Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

General talk about the Subaru Baja.

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Rizzo
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Rizzo »

Will you have the time or ability to finally shut two people up over on Nabisco..

Unibomber and Uncle Tom??

Both swear over a bible that the 5MT is NOT serviceable by any mere mortal and should never be attempted or the gates to hell will open.

Can you please take as many pictures and get as indepth as possible.

I'm familiar enough to want to try on my own but would like some more experienced guidance first.

I'm not going to ask for a full write up but man would I love to peek over your shoulder the whole time :D
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Hawk296
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Hawk296 »

Really? Why do people say it's not serviceable? That's crazy.
Rizzo
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Rizzo »

See Uncle Scotty's post.

He likes to talk that way and so does Unibomber.


http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthr ... ilding+5mt
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Nitro350Z
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

Yeah, I'll try to document everything as I go along, I'm definitely going to be doing a tear down to see what's pooched and I might either resell what's still usuable or rebuild and resell if it seems feasible. Honestly don't know why they're twisting their panties about rebuilding the 5MT, I've heard from a few knowledgeable sources that it's a fairly easy gearbox to work on, and from looking at the service manual it doesn't seem too daunting. I guess we'll see.
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Hawk296 »

Yeah, I have had a few of them apart. There is nothing really special about them. Although I don't think I would recommend taking a cutoff wheel to one as in that post :lol: I don't know where these internet tough guys get these ideas and attitudes.

In fact I think I still have one torn apart that I salvaged for parts.
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Rizzo »

See, over in the Crown Vic (Ford Mustang,Mercury Panther Platform and F-150 included) world there's a valve body modification procedure outlined by one of the designers of the 4R70W, Guy named Jerry Wroblueski (sp?). This is known as the Jmod.

I did one, then another then like 12 more... I got known as TEH DUDE for that. So I put out some money and shot a video on a freezing cold day last winter in a barely hated garage and all 3 of us had colds (Camera owner Production guy,my son and I), and put it up for free on Youtube.

I wanted to shoot it so not one single new guy ever would feel the anxiety I felt doing mine.

Over there , there is a HUGE sense of help the next guy and that's where I come from all the time unless I'm joking around.


Nabisco just doesn't seem that way and that's a shame.
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Nitro350Z
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

I've heard similar things about about the Evo community, much more DIY support and owner ingenuity when it comes to modding and not just "go here, buy this, and done" that seems to be so rampant in the Subaru community. I've tried to be fairly thorough through my project (although I keep forgetting to take pictures) , maybe it'll give someone the confidence or inspire them to try something themselves.
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Rizzo »

<---- Is that someone
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theluckyone17
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by theluckyone17 »

Heh. I've got two 5MT's sitting in the shed.

One is the original out of my '06 NA Baja. It started emitting a medium pitched whine after driving more than a half mile, dependent on road speed (as opposed to engine speed). I figure the prior owner went off-roading, dunked the tranny, and never bothered to swap the fluid. I bought it knowing the transmission had issues, so it wasn't a huge surprise. Post mortem stopped after I found this collar: http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb29 ... CF0047.jpg coated in rust halfway up one side (not my pic, I might add). It was fugly. God only knows what the rest of the tranny's innards looked like, since I stopped there. I still haven't had the spare time to split the rest of it. If nothing else, I get to see what it looks like on the inside :twisted:.

The other one I picked up from a "You Pull It" yard, cheap. Plug was fine when I checked it at the yard. By the time I got home, a chunk of what looks like the retaining clip on the back of the center diff was sitting on the plug. Again, I figured I'd take it apart, bit by bit, and see how bad off the internals are.

