Abductee

Started a build thread https://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/abs-09-obxt-build-thread-284314.html

26th task- Not losing The insurance company wanted to total the car and cut me a ridiculously small check, to which I told them to go right tight themselves. I will fix it myself. The suggestion was made by xt2005bonbon to source a JDM front clip to use for replacement parts, which in hindsight was a fantastic idea. Mostly everything I need is there for a lot cheaper than USDM parts new or used. I found a SWP front end in Brooklyn from JDMEngineworld on ebay. I called and talked to Jack and worked out a deal to purchase it without the hood as it was from a non-turbo model. I found a hood in Oregon from 541Motorsports. I got those heading my way and started picking up all the other small parts necessary to get it back in shape. Radiator, STI fans will be replaced with the same part numbers as that combo worked very well. 20201013_160212 20201021_160550

25th task- Ugh Driving to work on Tuesday 09/30/20 at 5:50am I wound up in a multi vehicle accident on the interstate where there was already another accident in progress. [insert many many expletives here]. Luckily no one was injured. Because I had lowered my car, all of the damage to the front end was above the frame horns so my airbags didn't go off and the frame was untouched. Nothing touched the motor and everything looks ok except bodystuff and the radiator/ac condenser coil. When the dust settled, I had made friends with the tow truck guy and he hooked me up with getting me and the car back to my house. 20200929_150856 20200930_154033 20200930_154028

24th task- Skidplate swaybar and braces A few weeks after lowering my car, I was loving it more and more. While the tune was still not complete (even after 2 months) it was freaking running so well. It pulled hard to redline with a peak of 21.5psi. 2nd gear was close to bonkers and it rode so sweetly. I did not, however, like my oil pan hanging out there in harms way without anything protecting it. I ordered a Primitive Racing skidplate 3/16" with the oil holes as well as a Whiteline rear sway bar. I installed those on Sunday 09/27/20.

23rd task- Going down The tune was taking quite a while with a few hiccups, but plans were continuing. I have always been of the mind that 4 wheel drives go up, 2 wheel drives go down, but now I have an all wheel drive. So that means owners option! I chose down. I picked up some BC racing coilovers for legacy F-04 from itsdaniel in the classifieds as well as legacy upper control arms, bump stops, and Whiteline KTA124's from various other sources. I had also already gotten front ball joints, inner and outer tie rods as well as Moog front and rear end links. I took a weekend and installed everything again taking my time and cleaning everything around where I am working. I gave it a tape measure and angle finder alignment which turned out really well. It drove very nicely to the alignment shop. Once aligned, it was like the sun coming out for the first time after months of rain. Refined, sporty, compliant and accurate. Though I wound up lower than I wanted, the ride was superb. I had set the coilovers to max height and still wound up tucking the rear wheel and lower than I wanted all around. It grew on me though. I still had way more ground clearance than my c10. I contacted BC Racing tech support and they helped me decipher part numbers on replacement dampers. I wound up getting the rear dampers for the outback extreme low (220125AR114M12) which should bring my rear up 1.2" and leave me with a slight rake. Whenever I get around to installing them that is. 20200906_171632

22nd task- Going big(ger) I had been doing research about different setups for replacement turbos for a while. I had learned that in trying to save a few dollars while doing maintenance I inadvertently positioned myself nicely for a decent bump in power. I knew I wasn't going to replace the turbo with another IHI and have the same issues most seem to have, but I still wanted to keep it daily friendly. I wound up deciding on the BNR 16g 8cm. VF52ish with no taper necessary if you have the fuel and it was not an IHI. I looked into having my injectors cleaned and rebuilt, but for what that cost I would be 75% of the way to new injectors. I picked ID720"s. I should be able to run 20psi at 6500rpm at 88-90% duty cycle based on different calculators and the like. I made a plan and a list and started looking for deals and getting things ordered. Like everything else, I figured while I am in there I may as well get a bigger tmic, tgv delete, air pump delete, replace vacuum lines, replace pcv, ebcs, aos- you know the usual stuff. My wife and daughter were going on their annual girls trip, so I took the week off and took my time. I had contacted Stephen at IA Tuning and had a startup tune waiting for me when I finished. It was a good thing I had decided to do this when I did, as I wound up cleaning gooey overheated oil sludge out of my intake manifold and throttle body. I didn't even attempt to clean out the intercooler since I had a new one. I had found the cause of my knock. The seal was pretty gone on my turbo cartridge and I was sending oil into my intake. The impeller was a little wiggly as well. I also pulled the plugs and checked/cleaned them. Major catastrophic problem avoided. I also verified that all of my avcs screens were removed. I did find one and removed it even though it was clean. I plumbed the turbo oil feed straight from the front oil galley through a filter and removed the idiot light pressure switch. Oil pressure sending unit is still tied in there as well. Once everything was finished and I started it up, I immediately saw a reduction in oil pressure on startup. It was only 65psi and once warm was 20psi, same as before. Cruise was about 60psi, again right around where it was before. I think the old turbo was restricting oil flow pretty badly. The excessive pressure I am sure didn't help the seals. 20200719_140038 20200719_163132

