Nostalgia attack, can buy back my favourite car I sold

[Mr Footlong]

That is exactly why I am tempted to send madam down to collect them instead of me.

[Shoppinit]

But that'll just add an extra return trip.

[Mr Footlong]

Well, for your continued amusement, sh!tbox gets better. paintshop phoned me up and said that they had married the bootlid up to the car and confirmed my suspicions that the car had been crashed by Chavly, not declared or mentioned on any of the forums he used and not repaired brilliantly.

They did a fairly good job of hiding the damage from the outside but I noticed more and more oddities inside the boot as I removed all the interior trim and I was never convinced that the front NS wing was original as the paint flake was a different consistency to the rest of the front end.

Went to pick the car up today only to be disappointed to find that it hadn't set itself on fire and burned itself to the ground to save me taking it home....... Bills are just continuing to grow, had to fork out £150 for a headlight just to get the little rubber wing seal that is missing on mine and to cook the lens cover off the headlight so I can transplant it on to the yellowing JDM HID unit. Have found about 20 broken trim clips inside the cabin, found that people had lost various bolts when I removed the seats so they used brute force and ignorance with bigger bolts, only to run out of strength doing them up or tearing all the thread out. Luckily I have tap & die sets but not sure a couple of them have enough metal there for me.

Booking the car in with my alignment guy to get his opinion and also going to my local bodyshop with a jig to see what they think.

Sick to death of the coilovers so I am looking down the barrel of different weight springs all round, taking ll that out yet again, then all the realignment....

The moral of all this is don't buy cars when you are ill, easy enough to make stupid choices when well. I am kicking myself a bit as some of these things I would have spotted had my head been screwed on properly at the time....

[Silverfox42]

Mr Footlong,

I have followed your thread with interest from the first post and think you should be proud of your continued investment in chasing the dream.
If I had the disposable income to invest in metal/petrol guzzling beasts I would no doubt have 4 or 5 cars in my possession and continue to throw money at them as you have.

In short, keep it up! You are living the dream that I think many forum members are jealous.

Hats off to you.

Dan

[daytonamart]

What he said, Fair play to you Footers.

[armyair]

Just finished reading your thread from beginning to end. I've not been the biggest scooby fan since the Chavs decided it was their weapon of choice but you've definitely changed my opinion of a select few scooby owners.

Gutted for the woes you've had and hope it all comes together for you soon. I don't know how you held it together in the aftermath of the towing incident as I'm laid back but would have needed a Kit Kat moment.

I did contemplate buying a new WRX back in 1998ish as I was entitled to tax free cars when I was posted in Germany and with squaddie discount on top the cost was around £14k new.

[Mr Footlong]

Thanks guys. The madam totally losing the plot incident has cost me easily about 7-8k more than I had ever planned on spending on all of this and the end isn't in sight yet but, as long as the chassis is spot on, I will soldier on and finish what I started.

It is a shame as the more I see the pic of Fluffy on the drive with the other cars, the more I lust after a sorted classic. That heavily modded RB5 is still for sale in Northern Ireland......

Sorted the 2 threaded dash mounting points on the drivers side today along with rebuilding of various clip mounts and new clips all round for bits of trim. Have removed all the centre trim as I have to do some more dicking around with the replacement handbrake, found 2 more missing clips and a couple more broken mounting points. The previous owners of this car was f*cking animals, makes me mad.

JVC KT-DB1000 DAB addon unit arrived today. The seller didn't tell me that they too had been an animal. They had managed to rip the antenna connector from the PCB/tuner module, had poured about a teaspoonful of solder on to it, joining both the ground and the positive of the connector for good measure, then crushed the lid of the chassis down and over the excess solder that was sticking out. Shock horror, didn't take a picture of that side of the unit when selling it. Pulled it all apart, sorted out all the soldering as well as I could, reassembled and working correctly.

Sick of scumbags selling me crap currently, I swear these Subarus are bad juju.

As the centre caps for the rims are going to be the wrong colour, I decided to take a gamble on some custom flat centre caps. Rare Rims guaranteed fitment of these centre caps:

Instead of these:

sml_27.jpg (10.57 KiB) Viewed 1464 times

Hopefully I haven't just made another £50 mistake or I will be forking out for a set of the black standard ones above too.

[Shoppinit]

That's poo that you've been fcuked around so much by unscrupulous monkeys. This is the world of evil ebay, partial paypal and "authorities" that are anything but when you need to make a complaint.

You gotta wonder whether it's all worth it. Are you going to be able to get any of it back if you sell on?

[Mr Footlong]

Dude, I am not even thinking about it currently. Pushing on and if I hit a wall, will take the punch in the balls and move on. In a way I hope it is farked, then I will part it out and give madam the money to add to our house deposit fund.

The turbo and front brakes alone change hands all day long at £11-1200 and things like the DCCD system (when not broken by my tuners....) go for good money too. The one thing going for her is that she is a fairly rare model I am told.

[chunky79]

You my boy are a fairly rare model!
You get as much sh1t as me, but you get the extra toppings. Keep up the good work stretch

[Mr Footlong]

Wheels collected, bloody hell they are dark! Right finish choice and Platinum wheels (ex Lepsons) did a perfect job with tearing off the original paint, poor powdercoat that had been recently put on and their finish looks factory fresh. All done at £254.

Currently being dragged around an outlet mall but will try to get them on the car later.

[Mr Footlong]

Note to self, always remember to look at the back of wheels you are picking up from refurb to make sure they put the spigot rings back in........ I think I may have thrown them by remving the centre caps before dropping them down there. Have spammed them and also the wheel place to see if they can rush me a set of rings before I take the car back to the tuners on Tuesdy night for the next few weeks...

Didn't have the time to get the rear calipers off to be refurbed so that will have to be next month. Anyway, fitted, with the 3mm rear spacers instead of the 5mm ones to even up the front/rear track, the custom Rota centre caps and the McGard STI spline drive nuts:

Ducktail bonnet is ready to be collected so if I find the time I will fit that before the tuners and take a few pics.....

[Shoppinit]

Starting to look very nice. Wheels are just right IMO. You pleased with the result?

[Mr Footlong]

Yes and no. I did ask them if the "dark anthracite" they wrote down was going to be just like normal anthracite and they said yes despite my doubts. They look near as damnit matt black so a bit darker than I wanted but they are staying that colour now whether I like it or not. I think they really prefer people coming in with specific paint codes.

The anodizing guys are getting to work now on anodizing the new HDI FMIC black after not wanting to do it, seeing problems doing it etc etc. I have had a guy make up some bungs to blank off the inlets so it can be filled with water to stop it from floating in the anodizing tank and have given them the specific anodizing instructions from HDI. Still a tossup as whether they will get it spot on or they will eat the fins away but hey....

[Mr Footlong]

No idea what is happening with the intercooler anodizing but I delayed taking the car to the tuners as the ECU manufacturer finally came back to me and have promised that if I yank the ECU and send it to them tomorrow, they will have it upgraded and back to me for Monday.

Have decided to also take the gamble and yank the rear Brembos and ship them off for a full rebuild/painted red as they "should" be back in time to take the car over on the 3rd.

The key upgrades to the ECU are as follows:

Improved ‘Idle Speed Control’
With a 3D target speed table, and compensation for Fan & Air Con conditions.

• Improved ‘Knock Detection’
The strategy used to detect the presence of knock has been changed to automatically take account of ambient engine noise.

• NEW ‘Knock Control’
The ECU can take corrective action based on the presence of knock. The tuner has the ability to achieve this using Ignition, Fuel and Boost corrections, in a multifaceted approach. The point at which the driver is warned of the presence of knock can also be configured.

• NEW ‘Toucan Interface’
In conjunction with JT Innovations, full bidirectional support for their ‘Toucan’ touch screen colour display has been implemented. This enables numerous parameters to be displayed for the driver, as well as being able to be used as the control input for selecting the calibration in use, ALS map and enable, Launch target speed and enable.

• Improved ‘Dual Maps’
The ‘2nd map’ can now be used either as an offset from the ‘1st map’ or it can be an absolute map in its own right. This is separately selectable for Fuel & Ignition.

• NEW ‘Map Permutations’
Up to eight permutations of the main control maps are now selectable, either via a rotary switch, or Toucan touch screen. This allows the driver to quickly and easily adjust for the prevailing conditions and fuel type etc.