I ended up driving out to a yard, picking up a relatively cheap transmission out of a '01 Forester with 170k miles, and slapped it in. It'll keep 'er going until I've got the cash flow to buy a transmission that's a little less used. I'm loving that .780 fifth gear, though. Bit lower RPM on the highway when cruising.
Onyx: 2006 Baja Sport
Nitro350Z
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

So, updates! Cross-posted from other forums so the timing/wording etc might be a bit wonky but the gist is there:

So, in the interest of getting a reliable daily driver, I had a few options. Was looking at the local auctions for something nice to go through and there were some deals I missed but there's always the chance of hidden damage and unexpected costs so I'm not too bummed about it.

Started thinking of financing something newer than 2010 so I looked at a few used dealers but didn't find anything too great for the prices. Mazda 3's seemed to be the go-to as I was checking out 2 2010 ones but after financing they were north of $16k. That's within spitting distance of some cheaper new cars, and you get a warranty with anything new, so me and my fiance started looking at new. We settled on the Veloster as the compromise between sporty, practical, quirky, and affordable. Plus it'll be a fun car without being too tempting to play around with and mod, I already have one project and I wasn't looking for another. After getting jerked around at one dealer where we were looking at a grey automatic base, we went to a competing dealer and ended up with a blue 6mt fully loaded turbo financed @ 0% for a less that $4k more than the grey auto would have come out to after financing at the other dealer.

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So far we're loving it, lets hope it treats us right.

In other news, here's a quick video showing off how awesome the Altima's clutch is, It's been like this for about a year or two now, kinda acts like a torque converter if you ever accidentally dump the clutch at a light. I really want to take it apart once it gets retired from duty, the clutch/pp and flywheel are probably a work of art by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeNYh3qnq5A

Kinda shaky but I tried youtube's stabilization and it just made it look like complete ass so enjoy the shakes!

I do want STI brembo's, the only issue is that I've got the 5x100 hubs on there now, and I just threw on a set of brand new wheel bearings on all 4 corners, would be a bit of a waste to replace them again that quickly.

If I get my way with buying a salvage STI that's 08+ then I should have plenty of parts to work with, not going to delude myself in saying I'll make up the difference selling parts, it's been a huge hassle dealing with NASIOC and (non)buyers in general and I still have a pile of parts that aren't sold. Best bang for buck seems to be going the salvage route, unless I get a really good deal on most of the pieces I need, I just don't want to be nickle and dimmed buying all the little extra's that I'll need.

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As you can see, the oem brakes on the Baja are no slouch, my current setup is vented brembo disks w/ Hawk HPS pads all round. Although with the extra weight of the turbo motor... More braking power never hurts, and the brembo's just look cool too.

Then again, fitting STI hubs all round (assuming they are a direct swap, or easy enough to swap anyway) should save me the trouble of having custom axles fabbed up. A guy locally had them made up by some company in Indiana I believe and he's saying his ran him around $400 a pair, so $800 for the set. Only thing is I would have to go wheel shopping again.

With how the rear suspension is setup, I don't know if it's possible to swap on STI hubs in the back anyway, I think I heard they're physically larger than other subaru hubs but that's not confirmed and I might have just confused something or dreamt it up.

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The Baja's rear suspension design, disregard the X-ed out parts, I used this photo to show what I wanted from that salvage Baja I was mentioning before.


So, my reliable daily driver isn't really reliable. Cold temps have caused a no start condition with the Veloster, it was at the dealer yesterday and the day before and they couldn't reproduce it, but looking from the video I took of it not starting they're thinking it's the ignition relay. Today it refused to start again, called the dealer and now I'm just waiting for a tow truck to take it to the dealer so they can do a proper diagnosis on it.

Video of it having trouble starting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsesHFSsckc
This was already after a few attempts, this time I decided to actually record it

The altima started this morning without a hitch, and it wasn't plugged in (the plug actually fell off because of the cold a few weeks ago :p), the Veloster is sitting pretty in the driveway. :x We bought a new car to avoid this type of problem. :evil:

On the advice from another forum, the rear brakes are fine left alone while I play with putting something bigger up front, been looking at a stop-tech big brake kit that looks pretty sweet. If I do end up with an STI wreck then I can always sell off the brakes as a kit (they seem to go fast on NASIOC so I don't think I'll have too much trouble moving them) to fund a StopTech BBK or go the Nissan Z32 Calipers + LGT rotors route.

