[tdelker]

I understand that snapon makes a special tool for installing the turbo inlet. No idea what that is or looks like.

 

[John 440]

The Baja is looking good! Keep posting photos of your progress. What did you use on the second generation headlights?

 

[lockmedic]

Meguiar's restoration kit and spray-bombed some clear on 'em for UV protection. Gotta really work to get all the old coating off before clearcoating them, otherwise the new clear will get alligator cracks in it.

I'm stuck on the engine until tuesday-ish, so I started working on interior projects (I guess because I want more random parts laying around). Pulled the passenger's door down to swap the door cord for heated mirrors. . . didn't notice until after I'd already pulled the original one that it and the body harness already have wires to support heated mirrors. . . so all I need to do is swap on the new mirrors and switch. D'oh!

First time I've seen a 2nd gen chassis come with wiring for options it never had.

Also pulled the front seats out of the 08 LGT. They more or less fit. Rear inside bracket doesn't line up. I can either add a J-nut to the body and make the car fit the seats, or cut the bracket off the Baja seat and weld it onto the LGT one. No swapping the rails. . . Baja has manual seats on both sides, LGT is 8-way power on both sides.

LGT seats have a ton of airbag components that won't be used. Shame, really. I could run 2nd gen OB seats as some of them have side airbags, and it's a plug-and-play modular system, but I vastly prefer the 08 LGT seats to the 2nd gen OB ones. Pics coming

 

[48246]

Timing Belt Replaced

Timing belt replaced on 5 Baja Sport at 92 K miles - non turbo - ouch!

 

[bheinen74]

are you sure its heated mirror connector, not the tweeter connector?

 

[lockmedic]

Jogo. . .dang. . yeah that's pricey. If it were a turbo you can add about 50% to that invoice. Ah well, you've only gotta do that every 100k.

bheinen: Lol yep I'm 100% positive it's heated mirrors. Even double checked it against 2 other door harnesses I had laying around.

In other news. . .

Injectors and fuel pressure regulator showed up today.

Injectors took a week and a half to go out and come back. . . I sent them off to a place in Ohio called Injector Experts as they were a lot closer than Witch Hunter. . .they were supposed to come back with flow test results: What you will get! - Fuel Injector Cleaning

They did not.

I'm sort of miffed as not only did they drag their ass but they didn't include the test results or number the injectors so I could've known which was which anyway. Why does that matter? I sent off 8 injectors specifically so I could choose the 4 with the closest flow characteristics.

Called on Saturday when they hadn't shown up to check status (I saw where my card was charged for the service) and had a pleasant chat with the owner/cleaner/phone answerer-on-saturday guy (didn't catch his name) who apologized for the delay and cited family prob's outside of work as the reason.

I'm not really ticked about them taking a while, moreso that they were out that long and didn't come back with the promised info.

Next time I'll send them to Witch Hunter.

---rant over. Moving along. . . .

Injectors require different connectors. Scavenged those off the 08 GT intake harness. Top feed conversion was a little more complicated than I anticipated.

Worked on moving the seats from the GT over. They more or less fit, had to cut the inside brackets off the back of the seat rails on both sides as those bolts are in hopelessly different places than the Baja seats. Cut the same brackets off the GT seats and tack welded the Baja brackets on. . .worked like a charm. In other news, I got a new Miller 211 welder last week. It is a HUGE improvement over the old one (a Century that might've been new when Reagan was in office). Autoset is awesome. . . dial in your material thickness and wire size and go to town!

Lined up the front studs between the two brackets. Fore/aft location is correct, needs to be moved inboard about 1/2" or use a spacer between the bracket and body.

Outside rear seat bracket needed to be moved aft and out about 1/2" in both directions.

These are all just tack welded for now. Once I've checked for correct fit I'll go back and do a proper weld on all this stuff.

As an aside, the 08 GT seat brackets are super easy to remove. . .just a couple of solid rivets per side to drill out. The 2nd gen seat brackets are riveted, spot welded, and bead welded. They *really* didn't want them coming apart!

I couldn't bring myself to chop up the Baja seat brackets. . . so I scavenged those off the original 300k mile cloth seats that were in the 00 test mule (since replaced with 2nd gen leather seats).

Pared the wires for the seats out of the GT harness and spliced them back onto the connector for the seat heater switch. Mounting it is gonna suck. It's gonna go in the same place the gen2 switches would go (coin tray), only problem is it's nowhere near the same shape. I'll have to make a bezel for it. Not sure how I'm gonna do that just yet. . .probably ABS, a dremel, and a lot of hot glue/epoxy.

