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Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

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  • Fair!
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Update for Nov 27-28, 2010: You can see in the update above that we had already started work on clearancing the fenders on Paul's GC for the wider 275mm tires (and hopefully 285s). Well on the weekend of Nov 27-28 I made a house call and Paul & I tackled the rear fender flare cutting/clearancing/welding, and it came out nice and tidy. Whenever we do flares like this I get a million questions, so we took tons of iPhone4 pics & videos, real pics with the Nikon D90, and better HD video with my Sony vidcam. I'm still splicing video together so that will come in the next installment.

    Picture gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Projects...fender-flares/

    We've got the step-by-step for the rear chronicled in the gallery above, and when we tackle the fronts (3 times easier!) we'll add those pics there as well, plus videos. The rear of any unibody car is always is much more work than the front when adding real flares for substantially wider and/or taller tires. This is because the front fenders are mostly cosmetic and contribute very little to chassis strength - just a thin, formed steel sheet covering the tire. The pretty part. The rear fenders, however, are tied into the rear unibody structure, with as many as 3 layers of steel (common) that all come together at the outer fender lip joint. When you go cutting up that fender arch for more tire clearance, all of that metal gets mangled... and the structure goes to hell. You can't leave these 3 sheets flapping in he breeze. Most of our work was putting all of those pieces together again, properly, with adequate clearance for this much lowered car, with shorter struts, and much wider/taller tires. We probably removed and moved the upper fender arch upwards over 4 inches. Covering the tire with the cosmetic flare (in this case: steel) was the final part... and the easiest step. If you think its easier to do composite flares, think again - the basic clearancing and unibody reinforcement work is the same. Pimpin' ain't easy, but for many racers, this work is necessary.


    Left: Paul's attempt #1. Right: Paul's Attempt #2. Both failed.

    Before I got involved Paul tried to use my fender roller to make enough clearance in the left rear fender lip for the wider wheels (above, left), but that didn't work. Next (above, right) he cut away the outer sheet from the 3-piece sheet structure at the rear lip and started hammer forming the lip contour heavily. His second effort actually looked pretty good at ride height (he burned several hours learning/making this fender section) but like many flaring efforts, it had no clearance under suspension bump travel (wheel going upwards after hitting a bump). This might cut it in hard parking/VIP/car show crowd, but this doesn't work at all on a real street or race car.


    Left: BMW fender flare "graft" mocked up on front. Right: And on the rear.

    That's when I came in and suggested we add real fender flares. Again. Paul and I had discussed this back in 2009 but he was hesitant, mostly because he knew how much time and effort (30-40 hours) in fabrication and bodywork was involved on the 4-5 other flare jobs I've done on BMWs (several of which Paul helped with). He didn't want the delay. But we got to a point to where we couldn't move the car around - the stock wheels were the wrong bolt pattern and the new 114.3mm PCD wheels he had wouldn't clear the fenders at ride height. And the next step after the motor goes in is a trip to COBB, and they need to drive it... so after we mocked up some pre-cut BMW fender section templates I had on hand for BMW use, and they looked like they'd fit, we started cutting for clearance. This was the real work.



    Since I wired up Paul's garage I made sure it used the same 220V outlets as my shop and welders, so when I brought my Miller 175 MIG set-up over, it plugged in and worked fine. I normally don't do house calls like this (if I haven't offered, don't ask!), but Paul is one of my oldest and best friends from college, so he gets special treatment. And I've sort of adopted/got stuck with much of this Subaru GC swap project. I also supplied a pair of the donor BMW E46 coupe front fenders, since I had a couple of spares from my DSP E46 project that were already partially hacked up, but not anywhere near the flare sections. Paul still has to round up 2 more fenders for the front (these are around $35 each from Certifit; no, you can't order them online).