The DBA rotors (specially made to fit STI Brembos with the WRX size rear parking drum) with the STI brembo's in the back would look really neat, but all that extra expense for something that doesn't have any real benefit, and might actually be slightly worst, doesn't seem worth it. The stock brakes are surprising capable with proper pads, but it would be nice to be able to really push it without worrying about brake fade and any of the different brake upgrades I'm considering look cool too.

So far the list of shit that needs to get done in order of descending priority are:

Fix 5 Speed to get it driving
Source and swap an STI 6 speed, either full running gear from someone or buy a wreck and take it apart myself
Put on a set of Racecomp coilovers to replace the whiteline lowering springs and tokico hts struts, I want it to sit about 1/4"-1/2" higher to give me more clearance (ruined a set of tires because of a lack of clearance on the BC trip)
Figure out which route to take with the brake upgrade and do that

The huge pile of bushings is going to be put in once I get that rear subframe and assorted rear suspension pieces in the spring.

So this was my Saturday,
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This just sucks, we've had the car for exactly a week, it had trouble starting 6 times already (first couple times I thought maybe my fiance didn't push the clutch in all the way or something), it spent 3 of the past 7 days at the dealership (dropped it off Wednesday evening, picked it up on Friday, and had it towed there again this morning) This was supposed to be the reliable daily driver, the whole point of taking the initial depreciation hit on a brand new car was to take advantage of the low financing and have a trouble free car. I hope it doesn't give us any more trouble after this is fixed.
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

There has been progress... on the Veloster, not the Baja.

First things first, quick summary of the events that have occured.

We purchased a brand new Veloster and took deliver on Friday afternoon Feb. 21.
Dropped it off at the dealer on Wednesday morning Feb. 26, for the no-start issue, was given a base Elentra as a courtesy car (200km on ODO for the Elentra)
Picked up Veloster on Friday afternoon Feb. 28, gave in the Elantra with ~400km on the ODO. Total driven in Elentra: ~200km
Towed (via roadside assistance) Veloster to dealer on Saturday morning Mar. 1, after another no-start. Picked up another Elantra, this time with ~190km on ODO.
Almost picked up Veloster yesterday Mar. 6, but it faulted right before pickup so left for another day at the dealer.
Picked up Veloster today, Mar. 7. Final ODO in this Elantra: 1043km
They replaced the starter and starter relay under warranty.

Total driven with Veloster: ~500km
Total days with Veloster: 5

Total driven with Elantras: ~1050km
Total days with Elantras: 10

I have owned an Elantra for twice as long as the Veloster we've bought.

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During this process we discussed with the dealer some form of compensation for the trouble and inconvenience that was caused by our brand new car not starting (missing work, not being to plan our day, etc) and we've come to an agreement that they're installing the Hyundai Performance Axle-back Exhaust[super]tm[/super] (Really overpriced fancy muffler, dealer would normally charge $650+tax+installation) free of charge and to my understanding we're also getting a $100 gift card to a restaurant of our choice.

There really isn't much in terms of accessories that we'd want, A factory remote start was out since that's apparently auto only, and the auto-dimming mirror is a US-only option so the dealer couldn't get one in. Other accessories include such fun things as mudflaps that are pretty much there in name alone (tiny, dinky little things) assorted overpriced floor mats, a weird roof diffuser ala the Mitsu Evo style (looks kinda odd in the dealer pic and can't find anyone online who has one so no good pictures to compare), a front strut bar, and one of those awful looking plastic bug deflectors (in my opinion they have no place on anything short of a truck)

Crossing my fingers that we'll have a trouble free experience from here on out. knock on wood.
If there are any more issues like the above, we'll push for them to replace this one with another Veloster or for an outright return. With Canada's lack of proper Lemon laws I'd rather have a longer history of trouble before I commit to dealing with the hassle of getting the dealer to take this car back. So far the ownership experience has been ...rough.

