BagRidersJohn

wow, looks amazing

Thanks! I'm so excited to get the car back together. I started cleaning out my shop last night in preparation of "spray day"!!

I have a ton of work ahead of me once the car is painted but man am I super motivated to get it all done!!

Looks like an old school Volvo red...

I think I know the color you're talking about (I've looked into a wayyyy too many reds recently!) and its close, but this is not a Volvo color

It is hard to do a color justice in a single photo under bright LED lights and similarly hard to identify. This is a Subaru color, a relatively new one "Crimson Red Metallic" color code M1Y that is found on 2018+ Legacy and Outbacks... and probably some others, but those are the models that come up in the PPG Paint software.

I spent a lot of time researching red paints... I knew I wanted a dark metallic red, but not so dark that it turns really dark brown in the shade which was the case with the Honda color I sprayed first. I also didn't want a red with too much orange/pearl in it that would be too gold in the sun.

This color caught my eye when driving past the Subaru dealership so I picked up a half pint from the paint shop and sprayed my test panel. I laid it down over a black primer sealer which makes the basecoat just a slight bit darker than it would be if sprayed over your typical lighter grey primer, but not drastically so. I'm using Southern Polyurethane products for everything except basecoat (which is PPG) with their Production Clear being my choice for this project. It is water-like in color so has minimal impact on the final color of the panel unlike some clears that have a slight yellowish hue after they've cured (PPG clear does this for sure!) I kept the bumper around my shop for a week or two and would bring it outside now and again to ensure I loved it under every type of sunlight. I'm super happy with the color and can't wait to see the whole car done!

--

Car update...

Last night I finished blocking out all my panels and scuffed up all the small stuff like door handles, hood scoop, tow hook cover, etc. Over the weekend I picked up a ton of plastic sheeting from Lowes to hang over the walls and cover the entire floor of my shop on paint day. I also grabbed about 50' of chain to use for hanging parts. Now I have to do a whole lot of cleaning/tidying up around my shop, and strap some wood to the ceiling to hang parts from.

I'm keeping a close eye on the weather and just waiting for a nice high 70's day to take off and laid down sealer/base/clear!

After the car is painted, I have a bunch of work to reassemble it but that's all easy peasy and a lot more rewarding than the countless hours of sanding I've been up to recently, lol.

Like always, I'll start this post with a "sorry for the lack of updates - I've been super busy working on the car blah blah blah"

But seriously

Also, I'll no longer link from Instagram and instead I've started uploading to Imgur. Eventually make a start to finish album and/or go restore the links in previous posts. Sorry about that.

So, here's my car now:

I've primed and blocked out everything except for my side skirts and the plastic trim garnish (whatever its called) so its all nice and smooth, no orange peel, no dings... its a great feeling.

I also went ahead and shaved the holes on my JDM bumper cover

I've REALLY been focusing on body work as its starting to cool down here in VT and I'd like to spray sealer/base/clear on a nice warm-ish 70+ degree day. Hopefully next weekend if I can build a few stands for doors and other panels by then.

I tested a couple of different colors and landed on this one that I absolutely LOVE. I have so many extra body panels kickin' around, this one is my old USDM rear bumper that was cut up for flares and thus destined for the dump. Can anyone guess what color this is?

For a while I got a bit distracted and was working on things that weren't body work. With the entire rear end out of the car, I decided to clean up the rear diff, suspension arms, and got a new crossmember from California.

I spent a long time with the needle scaler and wire wheel cleaning up the diff, then hit it with a coat of rust converter / epoxy primer, followed by another coat of epoxy sealer. I was about halfway through this process when I decided I needed to focus on bodywork before I ran out of summer, but its looking really good. I'm excited to get back at this once the car is painted

Similarly, I couldn't bring myself to install grimy parts back on the rear end, so I brought all the aluminum parts to a shop down the road from us that does vapor blasting and had them clean them up. They look AWESOME now. I have all new bolts, bushings, hub/bearings, backing plates... all new everything going back in this thing!!!

I can't recall if I've posted a picture of the air ride management, so I'll include one here. Its a very simple and functional setup that can be removed with extreme ease. You'll also notice I've covered the entire trunk area with some heavy duty black butyl for sound deadening and will be following this up with some MLV for dampening.