    Cutting and clearancing for full bump travel - the correct way

    This next step is the most critical for flaring any car - and the one most people get wrong. With the spring removed from the rear suspension and a jack under the control arm we kept compressing the strut until it hit the bump stop (and compressed it as well), with the 275mm tire on the 18x9.5" test wheel. We kept cutting the outer fender sheet metal and modifying the inner structure, step by step, until we ran out of suspension travel. Lots of iterations.

    Since this is a car built to the SCCA's Street Modified (SMod) class rules, we knew we were allowed to cut away the inner structure only from the "axle face outwards". So we drew a line around at the plane at the axle face onto the inner structure sheet metal and "pie cut" from there outward that to the fender lip face, then hammered these sections up for more bump travel clearance. Everything inboard from there has to remain stock, but luckily that wasn't an issue, as the inner fender structure arced downward fairly sharply from this plane down to the fender lip. This step took many iterations and burned about 3 hours of cut-install wheel-compress-mark-remove-cut-repeat for the left rear fender.



    On the right rear fender this clearance work went a lot faster... we drew a "grid" on the rear fenders and transferred the "arc of clearance" from the first fender (left) to the second (right). This way we didn't have the 2-3 hour "hunt and peck" iterations to find the optimal full bump travel tire clearance; it took only about 20-25 minutes to measure, mark and cut that fender. We copied the mirror image fender flare donor section from the BMW fenders as best we could, also. The donor fenders are cross opposites of where they end up.. the left front BMW fender flare went on the right rear of the Subaru, and vice verca.



    The now cut apart inner and outer fender structures were super weak and floppy, so we had to tie the rear structure back together. Since Paul had started cutting on the left rear fender area earlier ("without adult supervision"), he had mistakenly cut away some portions of the inner sheet metal (see above, left), so I had to make and weld on small patch panels around the entire perimeter of the LR wheel arch to tie the remaining inner structure back to the outer fender. These were pieces of lightweight 20 ga sheet, cut in small sections (transferred from cardboard templates), welded along one edge, and hammer former around the arch, then finish welded (this makes a lot more sense when you see the video). The right rear fender was, again, much easier (since Paul hadn't touched it yet!). We knew where we had to end up with vertically, so once that was marked and the outer sheet metal cut, we left most of the inner structure in place. Then just pie-sectioned the inner structure instead of removing it, and I only had to weld in small patch panels for about 1/2 the perimeter of the opening.



    Of course the inner sheet metal must be cleaned to remove undercoating and paint, to allow the patch panels to weld on, as well as the outer fender sections (for both the patch panels and the flare sections; and clean off the edge of the donor flare sections, too). This is dirty, nasty work which we did with 3 tools: the MBX crud buster, a 90° die grinder and a 3" (medium) ScotchBrite pad, and a 4" angle grinder with a 40 grit flapper disc. The electric angle grinder worked best but you have to watch out for heat or you'll warp the sheet metal and make for more bodywork later. We must have removed 12 pounds of mud from the car during all of this work - it was frakkin everywhere. And when welding in these patch panels you have to have the rear interior completely removed, of course. The undercoating you can't get to still catches fire constantly as you weld. Paul worked "fire marshal duty" with a small squirt bottle of water, and we had a real fire extinguisher handy.



    Once the inner and outer sheet metal was tied back together with these 20 gauge sheet metal patches (stitch welded with a MIG, at ~1/4" intervals, with .024" wire, on low amperage) we could start on the actual flares. We cut up a donor pair of fenders (you want to use '99-01 BMW 328 sedan front fenders; we used coupe fenders which have a longer trim indention we had to fix via hammer/dolly work) and test fit them until the front of the car's fender arch lined up with the new flare section as close as possible. Yes, the '95 Impreza is made for a much smaller diameter tire, but since we were going to much taller 275/35/18s we had to "open up the arch", and the BMW fender sections worked great. We'll match the rear of the bumper cover opening with a few quick trims with the air saw, later (that ABS plastic cuts like butter so go slowly).



