Who here owns a Subaru?

I had BC coilovers and Godspeed brake discs on my old blob and my current classic.

I really liked the coilovers, they were good on the road and made it feel more planted on the track. I'm sure they're not the last word in body control or ultimate build quality compared to the 2-3k+ ones you can get but i wasn't competing in my car so i found them to be really good and a definite improvement over the old worn out stock suspension. I don't think i'd ever be a good enough driver to need anything more than them really.

As for the brakes i found them awesome, i had them paired with some RC5+ pads and they were simply amazing everywhere, really nice road manners but you could stand the car on it's nose all day on track and never get any fade. I went though quite a few different combos (most of the EBC catalogue :rolleyes:) before settling on them and i'd highly recommend it, also Ian from godspeed is a really nice guy and has the time to give advise if you need anything.

Also i've agreed to sell my GC8 to a friend of a friend for £1200 instead of the guy who knocked on my door, it's his daughters dream car apparently so they're going to do it up together. She wants to get in to car body work as career so she'll use this to learn some skills on. Happy that it'll be going to a good home in the end.
 
Yup I had the BCs - have to say with them and the rear ARB that car turned rather well IMO.

My only real negative comment on them would be the solid top mounts made holes in the road that bit less bearable. If ever going coilovers again I will be looking for something with a OEM spec top mount - e.g. AST used to do so, and I think some of the Bilstein/Ohlins do also.

I believe many have had issues with them rusting/seizing so just be mindful and apply grease liberally :D

Plenty of people have got them, I'm sure you can find a car on the forum to go out in to feel the ride comfort... if you're fussed about it that is.
 
Rybo89 said:
Also has anyone tried Godspeed disks here? Seem a very good price compared anything else.
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I had the Godspeed big brake kit on my 2003 WRX. Ian was very helpful when I spoke to him and found it a great upgrade for taking the car on track. I did eventually cause a small crack in one by hammering the crap out of the brakes over many track days (including an amazing 2 consecutive days at Spa Francorchamps), but as you can take the bells off and just replace the disc it wasn't too expensive.
 
I frequent this website a lot since the business is literally 2 mins down the road for me and always tempted to call up to give their Cross Sports/STI foresters a go.

This one has caught my eye as it seems odd that theres door mirrors but also one door mirror on the wing, this a typical thing for the JDM SH? Also on the subject of the SH, are they a worthy successor of the forester before it? Any info on the 2L twinscroll engine that's in it?


useful if i posted the link lol
https://www.quayvehiclesolutions.co...inscroll-turbo-manaul-cwmbran-201902154956438
 
Has anyone ever used the Killer B pickup and/or baffled sump? Or used another brand of baffled sump?

My sump doubled up as a jacking point (derp) and I presume I've bent the pickup too. Looks like the manifold has to come off to remove the sump, so I might as well improve things while it's in pieces.

edit... Been looking around and it seems that RCM do a baffle plate for the standard sump. ICP sell Fuji Racing baffle plates and uprated pickup pipes. I've heard lots of horror stories of cracked pickups but never seen one in person. Is this actually a common failure item?

Any thoughts?
 
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I had the RCM baffled sump.

Oil pickup failure was on the EJ25, don't think it was an issue on yours. But if you've bent it... KillerB stuff is very good.

Sump can and does come off without removing manifold, speaking from experience on my old car!

A baffle plate plus standard sump, plus new pickup is likely more than you'll ever need. The baffled sumps are really for heavier track days with sticky tyres.

But if the cost difference isn't too much, I'd go RCM baffled sump Vs new sump + baffle plate.
 
I'm not exactly sure how low the pickup sits to the bottom of the sump, but there's a sizeable dent so I'd be very surprised if it hasn't impacted it in some way. Interesting to hear about the pickup failure only affecting the EJ25, I've read a lot about it happening across all engines but as I say, have never come across one in person.

I'll get under the car tomorrow and see if I can get the sump off. I only jacked the car up to do a bit of rust treatment on the front subframe so wasn't in my dirtiest of dirty clothes, haha.

I have found a replacement Cosworth sump which I can only describe as resembling a hammerhead shark :D It includes a spacer to lower the pickup and I imagine these go some way to helping with oil surge. They look like a standard sump that's been modified though. The baffle looks identical.
 
Managed to get the sump off without removing the manifold (just!), but you didn't tell me about those little ******* bolts at the back of the sump did you Kosta? :D

Pick-up looked ok, very small area of the mesh was pushed in slightly but I wasn't going to take any chances by not inspecting it. Just totting up costs for a KillerB pick-up pipe and windage tray, and a baffled sump from AS Performance.
 
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Up pipe was a beeatch to get off but finally managed to get round to it today. Got a pile of parts sat here to fit, went with an EJ25 sump and Killer B oil pickup. The pickup is an absolute work of art.