I think I posted this already but the IG hotlink broke itself. I got new lips/barrels for my Rotiform wheels to step them up to 18" and bigger lips to better suit the big hips on the specB. I haven't got around to rebuilding and sealing them yet but I'll leave this here for motivation for myself

Alright that pretty well sums it up. I've got to scuff a few small parts like door handles and the plastic "bump guard" for the doors, but other than that (and a bunch of cleaning) I'm ready to paint. Wish me luck! Hopefully I'll have a nice red specB to show you in the next update!!

Rebuilding it from the ground up. Nice to see all the effort you're putting in

Thank you! At this point in time for the chassis itself I'm "only" focusing on the rear end of the car, basically everything that is really inaccessible with the rear crossmember, diff, etc. installed. The motor needs a refresher as it sits at nearly 200k original miles. Whenever I pull the motor for that round of work, I'll strip down the frontend just as I have the rearend.... prop shaft, trans and all so that I can address any signs of rust above those items and do any maintenance I deem appropriate.

I've still got a lot of work ahead of me but it is rewarding and I'll get it done

Little update!

I told myself I wasn't going to do it, but lo and behold I pulled the rear subframe. It was pretty darn crusty but fortunately no bolts sheared and the chassis itself looks remarkably good when considering the subframe!! I've got a good amount of wire wheeling and cleaning to do then I'll be hitting the chassis with some epoxy and undercoating to seal it up nicely.

Anyhow, with the entire rear end out of the car, I'm in the process of cleaning the parts that will go back in the car (e.g., aluminum knuckle / trailing arm, aluminum upper arm, rear diff, axles, etc.) and have a TON of brand spankin' new OEM and aftermarket parts to replace the crusty old bits. I'm replacin

Off the top of my head....

• Rust free rear subframe from California
  
• Aftermarket adjustable lateral arms
  
• Custom trailing arm bracket to center rear wheel (to be tested)
  
• Whiteline trailing arm bushings (W63398)
  
• Whiteline rear diff bushing kit (KDT903)
  
• Whiteline toe lockout kit (KCA307)
  
• New OEM wheel bearings
  
• New OEM backing plates
  
• New OEM handbrake cables
  
• New OEM nuts/bolts for lateral linkages other odds and ends
  
• New OEM "subframe support arms" (20157AG02A / 20157AG03A)
  
• New OEM "crossmember stopper" (metal bits that go above/below subframe bushings)
  

As you can see in my list, I decided to replace certain nuts/bolts that were particularly rusty or were damaged during removal, but I'm not replacing every single nut and bolt back there. I've been soaking the hardware that will be reused in a rust dissolving product that works great and the hardware comes out looking new albeit with a slight etching. Everything will be reassembled with liberal amounts of anti-seize, of course!

Thanks for reading!

My wheel parts arrived yesterday so of course I had to do a test assembly last night! I can't wait to assemble these and put them on the car, I think they'll be great!

I widened them, added lip and stepped them up to 18" (they were 17" on my WRX)

Check 'em out! This is a rear that measures in at 18x10.5 -7. This configuration is what Rotiform calls "hidden hardware" where the wheel hardware threads into the back side of the face, and the face tapers out to the wheel lip. I've always loved these wheels I'm really happy that my wife encouraged me to hold onto them and rebuild them for the Legacy. I had them on the Legacy for a while in their 17x10 configuration, but I'm in love all over again with the wider lips and 18" profile

I have to put this face back on the 17" assembly so I can have the tires pulled but man am I excited to put these things together for real!!!

Do you happen to have a video on how you did your tail lights by chance, like that all red look

I do not, but funny you should ask as I am planning on doing another set of tails as the set I did has a chipped corner and I have an extra set of stock tails in storage. I'll do a DIY of the process but it goes like this:

Clean parts of loose dirt / dust

Clean with wax & greases remover

Clean with dish soap & water, dry thoroughly

Mask the body of the lens, along with any areas you don't want red

Spray a light coat of plastic adhesion promoter (duplicolor metalcast does not specify a coarse substrate, but you might choose to scuff with something like 1200)

Spray Duplicolor Metalcast as-per directions on can

Let sit for a few hours, if you have a heat lamp or space heater, that helps it cure nicely

Remove any masked area on the lens

Tack cloth the lens

If the Duplicolor didn't lay down nice, lightly wet sand with 1200 grit

If you sanded the color coat, blow it off, clean with soapy water, allow to dry thoroughly

Mix up your clear coat or if using a rattle can, put it in some hot water

Just before spraying, tack cloth again

Spray clearcoat as per tech sheet or directions on rattle can

Let sit for however many hours it needs in order to be ready for sanding

Using a soft block or sponge, sand with 1500, 2000, 3000, 5000 (3K, 5K is optional)

Buff and you're done

Hope that helps and yeah I'll document the process when I get around to it!