Only picture from Hyundai's website:

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"Add a deeper exhaust tone to your Hyundai with this high flow axle-back exhaust system. Designed as a bolt on application which requires no cutting, this exhaust system will look and sound great for years to come."

And the only picture of the exhaust I could find online because it doesn't look like a lot of people opted to buy this really overpriced muffler:
Apparently the guy who's picture this is says the exhaust note reminds him of the STI rumble. I guess I'll see when it comes in, should be in on Monday.

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And here, have another picture of the non-starting lemon from when we picked it up, contrast set all the way to 11 8)

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It's been a while since I did an update with Baja content so here goes. Missing driving the Baja and had some free time today so I thought it would be a good time to warm up the Baja (you know, get it all up to operating temp to make sure it still runs and everything is ok, fine. I came up with an excuse to start it and remind myself what I'm missing) Looking through the vids I have, I realized I didn't actually have any decent clips of what the current exhaust setup sounds like, so here's a video showing off the noise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqKHJHXzylk

Just a quick free rev, small blip, big blip, and some LC action, nothing too fancy.
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bajaguy
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by bajaguy »

Sorry about your luck with the Hyundai. That musical Baja rev is just beyond cool! I'm definitely feeling a Baja STI Velostar side-by-side exhaust comparison. :D
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Nitro350Z
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

Yeah, hopefully the Hyundai will be reliable and this just turned out to be a single issue not indicative of any further problems. I don't want to go through the hassle of dealing with it, that's one of the main reasons why we went the new car route in the first place.

Thanks for the compliment on the exhaust :D I recorded a clip of the Veloster's current exhaust to get a back-to-back comparison with the new one (the OEM one sounds like a Toyota Corolla, really boring exhaust note in my opinion), just have to wait for the new one to be delivered to the dealer and have them install it. Hopefully that should liven it up a little.

Anyway, I missed this part when I was updating this thread:

Might as well list them off for future reference, I'll have to look it up anyway to make sure I'm not putting the bushings in the wrong place and it might be useful for other Subaru Baja & Legacy owners on here.

W63393 - Control arm - lower front inner & outer bushing
W63394 - Control arm - lower rear outer bushing
W63395 - Control arm - lower rear inner bushing
W63396 - Control arm - upper inner bushing
KCA399 - Control arm - upper outer bushing (camber correction)
KCA319A - Control arm - lower inner rear bushing (anti-lift/caster correction)

Those are the Whiteline bushings that I currently have waiting to be installed.
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

Updates incoming, info is cross posted from a little while back so it might read a little funny, but again the info is there.

So, more troubles with the Veloster and more goodies bought for the Baja, I swear poly bushings are my crack. I'll update the list of bushings and parts once I pick them up from the US.

Veloster somehow managed to tear a hole in the tire bead on a flat smooth road, when it happened I thought maybe it picked up a nail or something, nope, so such luck. Dealer wants over $250+tax for the one shitty Kumho Solus tire, gave me the run around with saying that I have to contact the tire manufacture directly for any warranty replacements. Calling about a dozen different numbers trying to reach the right department/company and when I finally got through to Kumho directly, all I got was a phone maze where none of the options pick up and there's no way to leave a voice-mail. Talked with the guys at the dealer again and was informed the warranty procedure had actually changed and that they'll take care of the claim. In the mean time I'm stuck on a temporary spare. That whole mess occurred on Monday, as of yesterday, Saturday, they haven't done anything in terms of filing a claim w/ Hyundai. As I posted in the hot hatch thread, we're having a whole bunch of little problems with the Veloster and now we're trying to contact Hyundai Canada directly in hopes of getting a replacement. In the mean time I have to keep alert and take note of any issues we have with the Veloster so that I have a strong case if this issue ends up going to arbitration (no actual cut and dry Lemon laws in Canada as I poster earlier)

The whole point of taking that initial depreciation hit was to have a care-free ownership experience and not having to worry about repairs or reliability. Instead we get to deal with this bullshit every week.