21st task- Oil control solenoid valves Still trying to figure out why I had that stupid knock back, I pulled the oil control valves and cleaned them. They didn't look too bad. Though left and right were running in sync, I was hoping to find something there to say Aha! Nope. 12v got them snapping back and forth after a thorough cleaning. Reinstalled and found no real change. Again, nothing was terrible or obvious other than my anal nature about having things just right.

20th task- The tuning experiments I played conservatively with ATR and wound up with a pretty decent running vehicle. Boost peaked at 18.5 psi (VF46) and tapered to 16.5 with clean pulls and decent mileage. Then the knock came back. Slowly it crept back. Never at WOT, but regular easy part throttle driving. Logs looked fine and nothing seemed amiss. A quandary.

19th task- AEM WBO2 I had not forgotten about the oil leak on my turbo and changed out the oil return hose, clamps, and outlet flange gasket. The leak was not actually from the oil return, but from the housing itself. I knew I was going to change out the turbo, but didn't know what I was going to go with. I did know that regardless of which turbo I chose, I would need to have a wbo2 running. I went with an AEM 30-4110. I have used them before and I have always had good luck with AEM products. I did the rear O2 delete and was logging in short order. Somewhere along the line in this story I took the Cobb accesstuner class ($180 booo) and downloaded atr so I could start making changes. I had already modified the fan activation set points as well as made small fueling and timing changes. Configuring the rear O2 delete was easy except I forgot to 0 out all the rear O2 tables, but had it figured out pretty quickly. When I installed the wbo2 gauge in the cubby, I also removed the 3d printed cubby gauge pod and swapped it for a metal one I got from Joey SR in the classifieds. In the summer heat the 3d printed one had melted pretty bad.

18th task- EBC Brakes and tires I was starting to get some brake squeal and the rotors and pads were fairly worn, so I upgraded them. I have used EBC on most of my vehicles and I have always had great results. I went with stock sized outback stuff for several reasons. 1 I didn't want to shell out the money for Brembos. 2 It's a daily driver not a track beast. 3 Most of the time bigger brakes can easily overwhelm stock tires. 4 I didn't want to shell out the money for Brembos AND new wheels AND tires. 5 If I spend the money to go to a legacy setup, I might as well spend the rest and move away from a sliding pin caliper. So I did the next best thing- I upgraded the stock size brakes with some good stuff, and got rid of the crappy Riken Raptor tires and got some Federal Evoluzion ST1 in 235/50/17. I am in Florida so I can run summer tire year round.

17th task- Ham install I installed a little mag mount dual band antenna and ran it to a small HT I use mostly for camping. I would like a full featured radio with better scanning and higher output, but there isn't room for anything I currently already have.

16th task- Still chasing knock I decided to change ignition coils since I felt the majority of the fueling system was good and the plugs were newish. I found some new Cosmis racing ignition coils from Infosecdad in the classifieds and picked them up. I had read about aftermarket Subaru coils and once again the majority advised against it, but I didn't want to spend $320 on OEM to test a theory. I installed the coils and low and behold the knock was easily 99% better. Hooray for a little while. At about 1k miles I started getting a cylinder 4 misfire. While driving home from work I was about 3 minutes away from the plant and all of a sudden- bang running like garbage. I set my AP to check misfires and saw cylinder 4 misfire every time it was supposed to fire. Checked for easily fixable obvious roadside problems , saw nothing and decided to continue on home the rest to the 12 miles. Ran terrible on the highway till downtown then- bang- smoothed out and no more misfire for the next 6 miles home. In my head- can't be a loose wire, or a valve, or a bad plug, or a ring- injector? Nothing but misfire codes- surely there would be an injector code or something. Fouled plug got clean? I dunno. Next morning ran fine the whole way to work. It did the exact same thing coming home at almost the exact same place. Pow- misfire cylinder 4. I took the same route home and it cleared up at the same place and ran fine. When I got home I swapped coils 2 and 4. Next day no issues till coming home. Pow- cylinder 2 misfire exactly the same. Needless to say I went ahead and ordered 4 new OEM coils, tossed the bad Cosmis coil and kept the other 3 as backup should I have an issue with the OEM's. After all was said and done, knock was still 99% better. 20200509_093321