----

I've continued on with body prep. All the door handles, gaskets, grommets, and weatherstripping have been removed and I've made more headway on door ding repair. I ran out of 600 grit for my DA so while waiting for more of that to come in I've been hand scuffing the hard to reach areas that you don't see when the body panels are on the car, but will be painted anyhow.

With the fenders off, I'm going to spray the backsides and flanges with some black epoxy primer. I sanded down to bare metal around the edges where I cut and also ground off some surface rust on the flange that mates against the chassis. Also, the factory undercoating in the wheel arches is failing in some areas (almost 200k on the chassis!) so I think I'll end up stripping all that and spraying a new coating, maybe bedliner or just a fresh coat of rubberized undercoating. I just keep making more work for myself

I've got a couple more body stands arriving today so I can pull off all four doors and start scuffing up the jambs and the inner doors in prep for paint. Plenty more scuffing to do but always making progress

Followed, but might unfollow lol that garage space makes me so jelly.

lol thanks its taken a lot of hard work and money but I'm really happy and proud of where the workshop is now. next big investment is a lift from Bendpak which I'll be doing before the winter hits. i want to drop the rear crossmember out of my specB so I can clean up the chassis and spray some undercoating, replace the gas tank, stuff like that.

anyhow, this photo is a few days old but for the sake of having a picture in an otherwise wordy post, here ya go

that was the more-or-less final fit-up of the kit. the fiberglass gel coat looks pretty darn smooth but i'm going to guide coat it before painting it as there are bound to be some waves in there. i'm pretty happy with the panel fitment now at least, so saving the finishing of those panels for a later date.

I've been working away on the car a few nights a week. i started to install some adjustable arms in the back but of course the bolts are all frozen to the bushing sleeves so out with the sawzall. i save that sort of work for when i have some frustration to get out -- chopping up metal is a good outlet haha

otherwise, i blew off a few months worth of dust and proceeded to wash down the body with soapy water and got started sanding the big areas with a DA. i have a few shiny spots that will need to be hand sanded but the DA sure does save a lot of prep time. oh i also cleaned up the rough edges on my front fenders from the angle grinder using a flap disc followed by 80 grit by hand. now the edges are nice and smooth and no longer a risk of mangling my forearms lol.

to give you an understanding of the scope of body work and expectations, i am doing a "doors off, glass out" respray and while i have a nice big shop to do the work in, i do not have access to a spray booth so I'm not expecting the world here. as-so i am not stripping the car to bare metal as the paint is in overall good condition with no adhesion issues, so aside from areas that need body work i'll just be roughing up the surface according to the spec sheet. I'm keeping within one family of products (PPG) for primer, sealer, basecoat and clearcoat.

once all the body work is done and primed, i'm going to paint the car in three steps. first i'm going to paint the door jambs and all areas covered by body panels (e.g., rockers, tail light pockets, trunk gasket area, trunk lifting arms, underside of hood/trunk, etc.) with doors and fenders and such off the car and panels masked as needed, rolling edges in the door jambs and around the trunk. then, I'll re-hang the doors, trunk, hood and fenders, and proceed to paint the whole car. since i'm spraying a metallic i want to have the panels assembled in hopes to avoid any striping issues. finally, the fiberglass parts will be painted separately, albeit from the same batch of base as the rest of the body to achieve uniformity.

i've got a lot of work ahead of me but i'm just taking things one day, one step at a time and enjoying the process. every time i work on the car i recognize something else i want to but keep reminding myself to stay on track!!!

i'll post another update once I feel like I've got some progress worth sharing

Still holding it down? Car looks great!

I sure am! Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been catching up on maintenance on the family cars and projects around the house during quarantine and only fiddling with the Legacy here and there... BUT I'm pretty well caught up on all that now and about to dive into bodywork.