    Welding on the fender flares themselves was the easy part. By far the hardest parts are the wheel/spacer testing, clearancing for bump travel, measuring, templates, inner fender structure/patch panels, and the metal prep. I spent maybe 15 minutes welding on each fender flare section. Slow, steady, skip welding about 1" apart, starting at the front of the fender opening. Paul held a pointed tip of a hammer on the section of the flare behind where I was welding, which puts the flare and the outer sheet metal in contact. We just slowly worked our way around, making sure to spread the heat and stopping to check the metal. We had very few fires to tend to during this step. The right rear had the added bonus of clearance around the fuel door; I cut around the door (using cardboard template I made with a "hand rubbing" of the fuel door opening, transferred to the flare, then cut out - before it was welded to the car) and I'll finish that up with a small patch panel at a later date.

    So that's the basics of the flare job, and it was a solid 3 days of work. We both had a number of hours into the rear testing/cutting/Paul's rolling & hammer iterations, then spent two 6-8 hour weekend days doing the final testing, cutting, patch panels and welding on the rear flares. The rear is essentially done, save for the small fuel door patch panel, some more weatherproofing (to keep water/fumes out of the passenger compartment), and of course bodywork. It doesn't need any more welding on the flare sections, but I might add 100% more than there is now. Doesn't have to be a perfect linear welded seam - which is a LOT more work. We also tested with an 18x10" Enkei RPF-1 wheel. We'll mount a 285/30/18 Hoosier onto that wheel and verify that the flares clear those also, soon (should easily fit). That's the wheel & tire package Paul will likely use for NASA TTS class Time Trial use; he gets a solid 200 pound weight break for using the smaller 275/35/18s in SCCA SMod.

    All of this work makes a lot more sense when you see it on video. We took vids of each step and will splice & edit that and upload it soon. Look for that in the next post. Please wait to ask questions until after I post the vids (soon). Have been on vacation (Playa del Carmen + Chichen Itza) and I am playing catch-up here at Vorshlag on drawings/work, plus I have a couple of other project threads to update first. Patience...



    Paul's turbo and up pipe are both back from getting ceramic coated at Swain Tech, so hopefully the motor goes in this week. Then we can at least cut the front fenders over the next 2 weeks, for the upcoming COBB tuning and test drive. We'll tackle adding the front fender flares at the Vorshlag shop after its running (that's relatively easy; takes 1/3rd the work of the rears).

    Cheers,
    Last edited by Fair!; 07-23-2012, 07:58 PM.

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  • Fair!
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Update for Nov 9, 2010: Went by Paul's on the night of Nov 9, supposedly to install his engine. Calvin from COBB was there, local SMod racer Henry L was there. Problem was, all of the parts we needed to put on the motor weren't there...



    They messed around on the motor for a bit, installed a few bits, but the threaded (blind) hole for the knock sensor was stripped when the sensor was being torqued, so that put the brakes on further work (time for a helicoil repair). And the turbo + up-pipe weren't back from SWAIN getting coated yet, so the motor install was pushed back another week or three. I messed around on the rear suspension for a while all night.

    While they were tinkering on the "its taking freagin forever engine", I was checking tire clearance on the fender work already performed out back. Eventually I removed the spring on the left rear strut and compressed the suspension with the tire installed, checking to see if the tire hit the body before the strut bottomed out into the bump stop. Yep, still needs a lot more tire clearance upward. The offending metal is actually the metal inner-fender structure out by the edge of the fender - it curves downward. Luckily SMod rules allow for this to be cut out and modified, so long as it falls in the range "outside of the axle mounting face". We took a straight edge and scribed a line from the rotor face upward and around the wheel well. Then I started cutting away more metal from there out, which got us more bump travel room.



    We still need to cut more of the outer fender panel sheet metal away, but keep it within the outline we made with the new metal flares we mocked up last time. The fender flare is just for looks; it will simply "cover up the ugly hole" we make trying to clear the wide tire under bump travel.

