twistedsymphony

After a bit of research into how to wire up the EDM HVAC controls and thinking about how I wanted to handle the amplifier situation I finished up this install over last weekend and this weekend. My EDM stereo came with a pigtail on the HVAC controls so I was able to depin the 3 missing wires and install them back into my car's harness. I crimped these onto a small 3 pin conector all of these wires are on the stereo harness, but One of the wires was for the "dimmer" control isn't populated on the Metra stereo adapters because it isn't used by aftermarket stereos, thankfully I had bought a new Metra harness so I was able to steal a pin from the old aftermarket stereo install to wire this up. I decided that I would add connectors for each of the speakers on this harness as well that way I can easily pull out the stereo and swap between the amp in the trunk or the amp in the head unit. for now I'm going to run the amp in the head unit and bypass the amp in the trunk, I put the amp remote wire on it's own connector too for easy swapping. I disassembled and masked off the shifter trim so that I could matte-black it to match the new stereo trim and HVAC controls. I went with FlexDip again because I felt that would do well to match the "soft" texture of the factory trim and if I didn't like it I could easily peel it off and go back to stock. The color ended up being a hair too light compared to the stereo/hvac trim and I over-sprayed the ash-tray door so there's a bit of a drip line, I may redo it but for now it's fine. I also picked up some Weather Tech mats for the car in preparation for winter This is the first set I've ever owned and I'm pretty happy with how they fit. I also spent a bunch of time re-locating the gauges to the cubby space. Fair warning to anyone who wants to buy one of these 3D printed pods. the guy on Etsy I used didn't print the brackets to actually mount the thing. I found that he just ripped off the original designer on thingiverse here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3442187 when I asked him to supply the rest of the parts he acted like I didn't know what I was talking about and then ghosted me. so I got my own brackets printed to finish the install. The cubby trim was cracked already and I tried gluing it back together but it just re-cracked during install. I've ordered a replacement trim so I'll get that installed at some point. Overall I'm pretty happy with the new setup. Gauge pod fitment isn't perfect and I feel they're tilted a little too far back but it looks nice and I'm really happy that they're no longer blocking my view of the main cluster. Now I've got this pile of old stereos and harnesses if anyone needs something:

The stereo in this car is ancient and only plays CDs. I did try using the aux input at one point but it had horrible ground loop buzzing so I've pretty much not used it at all. My plan is to upgrade to a nice double-din unit with a display for Smartphone integration, and as you can tell from the parts in my last post I'm looking at swapping some things around. This is the setup when I got the car: We have the Access port in a cell phone mount on the left with with harness just wrapped around the turn signal stock. Dual gauge pod on the steering column, single din head unit where vent pocket normally is. Even though I bought a JDM double DIN stereo trim setup I have a friend in Russia who was willing to buy and re-ship one of the awesome LHD double din faceplates, and I sourced an EDM stereo unit from Spain to swap in the HVAC controls. Swapping over the HVAC stuff was a breeze, though I did overheat the right TEMP label a bit. Super cleaned all of the controls as I moved them over too. overall pleased with the result. Did a bunch of research into the current stereos on the market and decided to go with the Sony XAV-AX4000, it's got wireless Android Auto and Apple Car Play, an anti-glare screen (because it sucks when you get blinded by the sun off of your stereo, or can't see the damn thing from glare), and physical buttons for volume and mute (so I can easily adjust it without looking). All key features I was looking for. I'm not a label person but there's a lot of junk out there for car-audio so going with a brand that has a solid history in good sound quality is important to me. This line of Sony head units also has their current generation of D-Type Amps which makes for some really great audio quality. Before I started ordering harnesses I wanted to crack open the dash to see if some or most of the wiring or adapters I'd need were already in there. One thing I was told when I bought the car is that the rear door speakers didn't work, so I was curious if there were any clues toward that also. I WAS NOT PREPARED for what I found it's a mess, but thankfully whoever did the stereo actually build this mess to be completely plug-in, so no cuts to the factory harness (yay). But it's clear the head unit isn't actually attached to the speakers. it's using pre-amp outputs and there are amplified return lines... so clearly there's an amp somewhere. The only place I could think of that could be hiding an amp would be the spare tire area so I went to take a look and... WTF I had no idea that was even back there! This equipment is all from 2001 so this stuff is OLD. Also figured out why the back speakers don't work... they were never hooked up so now I need to decide if I want to delete the amp or replace the amp or what I'm going to do there. Also found this module that was tied into the clock harness: I'm guessing it's related to the gauges. as it's got leads running over there and not tied into the stereo at all. I've done dozens of stereo installs in the past but never done gauges before so I'll have to learn a bit about how they're wired in. for now the car will be guts out until I come up with a new stereo plan and buy the harness bits I nee (which actually isn't much)