So yeah, it's been a really shitty ownership experience so far. I like the idea of the Veloster (turbo, 3door, quirky, bunch of tech toys, etc) it just looks like we got a dud.

Currently debating getting a vanity license plate, fiance wants to get TURB-OH, I'm leaning towards KDM POS, just need to figure out how to get it past their screening process.

In lighter/less frustrating news, I finally got a comparison video of the new exhaust vs the old exhaust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjaRmfB_Lrg

At first the new exhaust sounded really airy, almost like a quieter external wastegate dump from 4k rpms to redline, but after a couple hundred km's it seems to have broken in and sounds a little richer and deeper. I've still got to grab an in-car video of it. For a factory exhaust it sounds ok, quiet around town and on the highway while making some noise when you goose the throttle, makes the veloster not sound like a corrola so that's a plus. Honestly I'm not too big of a fan of it, but it could be worst, and my fiance likes it. If I had actually bought it from the dealer I'd probably be really disappointed, for close to the same price you could easily get a cat-back.

I do like how the Veloster cackles all the way down the rev range, probably one of the best features of the new batch of hot hatches. Video doesn't really capture it well (I need to find a cheap external mic, anything would probably better than the internal mic on the camera) but I can assure you, it sounds fun in person.

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Hey, guys... these cookies don't smell right...

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Oh, wow. How did that get in there?

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Quick test fit for a possible HID retrofit. Picking up a set of Honda S2000 projector housings and figured I'd try my hand at playing with the headlights. I'm aware, I'm a light whore, for me more light is always better! (as long as you're not an asshole who blinds everyone else on the road) Picture is with an Acura TSX projector I had kicking around, don't have the S2k projectors in my hands yet.

Hopefully it all turns out well. Progress will be slow as always, shiny things distract me too easily.

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Turns out when people say the S2000 projectors are huge, they weren't kidding. It's getting tough to fit them in without running into clearance issues. I want to stick with the S2k projectors as I've got a set of them and they're supposedly one of the best low-beam projectors out there. All the mockups are done with the old lights and a trashed S2k projector (reflector bowl coating is flaking off). I ordered a fresh set of Depo lights to cut up off of amazon so I can go hog wild with these and not have to worry too much if I fuck something up. If it does turn out to be impossible to fit the S2k projectors, I'll have to either get another TSX projector from somewhere or go aftermarket and smaller.

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The projector is already getting really close to the high beam, I don't want to completely remove the high beam so I'm going to have to figure out how to make it work.

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I've still got some more room before it hits the lens so I can always try bringing it a little closer to the front to get the rear to clear.

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And this is going to have to be figured out. As it sits the rear cover won't close with the projector that close to the edge, can't really move it much lower because of the high beam, Can't angle it because then I'll be projecting into the sky, only options seem to be to either trim the rear cover so that it clears, or moving the projector a few more cm forward so that it doesn't interfere with how the cover locks into place.

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The reflector has huge gabs because I played around with different mounting positions and trying to figure out how to mount the TSX ones in case the S2k ones do turn out too big, I kept trying to mount it too far back and the rear of the projector would not have fit at all. With it that far forward I'm worried finding a shroud that'll look good will be difficult. It'll get figured out somehow. And yeah, for testing purposes, hot glue works wonders. Lets get crafty :razz:
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Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

I am getting better with each try.

Took the other headlight out and gave it another go. The pictures are a little boring as they all look very similar, but eh, suck it up.
Much cleaner cut
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Fits much better
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A little cocked to the side so I'll have to make sure the projector is actually sitting level when I'm doing the final version of the lights.
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Front cover fits, and looking good.
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Rear has more than enough room to clear the cover.
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That's it for now.
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