More pics later. I'm tired and hungry!

 

[lockmedic]

Engine is back in. Haven't lit it off yet. Interior is a shambles as I'm sorting out the wiring for the cold weather package, and waiting on a new head unit. . and wired up some gauges in a modified pillar pod for an Impreza (copied Cardoc pretty much).

Base tune is done, just need to get it on the car, but wanna make sure everything's functional first.

LGT brakes are on. It was extremely tempting to swap over to the LGT struts while I was at it but I opted to keep it at stock height for now. I'll probably wind up getting some STi aluminum lower control arms eventually, probably do it then.

Pulled both front spindles because I couldn't get the ball joints to separate and that annoys the crap out of me. Bearings were questionable anyway after I forgot and left them out in the rain. . .so knocked them down, sandblasted them, ran a sanding drum inside the ball joint socket, and painted them and the rotor backing plates with VHT epoxy paint, then installed fresh bearings/seals. Threw some anti-seize inside the ball joint socket and put in some fresh ball joints. . . they slide together like buttah!

So the front suspension (at least) has been successfully de-yankee'd. Thought I had pics, but I don't. . . you guys know what spindles look like tho. Just imagine them not rusty with semigloss black paint.

That was also the first opportunity I've had to use my 'sniper1rfa-blatant-copied' ball joint puller. Worked awesome. As with most things, lube helps tremendously. (giggity)

Some notes:

-Invidia downpipe doesn't fit without removing the frame gusset (brace) on that side, or beating the crap out of the pipe. . . which was somewhat annoying to install as the bottom center bolt has no room to get any sort of tool on it other than a wrench. So, removed the gusset. I'm not happy about having to remove it, but i'll work around it later. Probably wind up notching it or make a new one. I looked at the 08 LGT sitting next to it, it doesn't have one. Dunno if the fozzies and imprezas do or not, but I'm guessing if they do, it's far enough away to clear the aftermarket pipe as I haven't heard anyone else bitch about it. Must just be a 2nd gen turbo issue.

-I picked up some Zerolift Autolabs TGV deletes designed to work with top feed injectors. They note in the install notes that "if using with a metal manifold and converting to top feed, you may need to slot the mounting holes slightly"

Slightly my a$$. I had to put my manifold on a mill and slot the innermost holes nearly all the way to the edge of the flange. Slotting the inner holes provided the best alignment from the TGV's to the manifold, however. . . when I went to install the manifold on the engine, the manifold mounting bolts (which go through the TGV housings) would no longer line up with the holes in the heads. They were off just enough where I could loosen the bolts from the TGV/manifold connection and get them started, then snugged everything down progressively. Hopefully it won't leak. If it does, I guess I'm pulling the manifold back off and slotting everything. Bugger.

-Picked up a short throw shifter for an Impreza. The mounting yoke is wider than that of the Outback/Baja version, so I had to trot it over to a friend to have him mill approx. 1/8" off either side of it. It's over there still. . .I tend not to rush free help.

Here it is as of yesterday afternoon. Still buttoning things up.

 

[traildogck]

Motor looks awesome.

 

[48246]

WOW! That's a clean machine! Great job so far....

 

[cardoc]

Beer:thirty :7:

 

[The_josh]

Badass welder!! I purchased the exact one last summer and it has paid for it self already. I used it all the time and the autoset feature is really great once you get the hang of it. I was previously using a Lincoln weldpac 3200 for building my Offroad m416 trailer and once I picked up the miller it made my life so much easier

Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App

 

[patrikman]

Funny thing, I was looking for a 5MT Baja turbo as a donor for a 2nd gen OB for a while, then eventually decided I'd rather just have the motor in the Baja.

If I run across a rolled one, I'll let you know. Wouldn't get your hopes up tho, there's probably less than 2,000 of these out there.

Congrats on the purchase, not sure if/how I've missed this before. A turbo with 5MT is closer to about 1,200 some odd units produced. When you start breaking them down by year and color it gets really interesting. Too bad it is impossible to get production number details for this thing. :28:

are you sure its heated mirror connector, not the tweeter connector?

There are both in the doors pre-wired. 05&06 are also pre-wired for Sport Lights too....Hella 500s.

 

[lockmedic]

Thanks guys

Josh--yeah, i always just thought I sucked at welding (which may still be the case). As with most things, good tools makes all the difference!

Patrikman: yeah, I actually emailed Subaru and shook a few trees with some dealer GM's to see if anyone could produce sales records. . . I get stonewalled. Meanwhile the LGT crowd has spreadsheets breaking down year, color, interior color, transmission, limited or non. . .etc. .etc. Pretty sure it's the same for STi.

