Sboarderk03's too Little too Late wagon build thread

[Sboarderk03]

So here it is, I finally decided to get going on my own build thread and only about the time when everyone else is getting rid of their lgt's. Luckily I was still able to take some inspiration from guys on here like jonnywas and magnusonsubie while still giving it my own flair.

So to start things off I have to say I have wanted one of these wagons for quite some time and being that I waited so long I had to settle for high mileage. On the plus side I am a mechanic and knew what to look for and despite being high mileage I got a damn good car at a great price. Hopefully there are still enough people on here to enjoy my build but really I am doing this to document my progress and keep some pictures on file. Here is the best picture I could possibly upload from when I first got the car:

 

Bone stock and from a used car dealership in Brockton Ma. I won the car on April 20th 2016 off ebay for 3,000 and was psyched. It is a 2005 legacy gt 5mt wagon in Brilliant Silver Metallic with 175,000 miles, factory installed sti pedals and factory installed short shifter with the nice Momo shift knob. The guys at the place I bought it obviously didn't know much as they told me the brakes were making noise and there was an issue with the shifter. They mistook the tight shifting of the short shifter for a problem which it was the furthest thing from, and the noise coming from the brakes was from the fact that the driver rear caliper was missing the outer pad completely. So I checked the car over gave it a drive and fell in love. Completed the paper work the next day and popped in a set of pads on the driver rear in the parking lot and was on my way.

Unfortunately I lost my original phone that had all the pictures of the car after I picked it up from the lot. I had so many nice pics of this car clean and stock and they are now gone. Left the phone on my mothers car roof and she drove off before I remembered to take it off but I digress. Now the next pictures that I have are of the car afyer I had plastidipped the factory wheels with black and metallic and lowered the car on swift springs with stock struts.

Here she is next to the 350z in the garage:

 

Lowered on stock struts and swift springs. Then installed KYB struts which was useless because Boston streets with stock valved struts on heavily dropped springs lasts a good month or 3 tops before they blow:

 

At this point I had already installed some nice lookin spats from Alex at JDMprestige, an ebay front lip and a cobb APv3 and SF intake airbox combo for stage 1. Along with a diy front grill. A couple outdoor shots still on stock wheels:

 

 

Next up on the mod list was stage 2 so I had to get a downpipe and figured id try a cheapo ebay one at the time because money was tight and I wasn't positive the direction I wanted to go fully so it would do for the time being. I got a rev9 catted dp which is very similar to cnt but has a divider in the bellmouth:

 

I wrapped it in exhaust wrap and fit this up in no time. The quality was not too bad. The welds weren't pretty but they were solid and thick and it fit like a glove so I was happy. This kept me entertained for a while as the power was good and I didn't really have much in funds to go where I wanted. I should mention however that when I got the car I went over it with a fine toothed comb. I did everything to it that needed to be done and even if it didn't I did it anyways as I have the knowledge so why not. What I did was:

Compression and leakdown test

Pulled all oil screens from banjo bolts

Oil change

Timing belt and acc.

Gutted oem catted uppipe

Brake fluid change

PS fluid change

Trans and diff fluid change

Changed radiator and fluid

*rad. developed a small leak a few months after purchase*

Installed wrx smfw and clutch

Topped off headlamp fluid

Egt sensor resistor mod

And anything else I can't think of at the moment

 

So much more to come...

[legacybt]

Welcome! Keep us updated on your build, it's nice to see new faces around here.

 

I'm not sure if everyone is getting rid of their legacies, I think a lot of activity is moving over to Facebook groups. I way prefer the forums and the ease of looking back on the history of everyone's builds.

[Jaybird2013]

Good job man!!! Your wagon transformation is shaping up nicely.

[Sboarderk03]

Thanks guys, I hope people are keeping their legacies cause I love mine and will be keeping it til it's a pile of rust.

Jaybird, I took a page outta your book and got the fms front mount. Once I get my new front end finished I will put it all together and have everything lookin real fresh. CT is not too far from me, if you are into any fun meets Jaybird you should shoot me a message.

[Sboarderk03]

So my next step was to get me some new shoes. Found these motegi sp10 rims that I really liked and scoopetd them up off Craigslist. Not in the best shape so I planned to get a couple more and keep the beat ones as extras but come to find out they are discontinued. So I scoured the forums and found a set in perfect condition. Scooped those up and never even put them on. Reason being I will explain in a bit but in between my buying these two sets I upgraded my suspension a little.

