Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

[Nitro350Z]

Also played around with the hood scoop some more. Had the redo what I had before since the openings weren't completely even on both sides with respect to the normal hood line, played with fiberglass and bondo and so far it's sitting like this now. Few more coats, lots of sanding, and figuring out a good way to build in the splitter is what awaits me.





Once I got tired of working on the hood, took a break and ran all the wiring for the gauges and setup two power sources in the cabin. One is straight from the battery to an 6 pole auxiliary fuse box, and the other is switched by the ignition via a relay to another 6 pole auxiliary fuse box. Both lines are properly fused at the battery. Wired in the gauges according to what their directions say and voila, they work!



Up to this point I haven't actually tested the sensors so it was a relief to know I wasn't sold any bunk gauges.

Once all the gauges were working, I bolted in two seats and took it for a spin. Oh My God, does this thing ever pull, it just throws me back in the seat. I think I'm in love. And the noises it makes, such variety, it's like listening to an automotive orchestra After coming back I noticed an injector was leaking again.:grumpy: I took it apart the next day and I think my fuel rail is really finicky, took two tries to get it seat correctly, the o-rings are new and they are in perfect shape so I don't know why that one injector is a challenge to get seated.

Either way, I can't permanently run around with a cat-back so I tried getting an exhaust shop to adapt my old cat-back but apparently they couldn't figure it out. They sent me a piston ring across town to hunt for a flange and when I got there they told me to find a better exhaust shop, with a recommendation from them I have to call around on Monday to book an appointment.

In the meantime, I added this with a matching one on the other side, since we all know stickers are +10hp a piece.


Also put in the new airbag cover for the steering wheel. The car is starting to finally have something that resembles an interior


And that is all for now. More updates in the coming weeks.

Tried taking a video with my friend following behind when I went to put some fuel into it, you can somewhat hear it but his exhaust/intake noises are mixed into the video. Will have to figure out a way to get good quality sound. Also will post up the dyno run video when it's getting tuned in about a month.

http://youtu.be/Q-C5Bk4n6fQ

But back to some progress. Sanded down the hood scoop some more, took pictures at various points of the work so it may jump around with progress, though I'm not sure if it's really visible in the pictures. Either way, these will give you guys some idea of how it looks on the car and I think it'll look fairly sharp once it's painted.

[Nitro350Z]

Today I managed to get started on the hood splitter. It's just roughly fiberglassed in, but it looks like it works and when I put the hood on, it's only about 1-2mm off towards the turbo, front back seating is dead on so I say close enough. With some rubber molding around the edges should seal everything perfectly. The drivers side is blocked off and shaped towards the intercooler, for the turbo side I was thinking of keeping it open to give some airflow to passively cool that area. Good idea? Eventually I'll track down some black fine mesh and put it right before the splitter to stop various crap from flying in there.



Looks kinda nice without a hood. (yeah the bumper is held on by a few clips and some twist wire. It's quick and dirty since I've got some more I have to finish underneath the bumper and I just needed it on to drive around without being hassled)



Also stopped by where I have the other altima, going to steal what I need off of and scrap it sometime this week.



And finished off the night with a nice cruise in a friends S2.



Hopefully more updates soon!

[Nitro350Z]

I'm really happy to be finally driving it on a regular basis, only downside is that every other car I get into feels really slow, I guess that's not that bad of a negative. I know I'll have a lot of learning to do at autoX since before I could keep it flat out pretty much the entire course, but now it has enough power to swing out the back when on throttle

So time to play catch-up. Last week I was working on the hood, had it primed and all good to go for paint, I had just sanded down the rear corners a little to shape them a little so that they would blend in a little nicer, I must have made it too thin because later that night I had noticed that the corners cracked, just a small crack but there's no way I can easily fix it. I ended up undoing all the work that was just done and throwing on another 3 layers of fiber along each corner and then covering the entire scoop in a layer of fiber. After another long process of sanding, body filler, and more sanding, I primed the hood again and this is what I got:


I ran out of body filler on Sunday and I ran down to the local partsource to grab a small tin of the stuff since Rondex was closed. Huge mistake. I mixed and put on the partsource body filler and waited for it to cure. 10 mins still soft as putty, 30 mins no change so I mixed in much more hardener since it was still soft, 3 hours later I scrape it off, takes an hour or two to get it off :furious: Had to scrape as much as I could off and then used 40 grit to get it off but it kept clogging up the pad. Wasted an entire night playing with that ****.