No Picture but I got the OEM muffers re-installed today, I can't believe how quite it is with them, it went from one of the loudest cars I'd ever own (and I own some loud cars) to one of the quietest... What surprised me the most is I've got an STi Up-Pipe, catless down pipe, and 3in mid pipe with the OEM muffers and the whole thing is silent, I thought for sure the other aftermarket stuff would have contributed some. I may down the road go for the Borla exhaust which I heard is a nice middle ground. Working on getting on the schedule at the local tuner to get some ID1050x injectors with a top-feed conversion installed to replace the sticking DW850s Also fixing up some minor stuff like this wiper screw cap that was missing Installed the OEM from plate bracket since sadly a front plate is needed in NH and picked up some stuff to clean up the interior a bit and re-organize the stereo and gauges: These were from Yahoo Auctions and here I've got an Access Port Vent Mount, dual cubby pod, and aluminum pedal covers

Most of my time has been spent on my 98 LGT and my 04 FXT (both will be for sale soon if anyone is interested). But, I do have a minor update on the 05 LGT I cleaned up the flaking coating below the front windows. I did a similar repair on one of the rear window trims on my 98 LGT years ago and it's held up incredibly well so hopefully I'll have the same luck here. Cracking pealing black coating on the lower window trim revealing the aluminum below. I took a razor blade and scraped off as much as I could. I wanted to be careful not to go too aggressive against the window seal and I avoided going too aggressive near the door as I didn't want to accidentally gouge the paint. after scraping this off I cleaned it as well as I could. Without removing ALL of it it will have an uneven finish, the way to avoid this would be to sand it to even out the transitions, this can help the material stick better too but it's not necessary. Finally I masked off the surrounding areas and then covered it in Rustoleum Flex Dip (essentially Plasti-Dip). I'm not a big fan of plasti-dip for badges and wheels and stuff but it works really well in this application where it matches the OEM finish pretty well. Go very light on the first coat, especially if you didn't sand as it will have trouble sticking to the surface until it dries and may run if you go too heavy. After a few minutes you can do heavier 2nd and 3rd coats since it will have the previous coat to stick too. Once nice thing is you really can't over-do it as it tends to even it self out pretty well. Also if you do get over-spray it will rub right off. Final look isn't perfect, you can still notice the edge where the original material was left. it also pealed up slightly in a few spots when I was removing the masking (I recommend going over the edge with a razor before you peal it off to avoid this) But overall it's much better than it looked with the original pealing coating and look just fine unless you're up close and inspecting it.

So I've been bogged down with work on other projects but I did get some of the stuff in from Yahoo Auctions and had some time this morning to throw it on and see how it looked. The original hood scoop on the car had bad paint peeling. I happened across a Carbon Fiber look grill for $20. Not really my style but I think it would look better than the peeling paint. I thought for sure this was aftermarket but all of the mold markings on the plastic underneath are OEM, uses all OEM fasteners and seals and the CF look isn't a wrap, nor does it look dipped. Not sure if this was an OEM option in Japan but I'm pretty happy that I have a perfect fit scoop replacement. I also picked up a JDM V-Grill in black and JDM post-face-lift rear hatch cowling in silver. The reason for the rear cowling is apparently one of the previous owners of my car swapped in some JDM post-face-lift rear taillights. They looked very out of place to me the lines in the taillights didn't match any of the lines of the car. And after looking online in Japan the post-face-lift wagons didn't just get new taillights but they got new rear cowling where the lights and the chrome band match the lines in the taillights for a more wrap-around look (which I like as it calls back to the wrap around taillights on the 1st through 3rd gen wagons). The color of this rear cowling as a slight champagne tinge to it so it's not a perfect match to the USDM silver I might still run it as is, but it's also go a small crack that I need to fix before I install it and I need to do some research on the wiring to make sure that all works. The original cowling on my car also has some paint pealing so was a helpful factor in deciding to buy this piece. The V-Grill is my favorite OEM grill for this front end, and I think it goes really well with the extended USDM bumper since it steps out slightly. The fact that it has the Carbon Fiber look badge in the center was also a factor in buying that hood scoop as they match pretty well, and tie each other together. had some time today and really wanted to see how they looked so I installed both the grill and the scoop and I'm pleased with the results. Not sure how difficult it would be but I'd love to swap out the chrome band and badge on the rear cowling for black and CF to match the grill. I really don't care for chrome accents.