Spent an hour or so porting one side of the manifold, don't think it looks too bad for a first attempt.

manifoldport.jpg


Is this good enough or should it be perfectly smooth? I'll get hold of a flap wheel to polish it before refitting to the car. I've gone down in the manifold by about 4.5", limited by my dremel.

The crosspipe looks sleeved, is there any point trying to port this or the crosspipe flanges on the manifolds?
 
The cross pipe is sleeved, but you can port the flanges to some minor benefit. Otherwise you can buy something like the Grimmspeed Crosspipe which is bigger bore - got one on mine.

PS - I've seen this cause differences in boost response, some delayed and some over boost. I'd consider getting a map tweak after you've refitted the manifold. Especially so if you're replacing the up pipe as well.
 
Cheers Kosta, just taking my time with it rather than rushing to get it all back on the car. I'll have a look at aftermarket crosspipes.

Don't worry, map tweak is definitely on the cards as I also plan to change the intake pipe and possibly even fit my Apexi cone filter if I can find a MAF adapter for reasonable money :)
 
So last at the end of last year, after a long search I picked up a legacy spec B.

The car is fantastic! The drive back was great.

Drove it to work and back for a few days, no issues, but then...

The temp gauge was previously sitting at, say, 2/5ths constantly (I cant really remember where, I'm kinda making it up), but now it seamed to be staying bang in the middle? Was I imagining things? Was it just bang in the middle all along?

I saw it briefly move above where it was sitting at the half way and my heart sank... I babied it home (probably not the best move but whatever) no water in the expansion tank and took it to my local garage in the morning.

They called and said they couldn't find anything wrong with it. They couldn't get the gauge to rise, they couldn't find any leaks.

Their advice was to keep driving and drop it back to them if it gets worse (!)

Hmmmmm.

Decided I didn't like that plan, so called up a local (ish ~30 miles) Subaru specialist who advised I stop driving it immediately and have it recovered to him to look at

Decided I liked this plan better so went with it

After he received the car and had a look over it, he called me back. He said after ruling out everything else he strongly suspected head gasket failure. Not common on these engines, but happen on high mileage cars sometimes.

Choices were

1 - drop in used engine (he seamed to be steering me towards this)
2 - rebuild existing engine
3 - cut losses and scrap

option 1 - He said he doesn't normally put unknown used engines in, but as the H6s are generally so reliable, he will. Its the cheapest option by quite a bit, but I would have to supply the engine so naturally, no warranty.

option 2 - Could pay to have the engine stripped only to find out the head is unsalvageable... but if all goes well, will leave me with a rebuilt head with warranty.

Option 3 - Didn't really want to do that.

Thought about it for a while, decided to go option 2...

The problem is, there are so many things you "may as well do" whilst the engine is out. Where do you draw the line? The cost quickly becomes eye wateringly expensive, but realistically where can you cut costs?

He said he will see what he can do with the prices on the parts. If I'm willing to wait, he will check suppliers in various countries to see if we can save some money (all genuine Subaru).

After he stripped the head he gave me a call. The engine is absolutely rammed full of radweld... :rolleyes: Also, he said its got pretty hot so there is a chance the head wont be usable. They also had apparently chopped the wires to the thermostat in another effort to hide the problems. Kinda strange how the temp gague still kinda worked though right? I've been meaning to ask him about that one but keep forgetting.

He said some other bits will need to be changed now at additional cost, such as the oil cooler (surprisingly expensive!) , as they will be full of radweld that can not be cleaned out, and he cant risk bits of radweld clogging critical bits of the engine causing another HGF after its been rebuilt.

He said if I still wished to proceed he will do the painstaking task of cleaning all the radweld out of the engine at no additional labour charge, as the bill is already at the stage of borderline not being worth it...

A few days later he called to say the head is back from the machine shop, and the head was within tolerance so we are good to go.

The parts dripped in from around the wrold, some work was done. The cleaning of the radweld crap took much much longer than he had anticipated. And as he was doing it "for free" as it were it wasn't exactly a priority job which is fair enough I guess lol.

Finally, I had a call with some good news. the cars finished! He took her for a decent drive and its driving great and not overheating.

The MOT has expired whilst in his care, so that's being done before I get it back. I hope to god I goes though easy enough, as I'm dangerously close to having no money now...

I'm not even sure I've done the right thing spending the money on it. The repair cost the same as what I paid for the car :o fingers crossed it will provide me with good service for a good number of years now. It owes me big time!



TL;DR - Got mugged off and bought a lemon, got it fixed (£££!), getting it back soon.
 
new boy said:
TL;DR - Got mugged off and bought a lemon, got it fixed (£££!), getting it back soon.
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Man, that really sucks. I know it's always going to be a thing but the dishonesty in selling used cars is so repugnant, here's to hoping the car is now going to repay you for saving it!
 
I've a Fozzy STi going in for a rebuild soon which is costing £££ but it's got signs of ring land problems, low compression on 2 and 4. Very good builder in Banbury, going forged pistons while it's there and a few other tweaks. Then 1000 mile run in and then final map.
 
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