$2015 hopeful 2002 WRX in the best color ever.

I delayed in making this thread as I was hopeful to make $2014 and just drop a Clarkson-esque bombshell and show up for it's public debut, however the responsible thing to do having just had a second child is to save up and go next year. So without further dudes:

My 2002 WRB WRX. I traded my $900 rambler that i was going to bring down to the challenge bone stock for the car. Because of you people, I tend to type "project" into the craigslist search bar in the 5 nearest CL's. One day I was searching the Youngstown CL for projects, and stumbled upon an interesting ad. It was a 2002 WRX listed with a bad transmission, looking to trade for an old school car to cruise around in. I thought about it for a week then emailed to see if he would be interested in checking out my car. After a couple weeks of back and forth, not being able to get on the same page to see things, having a baby, I made it out to look at his car. It was not as scary as I was expecting. He admitted to rushing several things to get to an event in june and show the car, and pointed those things out. We agreed that he would come out a couple days later and check out the Rambler, and if all was cool I'd tow both ways. I sent him a load of pics and he said let's do it, no need to check it out since I had been very upfront as to the condition of my car. So on Saturday August 2nd I loaded up my Rambler and set off for Youngstown. All went smoothly as planned.

Obligatory stop at Summit on the way home, in the rain.

Since he was a machinist, several of the parts he made were nice. He said he unloaded the car from the trailer, and on his first and only pass at the track the trans quit working partway down and then the car refused to move. When I got it home, I smelled the trans fluid, and it was good but very low. I added some, and drove it right off the trailer and around the yard.

Carbon fiber trunk, yo.

Something is amiss

WTF? Hey, that doesn't belong there!

Part two coming up: finding strange things and fixing them. I mean, things more strange than a 350 in a WRX.

HOLY CRAP! I've had a few alcohol induced fantasies in years past of running a bugeye Impreza wagon sans front sheet metal and powered by SBC... this is close enough.

Uhhhhhhh... I don't think that's how Subaru designed that.

Still AWD? OMG WTF BBQ?

Please tell me you are adding a subtle hood scoop to hide the air cleaner.

This is much winning, can't wait to see more.

JThw8 wrote: Please tell me you are adding a subtle hood scoop to hide the air cleaner. This is much winning, can't wait to see more.

no, it wins so much that i am converting it to EFI, and my throttle body is shorter at the air cleaner ring by almost 2", putting the air cleaner down to where it clears the stock scoop even with a taller element. stock scoop = subtle. i may sell the carbon trunk and pick up a stock one to clear salary cap space, and cause a friend of a friend just parted an 03 that he wrecked while drunk and has a whole pile of stuff.

goal is to look like a stockish car on the outside, and keep it quiet enough that at idle or cruise it does not sound off.

no longer AWD, not really feasible. no worries with me. will add another detail with pictures post tomorrow night. i have spent a little time each evening that it rains working on it, also trying to wrap up my 454 swapped truck but that is outside so when it rains... i work on the subie.

Making a crank trigger wheel

Crank trigger pickup mounted

Spaghetti!

Scary fuel cell removed from trunk.

there was an old school carter electric pump mounted to the tank, with rubber running all the way. through the back seat, down under the carpet, up against the brake pedal arm, out the clutch master cylinder hole, to a glass filter, to the carb. so about 9 feet more than allowed by NHRA rules, and run through the passenger compartment.

wiring fixes will be documented next time, before i cut it all out and start over. every freaking wire is red including grounds, and the cooling fan relay was backfeeding battery power to the ignition switch and keeping everything powered constantly even key off.

10 days from trailer to running injected and lots of stuff in between. if only i were this motivated for everything.

Even better plan, carry on :)

Can the Subi rear diff take that kind of power?

bgkast wrote: Can the Subi rear diff take that kind of power?

NO!

Holy berking crap man, that is soooo cool!!!

^ What he said!

This is pretty sweet.

Wow, not at all what I was expecting...crazy! Good luck, I'm looking forward to this!

I'm wondering, if set up for mpg's, how much better this could do vs. a stock AWD WRX. Very cool project.

This whole thing just got progressively stranger the farther i read.

WRX for $1050?

Runs and drives?

A berkeleying V8?!?!

Jesus man, that is a hell of a bombshell even on the forum versus at the event.

Is that a home made fuel cell? Or did they just drag it behind the truck through a few fields before mounting it?!

Okay this is weird even for this forum. I'm excited!

Some guy on another forum I read started putting an LS1 into a 94 Impreza wagon, but got stuck because the intake manifold never cleared the hood without making it look nasty.

Awesome; I love it!

Awesome.

Simply.

Awesome.

I remember some guy years ago on NASIOC threw a 6.0L LS motor into a 2002 WRX out of a wrecked GTO, and he liquified the rear differential. The carnage pics were awesome.

Either way, I'll be following this one. It's kinda like throwing a Cummins in a Prius: you are going to rustle ALL the jimmies.

This is berkeleying awsome!!!

And more than slightly disturbing.

Swank Force One wrote: This whole thing just got progressively stranger the farther i read. WRX for $1050? Runs and drives? A berkeleying V8?!?!

And yet I feel like the other shoe still hasn't dropped somehow. Next he's gonna open the trunk and there's gonna be a pair of 80mm ball bearing turbos he somehow got for scrap.

mndsm wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: This whole thing just got progressively stranger the farther i read. WRX for $1050? Runs and drives? A berkeleying V8?!?!

And yet I feel like the other shoe still hasn't dropped somehow. Next he's gonna open the trunk and there's gonna be a pair of 80mm ball bearing turbos he somehow got for scrap.

so last winter my little guy and i went to the racer's swap meet at the fairgrounds. sitting in a dusty holley carb box was this EFI stuff. a spaghetti harness, blank trigger wheel, a box with coil packs, some sensors, and a new 4bbl holley throttle body. i inquired on price and conversation went as follows:

seller "make me an offer"

me "sorry, i dont have enough to not insult you"

seller "how much you have in your pocket?"

me - counts "$118"

seller "give me $100 and buy your kid lunch"

when i got it home i looked it all up and found i had an electromotive TEC2 fully programmable distributorless EFI computer, throttle body, full harness albeit needing some magic with my soldering skills, all sensors except a coolant temp sensor. for $100.

and yes, it runs. well, it did. i yanked all PO's wiring out of the dash. i'm not tracing red wires everywhere. i have a switch plate from an RV or something that i picked up for a few bucks that has 4 lit 30 amp switches that should do nicely for ignition, fuel pump, and 2 other somethings.

i've also got some scraps of some sort of composite material that will make some really cool gauge panels or something. those came from a dumpster at a house i was working at. i'm a good scrounger.

this one time i did buy a brand new holset super 40 turbo for $10 because the guy said it was junk having sat in his shop under the table saw and probably had sawdust all up in it. i took it home, unboxed, and it was still sealed in perfect shape in plastic. sold it on ebay for $400.

Makes me giggle like a girl- tee-hee-hee!