Finally got a Baja! (05 turbo 5MT)

Put my big boy panties on today and cut a hole in a perfectly good hood.

I should probably back up a bit. . . ordered an 07 STi scoop from the local dealer and took a gander at it to see how hard it would be to adapt to a stock hood. Result: not too bad. It mounts with a handful of studs and 4 plastic clips.

Made a cardboard template to locate the splitter mounting holes with the intercooler:





Two of the holes on the splitter are shared with the scoop. The rest are pretty much independent of each other.

Figured out the centerline of the hood: (it's 28 3/4" from either edge)



Made a cardboard template of the proposed cutout for the scoop, with bolt holes located (forgot to take a pic of that, use your imagination)

Located the template off the 2 shared bolts from the splitter template, transferred the cutout and bolt locations to the outside of the hood and set the scoop on it to double check. Things lined up pretty well. .





Time to cut my teeth on cutting hoods. Safety is. . . somewhere on the list. Top 5? I dunno. Sounds right.






Made the cuts to the top of the hood and peeled that section out (it's attached to the inner structure with blobs of adhesive):





Didn't cut through both layers as I need the inner structure to use as the attaching surface for both the scoop and splitter.

Test fit the scoop, hurrah!! it fits!



Flipped the hood over and made some extra cuts to clearance the inner structure and test fit the splitter: it fit.





Snapped it all together and threw it on the car to see how well it lined up with the STi intercooler. . .no pics but it was about 1/2" too far forward. Fair enough. . that's why we did the first one on a $hitty hood.

Laid out the new/used hood and moved the template back the appropriate amount.



Double checked all my measurements, bit my fingernails for a few minutes trying to decide if I really wanted to do this. Decided I did, and I'd done worse things to perfectly good parts before so, let's do this.

Yeah. . .playtime's over.



Spare you the deets but second time was the charm. Fits right over the IC and looks as close to factory as you can get. . . without actually finding some weird 2nd gen STi prototype hood (wouldn't that be cool).

Installed some rivnuts to allow me to mount the splitter with screws to the underside of the hood. Factory uses nylon wedge anchors. . they require a square cutout which is kinda hard to make with a drill. . .so, rivnuts.

Finished splitter:


Finished scoop:



It's off to the body shop now to get pulled and painted. Blue tape is to indicate areas that need attention on that hood. It wasn't perfect to begin with.

Upside to this is it's a good way for all you 2nd gen guys to get a scooped hood without having to pony up $600+ for a B4 or Baja Turbo one. You don't need the STi splitter if it's just cosmetic. . . buy an OEM STi scoop and you're in business. They go for about $160 from online Subaru parts wholesalers. . . about the same if you're in good with your local dealer.

Should have let the Kangaroo work the saw.

I guess he just sat in the back of the garage drinking with his older brother who had already been standing next to the keg too long.



and then they got into a epic day long fist & foot fight, about who's wife is less bltchy, only to call it a draw.

Still tinkering.

Got the STi crossmember/steering rack in. 08 LGT steering u-joint worked like a champ.





Only issue was the Impreza/STi lower control arms apparently have bushings that are a little bit longer. Nothing some washers can't fix. Bonus: easy way to play with caster, if I'm so inclined.

An alternative to washers would be to use the Impreza/STi LCA's with the Baja/Outback transverse bushings. . . might've done that but I don't have both sides of the Impreza LCA's anymore. . used the right side on a 9-2x I fixed a few months ago. There are some really swanky aluminum LCA's out there for the STi's, allegedly they do a good job of reducing unsprung mass (although the spindle is by far the heaviest piece in that assembly). Can't bring myself to buy a set as 1) they're expensive as f*ck, and 2) they break rather than bend when you crash.



Pulled the washer tank off the 9-2x and added it to the Baja to work as the intercooler water spray tank. Fit pretty decent after I added a hole for the filler neck. I'll sand off the washer logo and paint/letter the fill cap to better identify it as IC water spray, not washer fluid. . .eventually.





Cleaned and painted a bunch of pieces black wrinkle and reddish/orangeish and baked them. Good thing I'm single, this is not the sort of thing wives are fond of.



Got some stainless goodies in for the exhaust. . . which will be custom. Ordered the pipe and flanges and found a shop that can do mandrel bends and weld up stainless. Also bought some OEM-style exhaust hangers to bend up and weld to the pipe, so it'll break down just like the OEM stuff if i need to service anything. Downside is nobody will see all this purdyness. Protip:wear gloves when applying header wrap. . . fiberglass+skin=no bueno.





Also got one of these and a commitment from a tuner who says he's had experience with Bajas. . .



More to come!

Let the bro-ness begin.

Friday:



Saturday:



Of course the rest of the car still looks like this, so don't get too excited:



Still missing a couple of hoses and a fuel pressure regulator. Decided against using the 08 LGT fuel rails for the top feed conversion as they just didn't fit right (no place to attach them underneath), so ordered 07 STi rails. Only problem is the STi uses a FPR that's different from anything else I have in my collection of crap. $86 new, found one on NASIOC for $36 shipped.

Oh well, injectors aren't back from being cleaned and flow tested yet anyway, so not like I coulda driven it even if I did get it 100% back together.

Lost the uppipe to turbo gasket. I has the dumb.

tdelker said:

Very very nice! Love the red manifold. Where did that come from?

Click to expand...

Ikea sells exhaust and engine paint.

Oh go out and flip the car clocks ahead.

Below is a Ikea clock.

Below GIF is what your car reminds me of, ...what a rip, I thought it would be the lockmedic emergency vehicle already. (ready to help these real UT knox girls back into their snapped key/ locked sorority house, from their back yard hot tub, before they get too wrinkled).

Engine was in engine is out. Hood was on hood is off.

Wax on Wax off.

Is that the deep south now ruski Saabaru in the background. (hard to see the make).

Where is the snow? Tell the neighborhood kid to pick up his craftsman lawn tractor, that you have finished stealing it for winter wimpy plowing.

The red manifold came from here:



Satin Heritage Red. Closest thing I could find locally. I'd heard VHT wrinkle red is pretty close, but nobody stocked it and I was impatient.

Did the valve covers, oil pan, crossover pipe, alt case, PS pump, and accessory brackets in VHT wrinkle black. My AC compressor is gonna look like caca.

Had a hard time keeping up with all the hoses on that frankenmotor (mostly Baja but a lot of STi and aftermarket bits). Finally dragged the tablet out to the garage and kept a few different tabs open on opposedforces to figure out hose routing, as I replaced pretty much all of them.

That Perrin turbo inlet was a beast to install even with the manifold off. No idea how they expect you to do it with it in the car. It's also tight as dick's hatband and pushing against the PS pump. Hopefully it lives. Doubt I'd buy that again.

EE: yes, that's the Ruskie's saabaru. . . and my craftsman mower. That's where it died a couple of weeks ago (traction belt broke) and where it stayed as there's too much crap in the garage with the Baja all exploded. I'm considering giving it a Viking funeral where it sits as it's going through a difficult time in its life right now.