    So now its time for me to bring my welder over and get to patching up the giant holes left from Paul's previous "flaring" attempt, spot weld the new metal flare on, then do more "compress the suspension/tire" testing.



    Not much to show here, sorry. Other than mauling a few pizzas and cutting a little bit on the rear fender, the night was pretty much a wash. Since then many more parts have arrived and Paul has even installed a few things. There's a window (when Calvin returns to COBB after an upcoming vacation) that Paul is trying to hit (he's taking the car to them with the motor installed, so they can tune it), so he has his deadline and that motor has to go in. Go go go!



    I'll probably go by there this weekend with the welder and see if we can get the fender flares tacked up on the rear, so he can at least roll the car with the car no longer being Hellaflush.


    Hellaflush Subaru!

    More soon,
    Last edited by Fair!; 12-16-2010, 11:22 AM.

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  • Fair!
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Project Update for Oct 30, 2010: Another Saturday spent on Paul M's '95 Impreza and we made more progress, but still no motor in the car. I know, I know... that's all I cared about tackling, but Paul had some worries about something and wanted one of the COBB guys around to make sure we didn't put it in the car without forgetting anything. So with the motor plans dead in the water we jumped into other aspects that still needed to be locked down. We started by swapping the entire doors... ???



    Paul M here had traded Jason M the car's original roll up window '95 Impreza doors (~72 lbs) with a pair of '99 RS doors (~75 lbs/each) that had electric windows. The reason for the swap? Well Paul had already scored a complete set of RS inner door panels + RS interior rear panels, but they never came with roll up windows and he didn't want to cut a hole for the crank... or something like that? I didn't understand, but he wanted electric window RS doors and it was an even money swap so he's happy. It didn't take us 45 minutes to swap and align both doors, and they were in better shape than the old ones, so I won't complain further (3 pounds per door is not much for electric windows, I guess). I bolted in the seat/bracket again, too. Paul took pics of the doors with his camera including the scale, and I'll post them up shortly. Maneuvering these doors was some work - they were freagin HEAVY!

    We also got the spring on the right rear strut, then got the car on the ground FOR REAL and actually ROLLED it back and forth a foot. On the tires. Really! First time the car actually rolled in over a year. Woo!

    We played with ride heights and got the car down to where we think it should be, and leveled the front side to side. Didn't really get a picture of this, but no matter - it didn't stay that way for long.



    So the two pictures above show the 18x9.5" wheels and 275s don't fit the rear (nor the front), and Paul had worked during the August/September time frame on "clearancing" the rear left fender to "fit" them. He spent lots of hours and learned some new body work/metal forming skills from a friend, and had a sort of bell shaped lip added to that fender (see the top left pic in this post). He had to cut the outer sheetmetal away from the inner, and had moved it outboard about 1-1.5". It was barely enough clearance once the car was at ride height - but the tire was smashing into the sheet metal once you added some bump travel. No bueno.

    Paul thought he could work it even more but the metal was already so "worked" it was starting to get brittle. So he was going to plop down $4500 on some composite "wide body" composite panel garbage. Oh hell no. Next he talked about getting some cheap RaceonUSA 240SX bolt-on flares (blah). That would have taken a bunch of work to fit this car. I had a better idea... metal flares!



    I popped back to the shop and brought back several fenders and fender flare sections to Paul's garage. Some of you will know what these are, as they are good metal candidates for flaring I've used in the past (E46 BMW fenders). Oh baby, did they ever look at home on this Subaru!



    This was a major "eureka!" moment for the project. The decisions about tire clearancing were solved and its a cheap solution (if somewhat fab-intensive - assume 40 hours of work to do flares right). We checked the SMod rules and we can clearance the inner sheet metal from the axle mounting face outwards, so we made a mark in the inner wheelhouse section showing this line, then Paul started cutting away interfering metal from there outwards. We bolted the tires on both ends and put it back at ride height.



