El Chupacabra, X-Ray's 2002 L Sedan 5MT

[xrayspecs]

For the brakes, could you do the Caddilac Brembo swap?

 

Yeah ive looked at that for the front, from what I can find the RPF1's I have will clear the fronts. Biggest problem ive got is I want to stay on 17's, they look good on this chassis, good balance of wieght to grip, lets me run a good amount of sidewall for the freeway, I can clear them on this car without having to go and have the fenders pulled, plus I dont want to have to buy 18's. There are some options I'm looking at, all depends what pops up for sell when I'm going to install.

Edited March 5, 2022 by xrayspecs

[xrayspecs]

More updates!

 

After getting a dozen tanks of gas though this and the roofrack and moonroof deflector off, managing to get an average of 23 MPG combined. not as good as the 02, but ill chalk that up to the 4.11's. would be nice to have the 3.90's on the freeway, but withough finding another OEM LSD or buying an aftermarket unit to put in the open 3.90 its not worth the effort right now.

 

Took some degreaser to the underside of the hood and engine bay to get any spots I missed or touched when putting the car together.

 

Before.

 

After, still not perfect but much improved.

 

Big news thought! finally got the car rolled, front and rear! Went on a recomendation from some local car people I know. the guy was great to work with. Talking with him while he worked he thought it was cool to see this car as not a lot of them are around. He did say that with a little camber and work the chassis could fir 265's on 17x9's... but that would require a really agressive offset, and a pull on the front fenders.

 

But now I can run my 235's with no wory of shreadding them or the fenders! Car is looking so much better to me now!

 

The fit on the front is perfect, I'm thinking a 5mm spacer in the rear will bring it out to where Its flush as well.

[xrayspecs]

So more small parts came in this week and have slowly put them on as time permits.. i have updated the parts list accordingly. These will probably be the last parts added for a while, the time has come to enjoy this car!

 

The rear wheel needed to come out a bit more so that it looked less tucked, this has always been a problem with these cars, people all handle it differently, but I added some 5mm spacers to the rear to get a more aggressive fitment of the rpf1. Went with

Fastwrx Mach v spacers, little disappointed with them as the description and pictures show they have a laser engraved part number, and thickness on the spacer so you dont have to measure them if you forget what they are in the future. these ones only had the bcd, and it was just silkskreened. they fit fine and work as intended.

 

Before rear wheel.

 

After with 5mm spacers on a 17x8+45 RPF1. probably could do another 3mm to get a tighter to the fender, but im happy as is for now.

 

I also picked up some center caps for the RPF1's.... well did the 2" electrical knockout plugs from the hardware store. they fit great, and dont missmatch tobad with no paint. Ill have to make some decals on my cricuit for them so they match better.

 

installed on the RPF1's you do need to spread the ears out a tad to get them to stay tight.

 

Also picked up some Vorshlag subaru lug nuts, the oem ones I've been using are getting a little worn out and the cheap aftermarket ones that came on the car were crunchy at best.

 

Also picked up some kartboy parts for the sway bars and to replace the rusty battery strap. they even came with the fireball!

 

Installed battery strap.

 

Comparison of the rear sway links vs the kartboy links.

 

Rear links installed.

 

Had some help moving the car around!

[xrayspecs]

Didnt get to the front sway bar links till last night, all 4 of the links in the kit from kartboy take a larger 17mm bolt top and bottom the backs went on no problem. The front lowers on the stamped arms takes a 12mm bolt. This required drilling out the arms to 7/16" to clear the shank on the larger fastener, and a little massaging to open up the location to fit the wider bushing on the kartboy's.

 

Size difference on the oem fronts vs the kartboy.

 

drilling out the lower link bolt location

 

How much the swaybar location needs to be massaged.

 

Installed with the kartboy front endlink spacers on against the bar to keep the link perpendicular to ground.

 

Took the car on a quick rip around the industrial park by my house, the cross chassis stiffness these add is definattly noticable especially when going through rain gutters while turning.

[xrayspecs]

Well, some bad news today, had the day off, and decided to catch up on some maintance on my Honda. Had some time left and decided since I don't have reciepts or any idea when the fluids for the gearbox and diff were last serviced that I should do them. As ive now got 1400 miles on the car. When I first got the car driving, the gear box did not like to go into 1st or reverse, especially when cold and just started. Engine was also due for a oil change, and filter. No suprises there.

 

As this was a full oils change, put the whole car up on stands level.

 

Where the bad news starts. I pulled the drain plug for the Trans.

 

Well there's the cuplrit of the stubborness to go into gear. odd as theres been no whining/popping out of gear or other hiccups.

 

Well its still not great as this came from somewhere. After the state of all the other mechanical items I receieved the car in I guess that I should have checked the transmission and diff. Thats on me for not being more stringent after the blown motor in the car.

 

Man the smell of burnt and old 90w makes my spine shiver. Who knows how many miles this has on it, it was about the viscosity of old motor oil. I filled it back up with new 80w-90w to the fill line.... I guess time will tell if the transmission will stay together.

 

Lucky the rear diff seams to be in better shape. Thats good news if I have to use the 3.9 transmission out of the 02 I can swap the VLSD center over.

N

 

Not perfect, and probably over due for a change, but not terrible for a rear end with 186k on it.

 

After fill up took it for a quick 20 mile drive and everything seams to be okay. Not sure where the chunks came from, but im sure ill find out soon enough.

