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Old 08-29-2016, 04:22 AM   #1
alaskarsti
Scooby Newbie
 
Member#: 433616
Join Date: Nov 2015
Chapter/Region: AKIC
Location: Fairbanks, AK
Vehicle:
2000 Impreza 2.5RS
Aspen White

Default 2000 RSTi build thread

Figured I would stop goofing around and actually make a build thread for my swap. Before I start, I would like to thank two people:

Spencer Averett: the head mechanic; without his technical skills, I would have never been able to complete this swap, let alone even start the build. Thank you so much for teaching me so many things, and making my dream a reality.

Dominic Shanks (I think his handle on here is Dominator, but unsure): thank you for helping supply information and parts, and teaching me there's such a thing as a Google search bar. Love ya dude!


So. This swap starts right after my Eclipse's (https://imgur.com/94aRcds the OG ricer)electronics nuked themselves. Left carless, my friend sold me his 2.5RS for 4500. I left the car in its stock state for about a month and a half. What prompted the swap was when I did a compression check on the engine and found that 3 out of the 4 cylinders had low compression. Combing that with a slight knock, I decided that I should just swap it. From the time of purchase to the decision to swap it, I had the car for a total of a month and a half, and the only thing I had did to it was switch to 17" Motegis for winter.

The 2.5RS in its stock state: https://imgur.com/fPE2Qnl

Once my intentions were announced that I wanted to swap my car, one of my friends sent me an eBay link for an engine and transmission, and I bought it. No prior research, no knowledge, hell, I barely knew how to turn a wrench properly. Yet, I had dropped 3 grand, and 23 days later a huge box (literally: https://imgur.com/eIoPu5i) was at my front door.

Right before the swap started, Dominic sent me a for sale ad for an exhaust system down in Wasilla that matched my car (I believe it was AKGC8 who was selling it). So I made a quick weekend trip to pick up the exhaust. Enjoyed it as best as I could, as it was one of my last adventures in my car in its current state.
Road trip to Wasilla: https://imgur.com/a/KYEVk
https://imgur.com/EhsCqtZ

The weekend before Thanksgiving, the car got torn apart. Spencer was gracious enough to let me use his garage during the swap (I think that's only because we both thought the swap would be done before 2015 ended.) Spencer had the car all torn apart within a few days while I was away at school.
Gutted 2.5RS: https://imgur.com/c4b1b04
https://imgur.com/TOPamqP

Before we got the engine in, we made a tally of all things I was missing. It ended up being; a turbo crossmember, TMIC/Y pipe, downpipe, needed a wire harness merge done, a proper tune and a boost control tower. Luckily, Dominic was able to supply the turbo crossmember (out of a first ten turbo Legacy, I think) and a monstrous 3" downpipe with a gutted cat.

To tackle the tuning issue, I had two options, as my ECU was unflashable so a tuning shop like P3 could not do anything; either get a standalone ECU, or get a chip tune. I decided to go the cheaper option and get a chip tune. This was accomplished through RobTune, and after MANY months of intermittent contact from Rob, I finally had my ECU chip tuned.

The wiring harness merge was a daunting task that neither Spencer or I wanted to tackle, so I sent my wiring harness off to Brian at iWire in California. iWire is awesome with all Subaru based wire harness merges, and Brian did an EXCELLENT job with customer service and updates throughout the merge. I had my wiring harness back in my hands within a week and a half of sending it off. I highly recommend iWire for any Subaru harness merge.

Once this was all in, I had two major parts missing; the OEM boost control tower (I don't know the official name for this, but that's what I'm gonna call it) and the OEM TMIC/Y pipe. These parts are very hard to find, but luckily one guy on a Facebook group was parting out his EJ20G in Alberta, and was able to supply me with missing parts quickly and at an awesome price as well. The last major piece I needed was an air intake, which I opted to go with an Apexi Power Intake.
Missing parts: https://imgur.com/a/dMU1I

After this, the engine was completely together. So you would think it would be just fine, right? No. That was not the case. While the engine did fire up on the third crank, we realized that it was having a misfire that was killing both cylinders on the drivers side. So, Spencer and I thought it was a spark plug issue. Bought replacement ones, put them in. Same issue. Huh. It must be a gapping issue, right? Regapped the spark plugs, put them back in, still have a 2 cylinder STi. We decided it MUST be a coil issue. So I ordered EJ205 coils to replace the aging 20G coils, and Spencer and I stayed up until 12:30 AM doing the coil conversion. Finished the conversion, put in the new coils, fired it up. Still. Freaking. Misfiring. In a final ditch effort, we retraced the engine harness wires. Turns out on the engine harness, there are two identical wires (green with red stripes) and when we repinned a plug (it got smashed in shipping) we had goofed up the two wires. Switched those two out, the car ran with no quirks. Spencer and I had finally finished my dream car, 4 months behind schedule but we did it.

