ShadowGT's 98 Legacy GT Wagon (update3-new pics)

[ShadowGT]

Exterior:
Repainted roof rack, roof rub rails, hood scoop insert. Replacement single piece / single color black grill. New replacement power antenna.
Interior:
Subaru OEM ashtray to twin 12v socket conversion accessory. Kartboy Stainless steel shift knob.
Engine:
Kartboy Lightweight Drive Pulley, F1 12 pound lightweight Flywheel. Paranoid Fabrications Ground Kit. Custom heavy gauge alternator wire. Replacement Alternator, Replacement Starter, Replacement Coil Pack, complete engine teardown and rebuild.
Cosmo Short Ram Intake, K&N cone air filter, snorkus delete. Group N Engine Mounts. Speedyracer UEL Headers, N1 Apexi clone muffler.
Ground Control
Falken Sincera Tires, KYB GR2 shocks, Group N top hats, Front and Rear strut braces. Replaced ball joints, inner / outer tie rods.
Driveline
Exedy ProClutch kit, Kartboy short throw shifter, Kartboy front rear shifter stay bushings, Turn In Concepts shifter knuckle bushings.
ICE:
JVC CD/MP3 player, Pioneer speakersx4


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[Dave_Mountain_Man]

Sweet ride! That's what my 1995 wants to be when he grows up! (and the engine blows up...).

David

[ShadowGT]

Sweet ride! That's what my 1995 wants to be when he grows up! (and the engine blows up...).

David

Thank you!
It's been a crazy 6 months with this car. I was never a mechanic at any point in my life. It's amazing what necessity teaches you to do.
I'm far from being done. I haven't even tackled the brakes and suspension yet.

[2.5GT]

Very cool. I like the catch can set up :smt023

[dplacencia]

So you have done all the work your self? I do it all my self on my cars too. :wink:

[xXGTBspecXx]

when you rebuilt your engine what did you use? OEM or aftermarket?

[ShadowGT]

when you rebuilt your engine what did you use? OEM or aftermarket?

So you have done all the work your self? I do it all my self on my cars too.

The engine internals are pretty much OEM. My initial budget was pretty small and a lot of it was going to the machine shop so I didn't have the cash to spring for after market stuff inside the engine.
I have the capability of doing everything except machine work (and I guess welding if you want me to be technical)

Heads, valves, pistons, cams (yes all 4) bearings, journals, even the valve covers all went to be machined and cleaned.
Head bolts are new though.. so are some valve shims.

A lot of the obscure OEM stuff came off of eBay. IAC, intake manifold / gasket kit, EGR, MAF, clutch slave cylinder.
Napa Auto Parts was my source for the battery, starter w/solenoid, clutch master cylinder, battery wires.
Autozone since it was closer to my apartment was where I went for the sensors and bullshit accessories.
AZ came out cheaper than Napa in some respects so the crank angle sensor, engine coolant sensor, thermostat, radiator hoses, all the color hoses, heater hose adapters I had to use to mate the hoses, all light bulbs, hose clamps, floor mats, 10 gauge wire, wiper blades and all fluids (mostly Royal Purple)

I had to go to Advance Autoparts to get my NGK spark plugs and they were the only place that could get my ignition wires by the end of the day.

Ebay came through again for the KN air and oil filters, the catch can, the front strut bar, the billet oil fill cap, new radiator cap and the walbro fuel pump.

The Venom 600cc injectors where a Christmas gift.

So I think the car is a 50 - 50 split of parts that came from the internet and parts that came from brick and mortar stores.
With the exception of the machine work and the exedy clutch that my father in law insisted he wanted to put in so he could feel involved.. and I wasn't going to turn down the help.. I did everything else.

[Navi271]

really diggin' how colorful your engine bay is! i wish i did that with mine, it's all black-ish
cool fogs in the grill too, always liked that on these cars

[xXGTBspecXx]

wow so youve done more then me. i thought you had just replaced the bearings and got a new crank,rods,pistons at the most. good job then man. bravo! :smt023

[ShadowGT]

Thanks for the comments.
I started to paint the outer engine stuff as I was putting them back on the car. When I bought the car all the shrouds and bits where in a big box in the cargo bay. I figured I'd take the time to paint the stuff since I had a lot of blue things going on. Red for contrast. I wasn't digging the orange catch can hoses but I couldn't at the time find heat and oil resistant vacuum hoses in the color I wanted.

I think at this point I'm done with the pretty stuff. From here on out it's going to be all stuff nobody will see from the outside but is necessary. Suspension, brakes, exhaust (since I've been on warpath about it all) and some odds and ends.

In all honesty, what you see is obviously not the final product. Everybody knows this is a long term build up. What you see is the culmination of several months of work.

I'll tell you this. This hasn't been easy. There was a lot of bad decisions made along the way. Subaruparts.com kept sending me the wrong stuff from dealerships regardless of what I tried to get or tried to communicate. A little money got wasted on unnecessary things, things that didn't fit, things I broke while installing something else and so forth.
A lot of trial and error occurred, especially since I decided to take on this basket case project and I had no real form of automotive experience before then. I ordered gaskets I didn't need on accident, I bought "JDM" clear side marker lights and realized I don't even have fender side marker lights in the GT trim. But it's all a learning experience. How one non-mechanic becomes a pretty good mechanic (at least for Subarus, don't ask me to work on other makes of cars)

Shit loads of things were broken in the car. The thing barely ran if not but for a few minutes at a time. The only thing that intrigued me about the car besides the fact it was a Subaru and it was damn different from any other car was that the body was in pretty good shape.
Five hundred bucks for a rolling chassis is the way I started to see it. A good chunk of the budget went to the machine shop leaving me to be frugal, go to eBay or DIY fabricating as I went along.