What are sport lights? I thought it would look nifty with some mounted on the front crossbar

----------------

So, I'm not huge on stickers on my car and my toolbox (and work comp) is already wallpapered pretty good with 'em. Anyone want this collection I've got going?

I might hang onto the "WARNING" one just because it makes me chuckle. It's from Perrin, came with the inlet. Basically it says "this car is awesome and goes faster than others. . be careful!" Or if I do give it away, I'm gonna say Cardoc gets right of first refusal. . . for, reasons.

Free for the asking. . . I'll toss it in an envelope and send it out to you.

 

[cardoc]

That's funny. Next. I already get plenty of comments over the "Rules for Passengers".

 

[cardoc]

 

[lockmedic]

:29:

Fair game, open for dibs

 

[lockmedic]

So, funny story. . .

I get the engine installed, pull the fuel pump relay and crank it over a while to make sure i get the oil system primed.

Before I load the tune, I want to make sure it'll actually start. . . no TGV's and oversized injectors and all. Injectors aren't that much bigger, so it should at least idle, which is all I want to do. Can't do much else as I don't even have a gear shifter in it at the moment.

Put the fuel pump fuse back in and try to light it off. . .nuthin. Doesn't even attempt to fire.

Mind you I've changed out the ENTIRE fuel system on this car and even the fuel lines on the manifold are from a completely different chassis, but I know which is feed and return and canister purge so it's not a big deal. Fuel feed to the manifold feels soft. I pull it and turn the ignition on, no fuel.

I notice the fuel gauge is on E, I honestly can't remember if I had filled it up before working on it. . . oh well, time to put in that STi pump.

Pull the pump out, tank is full.

Ok. . weird. Double check all my connections. . . scrutinize a bunch of unconnected harnesses under the dash that I can't remember if I unhooked them or if they're just typical Subaru "electrical road to nowhere" BS. Read a bunch on the FSM to ID each one. I've had a BUNCH of the dash apart.

Notice the fuel gauge, ECM, and a handful of other pretty important stuff share a power source. Sounds promising. . start investigating that. Got 12V everywhere it's supposed to be and when it's supposed to be there. . . so WTF? All my grounds are good. . . right?

Got to thinking about the TGV deletes and the note that was included with them. . . "move the factory ground to the head". So, like a good little instruction-follower, I did. Never really paid much attention and just always assumed the ground points on the manifold were for the benefit of the manifold, not the other way around.

Looked at the ground distribution in the FSM and noticed the fuel sender and the ECM share a ground. . and it's an engine ground. Only Subaru would run a ground wire from the fuel sender all the way back to the engine.

It's one of the ones that goes to the intake manifold. . .which is now nicely isolated from everything since it's sitting on top of essentially a big block of plastic (TGV delete).

Quickly made up a couple of 8ga wires with rings on both ends, grounded both of the engine grounds to the body. . . voila. . . it runs.

eff. me.

Anyway, off to load the tune. . .tomorrow. It's dark and cold here now.

Speaking of. . .what the **** TN weather? it was 70 on Sunday. . . and it was snowing this afternoon and is 38 now.

 

[The_josh]

Wow that sounds like a lot of time spent just trying to figure out that little issue! I sure can relate...

Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App

 

[patrikman]

Thanks guys

Josh--yeah, i always just thought I sucked at welding (which may still be the case). As with most things, good tools makes all the difference!

Patrikman: yeah, I actually emailed Subaru and shook a few trees with some dealer GM's to see if anyone could produce sales records. . . I get stonewalled. Meanwhile the LGT crowd has spreadsheets breaking down year, color, interior color, transmission, limited or non. . .etc. .etc. Pretty sure it's the same for STi.

What are sport lights? I thought it would look nifty with some mounted on the front crossbar

----------------

So, I'm not huge on stickers on my car and my toolbox (and work comp) is already wallpapered pretty good with 'em. Anyone want this collection I've got going?

I might hang onto the "WARNING" one just because it makes me chuckle. It's from Perrin, came with the inlet. Basically it says "this car is awesome and goes faster than others. . be careful!" Or if I do give it away, I'm gonna say Cardoc gets right of first refusal. . . for, reasons.

Free for the asking. . . I'll toss it in an envelope and send it out to you.

I'll take some stickers!

Subaru Sport Lights. The switch is located under the radio in the cubby where there is now a blank.

I met the former owner of my Baja on Nasioc today. That's good.

 

[lockmedic]

They're yours. email/pm me your addy

I used that blank spot for my wiper de-icer switch. . so no sport lights for me