MY95 1.8 GL upgrade

dinges

Hi all,


Up to post nr. 42 this thread is about my build up of a non-turbo chassis with all STI parts.
From post nr. 42 onwards it's about my Group-N project.
I hope you like.

Aram. 30 Dec 2007

This is my victem, a MY95 Impreza with no engine but AWD.






The plan:

- Make it an as good as possible road/circuit car.
- Make it as light as possibble
- Get a safe 400-450 HP engine.

Making a car lighter could be as expensive as making more HP so i will be doing this pretty simple ---> no interior, alu hood, alu wishbones and things like this.

Parts i have uptill now:

- A MY04 2.5l Forester STI engine inc. turbo, subframe etc. (ex factory test engine)
- USDM Impreza STI loom and ECU ---> LHD already (also ex factory)
- Forester 5 speed gearbox with oilcooling.
- STI Brembo's
- 22B grille
- HKS blow-off valve
- STI 17" wheels in silver
- Walbro 255 feulpump
- AVC-R
- FMIC APS
- STI clutch set
- 4.111 reardiff with LSD
- STI alu hood
- MY99 bumper with integrated STI6 lip (they are welded together now making it one big bumper )
- group N suspension rubbers
- group N topmounts


wannahaves:

- STI 6 speed
- Cage and additional body welding.
- Different color
- Whiteline stabi stuff
- and more things to come when i think of them


This is the car from which the engine comes from, this is factory grounds.

dinges

After standing still for almost a year i finaly got round to starting on my hobbycar 6 weeks ago!

First thing i did was changing the rear-suspension, because the original was rusted and worn out.
Luckily i managed to get my greedy pawns on a STI 5 suspension, which included rear subframe and arms, hubs, handbrake wires, MY99 brakes and some new group N rally bushes.


So on a friday afternoon i pulled out the old STI bushes and pushed in the new Group N's, that night all was fitted back under the car again .

New suspension:



STI group N rally bushes, 4x for the rear subframe, rest is for the front suspension:



That Saturday i spent putting the MY04 front suspension under the car.
I changed the RHD steering collumn and fitted the good old MY95 LHD one back, 9 years difference and it fits one on one, gotta love those Japs

I kept the original MY95 brake booster, it is said it has more feel than the later twin membran versions.
Saturday evening the front suspension wasfinished!! yay !!
That Sunday i fitted the steeringwheel (try that one on your own ) and also put the brakebooster back into the engine bay.

I'm going to repaint the car later, i havent got the cash for it atm plus i'll need to do some plumbing when fitting the FMIC and such.



And yeah, i'm to lazy to clean the car up, it's a rallycar, it's supposed to be dirty .

I did not get the attachment bolts with my Brembo's, but i thought i could use the ones from the 2-pots---not!!
So i had to order 4 new ones because those japs don't use regular thread.
Anyway the week after ihad some very expensive bolts and fitted Brembo's .

Fat fcukers!! hehehe:





Meanwhile on a lazy Sunday afternoon i fitted the engine with gearbox attached to it, also very nice to do on your own
So using strings attached to the forklift handles i finaly got that job done with fitting the driveshafts as "highlight"
Costing me some cuts and a bleu nail, but hey anything goes for the hobby right .





I needed an 4.111 reardiff to go with the gearbox, but they are very hard to find.
I got one in the end without a LSD diff, but the rear driveshaft didnt fit.
So today i fitted that LSD, and tommorow i will be fitting it to my car.

I sold the VF39 turbo and now I'm looking for a suitable GT30.


Looks like it is going to standard non-turbo looks for a while, real sleeper style

dinges

The rear diff is fixed o the car atm, also a bit of a bugger to do on your own .



