats and harnesses and getting serious about using this as a race car, well the motor was already out so I continued to pull it apart
These pics were taken Saturday (12th March 2011)
Just have wiring looms and sound deadaning to remove, then its off to have a rollcage fitted. Once thats sorted I'm leaning towards throwing a cheap 2nd hand motor in it and then saving my $$$ to build the motor that I want.
Sorry for the epic speil, but its my story and I hope some of you enjoy reading it.
Edited by Matthew129 on Monday 14th March 10:11
Thanks for the replies everyone
soad said:
Will be a stripped-out race-special then?
Yes, it will be a stripped out race special, but I will be keeping it road legal as the laws in New Zealand allow us to do so.Natural_Nas said:
when do you think you will have it ready?
Should have the rollcage fitted in the next month or two. From there its going to be another month or two of interior fitting (Alloy door cards, helmet box, intercom, custom dashboard, etc). Finally I will be at the point where I can put in a motor then it will be a decision of $1000 on a 2nd hand motor or $6000 on building one myself. Its looking like I may go the cheap route at the moment, so if Im quick enough it will be done by the end of winter... Famous last wordsEdited by Matthew129 on Monday 14th March 19:01
RB Will said:
You should take that tow bar off too unless you haul stuff, which would be quite amusing to see when it is a full on race car.
Im in two minds about that at the moment... But will most likly end up removing it as when I fitted it I had to remove the rear towing eyes, which are a requirement on a race carEdited by Matthew129 on Wednesday 16th March 19:00
Update....
You may call this progress or you may call this the reverse of progress (what ever that is). I was browsing around on our local online auction site last night as I have been for the last little while on the look out for a parts car with a decent motor, I wasnt to concerned if it had been wrapped around a lamppost or what ever as I just wanted an engine.
Well.... I found this:
Its been deregistered and cant be reregistered in NZ due to it having been in a decent crash in the past and although its been repaired there is no engineers report to say the structural repairs are up to scratch. It had a rebuilt motor put in it a few years ago, is a year newer than mine. Due to the crash the bonnet was replaced with a full carbon fibre item! and alot of the suspension components were replaced with STI items. Me and a friend rope towed it home this evening as the NZ laws allow you tow a vehicle you beleive is in sound condition just as long as it isnt along the motorway and I didnt want to risk it with no plates on it. But it ran alright on the test drive and the way home, temperature sat at a steady place so Im happy. Ive now got a full set of panels, glass and most importantly drivetrain for the race car.
This has set the bank account back a little bit so the Roll Cage will get put another few months back down the track, but this means once the rollcage is in it will be a running race car! Ill try and get a few more photos over the weekend to show the real condition of it as it looks alot tidier in those photos than it actually is, but all the panels are straight so who cares really... and its a bit odd seeing two of the same car next to each other
You may call this progress or you may call this the reverse of progress (what ever that is). I was browsing around on our local online auction site last night as I have been for the last little while on the look out for a parts car with a decent motor, I wasnt to concerned if it had been wrapped around a lamppost or what ever as I just wanted an engine.
Well.... I found this:
Its been deregistered and cant be reregistered in NZ due to it having been in a decent crash in the past and although its been repaired there is no engineers report to say the structural repairs are up to scratch. It had a rebuilt motor put in it a few years ago, is a year newer than mine. Due to the crash the bonnet was replaced with a full carbon fibre item! and alot of the suspension components were replaced with STI items. Me and a friend rope towed it home this evening as the NZ laws allow you tow a vehicle you beleive is in sound condition just as long as it isnt along the motorway and I didnt want to risk it with no plates on it. But it ran alright on the test drive and the way home, temperature sat at a steady place so Im happy. Ive now got a full set of panels, glass and most importantly drivetrain for the race car.
This has set the bank account back a little bit so the Roll Cage will get put another few months back down the track, but this means once the rollcage is in it will be a running race car! Ill try and get a few more photos over the weekend to show the real condition of it as it looks alot tidier in those photos than it actually is, but all the panels are straight so who cares really... and its a bit odd seeing two of the same car next to each other
Update... There has finally been progress!!!
Few months ago I bought myself a tow wagon (1988 Mitsubishi Pajero) as a friend was selling it cheap and I figured it would be useful. While I was waiting for my garage to become empty (Former flatmate had a project car in there) I trailered the parts car off to a few events and had some fun with it. So once my garage was empty this happened....
Parts car all stripped and I took the shell to a scrap metal recyclers and got some cash for it, then...
I took the air chisel to the sound deadening
Ended up with a garbage sack of sound deadening
and all the sound deadening stripped out of the car.
Its now booked in for the rollcage, seats and harnesses to be fitted. Its getting dropped off in just over a week and will take 3 weeks to get it all done... Watch this space for updates in a month or so. Hopefully I will get the motor fitted and paper work done in time for the upcoming hillclimb in October!
Few months ago I bought myself a tow wagon (1988 Mitsubishi Pajero) as a friend was selling it cheap and I figured it would be useful. While I was waiting for my garage to become empty (Former flatmate had a project car in there) I trailered the parts car off to a few events and had some fun with it. So once my garage was empty this happened....
Parts car all stripped and I took the shell to a scrap metal recyclers and got some cash for it, then...
I took the air chisel to the sound deadening
Ended up with a garbage sack of sound deadening
and all the sound deadening stripped out of the car.
Its now booked in for the rollcage, seats and harnesses to be fitted. Its getting dropped off in just over a week and will take 3 weeks to get it all done... Watch this space for updates in a month or so. Hopefully I will get the motor fitted and paper work done in time for the upcoming hillclimb in October!
so.... few months later, alot of dollers and some MAJOR progress... Ill let the photos say it all...
Rollcage is all done! Paperwork is all done aswell. Im putting the motor back in it this weekend and plan to be racing it on the 16th of October in a hillclimb (same place where the motor let go last year)
Rollcage is all done! Paperwork is all done aswell. Im putting the motor back in it this weekend and plan to be racing it on the 16th of October in a hillclimb (same place where the motor let go last year)
Update time... We got the motor in yesterday (saturday) afternoon and running with the first test lap around the block completed before 5.30pm, everything worked really well considering it had all just been put in the car. Around 6pm last night we realised there was a gravelkhana happening out in Tuakau (about half an hours drive). So we went and picked up a trailer this morning put the car on it and off we went.
Car performed perfectally all day with only a few smoke issues at the start of the day due to parts being handled with dirty hands, the power steer being overfull and the exhaust still full of oil from when the old motor blew.
Theres some videos here for any one thats interested:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL646494FD74D...
Car performed perfectally all day with only a few smoke issues at the start of the day due to parts being handled with dirty hands, the power steer being overfull and the exhaust still full of oil from when the old motor blew.
Theres some videos here for any one thats interested:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL646494FD74D...
Ok.... boring pictureless update...
Got some new tyres for the car. Some second hand Dunlop DOT rated tyres (Road legal slicks) from a mate off of his rally car and had them fitted up today. Found out my wheels are B.I.M Zeit version SS in 17"x7.5" so Im trying to dig up a bit more info about them as B.I.M Creative Studio seems to be a pretty sweet brand.
Got some new tyres for the car. Some second hand Dunlop DOT rated tyres (Road legal slicks) from a mate off of his rally car and had them fitted up today. Found out my wheels are B.I.M Zeit version SS in 17"x7.5" so Im trying to dig up a bit more info about them as B.I.M Creative Studio seems to be a pretty sweet brand.
Keep up the good workFirst event is now done and dusted. I went along to a Hillclimb run along Sainsbury Road on Sunday the 16th. Car went great with the exception of some fuel surge on the 3rd run down the first straight which affected my time a bit.
Video here:
http://youtu.be/iU-P8-totuw
and some photos:
Im off to the Pukekohe race track tomorrow (saturday) morning to get a bit more testing in.
Also, any idea how I change the title?
Video here:
http://youtu.be/iU-P8-totuw
and some photos:
Im off to the Pukekohe race track tomorrow (saturday) morning to get a bit more testing in.
Also, any idea how I change the title?
Pukekohe was a good test for the car, started out with bad spark plugs and replaced them with new ones after the first few laps. Managed to get a feel for the car again and got a 1.15.3 which isnt a bad time but not an outstanding one either. Car was running 10 - 12 psi of boost, not the 18 that I used to run. Front left tyre is absolutely rooted, wire and canvas showing all the way around from rubbing on the guard.
To do list:
-New tyre
-Bigger swaybars
-Better suspension
-Front mount intercooler
-Tune it
To do list:
-New tyre
-Bigger swaybars
-Better suspension
-Front mount intercooler
-Tune it
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