The car kicks ass. It runs like a raped ape which is special to me considering it didn't run and I needed it to be towed home when I got it. So obviously my insanity and persistence has paid off to some degree.

Just like Johnny Cash sang, I did it one piece at a time. Whatever I could, whenever I could.

I have learned a lot. Fortunately the Venom 600cc injectors where a gift because I probably would have never bought those. Without an adjustable fuel pressure regulator, the car's ECU treats them as a normal injectors so I doubt I'm seeing anything over 500cc. But I needed new injectors so it's all good one way or another.
Just like the Walbro fuel pump. I needed a fuel pump. The Walbro was cheaper than OEM so I got it though I probably don't get any major gains from it because of the ECU and the aforementioned fixed fuel pressure regulator.

I learned about bondo, that's what I used to patch up the grill after I cut the slats out to install the lights. I hate bondo.
God I hate that shit. Took me forever with a sanding wheel and different sheets of sand paper to get that smoothed over and it still doesn't look quite right up close. Good thing the lights cover up the bad spots.

I'm proud of this car. From where I started to here has been a long and crazy winding road.
But now I can tackle those long and crazy winding roads.

Keep up the comments. I appreciate them. A few more months and it's going to be an even better car.

[ShadowGT]

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At the beach!

[ryu_haneda]

Your wagon is absolutely THE BUSINESS.

Megakudos to you for having the absolute mix of tenacity and power attitude required to raise this machine.

Keep this up and you'll HAVE TO BE a feature on a future episode of Members Rides Magazine. :grin:

Congrats!

[ShadowGT]

Your wagon is absolutely THE BUSINESS.

Megakudos to you for having the absolute mix of tenacity and power attitude required to raise this machine.

Keep this up and you'll HAVE TO BE a feature on a future episode of Members Rides Magazine. :grin:

Congrats!

Thank you very much. We're still a work in progress at the moment. The alternator adjuster bracket is giving me a hard time right now and I've been changing hardware out to keep it lined up properly.

I'm also still saving money up to get some Brembo rotors, Redstuff pads, Goodrich SS Brake lines and other brake goodies.
Also looking to get KYB struts, Tein gravel springs, Primitive Racing skid plates and a Cosmo Racing lite-weight crank pulley.

So far the car hasn't had a major break down yet since it's been up and running. I believe I'm coming up on one full year of driving the car since it started rolling under it's own power.
Good times!

[ShadowGT]

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My son photobombing my pic.

4 lights now that all work great. Yes they are all pointing in a different angle to give me a good arc of light.

[Bd4mp-dub]

i like the car man looks clean as hell. i was wonderin if u coudl take some pics of exactly where the ccatch can hoses go to. i want to do it but have preety much no clue how haha. thanks

[ShadowGT]

i like the car man looks clean as hell. i was wonderin if u coudl take some pics of exactly where the ccatch can hoses go to. i want to do it but have preety much no clue how haha. thanks

I'll take a shot when I get a chance. I'll tell you this though it's a bypass to and from the PCV valve and one of the stock breather hoses.
There is no "in" and "out" on this can. Just two inlets and a drain plus a sight glass. I had to use heater hose couplings from the parts store to make the junction at the PCV (hose size for high temp hose was slightly larger than stock PCV hose)
Had to make a "step down" fitting with the heater hose coupling.

Basically gravity just works to sift out spent oil from the air as it moves in and out of the can.
Pretty easy, maybe a 2 out 10 in difficulty because you spend more time fabricating where the can actually goes which in this case uses a little scrap aluminum mounted to where the old "snorkus" use to mount to than actually putting the thing together.

In my little brain, a 1 is changing your own oil. 10 is something ungodly, I guess popping the engine out and putting it back without killing anything.

[Bd4mp-dub]

lol so we got about the same 1-10 scale lol. ill jus keep checking for pics but no hurries cant get one prolly til sept 6th. next paycheck! i am jus putting it on for sum engine dress up. my bay looks boring haha

[ShadowGT]

lol so we got about the same 1-10 scale lol. ill jus keep checking for pics but no hurries cant get one prolly til sept 6th. next paycheck! i am jus putting it on for sum engine dress up. my bay looks boring haha

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Top hose is the where the PCV valve is, the bottom is the crankcase breather. Those would normally be connected together but in this case the hose was split, two heater hose connectors are used to connect the high-temp orange hoses. This forms a bypass which is rejoined on top of the catch can.

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A little closer on how that breather is joined.

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Close up on the catch can.. yes it's dirty. Opening up your hood scoop
makes an instant dirty engine. But dirt is a badge of honor.
The sight tube on the side used to be clear. You can now see the
scrap crap aluminum I used to bolt it to the snorkus mounts.

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Close up of my ghetto fabulous mount.

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Never mind the broken antenna. I support the cause, man.

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Home with the lights.

[Bd4mp-dub]

THanks for the pics man i just ordered one today off the net. idk if i am going to b able to fit it were u did since my weapon r intake is longer but im sure i can find a place. ill put up some pics wen im done. i have 4 new parts ill be putting in about a week so. catch can,radiator shroud_DIY, sti roof spoiler and some 4 point seatbelts.