Welcome to my 'budget' rebuild thread. I'll be posting up photos and progress notes as I go, hopefully it'll be useful or interesting to others. The engine in my MY98 WRX Wagon was rebuilt a couple of years ago at 112k miles by a firm that rapidly went bust and I've never quite been sure of the standard of the work. It recently started rattling half an hour after a (very rare) trip to the rev limiter. Money is very, very tight but I have plenty of evenings available and a decent garage and tools, plus the confidence to do the job myself because of all the encouragement I've had on here from other Snetters.
Current spec is:
- FUELLING - Walbro 255 l/h pump, DIY parallel & heat-shrouded fuel lines, SARD adjustable regulator @ 3.5 bar, STi 440cc yellow injectors serviced/tested by Lateral
- INTAKE - K&N induction kit, Nismo Z32 MAF, Samco v4 inlet hose, TD05-16G front entry turbo, Autobahn88 FMIC with insulated pipe return & STi charge temp sensor, mildly ported throttle body & phase 1.5 inlet manifold, Carl Davey header tank & manifold spacers
- EXHAUST - Harvey Smith wrapped & ported headers & up-pipe, Graham Goode sports catted downpipe, H&S straight-through centre, Prodrive WR Sport backbox
- ELECTRICS - Apexi Power FC mapped by Zen Performance to 1.45 bar boost, 3 port boost solenoid, NGK PFR7B plugs
- ENGINE - Standard 2.0 EJ20 WRX block with early WRX heads
It's always had compressor surge problems and never made the power it should have even though the boost is there, detonation is well under control, air/fuel ratio is right, etc etc. I have always suspected something not quite right with the previous build so this will be a good chance to see exactly what I paid for even though it's far too late to do anything about it now! At this stage I'm still not decided on whether to replace my current block with an EJ257 or to stick with 2.0 power where I could reuse a lot of what I already have. I want to avoid having to go down the path of 'to do this you must first do that' as David at API wisely warned me about! If I had my way I'd do a forged 2.5 build with a 6 speed gearbox but I have to keep costs right down and do as much as possible myself. If I can do the whole job for under a grand I'll be very pleased.
My black wagon:
Bonnet up, battery out:
Hope it all goes back together again!
FMIC pipes off, coolant drained, oil drained:
Manifold off, breather pipes everywhere!
Close up of TD05-16G and manifold spacers. Note the very short inlet pipe flange on the compressor because it was a brand new 90 degree 16g that had been machined down to front entry. This short flange along with 10mm manifold spacers makes it almost impossible to get any inlet pipe to join up to the turbo, if it's still constrained under the manifold:
