Larissa_Lane's 95 Impreza "L" Darth Vader

[Larissa_Lane]

This is my first Subaru. Bought it September, 2013. Just two days after selling my first car (and love) -- a 93 Acura Integra. I had always loved 2 door Subarus and after falling in love with a Subie man and his Subaru family, I knew I didn't have any other choice but to get a Subaru. At first I only wanted a coupe. After looking for quite some time and seeing the prices, I decided to branch out. It was then that I figured out that the 4 door Imprezas are the same wheel base and actually lighter. I could always do a 2.5 swap later. Thus, the love of my Darth Vader began.

Red 1995 Subaru Impreza L for $1300. Wrecked. The previous owner had ran it into a steel mailbox. Needed a new fender, bumper, hood, windshield, passenger side doors, side mirror, and the kicker panel was/is damaged. The car came with a Rallitek intake, black and blue 02-03 WRX front and rear seats, RS grill and RS headlights.

The gist of it is I put a frankenmotor, manual transmission, and exhaust in the car. Now we're in the process of doing an EJ205 swap.

What I've done to the car:

Interior:
Purple/pink LED dash & HVAC lights
White LED dome light
New stereo, speakers, sub & amp
Momo Steering Wheel
JDM center console cubby/arm rest

Exterior:
Side view mirror
Fender
RS Hood
RS Bumper
Hella glass fog lights with 5000k HIDs (Disconnected as light scatter was horrid)
Aftermarket side skirts
Coupe wing
Entire car Plastidipped black
Nexen N 7000 tires
17"x7" MB Weapons wheels
Pink "Impreza" badge on front
Pink Subaru star badge on rear
Depo clear corner lights with LEDs
Clear side/fender marker lights
6000k (bluish white) HIDs in headlights

Brakes:
Rear drum to disc conversion
04 WRX Brakes front and rear

Suspension:
KYB Struts with H&R lowering springs
20 mm rear sway bar with Whiteline bushings
Audi solid rear end links

Exhaust:
For frankenmotor swap: [Unequal length header
Catless midpipe with resonator
2.5" custom catback
Offbrand 4" can muffler]
For EJ205 swap: **3" Turbo back no name exhuast
4.5" can muffler**

Transmission:
A/T swapped to 96 Outback 4.11 close ratio M/T
**Swapped 96 Outback M/T for 95 JDM Sti 4.11 M/T**
Duralast clutch and flywheel (for frankenmotor)
**Swapped for Exedy stock clutch, resurfaced stock flywheel**
ExtraS (unicorn piss) gear oil/tranny fluid
Shifter stay bushings
Megan Racing Group N transmission mount and pitch stopper

Under The Hood:
**Frankenmotor**
Stock air box with Spectre filter (kept Rallitek intake tube)
New starter, alternator, and battery
Megan Racing Group N motor mounts
Legacy SS Crossmember
Delta Street Cams
Upgraded coil pack
Completely rebuilt 25D shortblock with:
--Polished crank
--ACL main and rod bearings
--Teflon coated pistons
--Grimmspeed lightweight crank pulley
Intake manifold spacers
New oil pan
New water pump and timing gears/sprockets/belt

**EJ205**
Cobb SF intake
2002 EJ205 longblock with less than 100k miles on it
VF28
FMIC
New WRX Radiator
Mac Valve
MAF Relocation for Speed Density Tune
TGV Deletes
Turbo Inlet
Gates Racing Timing Kit

Just bought:

Bumper and Fender:

Side Skirts and Hood:

Doing the rest of the plastidip:

Finished with wing:

Wheels:

Intake Manifold Spacers and lightweight pulley:

Motor/Tranny mount kit:

[86bratman]

Darth is looking pretty good. Lots work gone in so far looks like. Glad you decided to post it up here.

[foohfooh]

ya. we really need more impresha posts i can see what im missing out on.

that car sure looks good for having run into a steel mailbox! crazed! im a sucker for matteblack these cars.

[Larissa_Lane]

Yeah my Darth Vader has come a looongg way. It all seemed to happen so fast, too. I'm switching my fogs to 5k today, so I'll be sure to get some pics of those as well.

Here's some pics of my frankenmotor rebuild.
We used the block halves from a 25D that had blown a rod bearing and a piston.

Found piston chunks and sludge in the oil pan:


The rod bearing had disintegrated:


And as you can imagine, the crank was terrible as well:


Punched out the pistons and found the failure:




The cylinder walls looked good though. So that was a plus.




We used a nice, polished crank with about 20k miles on it:


Cleaned up the block halves and put ACL bearings in:




Used teflon coated pistons:






Assembled with new coolant and oil sensors/switches, completely took apart and cleaned the oil pump, used a new water pump and oil pan:






And had tons of fun swapping over the heads (in one night) with Delta cams, intake manifold spacers, and Grimpspeed lightweight pulley:














Timing belt guide:


Pulley:


New radiator. I had fun swapping the fans over. (I'm 7 months pregnant and was confined to doing small jobs):






And finally getting all clean:


I'll have to post a video of the awesome exhaust. And the new fogs.

[Muse]

7 months preggers, and still working on your car? That's some awesome dedication. Shows, too. That's one awesome car.

[Baddog]

Yeah we have put some time and money into this car. So far it has all paid off.

[Larissa_Lane]

Wow, it's amazing looking at these 'old' pictures of my car. Everything is still all well, other than my fog lights. HIDs just aren't a good option. Going back to halogen. But the motor still runs and sounds great. Oil is staying nice and clean. There's a slight rough idle issue that we're looking into. Might just be an ECU problem. But overall, Vader is looking good.

[Larissa_Lane]

My poor thread has been so neglected. Not a whole lot has changed.. Yet.
We're in the process of doing an EJ205 swap with a VF28. More details to come...

[Larissa_Lane]

I changed my mind on the wheels and went full pink:


I do love the black, but it'll be nice to have nice shiny paint again.

[Larissa_Lane]

Alright, so here's the EJ205 out of a 2002 WRX that we picked up. Less than 100k miles on it.


The beautiful VF 28:


The top mount we WERE going to run...


Starting to disassemble. We had no idea the thing was still full of oil... so that was fun.


TGV delete. Ain't nobody got time for that.


And because I like some color in my engine bay....


Sexy-ass muffler. Because racecar.


WRX radiator with slim fans. Always get stuck with the radiator. Hehe. Oh, the radiator fit right in with NO modifications, BTW. Yay for Impreza!


Aaanndd THIS is the intercooler we ended up going with.

[Larissa_Lane]

OOH OOH OOH. And one of the more exciting things, I got a JDM arm rest/cubby. Hehehehehehe

[Larissa_Lane]

Starting to look more put together.






Well, hello there, Mr. Turbo.


Painted the intercooler. I kinda really like it.


Painted the pipes... which was a terrible, terrible idea. At least that particular paint. It chipped off and stuck to the couplers. NO BUENO


Here's some more of the motor. Because I'm in love. <3




And of course we went with a Gates Racing Timing Belt Kit. I get a mad discount through my work.


Dat fitment doe.


Fabrication/mocking up/install of FMIC core.






Yes, I drove around with a "fake mount" for a few weeks.


Goodbye WRX wheels. Hello, 17x7 MB Weapons. Color isn't right, yet. Gonna go gunmetal. Downside, the rub. LOL


The car/swap came together pretty fast all-in-all.

[Larissa_Lane]

THE SWAP BEGINS.


Bye-bye frankenmotor.


1995 JDM STI 5 speed. Got a GREAT deal on it. Using an Exedy stock replacement clutch.


Resurfaced, stock WRX flywheel:


A lift would have been nice.


Prepped and ready to go. Timing covers and Crank pulley on.














Some minor modifications had to be done to the FMIC piping to make it fit and to get the right angle. NOT FUN.




See, scuffed paint. Haha


Intake on, coolant resevoir mounted.


GrimmSpeed MAF block-off plate. We're relocationg to a pipe on the FMIC so we can run Speed Density tune.


Exhaust looked great, no issues mounting up whatsoever. We used longer, polyurethane hangers.




Tiny modification needed to the downpipe.


Lower radiator hose... the FMIC really effed up fitment. LOL


Ta-Da.


Dash out! waiting on the harness....




And that's where we're at. Still working out some fitment issues with the BPV hoses and battery. But, really, we're just waiting on our harness merge!!! Can't wait.

[foohfooh]

Cant wait to see it up and running! What kindve numbers do you want to see outa this thing?

[Larissa_Lane]

Because it's my daily and our only working car ATM, we're going to do a conservative tune and hope for 250/260 whp.

[Baddog]

Little update. Harness has been sent out. Should hopefully be running by the end of next week.

[Larissa_Lane]

Alright, we got our harness! Yay! Looked fantastic. Another great job by iWire. We were able to run it through the firewall with minimal issues.



Had to run some of the harness through the fender.


And it's back to looking like a cluster. Haha. Luckily everything mounted great and is nicely tucked.


Finally got the dash back on minus the center console pieces (apparently it's got like 7 different components and is a pain in the ass.lol.) Got the gauge pod mounted and wires ran, just need to hook them up to power and ground.
Because of my curved dash, the pod doesn't quite mount right with the double-sided sticky tape, so we're gonna try some velcro.


We're so close!! Finishing up the gauges tomorrow and hopefully gonna get some final touches done everything put back on/back together.

[Larissa_Lane]

Here's a video of the first start!!



The power steering pump is making a god awful noise. Hopefully we can fix it so we don't have to try to find a new one. The "whining" noise after it's turned off is the turbo (ball bearing.)

[86bratman]

Sounds good, and for what it's worth the 00-04 legacy power steering pump is virtually identical to the wrx one.

[Hinyo]

I'm not the least bit jealous.... IM ALL OF THE JEALOUS!!!!!! STAPH!!!!(but really please keep going it looks so good and is guna be awesome!!!!

[Larissa_Lane]

Well, the rest of the dash is in. Glove box, center console, all the vents, etc. And the gauges are wired in!





Took 2 exhaust videos. Didn't get one with the silencer in but it actually does a pretty good job. This is just at idle, no start up, and no revving. (The two videos play one after the other)


I took it down the street to get gas and oh boy! Even out of boost that is going to be a fun car to drive.
We got our standard codes we were expecting, TGVs, fuel level, fuel temp, evap, and boost control solenoid. Nothing to be concerned about.
We're going to bleed the clutch again because right now, pedal isn't engaging until RIGHT above the floor. It makes it hard to drive.
We replaced an o-ring on the power steering pump and the noise seems to be gone and there are no more air bubbles in the power steering resevoir, so fingers crossed that that problem is fixed!!

Really all that's left is possible finding a different solution for the lower radiator hose and the bpv hose. And obviously some cosmetics.
But if we get our base-map ECU from our tuner (we need a flash for TGV deletes and bigger injectors), we'll hopefully get it tuned next week!

[Larissa_Lane]

We have to re-route the amp wire (the fat red one you see floating in the pics) and I haven't tucked my radar detector wiring yet. So still some cleaning up to do.

And thanks Hinyo!

[Dead91silvia]

Looks like its coming along nicely.

[Larissa_Lane]

Drumroll please....

[Larissa_Lane]

Tuned at 19 psi, tapers down between 16 and 17 psi at redline.
280 whp and 310 wtq

[foohfooh]

Wow. 20hp+ your goal. No wonder these things get swapped all the time. A big Congratz

[geckoboy86]

Awesome build!

[Larissa_Lane]

Yeah I'm quite happy with the result! The thing bolts like crazy.

[Larissa_Lane]

So this was our only good run we got in. Next try we blew up the rear differential. Haha.

[r3v_v3ng3]

Nice! Great job on the build. Who won the race? Was it you or Oc7ane