    That's the before and after. The bare metal pic with the re-worked fender looks like it might work, but it lacks clearance for upward travel of the tire. It would only ever work for the hard-parking crowd. With the grafted on metal flares we are allowing the suspension to compress into the bump stop and still have tire clearance. This will also allow for a relatively narrow track width and narrower tire/wheel for autocrossing (18x9.5" and 275mm) as well as a wider track width and wheel/tire for track use (295 or more on an 18x10"), better suiting this dual-purpose race car to these two extremes.

    Next up: I'm still pushing to get the damn motor in the car! But somehow a threaded, blind hole in the block for the knock sensor is stripped, so Paul is on the search fort a helicoil kit. Then it goes to COBB Tuning Plano for some electronics wizardry and tuning. "It will run before the end of the year", says Paul. Ha! We'll see...

    More soon,
    Last edited by Fair!; 12-16-2010, 11:17 AM.

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  • Fair!
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Project Update for Oct 24, 2010: Wow, yea.... long time no update. We kinda got buried under the $2010 GRM Project E30 V8, my e46 BMW DSP disaster, the SCCA Solo Nationals and the GRM $2010 event for the past 6 weeks. I managed to get over to Paul's on the 24th and we got a lot of little stuff done - mostly installing new parts he'd received since my last visit. Paul did so some work during that time period... installed a mixture of 2.5 RS and STi and '95 Impreza brake lines in the engine bay are perfectly routed and buttoned up. He also got the steering column in and installed a few other odds and ends.

    First thing we tackled: the motor got its new exhaust crossover tube (some fancy aftermarket piece) but its still got the stock up-pipe, exhaust manifolds and turbo. Which is odd to me - wouldn't you want larger diameter headers, up-piping, etc? Or at least ported cast manifolds? Apparently Paul has those upgrades in mind when he adds a larger turbo unit - but for now he wants to just "get it going". Which is what I've been saying for the last year, so I can't complain.



    So we got everything we had on hand to add to the motor bolted on and were about to lock down the turbo when Paul noticed we were missing one piece of oil tubing for the turbo, so he's going to order that. Good grief. I'll come back next weekend and we can get that wrapped up and get the motor IN THE CAR, hopefully? Maybe? After we ran out of motor work we jumped into the suspension.



    I spent about an hour under the back of the car and with Paul working topside we got the right rear halfshaft installed, the right rear upright bolted to that strut, E-brake cables routed, the ABS wiring routed, and everything in the rear buttoned up. It was still missing the main spring on the left rear but damn it I wanted to see the car on the ground, and with time running out we slapped on all of the wheels (including a temp spare on the right rear) and dropped the car down onto the wheels for the first time in over a YEAR. Sure, one corner was supported by a floor jack... but it almost rolled.



    Costas and I had actually dropped by late the Saturday before and temporarily installed the new DEPO headlights/corner lights, the hood, and one of the new Certifit fenders Paul had rounded up and we snapped these iPhone pics, too.



    More soon,
    Last edited by Fair!; 12-16-2010, 11:08 AM.

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  • Fair!
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Project Update for August 25, 2010: I stopped by Paul's last Sunday to grab some fire sleeve from him for our $2010 GRM E30 V8 project, and while there I took a few pics of the latest progress on his '07 STi drivetrain swap into his '95 FWD 2-door Impreza. One of these days the motor might go in and the rest of the suspension and brakes might go on!

    First off, the rear brake rotors are on. Well, one corner. Paul bought "the cheapest rotors money could buy" for the back, just to get the damn thing rolling and to help move things forward. Sure, there's probably some super secret JDM rotor that is .02 pounds lighter, or made from Unobtanium, but "why slow down to get every silly whiz-bang part?" I keep asking him? "Get it running and fine tune this little stuff later!" I remind him weekly.



