amgarrety's 2003 USDM B4 - 12/24 Exhaust Question

[amgarrety]

A preface to my MR1: I am not an engine guy, therefore I don't plan on doing much with my engine in this car. I am all about how my car looks, and my goal is to make it stand out and turn some heads.

Here she is, my Subaru Legacy B4, also known as the "USDM B4":

Summer:









Winter:



Interior:





And how it looked on July 22, 2011 (within an hour of buying it):



From factory it is a Silver Stone Metallic 2003 Subaru Legacy L SE, chassis code BE.

I have a detailed excel spreadsheet with all of my current mods, and how much i've spent so far. Not my best idea

To date, i've spent $6,529.52 on the following mods:

Exterior
D-Type Turbo Hood
D-Type Front Bumper
D-Type B4 Headlights (wired to work properly)
D-Type Stock Grille
D-Type B4 Grille (spare grille)
Side Skirts
JDM Tinted Tail Lights
Chrome Marker Bulbs
OEM Spoiler
Complete Japanese Stock Badging
High Mount LED 3rd Brake Light
Hella Horns (3 Horn Setup)

Interior
JDM B4 Tinted Gauge Cluster
JDM Momo Steering Wheel (D-type with black metal ring)
Momo Shift Knob
Gauge Lighting (Blue)
HVAC Lighting (Blue)
Interior Lighting (Purple)
Painted (Metallic Charcoal) Radio/Fog Switch Bezel w/ Cup Holder
Broadway Rear View Mirror
Redline Goods Custom Shift Boot
Custom B4 Dead Pedal
WRX Seats ('02)
S401 Hazard Switch
JDM single-din pocket/button combination

Electrical
DRLs Disabled
Independent Fog Lights
USDM to BFM adapter (made by rkrenicki) (Awaiting Installation)
D-type Headlight Leveling Switch
GT/Outback Windshield Wiper Stalk
GT Courtesy Door Lights
Scangauge II ECU Monitor
1-stage unlock
Automatic up/down driver and passenger windows


Audio/Video
Pioneer Touchscreen Bluetooth Radio
Polk Speakers
GT Tweeters

Engine
B4 Hood Dampers
Grounding Kit
Lightweight Flywheel (Awaiting Installation)
"H4" Intake (Awaiting Installation)
Green Air Filter

Wheels
17" Prodrive P1 Rims with 215/45/17 Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus tires (Summer)
16" Stock Snowflakes with 205/55/16 Tiger Paw Touring tires (Winter)

Suspension
Tokico HTS/D-Spec Adjustable Struts
H&R Wagon (Non-Outback) Springs

Brakes
Ceramic Brake Pads
Wearever (Advance Autoparts Brand) Rotors

Exhaust
Custom SR·S Catback Exhaust

Future Plans
Engine Swap
Custom interior trim upgrade
Rear wheel spacers
Window Tint (at some point, not urgent)
Japanese Rear Windshield (with wiper) (again, not urgent)

Past Modifications
Hella 500 Driving Lamps
GT Headlights
JDM HID Headlights
ZeroSports Eyelids
Silver JDM L7 Grille
Blue JDM L7 Grille
Red JDM L7 Grille
B4 Turbo Hood (A-C type)
OEM Mudflaps

[amgarrety]

Had a mini meet tonight with @nikolaus.conrad, @xoSubieLegacyxo, and @SuzieQ


(Chad has left before that picture)

Nothing like cool cars and hot wings.



Always good to have some down time with these guys (and girl).

[chevyman1968]

Hey man in regards to your exhaust question. I ran my exhaust up to inspection how yours is now and loved the sound, my shop wouldn't pass it because of PA inspection law which is you have to have cats and a muffler so what I did was I took it to miles muffler in York and for 100 bucks had then weld 2.25 piping from the cats out the back with an 18 inch vibrant resonator. The whole thing cost under 200 bucks. You can have it look stock and with a slight rumble at idle, but when you are cruising it flows through the resonator so fast it doesn't dampen the sound. Make sure you have the shop weld the resonator real close to the cats so it sounds the same as it is does currently. If you have any other questions let me know. We could meet up and you could take my car for a cruise to see if you like the sound as well. If you want to have the slanted straight pipe look take it somewhere else cause Miles will not do it.

[nikolaus.conrad]

Definitely had the dirtiest car in the area hahahaha

[Dead91silvia]

@Red85Celica has a Blitz muffle for a BE5 he's trying to sell. Thought you might want to know.