For the first few weeks of having my car, I didn't really do much to it. I switched out the old Motegis with 17" Enkei EKM3s wrapped in Hankook Ventus Evo V12s (*gasp* a Subaru not rocking RPF1s!?!?!?) https://imgur.com/a/AEJAY

I also had two photo shoots done of the car, one by Josh Chavez, and another by Travis Olsen. I really enjoyed how these turned out, and really gave me a first good look of my project.
Photo shoot photos: https://imgur.com/a/eCmrG

After two weeks of driving the car, I decided I was ambitious enough to drive down to Anchorage to attend Hartley's Tune in the Spring, and also dyno my car. The swap didn't miss a beat once the whole trip, and I got to meet so many people in the Anchorage community that I've heard about but never get to see. It was an awesome debut for the swap, and I somehow managed to get top 25 in my class for the show, so that made me extremely happy.

Photos from the show/dyno:
https://imgur.com/a/OGHZU

I decided the last major mods I wanted to do for the summer was to do some suspension upgrades. My sway bar bushings had completely eroded away, so I have them temporarily replaced with '02 Forester bushings. For strut/spring upgrades, I went with KYB AGX adjustable struts with H&R lowering springs (Thanks Dominic for the springs!!!!) These upgrades made a night and day difference on my car handling wise, it now feels like a little slot car in the corners.

Suspension upgrades: https://imgur.com/a/Ntlx8

For my final car event, I decided to make the trek down to Anchorage yet again to attend Honda Day. This event was a blast, and I got to see how my car did in the quarter mile. Managed to get 14.77 (beating my goal of 15!!) but could've done so much better had my dumbass actually used the launch control that I didn't know I had at the time. I also got the opportunity to meet Elora Libal, who took FANTASTIC pictures of the swap. Thanks again Elora! This was a fantastic way to end my summer of modding with my car, and I enjoyed hanging with the ATC crew so much during this weekend. Love you guys!

Honda Day/Elora pictures: https://imgur.com/a/B9iRf


I really started this thread for myself, to actually keep track of what I've done with my car, and to try to keep a journal of sorts with it. Sorry for the long post, as I am super behind. There will most likely be a quite a lull in the build as I am leaving for the Marines in three weeks, so I will not be able to touch my car for quite a while. A huge thanks to Spencer, Josh Cuerdo, Dominic, Hartley Kelly, Tyler Hanson, Dalton D. and everyone else who has supported my dream, and making it come true.

Current mod list as of August 29, 2016:

Mechanical:***8232;-EJ20G STi w/ matching 5-spd swap.***8232;-Buschur Racing Exhaust System with a Vibrant resonator.***8232;-Unknown brand 3" downpipe.***8232;-Wire harness merge done by iWire.***8232;-RobTune 440 tune.***8232;-Silicone Intercooler Piping***8232;-KYB AGX adjustable struts.***8232;-H&R Lowering Springs
Cosemetic:***8232;-Red RallyArmour mudflaps***8232;-Red Hella Supertones***8232;-17" Enkei EKM3s on Hankook Ventus V12s***8232;-Pioneer Double Din Radio


December 27th, 2016

Hey guys! Well it's the end of the year, and I have had such a great journey with the car. Haven't done much since I have been back. Had the car winterized, which turned into the car geysering all of its coolant at a light due to a tech not tightening down a reservoir cap properly. I also stopped being a poser and removed the Subieflow banner, replacing it with a Subiewerks banner (I now have no crooked banner, Hartley!) I plan to fix the body harness gremlin that has my brake lights not working anymore, as well as fixing my horrendous exhaust leak, and possibly tinting the windows to get rid of the fish bowl effect. Thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far, and I can't wait to show you guys the mods of 2017. *cough cough Widebody kit will be ordered soon, along with a Haltech cough cough**

iPhone quality picture of the RSTi as of today (12/27/16: ) https://imgur.com/gallery/hWwl3



Well, build has been set back a bit. The friend who was watching the car while I'm gone in training got into a fender bender with my car, destroying the bumper, fog and front lights. Setbacks suck.


September 17, 2017 Update

Well, training in the Marine Corps certainly has hindered me from updating, and seeing my car. But even with me being in Newport, RI, quite a bit has been done to the car in my absence.