Went with Koni adjustable inserts and h&r springs. Here is the outcome of the front strut donors that got the inserts:

 

And here's how the car looked on h&r springs, koni struts and the motegi sp10 18x8 +40 rims:

 

This however didn't last long as these wheels don't clear brembos and I soon realized I had to have that gold bbk shining through my rims. That's the real reason why I never bothered to install the very clean set of motegi sp10 rims. I just went another direction. I still have them and they are still for sale if anyone is interested, $450 picked up, check the wheel tire fs threads: tires do not come with wheels

[subie-roo]

You have my wagons twin! Excited to see future updates!

[Sboarderk03]

Good stuff subieroo keep it as long as you can man. At the moment these wagons are an endangered species on the verge of becoming extinct, lol.

[crisjp3]

I rarely see one if ever on the freeways here in CA, I've waited to long to get an 07 kind of like you did. And now that I've gotten the car i've wanted I also feel like it's too late. But oh well. I enjoy my car and i like the "rare" kind of feeling. BRZ's try to race all the time but I'm too cautious right now to pull any stunts.

 

thanks for the advice you and the other members have been giving.

 

In all honesty if SOA released the Levorg here I probably would have used the money I spent on my wagon for a down-payment instead.

[Sboarderk03]

So one nice surprise I found while going through my otherwise stock car was a whiteline 22mm sway bar up front and a 19mm in the rear. Not in the best shape but still fully functional so I kept them for now and added every other bit of suspension pieces I could. To keep the car nice and flat in the twisties and to level the suspension after being lowered I added avo solid endlinks in the front and rear and the whiteline roll center kit. I also got a good deal on the mevotech aluminum lower control arms so I put everything in all at once. The oem ball joint removal went smoothly on one side and quite difficult on the other as will be seen in the pictures.

 

The whiteline kit and mevotech arms:

 

 

Here are a few comparison shots:

[Sboarderk03]

Hey crisjp3 any advice I can give I am always happy and willing, especially if I've had experience with whatever is in question. The levorg is an absolute sweet car and I'd be all over that too but It would be very hard for me to not have my manual tranny. Had one ever since my 2nd car and have never looked back.

[Sboarderk03]

Here is a picture of what I had to do to one side of the car in order to get the ball joint out. Also the bolt was frozen and had to be broken, drilled and tapped, not impossible but very annoying:

 

Absolutely destroyed it with the air hammer

 

 

But it was worth it for the final product:

 

[magnusonsubie]

Coming along nicely and making good choices with your part selections! Pretty cool to see that Jonnywas and I are inspirations to you!

 

Welcome! Keep us updated on your build, it's nice to see new faces around here.

 

I'm not sure if everyone is getting rid of their legacies, I think a lot of activity is moving over to Facebook groups. I way prefer the forums and the ease of looking back on the history of everyone's builds.

 

This is it. And its rather sad as I also like looking through the progression of peoples builds. Unfortunately photobucket killed tons of old threads but I always loved going through super old builds on Nasioc, RS25 and the likes. Cool to see what people were doing 10-15 years ago with these cars.

[crisjp3]

yeah, I feel like If I had bought this car 4 years ago the forums would have crazy traffic. Not that it doesn't have it now. But man I remember some crazy members lol some even banned.

[Sboarderk03]

Thanks magnus, I'd be hard pressed to find anyone to look at your wagon and tell me it isn't a thing of beauty. Hopefully mine is well on its way, thanks for the comments guys. On to more...

[Sboarderk03]

Next up was a downpipe upgrade. I looked into a couple options as I wanted to move the high flo cat further downstream. Cobb and Grimmspeed were a couple but I didn't like the bottleneck of Cobb's and the Grimmspeed was a little pricey honestly so I ended up going with the turboxs catted as it is a two piece design and you can remove the catted section if you ever want to go catless.

 

My original $200 catted downpipe from eBay:

 

 

 

The turboxs that I ended up installing:

 

 

Actually a very beautiful piece and cost me I think $430 shipped brand new

 

 

 

 

So to recap here the turboxs is so good looking I didn't want to wrap it in exhaust wrap like I did the eBay one. Really well made and I feel worth the 230 extra especially because I don't have to get a full new downpipe if I want to go catless. However, the fitment was surprisingly not as good as the wBay one believe it or not. Slightly off on the holes and tight on the o2 sensor area but I made due and still love it. My guess is it wasn't perfect because it's meant for wrx fitment as well.

