rkrenicki's 2020 WMA Ascent 7 Passenger Limited - 2024-12-08 - Smart View Mirror

[rkrenicki]

The Forester is starting to show it's age, so we went on the hunt for a replacement that could comfortably seat 4-5 people plus a dog. Being able to tow Sammie was also a significant consideration as well, so that brought me to the Subaru Ascent. I looked around at a number of dealers, and I came across this one which was just traded in a few days before I saw it and had not yet been listed on my preferred dealers website, so I swooped in on it right away.

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(better photos to come later when I have more favorable lighting and a less busy day)

Much like the Forester, I am going into this with the mindset of "not much modding to be done", however I already have a list of some dealer options and parts from other markets that I would like to install.

Exterior Mods
Subaru OEM EVOLTIS Badge
Subaru Catalog Rain Visors
STI Catalog Door Handle Protectors
Subaru OEM Power Folding Mirrors from the Ascent Touring (Physically Installed, needs wiring)
Subaru Catalog Auto Dimming Side Mirrors
Subaru Catalog Splash/Mud Guards
Diode Dynamics Elite Amber Fog Lights

Interior Mods
SL-i Aluminum Dead Pedal
JDM Subaru STI Catalog Pushbutton Start
JDM Subaru STI Catalog Shift Knob (Arrived, but does not fit :()
Subaru Smart View Mirror from the Touring model.
Subaru Catalog Cargo Area LED Kit
Subaru Catalog Footwell LED Kit
Subaru Catalog Rockford Fosgate Audio Upgrade Kit
Défi Advance Control Unit SE, Sakura Limited Edition (Arrived, not yet installed)
Défi Advance BF Gauges in White: 2.0 Bar Boost, Oil Pressure, Oil Temp (Arrived, not yet installed)

Mechanical Mods
**nothing below here is installed yet, will wait for CPO warranty to expire first**
Perrin Front Strut Bar
Cobb AccessPort 3 SUB-05
Mishimoto TMIC
Cobb Aluminum Intake Pipe
Grimmspeed Charge Pipe

[rkrenicki]

Looks like there was some scheduling difficulty with the body shop so our pick-up date has been pushed to next week. With my wife and my work schedules, that leaves us with picking up next Friday now.

I have a somewhat short list of mods to do to this car, and I have ordered those that I know for sure it does not have (I forgot to look for/ask about some of them during the test drive). Those are now starting to arrive and will patiently wait in the garage for now.

[rkrenicki]

Today was pickup day! Up goes a picture and the short-ish mod list that I am working on sourcing.

[rkrenicki]

I put the rain visors and the footwell lights in for now, and took a couple of pictures in more favorable light. After looking underneath, it looks like the dealer forgot to put in the trailer hitch, so I will need to bring it back to them to install that at some point.
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Interior shot
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FA24F, my first turbo'd Subaru engine.
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[rkrenicki]

A good amount of progress today. I managed to install many of the mods as well as a few extras. I am only awaiting the STI Catalog Parts from Japan and I do need to finish up the wiring for the mirrors, but the rest is pretty much done.

First, the Cargo Area LED upgrade panel. The lighting back there is very poor normally, with just one little halogen bulb on the left side by default. I cannot wait for it to get dark to actually see it in action.
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I installed the Power Folding mirror assemblies, Auto-Dimming side mirrors w/Approach light, and the matching window controls. I need to do the wiring for the power fold, so it largely looks exactly the same right now other than the dimmable mirrors. I will probably buy a door cord from a junked Ascent so that I can strip out some wires and make it as plug-and-play as I possibly can.
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I also had enough time to install the Morimoto XB Backup Light Boost Bar today as well. This was previously installed on the Forester, so it was nice to be able to reuse it. It seems that one of the segments has dimmed significantly, but it is still a massive improvement either way.
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Lastly, I installed my old-school SL-i Dead Pedal from back in the day. The stock dead pedal was glued down to the carpet pretty good, but I was able get it off and put this in its place. It certainly has seen better days, but it is still doing its job well.
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[98legwag]

I like that color

[rkrenicki]

I like that color

Yea, that was a big selling point for me. I kept finding cars in white or brown that were in my price range, both of which are suboptimal.. I was very happy to find a Magnetite Grey model, especially because it also has a dark interior too.

[rkrenicki]

Did some musical cars this morning and snapped a couple of pictures of my two cars together. I am going to take a full lineup shot probably during the weekend when everyone is home.

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[rkrenicki]

My package from JapanParts arrived this morning, and I quickly sorted out 3 of the 4 items inside. The STI Catalog Shifter seems to be a bit different in the way the lockout rod works, so I will need to do a little research and some modification to get that in there.