As noted above, while I was at MCT in Southern California, my car was in a little fender bender. But this was a blessing disguise as the RS had already desperately needed a new front bumper, and lights as they both had the "Alaskan Treatment" done to them. I had a new front bumper ordered through Dominic (yet again helping in this build) and the friend who was driving when the crash happened was gracious enough to offer buying me new front lights, which were the "DEPO" ones from eBay. At this point of time, I needed to get a new wheel set up, and in my hastiness and, honestly, naiveness, I bought a set of gold 18 inch Konig Runlites on a set of Dunlop Super Sports. I had hoped that this would be a good choice, but as will be explained later, they did not end up staying with the RS for very long.
https://i.imgur.com/J4MoiKj.jpg (New bumper)
https://i.imgur.com/mF6aH5Q.jpg (Undergoing surgery)
https://i.imgur.com/wrlVpSX.jpg (Circa April 2017 Setup)

The time came for the car to go down to Michael Jahnke in Anchorage to do complete bodywork and paint change, and initially I had a towing company lined up (24/7 Towing) to take the car down to Anchorage. Over a week and a half went by with shady updates and it being late, I had gotten fed up with the lack of communication and decided to have a member of 907Diesel, who offered to take it down after hearing my issues, to take it Anchorage instead. In the end, my car was supposedly in three different areas in one day (Anchorage, Denali and Wasilla) before I had to get a friend who was a State Trooper involved, finding my car in none of those areas, rather tucked into their Fairbanks' location back lot. The RS was rescued by Spencer, and taken safely down to Anchorage.
https://i.imgur.com/EUAlpiA.jpg (First attempt to get to Anchorage via shady tow company)
https://i.imgur.com/iYaxF9B.jpg (RS being rescued from shady tow company, thanks Spencer)
https://i.imgur.com/tps8MGZ.jpg (907diesel to the rescue)

Upon reaching Anchorage, the car starting taking a HUGE transformation at Michael's house, going from a ratty project car to near show car status in the matter of months. The amount of effort that Michael put forth to make this image I had in my head a reality is honestly amazing, and I can not give him enough props for what he did for me and the car. Some of the bodywork came with a huge bit of rust repair, (extremely common in this year of Impreza) on the right rear quarter panel. Now the car looks like it never had rust at all. However, with all the bodywork being done, and the massive amount of rubbing coming from the Konigs, the wheels had to go. So for the time, the RS sat on temporary wheels until I could find a new wheel set up to grace the RS. Along with the massive amount of body work the car needed, Michael also installed a ducktail I had ordered from Latvia (free shipping to Alaska and showed up in three days, I'm honestly still shocked about that) and a little "RSTi" decal from Subiemods that I've wanted on the car since the swap was finished. Michael also managed to unstuck my sunroof, so I could not die from lack of AC. For the paint, I decided to go with a 2013 FXT color called "Deep Cherry Pearl". I found this color from my friend, Josh Chavez's, Forester XT, and fell in love with the color from the very moment I saw it. I am not usually a huge fan of purple, but this shade, there is just something about it every time you look at it. Almost mystifying.
https://i.imgur.com/ahE7HS2.jpg (all of the dents from all the owners over the years)
https://i.imgur.com/wYlr3HI.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/MsMONSq.jpg (mid-surgery)
https://i.imgur.com/NHaSy8b.jpg (Latvian ducktail install)
https://i.imgur.com/71pspb9.jpg (First view of the Deep Cherry Pearl paint)
https://i.imgur.com/VpFGmuT.jpg (Finished Product)
https://i.imgur.com/SKicXTe.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/YTGQMyx.jpg (Josh Chavez's XT, inspiration for the repaint)

Other minor mods I have gotten to help fix my bent shifter issue was the Kartboy shorthrow shifter and bushing kit, along with, as a splurge, a custom made Billetworkz "RSTi" shift knob that I have wanted to do for about a year.
https://i.imgur.com/PJZMKxs.png (The new shift knob)

For the new wheels, I was honestly lost on what to do with that. I was originally looking at BBS RS for a possible, until one day on Instagram I noticed Fifteen52 was having a ridiculously good sale for the Fourth of July on their cast wheels, and along with my military discount, I simply could not pass up on this offer. I decided to go with the gunmetal grey 17x8 Turbomacs, wrapped with some Toyo All-Seasons for the moment. I know, this is kind of an uncommon choice of brand, and in some cases unpopular, but I feel that the uniqueness of these wheels fit the style of car I am trying to achieve.
https://i.imgur.com/GfJHBQy.jpg (Fresh out of the package)
https://i.imgur.com/FuhwEgz.jpg (With the new Turbomacs)
https://i.imgur.com/sZbRyCt.jpg