    Paul found some longer ARP wheel studs ($7+ each) and replaced the stock length wheel studs, along with Vorshlag M12-1.25 lug nuts. He had to re-machine the heads slightly on the rear studs to allow for installaiton in the rear without removing the rear wheel bearings. There's a wheel speed sensor hole in the rear brake backing plate that is just a hair too small, but with a .015" removed from the OD of the head of the stud, it slides thru. He machined 10 of them using our lathe in about an hour. Removing a sensor ring from the drive flange allows the old studs to be pushed (hammered) out and the new, long ARP studs to go in. The front didn't take this amount of work, luckily, but he hadn't gotten to that yet.



    The shifter was still half-installed from last month, so Paul could hunt down some "missing" parts. That he purchased, and when he went to go put them on they were attached... to the shifter. That I had installed... Hey, I didn't know what that crap looks like, don't blame me! That's what they get for having 3 Subaru guys standing around eating pizza while the non-Subaru guy did all the work under the car to install the shifter. Sheesh.

    The fancy competition type transmission mount assembly he bought from Japan for 58 million yen (or something) was sitting on the workbench, so I snapped a pic of that. The stock type Subaru trans and motor mounts are a HIDEOUS JOKE, with large amounts of foamy rubber that has the stiffness of a Stay Puff Marshmallow, so these are a huge step up. It's made me look more closely at making Subaru driveline mounts - the choices are extremely limited (with "harder rubber" versions being the commonly used but still terrible option). I dunno... if it ain't pink or JDM, the Subaru market doesn't rate it very high.



    Those are... uhhh... Subaru motor pictures. Paul has been chasing down some hard to find doo-dads for weeks and months, some of which are especially expensive aftermarket parts that are now out of production, which will replace some poorly designed factory piece for the US market cars. Most of it, to me, looks like simple fabricated tubing or whatnot. But apparently these rare JDM parts are the hotness, and help the 2.5L boosted engines make more horsepowers.



    Above are more of the same... at left is the US Market "turbulence generators" or flux capacitors or whatever its called. Its not individual throttle bodies, its a way to add turbulence/swirl to the intake port that supposedly helps with exhaust emissions. At right are some "JDM" Subaru parts without the added turbulence generating extra throttle blades, which are hard to get and supposedly add power. Looks like the same parts with the throttles/shafts removed to me, but what do I know?

    All I know is that finding these rare gems and JDM pieces is slowing down this build immensely. But with our E30 V8 swap creeping into week 40+, and with the pace never slowing down much below 4 nights a week, I can't throw stones from my glass house.

    JDM, YO!

    Keep at it, Paul.
    Last edited by Fair!; 12-16-2010, 11:03 AM.

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  • Fair!
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Originally posted by McCall View Post
    Well if I can get 3 guys to come over to help with my hooptie we might actually be able to fire the motor with a few solid hours of work. Where's the calvary?!?
    Send out the invite for next week in your project thread - I'll pencil it in, for sure.

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  • McCall
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Originally posted by Fair! View Post
    Update for July 16, 2010: I went by Paul's on Wednesday night to help him do some more assembly on the '95 L, and was joined by local STi racer Henry Lin and Calvin from COBB Tuning. We worked on various stuff for a few hours and got some more work knocked out.

    [So a lot of items have been checked off of Paul's Project Whiteboard. McCall better catch up (there's a bet to see who can finish their project car first) as Paul is quickly catching and passing in his project's progress!
    Well if I can get 3 guys to come over to help with my hooptie we might actually be able to fire the motor with a few solid hours of work. Where's the calvary?!?

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  • Fair!
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Project Update for July 16, 2010: I went by Paul's on Wednesday night to help him do some more assembly on the '95 L, and was again joined by local STi racer Henry Lin and Calvin from COBB Tuning. We worked on various stuff for a few hours and got some more work knocked out. It was hot as Hell.