First up was the STI Catalog Pushbutton Start button. This slotted straight in with no modification. I did take apart too much of the dash to install this though, hah.
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The other two were super simple cosmetic changes. First, a leather keyfob protector:
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And some silly little STI stickers for the gas cap.
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The Diode Dynamics LED Fog lights also arrived today, but I won't be able to install them until probably sometime over the weekend.

[rkrenicki]

Winter setup is ready to go. New Bridgestone Blizzak DM-V2 245/60R18 tires with new Autel TPMS sensors on a set of Tribeca 10-spoke wheels. Of course it is 75 degrees today, so they did not go on the car quite yet. I will put them on after the last bit of dealer work is done.
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The Ascent went back to the dealer yesterday to have the CVT flushed (the oil finally came in), have the hitch installed that they forgot to do, and to have them take a look at a pop/clunk in the front suspension which I think is going to end up being the right front strut.

In the meantime, they gave me an Outback Wilderness edition as a loaner. This was the other model that I was considering, but it was just a touch out of my price range. I had not even asked to drive one because I knew either I could not realistically afford it, or it was going to be significantly higher mileage than I would be comfortable with.

It is not a bad car. It is not nearly as comfortable as the Ascent, but it feels downright tiny. I know it is bigger than my daughters Impreza, but it honestly feels the same size. I have not really taken it out to run it though its paces, but it was a pleasant experience driving it back home.
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[rkrenicki]

After a bit of fits and starts, I completed installing the Smart View Mirror that came in the Touring model. I found the mirror and camera on eBay for reasonable sums, and the rest of the parts I bought new from a local discount dealer.

The pile of parts for this:
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The camera attaches to the inside of the tailgate at the top. The holes were there, but not the welded nuts, so I installed a couple of M6 rivnuts.
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The unit requires a connection to the CANBUS to know if it is in Park or Reverse, so I tapped into the bus at the eyesight camera since it was right there. This was during the testing to make sure I had it correct. You cannot get into the programming menus until it knows that you are in Park.
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And lastly all buttoned up. I can now see my garage door all up and close, hah.
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[rkrenicki]

It took me a while to get a warm-ish day, but that ended up being today.. so the Evoltis badge went on! I spent a LOT of time carefully removing the original badge and all traces of the VHB tape before hitting it with the eraser wheel. This is probably the most care I have taken before putting on a new badge, and I think it came out great. The new badge came with the alignment template, so it is in the perfect location.
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I did not remove the Limited badge (which would not have been on an actual Evoltis), but I think it looked pretty good having both.
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[rkrenicki]

It appears that the Dealer Option Rockford Fosgate Upgrade may be discontinued, as it seems that the Flex41 unit by Rockford has disappeared from their website. That said, it does seem that Subaru does still have the individual parts still available, so I have decided to start piecing the kit together. I have so far ordered the following parts:

H630SAN010 for the 2023-25 Forester, which itself is a kit of 2x H630SFL010 speakers plus some badges
H630SFL030 Wiring harness (this was the critical part)
H630SXC020 Amplifier/DSP Unit used from eBay

The speakers have already been installed, and are significantly more substantial than the stock speakers. I did not weigh them, but the new ones are easily 2x the weight of the originals.
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The harness is also here, but the Amp/DSP is still on the way. Once it arrives, I will get the rest of the kit installed.

[rkrenicki]

The Rockford Fosgate Amp/DSP arrived today, and after a short test (pictured) it was installed. I did not take any photos of the end result as it pretty much looks stock.

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[rkrenicki]

I had a number of small-ish issues crop up with the car, and since it was due for an oil change anyways, I contacted my dealer with a list of issues: A pop/snap noise in the front end when turning, Pulsation in the brakes when exiting the highway, a broken map lamp in the rear passenger side, and a strange issue where the transmission did not act like it was fully "in gear" on a cold start that happened twice in the last 6 months.

It took them a full week to get the car back to me, but I ended up with a pair of new front springs (TSB 05-71-19R), new endlinks, a replaced map light in the rear, new front brake rotors, and a firmware update to both the ECU and TCU (TSB 16-150-24R).

I cannot find the TSB for the ECU update (CID LT8F602C00G), so I do not know what it fixes.. but it should include fixes from both WUU-06R and TSB 09-117-24.

[rkrenicki]

I have not done much to the car, but I did replace the battery with an AGM Group 24F and installed an STI Battery Tiedown at the same time. I ended up replacing both of the battery connectors after this photo, as the negative terminal had a good amount of corrosion on it.

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