15th task- Obligatory plastidip The grille was starting to bubble up in some spots causing the plastic chrome to look terrible. I dipped the grille and rear hatch chrome strip flat black. Looked way better. 20181021_131050

14th task- JDM struts So the OEM 180k mile struts were done. I had floated around bobbing and weaving for too long. I found some used JDM KYB struts from an 08 outback on ebay and slapped them on. I wound up about 3/4" lower and had a much better ride. As I had learned the JDM tophats aren't all rubber and have a much larger bearing. From what I understand they also have a different dampening rate. It was hard to do any sort of comparison with the old floaters, but they were eons better. I also came across a 2015 STI steering rack that was leaking from the input shaft on OfferUp for $60. Rebuild seals (34191AG050) were $27 on ebay. Changed those out and set the rack to the side for later install.

13th task- I will find that knock! Over the past month I changed the battery, front A/F sensor, plugs, and MAF. Like I said earlier I am not one to throw parts at a problem, I want to find it and solve it. These are all maintenance items that are probably original to the car that now had 180k miles. I was hoping however that one of these things would solve the issue. It did make an improvement, but nothing ever corrected it completely. I have a hard time leaving a problem alone without a good reason. Meanwhile, I did what any sane Subaru owner would do when faced with an intermittent feedback knock problem - I bought a used set of Nameless 5" axlebacks from freaksaviour in the classifieds. Now at least the car sounds good.

12th task- Still chasing feedback knock. Swapped out the rear O2 sensor with new OEM. Line of thought was that the malfunctioning catalytic converter caused issues with the rear O2 sensor. Found a new 22641AA42A on ebay for $83 shipped. No change in knock. No codes though.

11th task- Downpipe from California. In short order after going stage 1 OTS tune I started getting a P0420. I did some research and found it to be the catalytic converter or O2 sensor. I am not the type to just start throwing parts at a problem so I used common sense and my powers of deduction. I ran the car for 15 minutes and checked inlet and outlet temperatures of the catalytic converter. There was a 400 degree differential between inlet and outlet. Wow OEM catalytic converters are expensive. And once again people having bad luck with aftermarket products. Though we don't have emissions here in FL, I still wanted to run a cat so I found other options. I found a used but excellent shape Grimmspeed ceramic coated downpipe in California on Offer Up for $300. It had been listed for 6 months already but I gambled and got lucky. The guy got right back to me and we hashed out a deal. I wound up paying $330 if i remember correctly with shipping. It was about like pulling teeth to get him to actually ship the darn thing out though. Finally he shipped it and I slapped it on. I loaded stage 2 and went for a test drive. I hit 22psi boost well before 4k rpm in 2nd gear. I knew that wasn't right so I did some more research and found I had to bend the diverter wall in the bellmouth away from the wastegate for it to actuate properly. Did that and everything was golden for the time being. No codes after install. 20190920_155047

10th task- Fuel pump and filter I had been noticing some knock here and there, but nothing was coming up as the culprit and it was never bad enough that I was terribly worried. I was aware that there were several maintenance items that still needed to be addressed and the fuel filter was one of them. I broke out the service manual and learned the fuel filter is in the tank? That's unfortunate. I decided if I am taking it all apart, I will replace everything. I picked up an AEM 340lph fuel pump (50-1215) and OEM filter (42072AG1GA) and gaskets. Changed it out on a Wednesday evening with no leaks. Angry bees on start up. Everything seemed smoother, but still no change in the knock. 20190918_191452

10th task- Running warm(er) Watching things on the accessport I saw my coolant temperature was slowly climbing up at idle in traffic and after highway driving. I started snooping around and found the secondary fan relay was popped. I checked the fans out and found the right fan was hard to turn and the bearings felt gritty. I researched replacement fans and again found tales of problems with anything but OEM. I snagged some low mileage 9 blade fans from a 2008 WRX STI on ebay for $70 for the pair. The following weekend I swapped the fans and the relay. The fan side plugs were male on the outback and the STI fans were female, so I cut and soldered on the plugs from the old fans. I could actually hear the fans running now and they were moving quit a bit of air. Something to note is the STI fans are 3/4" shallower in mounting depth than the stockers for anyone looking to gain a little more clearance. Problem solved.

9th task- Smoke from hood scoop part 3. Driving home from work I got off the interstate at my exit and caught the 2nd red light. While sitting there I noticed a little white smoke coming from the hood scoop. I pulled over and started looking around for the source. Oil was leaking from the turbo oil return line onto the downpipe. Very small leak, but there. Kept driving.