I picked up a JDM rear bumper from Randy / HKC Speed and also finished replacing 3/4 of my doors which were rusted out on the bottom with rust-free doors that I've collected over the years. Both my front doors has "questionable" aftermarket speaker/tweeter installs (e.g., non stainless hardware drilled into the door panels leading to more rust) which may have accelerated the rust, but 13 years on New England roads was probably the greater culprit haha. I also replaced my trunk (which was also rusting around the wing) with a clean wingless trunk that I saved from my wife's old 2.5i that was totaled years ago... I think I posted a picture somewhere in this thread.

Anyhow, I've done some small tweaks to the fiberglass in order to get the fit fitting a little tighter here and there, and went through and installed stainless nutserts and stainless button head fasteners. I used nutserts specific for plastic/composites on the plastic parts which worked out nicely.

While the doors are free of rust, they do have a few minor dings here and there so next up for me is smoothing those out before respraying the car. I can't remember if I've stated in the thread anywhere but I'm leaning towards a Dodge/Jeep/Chrysler "Velvet Red Pearl" which is a nice dark red that some brands offer as a 2 stage at "reasonable" prices all things considered.

Enough jibber jabber for now, here's the car as it sits

Waiting on wheel parts and some aero bits... slow and steady with this build. I'm excited to see it all come together but not in any rush

Sorry for lack of updates! I've got the kit fitted and air suspension parts installed, working on the air management now. I've taken some of the quarantine time to do some good maintenance work on my wife's car too

Left side

Everything lines up pretty nice

The chopping process

Right side went smoothly. I wrapped that one panel in a grey I was considering but decided against it

I picked up some Kansei Roku wheels for my WRX but before putting tires on them I decided to use them to figure out what final offset I should shoot for when I go to rebuild my Rotiform wheels for this car. The Kansei wheels are 18x9.5 +38 and I just added spacers until the outer lip met the fender.

The front landed around 18x9.5 -5 (i.e., about 43mm of spacing added)

In this photo the rear is a few mm away from where I want it to be but it was close enough to figure out what I can do for a lip on my splits. In the photo its about 9.5 -12.

So, with those numbers I know what size wheel parts I should order to rebuild my Rotiform splits. Those wheels are currently a 10j +12 with 6.5" inner barrels and 3.5" outer lips. They're currently 17" but I'll be stepping them up to 18"

The fronts I'll rebuild with 4.0" outer lips and 6.5" inner barrels to a final spec of 18x10.5j +6

The rears I'll rebuild with 6.0" inner barrels and 4.5" outer lips to a final spec of 18x10.5j -7

I'll post some updates discussing air management next

I fit up the passenger side over the weekend and did some investigative work for planning out air line routing. I think I'll do a quick video on this to help out other Legacy owners that may be interested in bagging their car. Proper air line routing is one of the most critical steps of ANY successful air ride installation, but is commonly overlooked or at least not given the attention it deserves. I always tell our customers-- think of it like you're installing a brake line!

Anyhow, passenger side fitted! Air suspension install begins tonight

Update!

I got a few hours to work on the specB over the last week and made some progress.

I started with the rear end as I had already cut and welded all that up so I really didn't have much to do aside from fit the flares. After lining things up with painters tape, I installed a few clecos to see how the panel would fit when secured by fasteners and I'm pretty happy with it.

While unboxing the kit I found the instructions for where to cut up the frontend and learned I hadn't cut nearly enough! All of the measurements in the template reference the bodyline that runs into the corner of the headlamp so I marked that line with some tape and masked off the rest of the fender so I could draw a line of where to cut.

I used a flexible tape metric tape measure (like what a tailor would use for body measurements) to get the reference points as close as I could, then marked it out on the car. Here is the front fender all chopped up and the template provided with the kit.

After crying a little bit because I'm chopping up my new-to-me JDM bumper, I dried my tears with tape scraps and fiberglass dust. The kit fits pretty darn good!

The arches lined up nice, mission success!

I chopped up the passenger side frontend last night so I can move onto fitting the kit on that side next, and finally installing nutserts on all the body panels for semi permanent fastening.

Once the kit is finished, I'll be moving onto the air ride install! I'm using a kit from Bag Riders, of course! I'll be converting my BC Racing coilovers over to air using our conversion bags, and running an Air Lift Performance 3H management system. I'm also working on building an 18" set of wheels and have a few suspension components to help dial in the fitment! The final step of this project will be to paint the car, something I've never done before so wish me luck!

I'm wondering if there is anything that the community wants to see regarding air suspension?

good to know, I like the all-red look. I am going to see if I can find some tail lights to experiment on, dont want to screw up mine.

Right on! I have another set of tails sitting in storage (not sure why, lol), I might do the same thing to those and if I do I'll put one set up for sale and shoot you a PM!

Hey @%1;,

 

When you painted the rear tail light, did you paint it all with the duplicolor or just the silver trim?

I masked off the middle area where the brake light is and painted the entire rest of the thing with the red paint and proceeded to clear / sand / buff.

Last night I FINALLY dove back into my specB. I've got a solid list of changes that I'll be performing over the next few months (don't hold me to that timeline, lol)

• Air Suspension via BAG RIDERS
  
• Monster Service wide body
  
• Replacing all 4 doors due to bottom edge rust
  
• Wingless trunk swap
  
• JDM specB Front Bumper
  
• JDM Rev D-F Grille
  
• JDM Headlights
  
• Some new aero bits
  
• Miscellaneous suspension arms
  
• Color change / respray
  

I'll be doing all this stuff in my home workshop and do my best to keep this thread updated! So lets get at it!

Last night I got started by pulling off the generic fender flares. They served me well, but its time for them to go. The 17x10 +12 Rotiform splits extend proudly past the body with the flares removed. The rears have a final offset of -18 due to the 30mm spacer I've got in there!! I am SUPER excited to build these wheels up to 18" with bigger lips. I love the face design so much, but I think the 17" diameter is just a little too small for the stance I have in mind.

Next up I got the into "hover car mode" up on stands and pulled off the USDM front bumper. I'm soooo excited to test fit the JDM front end!!

The front fenders needed some additional trimming for the Monster Service kit, so out came the angle grinder. My wife snapped this action shot of me grinding away

That's all for now, hopefully more updates in the near future I'm considering launching a YouTube channel to cover some interesting topics like the air ride and wide body install.... maybe

Damn, that garage is nice! Car is nice too.

Thanks a lot! Garage is definitely a lot nicer than the car, lol I've had my hands full recently with building the deck I promised my wife like a year ago and another EJ253 rebuild but once I finish those up, my focus will shift back to the garage. I've made a little headway on some stuff on rainy days... recently got my 80 gallon 5 HP compressor wired and received all the materials to plumb off the tank so I can make use of it before installing the rest of the shop air.

Really want to have it all set up before winter time so I can dive into the Legacy!!

I beefed up the tires on my Rotiform wheels to a 245/40 on a 17x10. The stretch follows the fender flares nicely.

Here's a close up of the rear when compressed a bit

In other news, we finished up the floor in the new workshop and it came out awesome. My wife and I did this all ourselves and I can see why the pros charge what they do for it-- it's a lot of work! We used Rustoleum's professional epoxy kit and also their clear coat after prepping the floor with muratic acid and a lot of sweeping/pressure washing/vacuuming.

It wasn't long after that when my father in law's timing belt tensioner failed and he brought his Outback to the workshop which made it the first car in there. It was awesome to work in the new shop and made me really excited to finish the interior.

I went through the trailing arm adventure. Just a heads up - it results in the other arms binding! Johann (DeadMr) was successful in doing this by using heim joints on all of the lateral arms. Stock arms/bushings won't work, plus the rear shock will be under bending load unless the upper rear shock mount is replaced with a spherical bearing.

 

It can be done, but it's more work than it looks at first glance!

 

https://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5442508&postcount=116

Oh yeah! Adjustable arms are going to be a must! I did not mean to imply that I expect this piece will be the only variable in the equation, but I can see how that is very much how my post reads-- my bad! I edited the post to clearly state that other suspension members will need to be addressed. I actually private messaged Johann some time ago after the idea to modify the bracket popped into my head when pondering how to re-center the wheel, followed by the realization "surely someone else has thought of this before" and eventually stumbled on his thread... and now yours!

Also, I love your wagon build!! Just read through your thread, very impressive and great attention to detail! I'm jealous of that brand new STI transmission. I have an 04 STI tranny in my WRX and while it does the job of holding power (much unlike the 5 speed it replaced ) I find myself missing the specB gearbox on the highway. I'm really tempted to to swap in the specB gears... how do you like your new trans? What do you have in there for a diff? (sorry if I missed that in your thread!)

need more detail on this rear arm bracket !