Edited April 17, 2022 by xrayspecs

[Jacobpockros]

I drove that car with a notchy 1st gear for 60k miles. Just held the clutch in for an extra second before going into 1st gear and it never had issues. You bought a clean body car non-running for $1700 so of course it has issues, and you got $650 back for the wheels I left on there. The trans on your green car stopped working at 190k so I’m pretty sure it’s normal this trans isn’t perfect anymore. It should be able to make it to 200k if you’re gentle with 1st which is easy to do. Reverse gear complains sometimes and is straight cut so I actually think that’s where your shavings are from but hard to say. I changed the trans fluid 45k miles ago with the rear diff fluid. Edited April 29, 2022 by Jacobpockros

[xrayspecs]

Finally got some more free time to installing some more parts that I've been sitting on for a while.

 

Bought all new bulbs for the jdm parts as no clue how old the bulbs are for the headlamps/fogs and dont want them just randomly going out or dimming on me.

 

Hella Yellow H3 bulbs for the Fogs, These were a pain to install as the whole assembly is behind stuff I didnt want to remove...

 

Installed them throught the fog shroud trim.

 

Night shot against my garage door, so far like how they look at night.

 

This is the first time I've had HID headlamps in anything. These were way expensive. Went with the Pillips Units. replaced the Highbeams with Silvania h1's nothing crazy there.

 

New bulb on the left old bulb on the right, both old bulbs had signs of age on them when they came out.

 

Night shot against the garage door, note the cut off being in the incorrect direction. at some point ill bake the lights and black out the cut off so I dont blind oncoming traffic, but not today.

 

Also got some cheap matte black plate frames, matches the black trim and car.

 

Look pretty good on the car.

 

Front plate is a bit off... thanks too the JDM from plate spacing for nuts is

wider. Plate frame helps hid the obvious fact that I had to redrill the front to make it fit. I plan to get vanity plates this summer, and when they come in ill make a bracket so that I dont have to do this to that plate.

 

[xrayspecs]

Well last of the parts from the 02 made its way over. finished up making brackets for the 5 panel wink mirror to replace the sun shades and the factory flip mirror.

 

The old brackets i made the first go around I didnt like how they looked and didnt push the mirror far enough forward. little CAD (cardboard) and started here with some scrap alum I had.

 

All cleaned up. I dont have a wire wheel on had so flapper disk on the ol death wheel to clean them up.

 

All the nessisary hardware. added some small spacers to the backside so i dont mark the headliner where the bracket mounts up.

 

Removed the sun shades, as this was the very top of the line for '01 it had dual lighted vanity mirrors! the pinicle of luxury. tucked the harness away into the shell... hope if I have to i can pull that back out someday.

 

 

 

Installed, need to still adjust the mirror fully a bit so I can see the drivers side lane from it but has a great view of everything else.

[kzr750r1]

Love this. Well done.

[xrayspecs]

Its been a while, not major updates really to the car. 

Have a few parts in the garage that will eventually go on the car when I get the motivation. 

Transmission still doesnt like to shift from 2-3 or 4-3 while on it hard in the canyons so that will eventually get changed to the spare. 

But still taking it out as much as I can. Azusa Canyon and other mountain pass runs this summer after work were plentiful. Just now coming up on a much needed fluids change at 3k miles. 

Went to the Eibach Import night they hosted back in August. Also attended a few other local cars n coffee events. Car gets thumbs up's but never draws a crowd which I don't mind at all. 

 

For a old car still cleans up pretty damn well. 

Had a random issue with a misfire for a bit, found the cause... replaced the plug wire and coil pack, need to go around and check all the grounds. 

Also need to finish stripping this thing for all the space so its not just taking up space. Lots of stuff that needs to get removed and put up in the attic. 

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by xrayspecs
Insert Pictures different now....

[xrayspecs]

Small update, been collecting other parts for some major work in the summer here when i get my whole garage back. 

Changed all the gear oil at the 3k mile oil change, diff oil and magnet cleared up, however the transmission still has flakes and chunkies in the oil, meaning the spare transmission I have will probably have to go in sooner rather than later. Cold morning starts I can hear the input shaft bearing whinning as well... this transmission is need of some major TLC. 

Transmission plug and clean off. Due to the flakes of metal stuck to it that look like bearing race hard facing, ill probably change the gear oil again next oil change interval. 

Diff looked much better so will probably just let it go normal change interval. 

Had a fun little sidewall puncture and blow out from ruts on the freeway here in LA that pop up in the rain, that was a fun day. lucky nothing else was damaged from the rut. 

Also found out due to the massive amount of rain we got this winter that California got that the front drip lines were plugged and flodding back through the ac air inlet into the cab, as well as the condensor drain line being plugged up. Should have known since the moonroof lines were also plugged when I got the car. Used compressed air to blow it out, but i really should take the cowl and fenders off to clean out all the gunk thats in there. 

The great state of California sent me notice that for reg renewal that I would need to get smog again. Took the car into smog only to have the tech tell me the pvc intake tube I kept on the car was a "modified airbox". Took the oportunity to make a few junkyard tips to get the OE intake snorkle parts as I no longer had them from the 02 Chasis. 

the best is when the cars are in the stall they actully listed them in online. 

Only downside is the parts almost always get scattered. 

Found what I was looking for, lucky to find a early equipment non rubber boot intake hose which is awesome cause I won't have to worry about it rotting out. 

Precleanup. 

 

All cleaned up and installed. OEM intake. crazy how much quiter inside the car it is with the factory parts for the intake. Im going to leave them on for a few tanks and see if they make any change to the milage I get with the car. 

 

 

Car wiating on me to get the motivation for the parts that have been piling up on my workbench. 

[xrayspecs]

Small update, been to busy with work and life to do any big parts installs lately. 

But got a complete set of JDM tails and garnish in really good shape! 

 

USDM OEM Tails. 

 

 

Differenece in the color between the tails. 

 

 

 

 

All installed, Legacy garnish complete, just need to find a really good condition front OEM option lip for the bumper and the outside will be done.