I've done this on many many cars. if they're really bad and yellowed. I recommend a wet-sand with 2000 grit sandpaper to start, then move onto the blue magic polish, and then finally get some headlight sealer or clear coat it with a UV clear coat. If you neglect that last step it will come back after a year or so.

Last job of the day was replacing the resistor shoved into the EGT connector with a more refined solution. I bought an appropriate pigtail from iWire Soldered and shrink tubed a resistor: Now it plugs right in nice and clean. much nicer than worrying about a resistor falling out of the plug

Also Decided to polish the headlights. I love the headlights on these cars and it bugs me every time I see the car with foggy headlights so I need to remedy that. Masked of the lights to keep spillage away from the paint Used Blue Magic Headlight Lens Restorer... about 3 rounds of elbow grease on each side so much better!

Has some time this weekend. Took the car to the car wash, did a lot of research and went on a bit of a shopping spree on yahoo auctions. Also did a bit of actual work on the car starting with fixing the plate light. Passengers side plate light wasn't on. It might seem inconsequential but NH inspections would fail me for this so I need to get it fixed to actually make the car road legal. First tried changing the bulb but of course it wasn't that simple. Pulling down the harness and removing the factory wire tie revealed... yeah... I tried stripping away some the wire cover on what little nub there was left but the wire was so brittle it was just disintegrating on any movement. so I pulled the pin. If you ever need to remove one get a pick of some kind and depress that little tab you see above and it will pull right out the back. I took some needle nose pliers and undid the relief crimp. the electrical crimp was too tight so I simply snapped off the wire as best I could I cleaned off the and sanded the crimp surfaces to fresh metal then took some fresh wire stripped the end and crimped it into the relief crimp then using a bunch of flux soldered the stripped end on top of the original electrical crimp Back at the car I stripped back some of the original harness far enough to get past the brittle bits and made a solid twist connection before soldering and shrink tubing After that put some electrical tape over it for good measure Success!