 

when i think i m done with mod something always pop up !

lol isn't that always the case

to start, i will say that this sort of mod only applies to a vehicle where the suspension height has been significantly altered from stock. for example my legacy is lowered a lot, I don't know exactly how much but i think most would considered it "slammed" I am putting air ride on it as well, so with the air springs deflated when parking it will be sitting on the ground!

anyhow, due to the design of the rear suspension on the BL/BP chassis, as the vehicle is lowered the rear wheel moves forward, closer to the rear doors / "dogleg" panel. i think most anyone with an aggressively lowered legacy will be familiar with this.

this scenario is easy to picture in your head when you understand that the rear hub pivots on the trailing arm bushing in what would be a giant circle if it was not limited by other suspension members, the chassis, etc. so as the suspension compresses, the rear hub travels not only upwards but also forward a bit along the curve of this circle.

so, once you have statically lowered the suspension, you have a rear wheel that has traveled forward some distance and is more likely to interfere/foul on the dogleg panel over speed bumps and what not. not to mention it just kinda looks weird IMO. this same phenomenon plagues other vehicles too due to their suspension geometry and design.

alright so with all that said i hope it is easy to understand the very simple solution that this modified bracket provides-- it simply relocates the rear trailing arm bushing mounting point by about 20mm toward the tail end of the vehicle, which should (if I measured correctly ) reposition the rear wheel back to its original position, that is close to the center of the arch! you must also ensure your other suspension members are setup properly for this change. check out pages 8 and 9 of this thread: https://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/legacybt-6mt-compromised-autocross-build-225271p9.html

maybe a lot of work for something "so minor" but really it bugs the sh** out of me seeing a big gap between the rear wheel and rear bumper, not to mention the rubbing on the dogleg. plus it gives me a reason to replace my worn out trailing arm bushings

Alright alright alright! Here's something I've been wanting to do for a long while but other stuff has always come first... until now! Check these out! Before I give it away, any guesses as to what they may be?

In other (very exciting!) news, the slab finally got poured in the workshop!! I've been watering it regularly since it was poured on Friday, with hopes that this weekend I'll be able to start framing up some stud walls in front of all that foam board and finally embark on the joyous and invigorating process that is hanging and finishing sheetrock. I know, I know... sheetrock in a workshop sounds like a lot of work when OSB would do the trick and be good for hanging stuff easily. Well, fact of the matter is, its my workshop and I want it to look a certain way in there, and that way is not painted OSB Anyhow, feast your eyeballs on this glory!!

I'm giving it 4-5 weeks of curing time before laying down some textured epoxy. I've got plenty to keep me busy in the mean time. Hoping to start moving in and really setting up shop some time in August. I also promised my wife I'd build a big back deck this summer so I've got my work cut out for me lol.

Need to get my spec.b this clean! The black interior swap looks great!

Thanks! I enjoy it!

--

Not much car stuff this weekend but the workshop got one step closer to being usable! The excavation crew came in and prepped the subsurface of the driveway in front of the shop, so now the cement crew can come and pour the slab. Wahoo! It looks like this now:

On the inside, I'm just about done with the insulating I can do before the slab is poured. I've put 2" XPS on all the exposed concrete, right down to the footings where applicable and to the 2" under-slab insulation elsewhere. This will ensure the slab is entirely encased in foamboard which provides a capillary break between the foundation and early, helping prevent heat loss/transfer in both directions. In the wall cavities I'm using R23 mineral wool / roxul which is more expensive than fiberglass but a lot easier to work with and provides a number of other great performance benefits compared to fiberglass. Still itchy though

Here's to hoping we get the slab poured quickly so I can justify tearing into the Legacy and finally pulling my WRX out of its extended hibernation

Oh I did do one car thing this weekend-- I cleaned my specB It cleans up pretty good for 185k on the clock!

Super jealous of that shop! Should be an awesome work space when done. Also I love that Audi grey. Would look great on a Spec B.

Thank you! The slab should be poured soon and the final excavation work will then get done.... I'm very eager to move in there Since we moved into the house over the summer I've rebuilt two EJs in our extremely cramped 2 car garage (basically a 1 car, with my WRX hibernating in there, plus the aftermath of moving) but have convinced myself I'd be much happier doing the body work on the specB in a space where I can actually open the doors on the car all the way, lol

Can't wait for more Updates, congrats on the postal code change. Garage space is awesome.