    The "big wheels" (18x9.5") went from the '08 to the '95, and they almost kinda sort wanted to fit under the stock '95 fenders

    More importantly, Paul actually worked on the project on his own, since we last met. Amazing! He had installed much of the suspension and brakes, and mocked-up his 18x9.5" wheels that used to be on his '08 STI. Seeing his daily driven '08 STI car on the itty-bitty stock wheels was kinda funny.


    Ignore the caption some tard put in the picture (me) - that's actually a 275/35/18 Dunlop on an 18x9.5" wheel!

    Maybe he really means to sell the '08 after all? I'll believe it when he removes the AST 4200s and puts the stock suspension back on - he can't stand to drive on marshmallow suspension very long. If anyone has a clean GC8 Outback Sport or another affordable, clean Subaru commuter, speak up! He doesn't need a $35K daily driver (that's all too tempting to take and thrash on a road course) with all of his other race cars and trucks.



    The fuel line problems noted in my last update were solved by swapping all the "in-cabin" hard fuel lines to the ones from the wrecked '07 STi donor... with a little wiggling they fit the '95 chassis fine, and now all of the '07 flex lines snap into place with ease - the entire fuel system is now '07 STi, from tank to engine. Oh, and Paul installed the AST 4200-RR shocks, too. The Brembo calipers are awaiting installaiton when the new rear rotors arrive.



    While Calvin and Henry helped Paul assemble all of the myriad stock parts to the fully built 2.5L long block, I stayed under the car and installed the driveshaft, rear diff cover, and the shifter (mostly). I hadn't ever worked on any of these bits on a Subaru and I was amazed at their heavy kludgeishness. Subaru!



    Paul had already finished up the final install of the '07 dash, steering column, and had a new windshield put in earlier that week. And took no pictures of how he made the small adapter brackets, the douche! His UltraShield Rally Pro seat and slider (formerly in his '08 STi) bolted in place in the '95 with zero effort - took me 5 minutes. The '95 Impreza door panels don't match the '07 dash, so the side doors haven't been closed in a while. That was bugging me to no end (leave the doors open on a car for 9 months around an OCD person??). So at the end of the evening we all took the time to install one of the 2.5 RS door cards, and they fit beautifully - and allow the doors to close, finally!



    We need to address the fenders soon, as they won't clear the 275mm tires without some serious persuasion... of the plasma and hammer variety. Also, a lot of items have been checked off of Paul's Project Whiteboard. McCall better catch up (there's a bet to see who can finish their project car first) as Paul is quickly catching and passing in his project's progress!

    More soon,
    Last edited by Fair!; 12-16-2010, 10:56 AM.

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  • Fair!
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Yea, that's a GD plate, and its temporary... I was wondering who'd catch that first.

    Originally posted by Paul View Post
    It is a GD plate in a GC chassis. It is actually in right given it is the wrong plate.
    We ran out of GC plates and I need to get a new batch machined with the new higher caster set-up. Its in process, and these GD plates work in a GC, in a pinch...

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  • Paul
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Originally posted by hancheyb View Post
    Who put the camber plate in wrong?
    It is a GD plate in a GC chassis. It is actually in right given it is the wrong plate.

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  • John in Houston
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Originally posted by hancheyb View Post
    who put the camber plate in wrong?
    doh!

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  • hancheyb
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Who put the camber plate in wrong?

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  • Fair!
    replied
    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Project Update for June 28, 2010: I went by Paul's last Wednesday night to help him with some fuel line questions. Paul and another local AST/Vorshlag tester/SCCA racer Henry Lin were about to install the transmission, so I stuck around to help for a bit.





    We got the trans in with Henry and me bench pressing it up into position while Paul started the bolts. Then we looked at the fuel lines, trying to get the car's factory lines ('95 Impreza) to line up with the ones on the motor ('04 STi) and the fuel tank ('07 STi). Come to find out Paul managed to get the '04 chassis hard lines to fit the '95 chassis the next day, and all is well.





    Paul also stuck a front fender on there, as shown in the first row of pics. Since then he's installed some suspension bits, and even some wheels and tires!


    Yes, the camber plate above is not a GC specific unit, its just a GD plate that's clocked to fit the GC. I've got more GC plates being made

    There's now a formal challenge between Paul Magyar and Jason McCall to see who can finish their project car enough to "make a lap under its own power with no parts falling off". That's a much needed challenge. I'm trying to split my (very little) free time helping them both on their projects. After the 2010 SCCA Solo Nats in September and the $2010 GRM Challenge in October, I'll be a lot more freed up to pitch in.

    More soon,
    Last edited by Fair!; 12-16-2010, 10:49 AM.

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  • Fair!
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    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Project Update for June 21, 2010: Paul has been hacking away at little bits on the Impreza, but progress has been slow (and he's been pitching in on our $2010 Challenge build for most of the summer). I went by last Saturday morning to help him get the R180 rear axle re-installed. He has some other new parts on hand and I snapped some pics:


    AST 4200 RR shocks and Vorshlag camber plates (front and rear) were delivered. These go on soon!


    Built 2.5L (Wattshop assembled) motor is back. The crazy Moroso oilpan should help with lubrication


    Steering column is in and looks good


    Left: Paul found a good deal on used STi Brembo calipers. Right: The UltraShield+sliding bracket is ready to bolt in


    Left: The axle housing was removed and the damaged halfshaft was pulled @ COBB. Right: Its in its new home now!

    There was one rear diff to subframe stud that was buggered up but we fixed it at my shop later that day and Paul installed it and buttoned up the rear axle mounting that afternoon.

    More soon,
    Last edited by Fair!; 12-16-2010, 10:45 AM.

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  • Fair!
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    Re: Paul Magyar's 1995 Subaru Impreza L - Street Mod/Track build

    Project Update for April 8, 2010: Paul is in Japan all week on vacation, but we did some suspension work on his car 2 weeks ago and I am finally getting around to the update.



    We spent some time here at the shop using the press to push out the old rubber bushings from the front and rear control arms and spindles, then pressing in new Whiteline poly bushings and ball joints. This was a chore - we spent a good 90 minutes on these, at least. Some of the rubber bushings had to be drilled/cut out, because they were stuck in the arms/steel sleeves.



    He brought dirty parts into my shop. My OCD started to kick in and I got a twitch... so I had to take his crusty control arms and clean them up. They shine like new now.



    Once the arms were done we went back to his garage and tinkered with the dash some more. McCall joined us and we redrilled the flanges for the '07 dash bar, made some templates for some other dash brackets we need, etc. The steering column now fits, the harness is in, and its close to being wrapped up inside. Paul even found some nice 2 door, black "2.5 RS" door interior door panels to swap in, which look better than the old '95 panels and fit better with the '07 dash in place (the doors won't close with the '95 door panels and '07 dash in place - there's a raised area on those door panels where the new dash now sits).



    After a lot of pushing and pulling we managed to get the '04 STi main harness to fit through the various firewall openings in the '95 L. It looks almost factory, even though the firewall openings are significantly different between the early '90s and late '00s Imprezas. Out back, right now there's a halfshaft that's stuck inside the R180 rear differential (the '07 STI it came from side-swiped a curb, so that halfshaft is fubar) so that needs some attention at from Calvin at COBB to remove.



    The interior work is crucial to making all of this fit and function and look right, its just not very glamorous work to look at here (sorry). Oh well, the project is progressing along nicely - very close to drivetrain installaiton time (in retrospect - not so much!). The motor (built at WattsShop) is supposedly done, so that's going to go in soon. And the AST 4200RRs are due to arrive in the next month or so. Paul has some bolt-on flares he has found that we could use (temporarily) to cover the 275/35/18 tires and 18x9.5" wheels, but I am not so sure.

    More soon,
    Last edited by Fair!; 12-16-2010, 10:41 AM.

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