It’s one color, sort of. Aug 8, 2005
We painted the Impreza on Saturday and while we realize that A) this is a car that's going to get thrown into all sorts of muck and most likely rolled up into a little ball of tinfoil and B) we are doing this on a budget, we weren't really happy about how the Nason acrylic machinery enamel worked out on a large machine. It was great for little parts and it doesn't require mixing with a isocyanate catalyst, but it also dries too quickly, even with overthinning with medium-dry reducer.
The underside of the hood and the inner portions of the fenders were painted first and this was followed by the wing and the grille, which were painted off of the car. From there, we progressed to the exterior, blending down the sides. The paint was also quite a bit darker and bluer than the original Aegian blue.
Anyway, it's all one color and we're looking at some graphics options that use lots of vinyl. lots.
Meanwhile, we picked up a 17 mm rear anti-rollbar and a set of 2004 WRX springs for our project. These set us back $75 from a local racer. The front WRX springs will fit and will raise the car a little, while the rear bar will be a decent improvement over the stock 13mm bar, without making the car too twitchy on gravel.
Subarus are like Legos Aug 12, 2005
While rally cars don't typically have the stiff springs and anti-roll bars that road racing and autocross cars do, they can benefit from some tweaks. The 1995 Impreza LX was one of the few 2.2 liter Imprezas that came stock with a rear anti-roll bar, unfortunately, it's only 13 mm thick. A quick and simple upgrade is to bolt on a larger bar from a 2004+ WRX or 2002+ WRX wagon (17mm) or if you need a little more roll stiffness, you can go with a 2002-2003 WRX sedan bar, which measures in at 20mm.
We chose the 17mm version from a 2004 WRX, partially because it's a little more conservative for loose surfaces and it came as a package deal with some WRX springs for $75 from a local autocrosser. We'll be using those WRX front springs to get a little more ride height and rate to go with some KYB AGX shock absorbers that we have on the way.
Yipes, Stripes. Aug 15, 2005
We've been investigating different vinyl options for our Subaru and decided to just mask off some stripes and spray them with a rattle can. We chose Rustoleum's Industrial line, in this case, "Safety Yellow." It's a pretty bright yellow that stands out against the teal.
We also found some rub strips for the doors from the junkyard. While they were from a four door (which has shorter doors), we cut them and sectioned them so they mounted up to either side of our Grassroots Motorsports number panels.
We're planning on bringing our Subaru to the Rallycross this weekend at Homestead.
KYB Struts Damp our Subaru Aug 16, 2005
Last night we spent a sweaty evening in the garage (ambient temps around 90 with all the humidity) replacing the shocks on our Impreza. We chose KYB AGXs based upon many recommendations from budget rallyists. Our own rally correspondent, Paul Eklund, used these same shocks for his first rally car and had great luck with them.
We replaced the front springs with those from a 2004 WRX, which are a little shorter in free length, but quite a bit stiffer. The end result is less lean and a 1/2" increase in ride height. While we had everything apart, we used some aftermarket camber bolts to dial in a little more negative camber in the front. We're aligning it with zero toe both front and rear. This is the first alignment for the car since we've gotten it and it really needs it, especially after the collision damage, steering rack replacement and now the strut/camber change.
Brakes on the Cheap. Aug 17, 2005
Our thrash to get the Subaru ready for the rallycross this weekend hasn't stopped us from being a little prudent. We realized that our brake pads were down to the backing plates on the front and back. While we will be upgrading the brakes in the future, a set of cheapo pads from Autozone were purchased and installed last night. For $18 an axle, we can't expect world class braking, but at least they'll get us through the first few rallycrosses.