8th task- Cobb Access port. I had been keeping an eye out for used Accessports but was wary of the idea of it in general. Not wary of buying used as I have plenty of experience with saving money with good used parts (some things you only buy new though) but wary of tuners in general. I have shelled out good money on GM tuners only to go have it actually tuned by a pro and the difference is night and day. The AP seemed more useful with the data logging and multiple maps so I was willing to try it but not at $600. That's ridiculous. I found an AP3-SUB-003 on Offer Up local to me for $35 with a cracked screen and was missing the bezel. I grabbed it up and kept looking. Over the next few weeks or so I found another on ebay SUB-002 that wouldn't power up and the USB cable had been broken off in the port for $20 starting bid, and another one that was still married and pretty beat up. A few days later I sat down and merged the 3 into 1 working AP. I lucked out and the motherboard from the one with the broken screen was unmarried. I bought an obd2 cable from Cobb and was in business. Total cost of $91 not including the cable from Cobb. Flashed a stage 0 tune and started watching parameters and learning about the car. It was a good thing I got that oil pressure guage as there's no PID for oil pressure with this car. Found some knock but nothing terrible. Went stage 1 like the rebel that I am.

7th task- Smoke from hood scoop part 2. Driving home from work I got off the interstate at my exit and caught the 1st red light. While sitting there I noticed a little white smoke coming from the hood scoop. The smoke smelled sweet. Coolant- dang. Pulled over and checked it out. The upper neck was leaking from a hairline crack. I made it home fine and found Rallysportdirect. Ordered a Koyorad aluminum radiator (VHO91662), new OEM thermostat with gasket and had it in a few days. I picked up new upper and lower radiator hoses and Peak antifreeze from Napa, and had the radiator swapped out pretty quickly. Burping the radiator turned out to be a breeze as I simply followed the factory service manual instructions and had no issues. Also swapped out the sway bar bushings I noticed when I changed the axle. 20190311_184637

6th task- Smoke from hood scoop. Driving home from work I got off the interstate at my exit and got stopped at the first light. I noticed a little white smoke coming from the hood scoop. Turned the AC recirculation off and I smelled grease or oil burning. I pulled over at the next parking lot and took a look. Dark tacky grease in a line from my cv axle boot. It was a small tear but enough to get everything gooey. Started researching replacements and sure enough pretty much everyone echoed what the Subaru tech had said about OEM. A few people mentioned Raxles in Gainesville FL. They reman axles using OEM parts and better boots. Contacted them and had a replacement in a few days. I sent back the old one as a core, which they had subsequently thrown in the trash as it was not OEM. I haven't had a problem since and Raxles had a good price for a great product with excellent customer service. I will definitely contact them again if I need an axle. I know I could have changed out the boot, but my line of thinking was that axle was the original with 175k miles on it. In retrospect I am glad I didn't spend the time and money to put a new boot on a used autozone cv axle. 20190817_143548 Also, spent about 7 years (felt like) peeling off the invisible bra. It was lifting and trapping water and leaves and the like so it had to go. Found Stoners bug and tar remover which worked pretty well.

5th task- Oil pressure? This is one of the only cars I can remember owning that didn't have an oil pressure guage. I used an Elm 327 Bluetooth obd2 adapter and the Torque app to monitor things in the Suburban, so that will work here right? Wrong. Check engine and lights blinking everywhere. I only tried it once. Pulled battery cables and reset ecu. I picked up a ProSport Evo oil pressure guage and sending unit, oil galley plug adapter, remote mount kit for sending unit, and a 3d printed cubby pod guage bracket on eBay. Used brass 1/4" npt tee and ran remote mount for sender and OEM oil pressure switch from front oil galley. I learned a long time ago it's always best to get oil pressure closest to the pump. Works great. Now I know I am at 90+psi at startup. Seems kinda high. I always pick up the OEM technical service manual for my vehicles. Time to get one for the Subaru. I found a guy who posted links to a bunch of OEM Subaru manuals for free (I don't remember where- NASIOC I think). Armed with info, I find uh, hmm-- it's within spec. Well, there is no upper range, they don't call out "too high", and it always drops down to 20psi or so at idle when warm so I will just keep an eye on it. I found the manuals here https://sl-i.net/FORUM/showthread.php?18087-Subaru-Factory-Service-Manuals-(FSM)-Every-Model-USDM-EU

4th task- Stupid sticky shifter knob. Lots of play and sticky- it had to go. Shifter linkage was fine, just needed bushings. Learned about Whiteline, Kartboy, and Grimmspeed. Picked up and installed Whiteline shifter bushings, Kartboy short throw shifter and Grimmspeed delrin shift knob. Much better.