[Yamazaki]

@Red85Celica has a Blitz muffle for a BE5 he's trying to sell. Thought you might want to know.

Is the BE5 the exhaust came from turbo? I think amgaretty would've bought Ben's exhaust already if he had a turbo setup. No shipping fees and all that.

[98legwag]

If its just a muffler, not a cat back or turbo back, it should work right?

[Dead91silvia]

I think it would need some mild mods, but just like pipe length.

The one I was talking about was off of an RSK if I remember right.

[amgarrety]

New intake today. The inner fender portion (which my car didn't originally have) was a PITA to get in, but being able to use the Green filter I bought years ago is worth it. It runs and accelerates so much more smoothly.





Also changed new wipers, new fog lights, and hard wired my dash cam and radar detector to the ignition. It's been a productive day.

[rkrenicki]

Did you fill in the hole where the MAF used to be? Otherwise, it looks much cleaner than the normal intake for the generation.

[amgarrety]

It'll look drop dead gorges after it gets cleaned up, in my opinion anyway.

Yes, I have it covered with a cap from a medication bottle and electrical tape until I can make something a little better looking. The only issue I'm having is the intake sensor has no where to attach, which is throwing a check engine code. I may have to cut a hole in the intake for it, right about where it was on my old intake. You can see it just chilling there left of the throttle body and right of the verticals support.

Imagine my excitement when it all mounted up perfectly, especially all of the trouble I went through inserting the inner fender portion without taking the fender off. I know it's supposed to fit, but I was astounded by the mounting points that existed but we're completely unused that were devoted just to this intake. There was a piece of metal sticking straight up with just a hole in it in the engine bay, that sat there for 12 years completely unused until today.

[amgarrety]

Picked up those JDM mirror covers from Yamazaki. My mirrors were beginning to chip (see below), and instead of repainting them, I just got the covers, which I'll paint off of the car.



I think it's a pretty decent fix. I mean, it doesn't fix the main problem, but the mirrors are plastic, so they won't get any worse. So I'll leave them like they are until I go to sell it. The covers will do a great job for now.

So here are the mirror covers unpainted. I'll be fixing that problem this week most likely.

[amgarrety]

Also don't pay attention to all of the other small things. The grille needs repainted as well, and the entire car could use a little love. I'd love to really fix the bumper, that thing has an incredible about of wear on the bottom (thanks, lower suspension).

[amgarrety]

JDM mirror covers painted. This is before clear coat but results look promising.

[amgarrety]

Some picture of the process for those who are into that sort of thing.

Wet sanding:


First pass:


Closer to the final product:


And of course, gotta get those hard to reach places.

[MRLancaster]

That's a nice touch!

[elislider]

I was skimming through this thread, the part where you installed the KPH/MPH converter for your black cluster.
I feel compelled to mention that if you have the speed sensor signal converted so the cluster reads in MPH, then the ECU will get a slower signal than it expects.
If you're running the USDM ECU, it will think you are driving notably slower than you actually are
This means if you reset the ECU and are trying to reach OBD readiness for emissions check purposes, you likely never will, since one of the readiness test states is driving at highway speeds (over 50mph or something like that).
I found this out the hard way. Had been driving for months and the ECU was STILL not ready. realized this oversight, unplugged my speed sensor converter (i made a patch harness with it so i could unplug it later) and within 1 day of driving the ECU hit readiness.

[rkrenicki]

It depends on where the adapter is installed. If you have it connected at the speed sensor (before it is split to the cluster and the ECU), then it slows down to both. If you have it connected in right at the cluster (after the split), the ECU sees the normal signal, and the cluster sees the altered signal.

The adapters that I made (which amgarrety has here) inserts the adapter right at the cluster. this also prevents a speed discrepancy between the ABS, ECU, and TCU (if present), even if that speed disagrees with the cluster.

[elislider]

I thought the speed signal went from the sensor > cluster > ECU? I must be thinking of the older models with cable speed sensors.
i bought one of these because I was lazy: http://www.iaperformance.com/product...oducts_id=2241
and then i still had to swap out the plug to make it PNP and easily removable for my car.

guess i should have just bought this one: http://www.iaperformance.com/product...opefhibl9mu9q5
and wired it at the cluster!

thanks for the tip

[rkrenicki]

The BD/BG cluster is like that where the cluster back feeds to the ECU/TCU. The BE/BH is just fed from the VSS or the TCU.

That E0021 is the same adapter is the one that I use, but I was getting them cheaper (about $50) from the UK dealer I was using at the time.


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