05 ABP GT Wagon - Diamond in the Rough

[benfrancis]

Hello everyone!

 

It's been forever since I've made a post on an actual forum! Long time reader, second time contributor but given how much time I spend on here, it felt appropriate to begin to share the journey of my recently acquired 05 ABP GT Wagon Limited.

 

I found this car on FB marketplace in January and watched it for months before reaching out to the seller to see if this was in fact still for sale. Long story short, I purchased the car with my "Biden Bucks" for $2500 and drove it home to the other side of ATL. My intention was to let the car sit for a year or so and slowly work on it (ha!) while I continued to drive my Stinger GT daily.

 

Funny how things change. The car market is completely crazy right now and I not only got to walk away from my Stinger lease with no out of pocket but the dealer cut me a $3k check as well. So as it would seem, I needed to get the wagon up to DD duties ASAP. The current mods are as follows:

 

When I purchased the car: Tuned for ~340whp, because automatic.

• FP Green Turbo
  
• Perrin turbo inlet
  
• Cobb EBCS
  
• ID1000cc injectors
  
• DW450lph fuel pump
  
• Grimmspeed TMIC
  
• Perrin ELH
  
• Cobb catted DP
  
• Custom 3" catback exhaust
  
• Magnaflow mufflers (for now)
  
• BC Racing coilovers
  
• Whiteline F&R sway bars + endlinks
  

 

Purchase state: The car has a known 5EAT issue with shifting super hard 1>2 and sometimes 2>3. Unfortunately, the car is on it's 3rd 5EAT with the same issue and rather than continuing to figure it out, I have a SpecB 6MT swap scheduled at the end of Nov. : Picking up the entire swap + misc parts from a 5MT donor car locally for $2750.

 

The car had been sitting under a tree for well over a year without so much as the door being opened and the dreaded sunroof drains had clogged causing a water leak in the interior. Step 1 was to strip the interior down to bare metal, dry it out for a few weeks and clean everything with diluted bleach + steam cleaner while I waited to pick up another carpet set. Took this time to sound deaden random parts underneath the carpet.

 

Pics:

Edited October 25, 2021 by benfrancis

[benfrancis]

One of the first set of modifications to make this car a long-term hauler for me was a brake upgrade. Given the power it makes, this car needs a lot more SLOW. Picked up a Wilwood BBK from one of the LGT FB groups.

 

 

 

Next on the list is a livable radio. A 2005 stereo is not going to cut it with the lack of Aux input. Sony XAV-AX1000 + JDM double din + i88 harness incoming shortly. Couple that with a set of Rockford Fosgate P1675S for the F&R and we're making some progress.

Edited October 25, 2021 by benfrancis

[benfrancis]

Picking up the following this week:

TY856WDBAA - SpecB JDM 6MT

R180 & diff mount

driveshaft

M/T donor starter

new flywheel

new clutch

specB rear axles

shifter assembly

master/slave cylinders

clutch fork

shifter trim & boot

 

Getting ready for the 5EAT > SpecB 6MT swap.

Edited October 26, 2021 by benfrancis

[LGTmakes3]

PM'd you

[Kcdrift]

Good stuff Ben!!

[SoobyDoobyDoo]

Was PO a smoker? Noticed a ciggy cup in the console. Nice way to spend government $$! Lol

Good to see another one being saved rather than just junked. Curious about the trans issues, esp since 3 replacements didn’t solve it. I’d say a 6mt is the way to go esp with that power. Good luck keep us posted!

[jrae2424]

Nice, I Just picked up my 05 gt wagon last week after having the 6 speed swap done. I paid $3800 for the complete swap through ebay. Total cost for everything was around $11000 with having a shop do it. There were issues along the way. I needed the guage cluster, ecu, bcu and some other wiring from a 5sp manual. A new key because the old one couldn't be reprogrammed. They had to fabricate a cross member for the transmission. I picked up a new clutch fork, pilot and throwout bearing new from subaru for a spec b. Also a new slave line and master cylinder form an 05-09 legacy gt. I went with the xtss hd clutch by act. There was also an issue with the windows not working but they brought it to subaru to and fixed it relatively easy. The only issue now so far is that my cruise control doesn't work. I went from 342/325 5eat to 371/342 6speed. Edited December 25, 2021 by jrae2424

[whitexc]

So $11k got you rowing gears and netted about 30hp? That's a lot of ching.....

 

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[jrae2424]

So $11k got you rowing gears and netted about 30hp? That's a lot of ching.....

 

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

 

Pretty much. Definitely a little dissapointed with the gains, I was hoping around 390 to 400 hp with at least 360+ for torque. I don't regret doing it though, I love my wagon and projects are fun, but for what I spent on this car (rebuilding the motor cost $10000 and I paid $8500 for the car. Although the previous owner had spent $11000 on upgrades himself from which I've added up through his receipts. Everything from hoses and lines under the hood, to all new hub assemblies, dust shields, downpipe, exhaust, AVO top mount, uppipe and crossover pipe. With the exhaust, downpipe, upipe, crossover pipe, and top mount the car was at 205/190 hp on a stock turbo. For myself of what i've done to the car i'm in for around $28 to $30000 not including the cost of the car. I redid the top mount and changed the turbo twice, vf52 to the blouch 1.5xtr. But with the know how, someone could at least save themselves a few thousand dollars doing the swap on their own. Plus I spent about an extra $1500 on all the tuning opposed to if I had done this all at one time.

Edited December 26, 2021 by jrae2424