• Improved ‘In Gear Boost’
The gear based 2D compensation tables for duty and target have been replaced by 3D maps. This allows the boost curve to be controlled not only by gear, but also by which of the 8 permutations has been selected.

• NEW ‘Immobiliser or Valet Mode’
A secure ‘Engine Speed Limit’ can be activated via either a PIN code on the Toucan touch screen, or using a secret switch. This is not part of the eight map permutations.

• NEW ‘Wideband Lambda Support’
The ECU will now support full target based lambda control, using an external WB sensor interface. This can be either analogue via a 0-5V input, or digitally using the Innovate Motorsport range of products (LM-1 LM-2 LM-C MTX-L etc.)

• Improved ‘Engine Speed Limiter’
The ‘Rev Limiter’ has been improved by having the option to use Engine Coolant Temperature to adjust the rev limit. The primary rev limit is also now set based on which of the eight permutations has been selected.

• Improved ‘Boost Limiter’
The boost limiter has been improved by using Engine Coolant Temperature to define the boost limit.

• NEW ‘Full Throttle Gear Change’
FTGC or ‘Flat Shift’ is now supported, for various gearbox setups, including H pattern synchromesh, ‘Dog Box’ and sequential change. This can be triggered via either a clutch switch, proximity sensor or load cell.

• NEW ‘Sequential Gear Box’
A ‘Gear Position Sensor’ on a sequential change box can now be used to determine which gear is currently selected. This can be displayed via the Toucan display.

• NEW ‘Exhaust Gas Temperature’
The ECU will now support EGT monitoring via a 0-5V analogue input. This can be used to implement closed loop control of the ALS and help prevent possible damage to engine components due to excessive temperatures. It can also be monitored via the Toucan display.

• NEW ‘Engine Oil Temperature’
The ECU will now support EOT monitoring via an analogue input. This can be used to control the engine ‘Limp Mode’ and help prevent possible damage to engine components due to excessive temperatures. It can also be monitored via the Toucan display.

• NEW ‘Engine Oil Pressure’
The ECU will now support EOP monitoring via an analogue input. This can be used to control the engine ‘Limp Mode’ and help prevent possible damage to engine components due to low oil pressure. It can also be monitored via the Toucan display. You can optionally defer the starting of the engine until sufficient oil pressure has been achieved.

• NEW ‘Fuel Pressure’
The ECU will now support FP monitoring via an analogue input. This can be used to control the engine ‘Limp Mode’ and help prevent possible damage to engine components due to incorrect fuel pressure. It can also be monitored via the Toucan display.

• Improved ‘Shift Light’
The use of the ‘Check Engine Light’ as a combined Knock Warning and Shift light has previously caused some confusion. It is now possible to assign the Shift Light function to separate output if desired.

• NEW ‘AVCS on GC8 models’
As an additional cost option, it is possible to run either type (DBW or non DBW) of AVCS head on a GC8 model ECU. This is done via an additional board which fits the ‘Expansion Port’

NEW ‘Nitrous Control’
As an additional cost option, it is possible to run either wet or dry style Nitrous. This provides gear based mapping of the amount of Nitrous, as well as any fuel or ignition correction needed.


Car is being mapped on the the 12th, the same day that I will get the results from the PET scan I am having on the 3rd to see if the Chemo has worked or not, day after my birthday too .

I have been busy sealing up the 10 odd little holes in the boot that go straight through the underside of the car, think a towbar might have been fitted previously. 2 layers of black Gorilla tape over each hole and superglue between them means those holes will stay sealed and stop some of the noise.

The existing boot trims were totally smashed/torn to shreds. I ordered a perfect condition set from a UK STI, spent a couple of hours repairing the multiple tears in the original trims, did a little bit of cutting to fit and bonded the old knackered trims to the back of the mint trims, making a stronger overall trim panel that is still very light and increasing soundproofing, something which is sorely needed and you can't tell I have done a thing. Took almost 3 hours to do a flawless bond all round on the panels but worth it.

Stripped out the interior on Sunday and have done tons of cable tidying/bolt tightening and have improved the soundproofing through the backseat. Finally starting to bond with this turd now as I fix one thing after another, I just hope the end result will be worth it!