 

I have always loved Audi's Nardo Grey, I say do it, unless you want something that stands out a little more in which case you should go with BMW's Monte Carlo Blue or Dodge Stryker Red

Thank you very much! It is a dream I've had for most of my adult life so its great to see it all coming together.

The color is something I'm regularly debating with myself (ask my wife lol), always taking mental reference of colors I think would look good on the car. This will be my first time painting an entire car so I'm thinking I'll stick to a more simple color to spray which unfortunately rules out Stryker Red and generally speaking a lot of the newer, "hi tech" finishes. I loooooove Stryker red but I don't think I could do it justice! I like Nardo a lot and the fact that its a relatively simple color to shoot (and repair, if needed) makes it a winner for me.

I might steal the 4/2 pot brakes from my WRX and refinish those in a "slightly darker than original" red to add some color to the side profile, which I think would tie in nicely with my tail lights. Other than that, there will be some gloss black accents like aero pieces and the grille for an overall clean, sharp look... at least IMO

Long time no post but I'm still alive and kickin' and so is my specB.

Lots has happened in my life over the last year! Biggest news is that my wife and I bought our first house and moved in over the summer! Exciting! Shortly after that, we broke ground on a big ol' workshop to house automotive projects for years to come.

The day we closed on our home

And here is the workshop! Progress photo from back in February. It is 29' deep and 36' wide which is exactly how large we could go without applying for a zoning variance. It is built with attic trusses for a nice 16' wide attic running the depth of the building and an 8/12 roof pitch for 8' ceiling height upstairs. No plans to finish the attic but I'm happy to have a lot of space for storage and space-hogging tools like my floor press. The building all done, just waiting on the dirt roads to be unposted so the excavator can come back for back filling and final landscaping, and the cement guys can come and pour the slab. Definitely a bit of a tease having the building up yet not being able to use it, but soon that will change!!

Anyhow, back to car stuff!

I sold my 18x9.5 cast wheels yesterday (remember I had to run a 50mm spacer to make them look decent, lol) and decided to fit up my splits that I had my wagon. They're 17x10 +12 up front and -14 in the rear with a 26mm spacer (the wheels are +12). I like the look but I always feel like 17's are just a little too small on this car in my opinion. I had to spin the coils way down to make them look decent so now I think I'll end up putting one of our air ride kits on it to regain some drivability!

If anyone wants to buy these wheels they're always up for sale. As stated they are 17x10 +12 but I can rebuild them to 17x9 +25 or 17x10 +38. I will gladly ship. They will not have tires.

Rust has started to poke through on my rear doors so I picked up (4) rust free doors. I also have a wingless trunk from my wife's old 2.5i. I also have a scoopless hood that I might swap on and switch to an FMIC, though I'm unsure about that as I do like the look of the recessed scoop. Other exterior stuff, I picked up a complete JDM frontend with honeycombe grille, crash bar, headlights et. all from Randy at HKC Speed. Can't say enough good things about working with Randy, very professional and exceptionally quick to work with, 10/10 recommend him.

Not pictured: headlights, crash beam, headlight brackets, etc.

Here's my collection of doors and trunk... dunno where door #4 is when I took this picture but, I have it somewhere, lol.

Last but not least, I've been sitting on this 8 piece fiberglass wide body kit for over a year now. As soon as the weather finally clears up (we got snow here this morning) and I can start daily driving my WRX, my specB is going under the knife.... replacing all the doors, trunk, installing the frontend, and finally fitting this kit. Of course I will have to respray the car after I've fit all these panels. I'm thinking some kinda grey.... I like Audi's Nardo Grey quite a lot and also Porsche's Chalk Grey.... any input?

Anyhow, here is a photo from way back when I got the kit and was eager to test fit it. This was obviously with my old wheels, in this photo the spec is 18x9.5 -15 with a 265/35 tire... plenty of room for fun

Alright I think that wraps it up the updates for now. Hopefully I will be able to embark on this next round of mods for the Legacy soon, but I do have a few other projects to tackle first.... I'll keep the community updated!

Didn't want to drill new holes through the rear swaybar mount so I think I'm going to try to find a set of the AutoSpeed relocation brackets or design and machine my own.

Added a sound clip of the AutoSpeed catback + GrimmSpeed catted downpipe to my instagram, no idea how to embed it here without uploading to YouTube: https://www.instagram.com/p/BaADjaVHKSX/?taken-by=john_br