Hey all, I just bought my 1st 4th Gen from SleeperScoob and wanted to create a thread to document the work I'm doing to the car. Don't expect a lot of progress as I typically work very long hours and rarely have time to wrench, and then when I do this is just one of 5 cars, and that's on top of my other hobbies. But it's nice to track work done somewhere. This was the car as received: Seems SleeperScoob is getting out of Subarus but he was an awesome guy to deal with. I flew down from NH to DC with my wife, checked out the car, and drove it home. He made the sale super easy, being up front about everything, and working out everything to make it go smoothly. In addition to the car, I got a hatch full of parts including: snow tires on the stock wheels, perrin catted downpipe, original catted up pipe, original mid pipe and mufflers, aftermarket front lip, original engine splash guard, new aftermarket turbo heat shield, even some extra Rotella for the next oil change! He had a few more things to include but I ran out of room! I've bought many many used cars in my life and this was easily one of the best car buying experiences I've had. The Trip Home: Originally I didn't grab the stock exhaust, as I didn't expect that I would need or want it. I had a friend in the DC area that I was going to hang out with for a couple of days after the sale before driving back and after driving the car on the highway for an hour to my friends place I decided the aftermarket exhaust was way too aggressive. Thankfully I was able to stop back by SleeperScoobs place on my way back through and grab the factory exhaust to give me some options. No joke, we also picked up a set of earplugs for the 9-hour drive back. The drive was uneventful. The car ran beautifully the whole trip back and was quite comfortable as well. My history with Subarus: This isn't my first Subaru. I bought a WRX new in 2002 when they first came out and owned that for about 6 years with a number of modifications. After that I wanted something 2-door and rear-wheel drive and got into Nissan S-Chassis along with various Toyota Pickups and at one point an Isuzu Vehicross for winter driving. About 10 years ago I got back into Subaru's with an automatic 1999 Legacy L Wagon as a winter beater. It ran great but the rear quarters were completely rusted out and I hate driving autos... I loved the car otherwise so I sold it and bought a 1998 Legacy GT Wagon 5-speed. The 98LGT was really clean but had been in a front end collision and had an outback front bumper and grill with a black hood. I kept the hood but sourced a GT-B Limited front bumper from Japan along with a matching grill. Love this car to death. I still have it and wanted to swap in an STI drivetrain. Unfortunately I ran into some engine and clutch problems started hunting for a suitable donor parts for a swap and I bought a cheap 2004 Forester XT Limited auto as a daily to drive around while I fixed the 98GT... After about a year without being able to find the right drivetrain for a swap and getting sick of the FXT I just fixed the engine and clutch issues and started dailying it again. I did that for about a year and a half and then last month the rear brake hard-lines blew out. While it was clean when I bought it many years ago, NH winters have started to rust out one of the rear quarters like all 2nd gens do; and of course now it ate through a rear hard-line. I started looking at what I could buy for a replacement. I always liked 4th gens and that's when I came across SleeperScoobs car. I've been driving the FXT again as my daily since the 98LGT ran into the brake issues. So now I've got 3 silver 5-door Subarus in my drive way. once I have the 05LGT settled I'll be selling the FXT, I'm on the fence if I'll also sell the 98LGT. The Goal for this car: This is going to be my daily so I'm not going to be doing a crazy race-car build. I'm just looking to build something comfortable that is fun to drive. That's not to say I wont be modding it, but it needs to be something that makes me smile every time I'm in it, and that means smiling whether I've been stuck in traffic for hours, or have access to an empty winding road. So far and Next Up Plans: 05LGT has been registered (still waiting on plates and the new title) I've only driven a couple of times since arriving home but I've got to get it inspected. Through a pre-inspection I've found it has an issue with one of the plate lights, a new bulb doesn't seem to fix it so I've got to investigate that, I'll likely need to swap back in the catted downpipe and I want to re-install the factory mufflers so I can drive it without ear-plugs and draw less attention to myself. Doing some exhaust-sizing math I don't see the stock mufflers being much of an impediment to the overall flow of the system. I during the most recent local drive it popped a CEL for the EGT sensor (which has been removed as it has an STi up-pipe). I would have though this code was deleted with the tune but after search this forum I found out about the resistor mod so I did that to keep it from coming back. Since it needs a new injector setup I also reached out to a local tuner to see about getting the car re-tuned once the new injectors are installed and the factory mufflers are back on, still waiting to hear back. Soon-ish Plans: I have a long list of minor fixes to do but some of the more interesting things I'd like to do -source one of those Russian double-din stereo trims so I can install a Car-Play/Android Auto head unit, then I'd like to move the steering column gauges into a pod in the cubby space where the aftermarket stereo currently resides. I LOVE the gauges in the 05LGT and I really dislike that the aftermarket pod here is obscuring them. I'll probably also get a more appropriate Access port mount and maybe some WRX pedals as I'm really picky about everything in the interior looking and feeling nice. I am also looking at some factory bracing like strut tower bar and some under-bracing. If anyone has suggestions here I'd be interested in hearing about them. Not sure what will fit around the aftermarket Intercooler. Much Longer term plans: I'd like to source a 6-speed swap, as well as all of the aluminum spec-b control arm parts. I like having a 6th gear and the piece of mind that comes from the stronger transmission. and the control arm parts will do a lot for not just improving the handling but also help saving off rust here in NH. The ideal being spec.b/sti level of performance in a wagon. I'd also like to get the body fixed up, there are many small dents from hail damage, peeling paint around the the hood scoop and some damage to the fender and hood where someone closed the hood with a tool hanging out of the bay. I did also mock up the lip and unfortunately it seems combined with the very long nose of this car it will make it way too low to work with my driveway without eating itself the first time I leave. I do really want to add a small lip to the front though as I think it will add some much needed character to the bumper. I'd love to swap on a JDM front bumper and lip since they have much less of a protrusion but I'm not sure it's worth the cost. As much as I love the 4th gens the 2nd gen with the GT-B limited bumper is still IMO the best looking Subaru ever made; I'd love a 4th gen with a similar rugged/rally look.

Thanks!

What's the inner diameter of the input pipe on these? Also anyone have a video of the sound?