Monday morning I buy the good stuff and then got on with the work. The hood goes in for paint on Wednesday, and I was supposed to pick it up on Friday morning but it turns out the clear was still too soft to handle in the morning so I end up picking up the car and the hood Friday around noon.



Bolted down the hood and drove home since I had a lot more work to finish before the show.
When I said that wiring can be nightmare, here's what an electricians hell looks like


As I mentioned the WRX main rear wiring harness connector is on the drivers side, while the Baja one is on the passenger side. I've got to run wires through the dash to merge both sides. there's still alot to connect and I can't do the solder connections yet since I want to have everything hooked up so that I don't end up with excessive length wires. Anyone know a source to get a variety pack of wires? all I've got is wires that are color coded by gauge, which will end up with an indecipherable harness if I keep using the red wires.

Well once that unholy mess was zip tied, electrical taped, and hidden away behind some interior trim panels, it was ready for a good cleaning before the show. Quick clean and a quick wax later, it looks almost brand new.

Of course it had to rain on Friday pretty much all day so after I threw the parts on I made my way to my friends garage where I could detail it out of the rain. When I arrived there it stopped raining, go figure.




As I've said earlier, I displayed it at Driven


Had the hood half propped to show of the engine and show off the scoop, ended up running down my battery since I decided to leave the gauges illuminated.

[Nitro350Z]

There were some cool cars so I'll throw some of the pictures here, I had forgotten to charge my camera so I only snapped one or two pictures before it died, so the pictures below were taken by a friend.









And the award I received, surprisingly hard to take a picture of with a cellphone. Have to really charge my camera...


There will be an actual update soon, hopefully this week, but I'll just leave this here:



New suspension is on, no more comical body roll or lift during acceleration Just needs an alignment now.

There's still a laundry list of things to finish with the car. Electrically I have to get the power seats, heated seats and mirrors, power mirrors, power locks, sunroof, dome and puddle lights, and I think that's it. It also needs a stronger pressure plate, I have a new one that's rated for 425ft-lbs but I need a different flywheel for it to fit, thankfully it's already on the way. Also have to play with the grill, the hood release interferes with it slightly so I'll have to modify it so it fits better, plus there's a lot of rough edges on it that need to be fixed so that fits perfect. I am really fond of the WRX emblem on the side so I'm keeping that. Originally had the Subaru logo there but I think the WRX looks nicer.



That's all for now, I'll update again when more things happen.

[Nitro350Z]

It's been a while since I posted, kinda forgot about my thread here, well, might as well get it back up to speed. This is crossposted on other forums so It might read a little weird and is a bit out of date...

Took it for an alignment and the front wheel bearings are a little loose. Makes sense since I used the rollover hubs, junkyard's wanted $120 each, cheaper from a few in the states but I'd spend the difference on import tax and shipping. Ended up buying a new set from Subaru for $160 each. Oh well, could be worst.

Trying to track down a full set of bushings for the rear since they've seen better days. It's proving difficult since the ones I need aren't in stock in north America

Took some Instagram quality photo's in the mean time



Also hauled out the scrap from the old Impreza a few pieces I had from an old civic, ended up being a little over 1000lbs, not worth too much but better than nothing


And found out that an engine hoist is a multi use tool

[Nitro350Z]

Just arrived in Calgary last night and took the Baja to get tuned today. Went to Sunny @ Airboy Tuning and he threw the car on the Dyno and I am impressed. Had a great experience and Sunny is definitely very knowledgeable and takes pride in his work, I'd definitely recommend him if you're around Calgary and in need of a tune.

Baja started out at 243awhp and ended up at 270awhp. I am definitely grinning like mad everytime I drive, it's so much smoother through the rev range and pulls like a freight train. It's shy of the 300 I was shooting for but honestly it's perfect as is, probably was more than fast enough before the tune. For comparison a stock 2010 WRX puts down around 205-215awhp on his Dyno.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26JJb__W-kA

More Pictures and [s]automotive[/s] updates to follow once I'm back from my vacation/rocky mountain adventure.

Anyway, I took a 2.5 week trip out to Calgary and B.C. to get the Baja tuned and to go for a nice vacation in the mountains. The trip was a lot of fun, and an insane amount of driving. I think I ended up trying to put too much into the short trip so it was a lot of time driving through amazing scenic roads and not enough exploring.

But I digress, onto pictures since everyone loves to look at pictures and not so much reading :p

Saskatchewan was ... flat.


I ended up doing the Winnipeg to Calgary stretch in 1 day there and 1 day at the end of the trip, there's not much to the prairies and there's no reason to extend that stretch to 2 days if I didn't need to.

Arrived in Calgary safe and sound, and the next day took it to Airboy tuning to get it tuned. Awesome experience and would definitely recommend him to anyone who needs a tune. It's worth the trip.



While the car was on the Dyno we waited in a little side room, on the computer there I found this



found it amusing (I think it's pretty much universal that into cars = topgear fan) and watched a few episodes while waiting for everything to get done.

Here's a video of one of the dyno runs. The video doesn't begin to capture just the shear volume of the noises that the car was making.
Baja Dyno Run - YouTube

And once all was said and done, the Baja is now proven to make 270whp and 315wtq as I've posted before.


Not too shabby, it's shy of the 300whp I was shooting for, but honestly it's more than enough power and holy does the car ever run nice with this tune. Couldn't be happier, and quite a nice increase for just a tune.

After Calgary wen't through crowsnest HWY 3 by the border to get to vancouver, went across the ferry to Gibson and stayed there with family friends. Took a day trip to Whistler and then went to stay in Vancouver itself, after that I went up through the sea to sky HWY and then back down to Kelowna, up to Kamloops and then through HWY 5 to Jasper then Down HWY 1 to Banff and back to Calgary. Ended with over 6000km of driving on this trip. Was quite the adventure.

When I was in Blue River BC, I got stuck behind a train while looking for a campsite for the night. It was one of those ridiculously long rocky mountain trains and it stopped when it was halfway through the crossing, was stuck there for about 45 mins waiting for this to pass. No cell reception so I couldn't google map the area to find which place to stay and everywhere we checked so far was booked.



Ended up driving through the night for another 40km or so and found a lodge in the middle of nowhere. Ended up being one of the best places we stayed the entire trip.

In non-automotive related news I saw some cool sights
Old school snowmobile by the Athabaskan glacier


Crazy buses that took us onto the glacier so we could explore and drink some of the crisp cool glacial water. 6x6 full lockers, massive tires, and air suspension to adjust the level on the bus to let it scale up to 36% grade hills. Twas a fun experience.



In Gibson, BC went to a local market and saw these little guys, was tempted to pick one up but didn't have anywhere to put it.



Saw this little scamp on the side of the highway, he had quite a crowd stopped and watching him.

[Nitro350Z]

In the Okanogan valley we ended up going to a fancy winery and learned much about all things wine.




When in whistler we took the gondola and then a ski lift to get to the summit, when we went there was cloud cover at the summit. I am not a huge fan of heights, the gondola is no problem but when it feels like all that's holding me on the lift is a small tab of metal gripping the cable and I could slip off the seat at any moment, I am not a fan of heights. Going through a cloud near the top and not being able to see the ground was not helping either.



Oh, and the things you find in a small town candy shop



Took a helicopter ride in said small town and because of wind conditions we couldn't fly the regularly charted route and got special permission from parks Canada to fly over the city of Banff and lake Minnewanka. It was incredible, breathtaking views.



Managed to even get some nice shots of the car while out there







When I was back in Calgary, ended up helping a friend get his new $25 65" projection TV from the other side of town. It fit just perfect in the back, somehow left the ratchet straps in his condo so all I had a small bit of twine to secure it, because of the heaviness of the base and the fact that it was a nice tight fit we took it slow and got it back to his place. Oh, the **** I do on vacation...



Unfortunately I had a few casualties on this trip. The rear wheel bearing on the passenger side started making noise and now sounds like a helicopter at highway speeds, and it chewed through a set of tires. I'm one of those idiots who ruins a car by lowering it It ate through the set since the alignment wasn't done before I left and the tires were plus sized on the Baja originally so when I dropped it on the new suspension the tires interfered with the bottom spring perch when they were loaded (I guess the sidewall flexed enough in turns to cause them to rub on the perch), unless they're cambered to the max +ve setting which I did partway through the trip when I noticed the wear. It's on the all-season set of wheels now which have smaller tires mounted so no interference issues and it had an alignment done now. I've decided to get coilovers and a set of summer tires that have a shorter sidewall in the spring to fix the tire wear issue. I wouldn't mind the car being a cm or two higher off the ground just to fix these issues and there's no way to do that easily without going to coilovers. I've been talking to Jamal and got a full set of rear bushings from whiteline on order, they're expected to ship 30-90 days from now so they'll be going in the car in spring.

The boost sensor also decided to give up the ghost at the end of the trip. Right after banff it stopped displaying the boost and got stuck at 140 kpa, playing with the sensor causes the gauge to move around, and it does the full sweep on startup and sets warnings correctly so I'm assuming its the sensor and not the controller or gauge itself.

It actually broke shortly after this picture



There was construction on HWY 1 after Banff, 2 lanes merging into 1, and it looks like Albertans can't figure out construction because it took an hour of rush hour style stop and go to get past the construction.


Other than those few issues that need tending to, the Baja held up well on the trip.

[Nitro350Z]

Took some pictures a few weeks back, thought I'd share some of the *very* few that turned out ok. Need to get more practice with a camera again. Threw on the in-between seasons all-season wheels and hoping that the winter wheels aren't too wide/big and I don't run into the same issue as with the summers that I had on the trip, I can probably survive the winter on these tires if need be and get a set of coilovers so I can raise it just a smidge and get some more room for tires.







And ended up looking through older pictures and it's weird to see how much the car has changed.



Have to dig up a picture without the toplights, looks completely different.

As for actual updates on the car, I still haven't replaced the rear wheel bearings, have them both in hand but Uni's been busy because of midterms so I haven't found the time. Hopefully this coming weekend won't be too crazy. Replaced the supposed original battery, it was showing some trouble starting at just below freezing so it was bound to fail sooner rather than later, with an Optima Red Top Cranks perfect now and won't have to worry about those cold winter mornings anymore.

[Nitro350Z]

We start this update with the following:



I now understand why some people call Nissan the Chrysler of Japan.
Changed the thermostat since it was opening too soon, or was getting stuck open, it would take forever to blow heat last winter, and when it did it was still more of a lukewarm than actual heat. For something that should have been a less than 15 min fix, it was a bitch. Everything is rusted, all the hose clamps are over-tightened and rusted tight and of course there's a clamp in the way of one of the bolts on the thermostat housing :furious: Figured I'd do a coolant change too while I'm at it since I've got no idea when the last time it was even looked at and it was cheap enough. Drained while doing the thermostat and once it was all buttoned up again, I filled the radiator with the new stuff, pumped the rad hose and filled some more then started it up. All was fine for a while, waiting for more bubbles and topping it up as necessary, all with the cap off. It started puking it's cooling out in an ol-faithful style geyser. Shut it off, sounded like the coolant was boiling off inside the block but the lower rad hose was still cold so the new thermostat hadn't opened (I tested it in a pot before putting it in so it's a known good one) filled it up again and with the cap closed started it and warmed it up a little, It almost filled the overflow bottle this time so I turned it off and let it cool off, same thing with the cold lower rad hose, this time fans turned on and wouldn't shut off, dash gauge indidcates it doesn't think it's overheating.

Took off the hose going from the water pump and it does have coolant, had a thought that maybe the head gasket is toast for a second because of the pressure in the coolant system, maybe the water pump has a ****ty impeller is finally dying, who knows. Dropped it down, filled the rad, and started it again after it cooled off. Lo and behold, it blows hot air, heats up fine, lower rad hose now gets hot after the car warms up, seems to be working fine. **** if I know why it wasn't working before.

Well after that was sorted out, I was frisky and decided to do the rear wheel bearing in the Baja, finally I could drive around without sounding like a helicopter! Was a little bit annoying, I've done the front bearings but they came with the hub in one unit so they were simply unbolt and put back in, the rears didn't. Took the back end apart and got to town, was a little surprised at how it's all put together but it wasn't too crazy.



Once the bearings were out, I had to separate them from the hub, wish I could have ordered a hub/bearing assembly, but oh well. Pulled the old bearings off the hub with this fancy 3 prong puller which was used earlier to get the whole assembly off the drum brake part. Had to be creative with the prong placement to get it to work. Used the wheels to hold it all nice and straight, was easier than doing it on a garage floor.



This worked, for the most part. Only issue was that the inner race was stuck on the hub, and no good way to get it off. After much swearing and a dozen methods that didn't work, resorted to taking it to a friends shop where he torched the inner race cutting it a little and managed to bang them off. Cleaned up the old hub and pressed the new bearings on and assembled it all back together and it all works. Yay!

[Nitro350Z]

It is WINTER! We have a nice first snow fall and as such, it is the duty of everyone on the road to test how their vehicle reacts in slippery conditions.

Also, I found out that launch control works wonders when you have very little grip and don't have to worry about burning clutch or exploding diffs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQpLlkFtoI0

And that concludes the updates up to the present, more to come as long as I don't forget!

Anyway, onto an update! Had a little bit of a Subaru meet locally, we had some fun playing in the snow, was a little deep but that didn't stop us. It was freezing, temp right now sits @ -27*c with a wind chill of -40*C, tomorrow morning it's supposed to be -30*C with a windchill of -43*C. All done by a fellow subaru owner: (click for big)

[Rizzo]

I actually read almost all of that, I skipped the Non Baja stuff because I kept focus on things I could learn.

This whole project is retarded.

I'm so glad you did it! That's just too awesome of an outcome!

I can't imagine what AWD 270HP/300TQ feels like, I'm so jelly of your talent,time and money

[STI2NR]

I have always wondered what a 2010 wrx style hood scoop would look like on a baja. You made it look sick. This is a great thread. I am glad you keep it updated.

[Snorkeled]

AMAZING BUILD !! Great Job !!

[Nitro350Z]

^ Thanks

As always, cross-posted, might read funny, yada yada...

So this might be the last update for the winter season unfortunately. (****ty Cell Pics ahead since I never have my nice camera on me when I want to take pics)

This weekend I made my way out to the good ol' US of A, so I washed the car and got it all pretty for the trip.



I was planning on taking the Baja but the day before the trip the transmission starts making a wirring noise. At the time I didn't think too much of it as it wasn't a really scary noise, was fairly quiet, and only started after the coldest days we had. I figured the noise was because of the extreme cold or whatever and was planning on checking it out when I came back. As a precaution I borrowed my parents 2013 Civic and parked mine in the driveway, while parking I heard some clunking and it was bucking a touch moving around the driveway, I got really worried that something went awry in the transmission but I figured some packed ice had fallen from the wheel well and was rubbing on the tire and I was driving over what had fallen off. You know, being optimistic and not too paranoid.

Well, either way it would have to wait until I get back. On the trip much shopping was had, Christmas stuff was being cleared out so we ended up buying a ridiculous amount of ornaments and tinsel, and even one of those pre-lit fake trees. Packed the civic beyond belief and I picked up the awesome package I had waiting for the Baja:



The rear end should feel so much nicer after these all go in

Once back, I swapped cars and started driving home, got maybe a 200ft away and the transmission starts bucking, making terrible grinding and clunking noises. Immediately I turn back and limp it to my parents place where it proceeds to drop out of reverse when I was turning around and almost refusing to go into second all while making very expensive sounding noises.

Anyway, it's parked for now, pulling the insurance on it and turning it onto storage insurance while I wait for the weather to warm up so I can figure out exactly what the hell happened. And of course University classes started today, looks like it's public transit for the next few months! So much for washing it and buying it new bushings Here it sits as of now:



I guess it's looking like there's a 6spd swap in the near future, I've had really bad luck with the 5MT, right before the wrx swap the old transmission killed it's center diff and transfer gears and shortly after that was fixed it had to be completely rebuilt, ended up to the tune of around $5k for both services at the time because I was in a bind and needed a driveable car, only got about $1k back after selling it. For those prices I'm doing a 6MT swap and not looking back.

The other night got a friend to help me take it to a heated garage, where this weekend I'll have time to lift it up, listen to what is actually making noise, and drain the fluid, If there's metal shavings (probably) I'm just going to say **** it and swapping the 6MT. Going to be looking for an 09+ transmission as they're newer with less miles (less likely it's been abused or worn out) and with the wrx swap it already uses the abs sensors instead of a vss so I'm good on that front.



Anybody know if I can swap over the push style clutch/flywheel/pp assembly from my current 5MT over to the 6MT? Haven't been able to find a concrete answer, I'm leaning towards no, but if I can reuse my pretty much new current setup that would be a big bonus.

[Nitro350Z]

And today I managed to lift it up



And I listened to where it was making noise, it's not pretty.

2010 WRX Transmission Noise - YouTube

And then I drained the trans oil



Yup, that's metal.



I'm pretty sure Extra-S isn't supposed to look like this after only around 25k km, the picture doesn't really capture the alluring shiny silver metal tone to the oil.



More goodies left in the pan



So, it's definitely a 6 speed swap for me now, parking the Baja for the winter and I'll get to it in the spring. Going to tear down the 5MT and see exactly which part looks like it caused it, I've got some theories but I'll hopefully know once I take it apart.