For now, the car is still rubbing due to the lowering springs and the width of the new tires, so I have a set of Fortune Auto 500 series coil overs with the rear camber plate and Swift springs being built for the car. Once that is in, another Elora Libal shoot is in the works for the car, and then it will be sent on a ship to Tacoma in November so I can again, drive my car. Will try to start to post more periodically starting next year, since I will again have my car and can start getting more intensive with the build.
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Last edited by alaskarsti; 09-17-2017 at 02:29 PM. Reason: Update
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Old 08-29-2016, 11:26 AM   #2
ozma
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Member#: 191239
Join Date: Oct 2008
Chapter/Region: AKIC
Location: Anchorage
Vehicle:
2022 WRX sedan
Solar Orange

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Great write up. Love the car!
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Old 08-29-2016, 01:24 PM   #3
alaskarsti
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Member#: 433616
Join Date: Nov 2015
Chapter/Region: AKIC
Location: Fairbanks, AK
Vehicle:
2000 Impreza 2.5RS
Aspen White

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Quote:
Originally Posted by ozma View Post
Great write up. Love the car!

Thanks! It still has a long way to go!
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Old 09-20-2016, 10:13 AM   #4
chanomatik
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Member#: 159474
Join Date: Sep 2007
Chapter/Region: NESIC
Location: Northbridge, MA
Vehicle:
2017 Impreza Sport
Lithium Red - OLDKID

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Thanks for the write up! I'm glad you had so many good people helping you. Dom is a great guy! Your car makes me miss my RS coupe. Your car looks great!

Your pictures make me miss the best parts about growing up in Alaska. Good on ya getting out and meeting good people.
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Old 12-17-2016, 04:16 PM   #5
alaskarsti
Scooby Newbie
 
Member#: 433616
Join Date: Nov 2015
Chapter/Region: AKIC
Location: Fairbanks, AK
Vehicle:
2000 Impreza 2.5RS
Aspen White

Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by chanomatik View Post
Thanks for the write up! I'm glad you had so many good people helping you. Dom is a great guy! Your car makes me miss my RS coupe. Your car looks great!

Your pictures make me miss the best parts about growing up in Alaska. Good on ya getting out and meeting good people.

Not a problem! The build has such a long way to go, but I'll keep at it! Sorry for the late response, I was at boot camp!
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Old 12-17-2016, 08:18 PM   #6
JCharron2005
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Member#: 180365
Join Date: May 2008
Chapter/Region: AKIC
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Vehicle:
2018 Crosstrek
Sunshine Orange

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Congratulations on your graduation!
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Old 12-18-2016, 12:27 AM   #7
alaskarsti
Scooby Newbie
 
Member#: 433616
Join Date: Nov 2015
Chapter/Region: AKIC
Location: Fairbanks, AK
Vehicle:
2000 Impreza 2.5RS
Aspen White

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Quote:
Originally Posted by JCharron2005 View Post
Congratulations on your graduation!
Thanks! It was a huge achievement for me. Now I can start working on the build again!
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Old 12-27-2016, 06:15 PM   #8
alaskarsti
Scooby Newbie
 
Member#: 433616
Join Date: Nov 2015
Chapter/Region: AKIC
Location: Fairbanks, AK
Vehicle:
2000 Impreza 2.5RS
Aspen White

Default 2000 RSTi build thread

Post Edited for end of year update (12/27/16)

Last edited by alaskarsti; 02-17-2017 at 08:25 PM.
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Old 02-17-2017, 08:24 PM   #9
alaskarsti
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Member#: 433616
Join Date: Nov 2015
Chapter/Region: AKIC
Location: Fairbanks, AK
Vehicle:
2000 Impreza 2.5RS
Aspen White

Default

Edited (2/11/17)
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Old 09-17-2017, 02:29 PM   #10
alaskarsti
Scooby Newbie
 
Member#: 433616
Join Date: Nov 2015
Chapter/Region: AKIC
Location: Fairbanks, AK
Vehicle:
2000 Impreza 2.5RS
Aspen White

Default

Edited for summer of 2017.
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Old 09-17-2017, 09:57 PM   #11
chanomatik
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Member#: 159474
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Location: Northbridge, MA
Vehicle:
2017 Impreza Sport
Lithium Red - OLDKID

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Very interesting indeed!
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Old 09-26-2017, 07:59 PM   #12
alaskarsti
Scooby Newbie
 
Member#: 433616
Join Date: Nov 2015
Chapter/Region: AKIC
Location: Fairbanks, AK
Vehicle:
2000 Impreza 2.5RS
Aspen White

Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by chanomatik View Post
Very interesting indeed!


Thank you! Planning out 2018 has me pretty excited!
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