[Sboarderk03]

A couple of poorly taken cell phone night time shots. These were taken before the new set of wheels and Brembo brakes went in.

 

Enjoy:

 

[Sboarderk03]

Since I had got it in my head that I had to have Brembo brakes on the car the search was on for a set of wheels that clear the large calipers up front. I honestly loved the way the Motegi rims looked on the car but I'm not a fan of running any type of spacers so it was time to move on. I settled upon some hyper black Ambit Rt8's and I was a little nervous to run these because of the offset but it all worked out. I did however have to roll my fenders but not the end of the world.

 

New wheels:

 

 

I picked up a set of brembos for a good price that needed the mount holes helicoiled on all 4 calipers. I took care of the fronts and installed them and have been holding off on the rears because it will be another $400 to get the brackets and the custom brake shoes to get them to work with the sti rotors on the legacy. The rotors I picked up off a guy who sells them here in Ma, actually he was in Lowell but now is in NH. He does custom drilling and slotting per order and you can choose your grade of rotor from basic Centric to higher end and the set of 4 I got ran me $260 I think.

 

The rotor design,

Rear:

 

 

I never actually took a picture of the front rotors before I put them on the car but better yet here is a before and after of the front brake setup.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

HUGE improvement in my opinion in every way. Even though at this point it's only just the fronts, pedal feel is phenomenally better. Aesthetically it is also very nice. On the look and size of the front calipers alone I get compliments so if you are on the fence about installing a bbk, Brembo or otherwise, go for it.

 

Heres how she sits after the new wheels and front brembos:

[Sboarderk03]

Sneak peeks at what's to come:

 

 

 

[Sboarderk03]

JDM rear bumper is also coming very soon. Unfortunately it will not be the one I was supposed to be getting from legacygt member lingling1337 as he completely ripped me off. I bought a bsm jdm rear bumper and lip setup off him and never got it. Back in September right around my birthday I paid 350 for his bumper. Now being the trusting person I am I took him up on the cheaper offered price of 350 if I were to send it through paypal friends and family. He had all positive feedback and was a member on here for a while so I had no reason to believe he would do this but I sent the money and still no bumper. For weeks I had contact on and off sporadically and was told by him not to worry and that he would send it. "Chill, I got you" were his exact words. He hasn't got me and I haven't heard from him in over a month. He has my 350 and doesn't seem to have any interest in being a member on here anymore so he just left me hanging. I wouldn't have cared if I had sent it the right way through paypal as I could have easily gotten my money back but like an idiot I did not and can't get my money back, believe me I've tried. I don't normally do that but this time around I liked the sound of saving 50 bucks and it really ended up biting me in the ass. Since then I have bought another bsm jdm rear bumper and lip off eBay for 260 shipped and in even better condition than the one I was supposed to receive from lingling1337. So let this be a lesson to anyone hoping to get a better deal from someone by sending your hard earned money through paypal friends and family. Don't do it.

 

Anyways here is the new bsm jdm rear bumper that I already received from California:

[Sboarderk03]

After the jdm rear bumper install I will have no need for the rear jdm spats. So I'm wondering if anyone here knows if it is possible to get the rear jdm spats installed on the sideskirts in front of the rear wheels?? You know, swap them to opposite sides and install them backwards. Let me know if any of you have tried this. And if anyone knows lingling and how to get in touch with him let me know also. Thanks guys!

[SBT]

OP - nice build

 

PM'd you.

[JohnnyWas]

Nice build coming along here!

[legacybt]

I like what's happening! What intercooler is that?

[Sboarderk03]

Thanks guys, SBT PM’d you back

 

The intercooler is an FMS front mount painted black to give a little more of a stealth look coming through the new bumper

[Sboarderk03]

Got the jdm rear end installed. I haven't fallen in love with it yet. I feel like the back looks too bulky honestly.

 

Here's the before:

 

And here's the after :

 

 

But this angle actually looks good and doesn't show what I mean by too bulky. I almost feel like I would like it better if I remove the lip, leave the jdm bumper and install the spats. Here's some side view pictures to show what I mean.

 

Let me know what you guys think.

 

Before:

 

 

After: