2008 OBXT 5eat blank canvas build.

[outbacksoutback]

In February of this year, I got the itch again and picked up another Subaru. I think this is my 7th. This car was basically a part out, I explain a little more in my other thread because I am using the engine I got with this in my 05. My 2005 is named "America 2.0" or 2.0 for short. So I will be referring to that car as 2.0 and this 2008 as 3.0. Our forester is named Curtis. 

What I am starting with is a 2008 obxt limited auto transmission. The car has an opensource tune on the ECU, and it is diamond grey metallic. black leather interior. 208k miles. It is missing all the seats, the clock spring, the drivers window motor, the hood, both headlights, fuel rails, tgvs, one coil pack plug, and some suspension components. It came with a binder from 2 owners ago that has 24k in receipts. I did not get most of those parts lol. This is what I call a blank canvas. Starting from scratch. The plan is to build this car up to replace the 2012 Forester my fiance drives, as we do a lot of highway driving. I bought the car from a guy named Chad, I was looking for a clean na car for a friend to swap an engine into. He sent me this picture of it first:

I said "that's not an xt is it" but it was, so I had to have it for my own. I met up with Chad and made a deal for the 08 and parts from his 06 including a whole long block. I will likely be trying to use the long block from my 05 in this car, but since I got a pre-facelift long block with it anyway it's the same difference. 2.0 has been running a cobb 0TS stage 2 map the whole time I've owned it and it is set up for that. With the combination of parts that are going to wind up on this car, I am going to attempt to tune it open source myself, at least to get it running. While it is a blank canvas I am not intending to spend much on paint, this will definitely still be a budget-friendly build. This is a large project and not my only so updates may be slow, but hopefully, when I'm done this thread will showcase what it takes to sort out these cars. In my experience even if you have a good runner they all eventually will need most of the work that this car needs. 

Here is the car on the trailer, my dad towed it for me. 

my 05

The car sat here most of the winter, I did tarp it up. I removed all the parts from the interior and stored them in the garage, siphoned about 8 gallons of gas from the fuel tank, and put it into Curtis. 

Nice roomy interior.

When the snow was melted in the spring, I towed the car up to the backyard out of sight. I wound up grabbing a hood from a h6 outback at the pick and pull and some headlights. The hood was $55. hard to find a perfect match scooped 08-09 outback hood. I decided I would make this work, and spend the money on a front mount or something.  

Rough draft of the front end for now. 

How it currently sits:

[KZJonny]

I'll follow along.

Good on your for being able to take on so many projects at once. I struggle to find time for my 2 cars and one is N/A, so quite a lot simpler.

Nice clean looking shell to get started on.

[outbacksoutback]

22 hours ago, KZJonny said:

I'll follow along.

Good on your for being able to take on so many projects at once. I struggle to find time for my 2 cars and one is N/A, so quite a lot simpler.

Nice clean looking shell to get started on.

I definitely struggle to find time too but sometimes the car makes me find time haha. My 2005 has been pretty low maintenance for the last 50k luckily. I am hoping to have this car on the road by October of this year. Then both the cars should be sorted for another few years.  I like the DGM color, and the facelifts are neat I think they were much lower production. If I had to guess there are 2-4k cars specd like 3.0 and maybe 10-15k like 2.0? This car likely was on its way to a scrap yard, not many people seem interested in saving an automatic car.   

[KZJonny]

2 minutes ago, outbacksoutback said:

I definitely struggle to find time too but sometimes the car makes me find time haha. My 2005 has been pretty low maintenance for the last 50k luckily. I am hoping to have this car on the road by October of this year. Then both the cars should be sorted for another few years.  I like the DGM color, and the facelifts are neat I think they were much lower production. If I had to guess there are 2-4k cars specd like 3.0 and maybe 10-15k like 2.0? This car likely was on its way to a scrap yard, not many people seem interested in saving an automatic car.   

Gotta admit, my Outback 2.5i is auto, and most days I want to push it off a cliff. They can actually be kind of fun as a manual, but I wouldn't try to save another auto, now that I've driven one for a few years. If it weren't in such good shape for it's age, and all the work and money I've put into it, I would have sold it a while ago, but I'll not find anything as well kept up for what I'm likely to get for it....

Good on you for taking it on. I've never driven the 5eat personally, but I've heard it's a little more of a drivers experience when you get into it.

[outbacksoutback]

Picked up a whole engine plus some parts that supposedly came from a 06 wrx. the bottom end was junk, I think I might use these D25 heads with the bottom end that I got with the car. in this deal, I received a whole intake manifold, engine harness, tvgs, fuel rails, heads, block, timing covers, air pumps, avcs units, and an evergreen engine kit. I also received a twinscroll vf44 with up pipe.  one head had cracking around the plug holes, the oither had a ding from the bottem end coming apart. 

vf44.

Edited August 13, 2023 by outbacksoutback

[outbacksoutback]

I was going to use the long block from the 06 (the one I got with this car) with my 05, but it likely now will go in this car. I had it torn down and was starting to clean the b25 heads before picking these parts up. I need to inspect the d25 heads, if I can run them as is I probably will, worst case I could use the valvetrain/cams in my b25 heads. 

[tysparks81]

Love seeing this, subscribed.