After a visit to the local Scooby-guru I went home a bit depressed.
There could be a bit of a problem in my loom, it is called CANbus (Controlled Area Network), never heard of it until then.
It seems to be some internal network in modern cars that make it easier for manufacturers to build looms, and it lets parts communicate with each other internally.
I’ve heard it is a 2 wire system (twisted pair) thru which you can send different signals for the separate parts, each part having its own signal. ( Hope I’m saying this correct?)
Anyway, if some parts are missing, like a rear lights, the CANbus control centre notices and tells the ecu to let the dreaded Check Engine light flash up.
And I wasn’t intending on using a lot of stuff from the forester.
Major prob then. 

A pair of boxes that could pose the CANbus problem:



My idea was to use the STI loom not only for the engine wiring but also the dash, I could have chosen to take the engine loom and make it fit on the original car loom which would be easier in the end probably.
Reason for this was the fact that I have an electronic throttle body on the engine which I wanted to keep.
Two reasons for this, I did not know if the ECU would throw a fit if I changed the body for a mechanical one, and I wanted to be the first GC8 body with Drive by Wire in Holland, as this system is first being sold on the new MY06 cars over here.

For the DBW system I needed a gas pedal with a sensor that monitors the motion of the pedal itself.
So it needs a connector for it, which, needless to say, wasn’t on my MY95 loom.
I also didn’t have the wiring diagrams for the engine and looms so I couldn’t make one either, so I opted for changing all the dash wiring also .

Nice Christmas feel pic of the car with STI loom in front, unfortunately a very mall pic:



So after my depressive chat with the guru I had to find out if that system was actually present in the loom and if so, if there was a way to fool it into thinking everything was attached.
After asking on bulletin boards around the world I noticed there wasn’t much knowledge on this subject around.
I did get some reaction here and there on the global working of the system but not on Subaru in particular.
There was a guy on a Dutch board that knew quite a bit about it and he told me there had to be a twisted pair cable running from the diagnostic connector.
I checked and there wasn’t any TP cable on my connector!!!
So I was stressing for weeks over nothing in the end, and wrote this whole story for nothing also…

So for something totally different…

I had my dash removed and also the heater and old loom was going out.
So it was nice and clean in the car …..until I put the STI loom in, then it was a mess again.

Car after removing dash:



The loom fitted surprisingly well for RHD loom….even the big knot of wire near the steering wheel was on the correct side! (left)
Aram happy..
So after a few days another friend with a lot of Scooby knowledge came by and told me I did not have the Forester loom but one from an Impreza!
The company I bought the engine and stuff from had imported only parts from one LHD car, a USDM Impreza STI.
So he swapped the looms probably, which was good for me!!
And it explained a lot about the loom fitting so nice off course.

Off course it couldn’t be all good without raising questions; did the USDM STI have drive by wire????
Asking on NASIOC they said the STI had DWB from 2003 onwards over there, so that was a good thing.
I went and picked up a gas pedal with sensor, and indeed there was a connector present!!! YYEEEHAAAA!!

So for the first time since I’d heared of CANbus I was seeing things positive again.

Car with STI loom in it.





I hobbyed the gas pedal in the car immediately:

dinges

After that I made a hole in the engine compartment because the loom dictated it
De connectors didn’t fit the GL fuse box so picked up the original one.
But the cables ran under a lot of tension once fitted and I didn’t like that.
So off came the tape from the loom and I retaped it again and it was nice and stress less after that 
All I need is something to put over the edges of the hole so the wires won’t cut on it.
The battery doesn’t fit in the original position anymore, but the plan had always been to relocate it to the back off the car for better weight distribution.

Partially stripped loom:



After retaping:



Next step was fitting the radiator.
I have a nice MY04 Legacy radiator with built in oil cooler which was handy for my gearbox, which has an oil cooler on it.
Unfortunately there was a dent in the lower crossbeam of the car, probably someone reversed a towing hook into the car at one point in its life.
So out came the trusted forklift again and I put the car on its parking brake and put big lugs in front of all 4 wheels.
The crossbeam never knew what hit it .
So the dent was…..well not gone but the bean was straight enough to try and fit the radiator in.
The fixing points of the radiator are higher on a non-turbo car it seems, the radiator was sticking out and it was too deep also nearly touching the engine with its fans.
So unfortunately the poor beam will have to take another beating or will be removed entirely, being replaced by another beam that will let the radiator go deeper and more to the front of the car.
So that’s to be continued….

Last thing I’ve done is making the steering column fit.
I had the original STI wheel with keys, but it didn’t fit the steering house.
So I thought I’d swap the electronics and viola!
But it wasn’t going to be that easy.
The contact was fitted with “break” bolts so they had to drilled out.
Also the attach plate for the controls were different to each other on both wheels, so they had to be cut off and re-welded, well only one actually the other was scrap.
Also the gaps of the steering lock were different to each other, one being round the other square, so I had machine the STI round.
Anyway I did that this week, and it fits perfectly now.
No probs with the start security and all the connectors are plug&play .

Both steering columns next to each other, on the left the MY95 one with the STI attachment plate already welded to it.
Right some stuff and the GL keys:



Steer with all STI electronics attached:



So everything is going smoothly again except for the money flow as I spent my budget of this month already…

PS:
I’m Dutch so there are probably a lot of grammar mistakes around, pm me the major ones pls, so I know for next time .

Greets

Aram

911

Can you detail the brake mod please?
Bits from what + bits from that = Big Brakes.
Are those 17's?
Graham.

dinges

The brakes are big to what is standard on turbo, that is what i meant by that .

The current system is:

STI front calipers
Standard MY99 turbo rear calipers (want to change those to Legacy B4 later)
Stainless steel hoses
I did keep the original MY95 GL brakebooster, it is single membran and according to a friend of mine has better feel then later types.
And i have my own design brake bracket on it, to minimize firewall flex in the pedal.

No idea how this set-up is going to turn out, first the engine has to run.

dinges

My plans are to get the engine running as soon as possible.
I will put a TD04 on it for now, because a GT30 will need custom built up and downpipe which i will create later, first it has to run.
The APS FMIC will be put on but that should not be to much trouble.

greets

Bartop

Sorry to hijack but am *very* interested if any bits are left over from that Fsti - whereabouts is it and is there much left of it ?

stevem2k

No , the wheels are long gone I already asked

Bartop

*busted*

Might have guessed the vultures would have been all over it !

Wonder if the black dash and heater controls have gone

Would also have loved to get the struts and springs as well

911

dinges:
First, your english is great and compared to some threads on here bloody great...

This is a good project, please keep the pics coming as well as the text.
Will you totally gut the car of ALL excess?
Graham

dinges

Hi Bart,

These are the last parts of the Forester i could find:

And they are MINE!!
The rest of the car is gone I'm afraid.

I hope they fit although i think the Alu arms are too long, i do have the Forester subframe somewhere but i have no idea if that will fit under the GL.
Before i fit the parts i need to get hold of an 6 speed gearbox, so they will be kicking about in the barn for a while i guess .


greets

dinges

Hi Graham,

My name is Aram, pleased to meet you .
I have been following your thread with great interest as I have got the AST suspension aswel.
I got 35/35 on a friends advice but i fear that's way too soft now .
But i've never driven the car so i wouldnt know .

I have done some work on the car already and it's near the point that i can fire it up for the first time, although money is keeping me away from it as yet.
I will do a write up pretty soon but it's alot of work for me to translate it.

My goal is to make the car pretty light, so it's no interior and light parts all around.
On the other hand, moist will be a problem when removing everthing from the interior and visability is a pretty vital part of driving the car so airco might be installed to dry up the air in the car.
And a cage will be fitted for chassis rigidness (???) so that will add weight also.
So it will be a compromise i guess.

But first the car has to run properly and i must make the heater and lights work etc.

greets

Floyd

35/35 eh? I run 50/40 on my AST but I've yet to drive it in anger - that will be next month at Palmer Autodrome (Bedford). We'll see...

F

911