twistedsymphony's 2nd Gen Legacy GT Wagon

[twistedsymphony]

History:
A few years back I fell in love with the 2nd Gen Wagon and made it my mission to find a GT with a stick-shift to have as my daily driver.

I live in New England so finding a non-rusty one was difficult but I found one at a used car dealer in Oregon, bought it sight unseen and had it shipped.

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it had been in a front end collision and they replaced the front bumper and grill with one from an outback and it had a black hood, but it was rust free and in good running condition. with under 100K miles. After getting it in it needed new tires, a snapped wheel stud replaced and near rear brakes but other than that it was good to go.

Unfortunately after about a week of driving it started to overheat so I stopped driving it. Winter was approaching and my garage is unheated and used for storing my summer car. So I opted to let the it sit over winter and I found another 2nd gen Wagon (a Tan L Automatic, and rusty) to drive for the winter.

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The next spring when I had garage space again while I pulled the engine, did headgaskets, timing belt, clutch and a bunch of other gaskets while I was in there. and sold the Tan wagon. and I've been driving it for the last 5 or so years.

[twistedsymphony]

Mods So far:
I think the first thing I did was an L7 Grill.
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Also I wasn't a fan of the Outback bumper and I of course love the GT-B Limited front bumper, so I tracked one of those down in Japan and imported it. I was the right color but the paint was pretty rough so I had it repainted, before Installing it myself. due to the previous front end damage the front bumper bar was sagging a bit so I fixed that up as well.
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I did also buy some Projector headlights and modified them for LHD, unfortunately I discovered that the driver's side wont install due to a misalignment of the fender (again due to the previous front end damage). The original 2-piece headlight works fine and it isn't really noticeable but with the single piece headlight it the fend mounts don't line up. At some point I'd like to take it to a body shop to get fixed properly but I haven't had a chance yet.

I didn't do much performance wise, I ended up using the original snowlfake wheels as winter wheels and got some plus-sized Enkei wheels for summer tires, and rolled the fenders to fit. tracked down and bought the STi Carbon strut-tower bar. and swapped out the e-bay intake that the car came with back to OEM.

For driving comfort I swapped in a UK gauge cluster and found a German fellow who makes aluminum trim rings for the gauge cluster, this classed up and modernized the cluster a bit, a touch-screen head-unit for some more modern info-tainment, a new shift-knob from a newer Subaru along with some new real-leather shifter and e-brake boots to get rid of the ugly worn original stuff. as well as some Subaru all-weather floor mats from a newer Impreza.
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I did also swap the center console from an outback with heated seat switches. I have the heated seat pads but haven't got around to installing them yet.

At one point I did buy some WRX seats and while they were comfortable they sat too high so I swapped back to the originals. I also picked up a WRX steering wheel but the leather is damaged and I want to get it re-wrapped before installing (looking for someone to do this if you have suggestions).

Problems and where I am now:
The engine has had a few quirks. on the highway if driving over 75 it will occasionally throw a mis-fire code and go into limp mode. I don't do a lot of highway driving so I rarely run into this but I've never been able to figure out why. Also when the engine gets wet (from a car-wash or driving through a large puddle) it will occasionally throw a knock code and go into limp mode. it used to do this EVERY time it rained until I replaced the knock sensor and it improved A LOT but still happens in really heavy rain or in a car wash that practically shoots water straight into the hood-scoop. A some point the AC compressor took a dump so I've been without AC for about a year.

The big problem though is about 6 months ago I was driving to work and the engine choked and then surged followed by a loss of power steering and a battery light. I thought I threw a belt and sure enough when I got to work the belt was gone... unfortunately what I didn't realize was that the crank pulley bolt had come lose and started wobbling, throwing the belt and the key and fucking up the keyway in the process :( never heard of that happening and the last time that bolt was lose was 50K miles previously when I did the timing. I got a new pulley and keypin and fixed up the key way well enough for it to work, but it hasn't run right since, there's some bad engine vibration.

3 months later my throw-out bearing decided to start squealing like it was about to explode. so I parked it and just started driving my summer car instead. I've always wanted to to swap in a turbo motor so I figured if I have to pull the motor again anyway to fix the throw-out bearing, I might as well fix all of the other engine issues and replace the damn thing with a turbo motor.

[twistedsymphony]

The Next Steps
So I started hunting a donor vehicle for a Turbo Swap. I've managed to find a 2004 Forester 2.5XT. Since winter is coming and I'm going to be losing garage space and I'll need a lot of space and time for this swap the goal is to drive the Forester XT this winter and then in the spring start the swap. This will give me the winter to acquire parts and and get research done.

The XT is actually pretty nice. it was a California car so it's 100% rust free but the paint is badly sun damaged. (hopefully shouldn't be too difficult to find a buyer for the chassis nce I'm done). Engine is strong and has aftermarket up and down pipes, A freshly rebuilt TD04 turbo and an access port already. and roughly the same ~145K miles as the Legacy. it does have some oil seepage from the timing cover, so I plan on doing timing and fixing that seal before winter (and will save me from having to do that in the spring).

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[ryu_haneda]

Nice wagon and XT!

[lord flashheart]

holy shiz bruh. that bumper is freakin stylin'

[twistedsymphony]

Frosty Morning today...
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[lord flashheart]

i bet NH is gonna get mighty frosty in the next few months...

[twistedsymphony]

it always does... but thats what Subarus are for :)