The JDM STI Saabaru, an EJ207 & 6-Speed Filled Wagon

[Saabaru300]

Hello,

Decided to finally start a build thread so herrreee weeee...GO!

To start, this is my second car, My first was an 02 Pontiac Grand Am SE1. It was nice, 2.2L I4, automagic and only 120,000miles on the odo when I bought it. Well, I got tired of the automagic transmission, I wanted a manual for the fun factor and the feeling of better control of the vehicle. I played with the manual mode in the pontiac a lot but I knew it wasn't good for the trans. I had the pontiac for a year into college before I got the Saabaru.

I picked this car up in Chicago with a broken motor. A couple friends and I decided to travel to Chicago and in 1 weekend, swap out the longblock and drive it home to Michigan.

Why did I get a Subaru?
Well, when in my first year of college, I went to an event and got to ride in a 2004 Subaru WRX wagon. Later I found out it had an EJ205 with forged pistons and rods, a Deadbolt 18g turbo pushing 22psi, 1000cc injectors and supporting mods. It was the fastest car I had gotten a chance to ride in yet. We became good friends and he got me into Subaru's.

The Fun Begins
Motor install happened in chicago in a friends driveway over a weekend. That's right, a longblock swap, Friday Night to Sunday Afternoon. It was stressful, I had never gone this deep into car repair ever so my Subaru friend did 90% of the work while I help as much as I could and learned. Sunday afternoon comes, time to drive back to the Detroit,MI area, a 4 hour drive. The Saab was having power steering issues because the system had bubbles in it and we knew the turbo was bad but it had to work. During the whole drive back, the car had oil smoke belching out of the exhaust. Halfway into the trip, the power of the car was so bad we pulled over again and found out the turbo was just glowing.


My subaru dude figured out by taking the coupler between the intake and TMIC off completely and disconnecting the maf, it would be the same as running N/A. It was dangerous because the air was now unfiltered but the risk had to be taken. Ended up making it back, my friend had a spare TD04 in his garage that he installed the next day and then the car was good to go.

My Modding Addiction
Now, when the new motor was installed, the first mod was also installed. A Turbo XS Catless Stealthback exhaust system(DP and midpipe). Unfortunately it didn't meet up with the stock axleback correctly so I had a nice exhaust leak for a while but I enjoyed it. My first exterior mod was the blacking out of the grill. It turned out great. After that I got some Epic Engineering Lowering Springs and a Rear Strut Tower Brace. The lower springs are great. Not too low but got rid of the front gap and the ride wasn't bad at all.


Next, I got a Prodrive Oval-tip Axleback to fix the exhaust leak and I do love the sound of a fully catless TBE feeding into that axleback. Not loud at all but you could hear the rumble and it opened up nicely at higher throttle. Now, it was time for some power mods. I got a catless uppipe, Walbro 255lph fuel pump and got in contact with a local road tuner for a stage 2 tune. We could only get 16psi because the stock boost control solenoid was a little clogged, I got a grimmspeed EBCS later on to fix that. To make a retune worth it, I waited a while and got a K&N Typhoon Intake, Perrin Turbo Inlet, and a setup I was dreaming about, an external wastegate setup. Why did I want one for a stock TD04. Because of the noise. I know that sounds like a dumb reason but eventually I would need one for a bigger turbo and I found good prices. I purchased a CNT Racing uppipe with the EWG bung, a TiAL 38mm MV-S Wastegate and I did the install myself. The install of the first uppipe was again mostly done by my subaru friend but the external I did myself with a little help from my dad who has no automotive experience other then oil changes. Got the re-tune and loved it, 19psi, EWG, even more turbo intake sounds and because of the perrin inlet, I could hear the stock bpv. Next favorite exterior mod, I got new wheels. XXR 530 17x8.25 +35 in Chromium Black with some BFGoodrich G-Force KDW NT 235/40 Tires. They look awesome. Love the concave face and the double 7-spoke design. Rubbed in the rear a little so I got some 1/2" strut spacers for the saggy butt thing and I had the rear fenders rolled. It didn't help that I had a big, custom subwoofer in the back with a 15" 1250w Sub, not light.


Next exterior mod, I blacked out the headlights the proper way, not just spray painting the inner trim piece in the headlights. Saabaru's look weird in my opinion when you do that because the third/turn signal area gets completely blacked out, all the reflective areas.


The Mod List (Finally ) Updated 05/2021

Engine/Exhaust:
-Used JDM Version 8 STI EJ207 Motor; VF37 Twinscroll Turbo (Not Used), Long Runner Intake Manifold
-Cusco/Torque Solution Engine Mounts (Came w/ 1st EJ207, Brand Unknown)
-Used ARP 2000 Headstuds
-TIC FU Cam Bolts - Intake and Exhaust
-IAG V2 Timing Belt Guide
-Custom AVCS Bulkhead Harness by Aarons Subie Electronics
-Custom Speed Density Harness by Derek Durkee
-Used Carberry Blueflex Flex Fuel Harness
-Cobb 4 Bar MAP Sensor Kit
-IAG MAF Delete Block Off Plate
-NGK BKR8EIX Spark Plugs (2-Steps Colder, Really only 1-Step colder as OEM EJ207 is BKR7EIX)
-Aisin Timing Belt Kit Plus OEM 08 WRX Water Pump (No Oil Cooler Outlet)
-ProTune by Corbin Johnson (Etune using Open Source, Carberry ROM)
-IAG Performance Oil Control Baffle, Windage Tray and V1 Pickup
-K&N Typhoon Short Ram Intake
-Perrin Turbo Inlet Hose
-Used KillerB Holy Header: V-Band Header to Uppipe (Added 38mm EWG Bung & Custom Dump Tube)
-TiAL MV-S 38mm Wastegate - Red
-HKS USDM Single Scroll Downpipe
-Invidia Resonated Midpipe
-Prodrive Oval Tip Axleback Exhaust
-BCP X500 Turbo (20g, Single Scroll, Stock Location)
-Cobb IWG Block Off Bracket
-Grimmspeed 3 Port Electronic Boost Control Solenoid
-Forge Recirculating BPV
-Injector Dynamics ID1300X Injectors
-AEM 340lph E85 Fuel Pump
-CSF Aluminum Radiator


Transmission/Driveline/Brakes
-JDM STI 6-Speed Transmission Complete Swap; R180 Rear Diff & Subframe, 5x114.3 Hubs, STI Control Arms, Brembo Calipers, Axles, Driveshaft, Shifter & Linkage
-Exedy Twin Disc Clutch: Organic Disk Material
-Cusco 6mt STI Transmission Mount
-Group N Pitch Stopper
-Turn In Concepts (TIC) Holy Shift Set - 04/05 STI 6mt: Kartboy Front and Rear Bushings, Linkage Bushings, & Shifter Pivot Bushings
-TIC Trans Crossmember Bushings
-Goodridge Stainless Steel Braided Clutch Line
-Goodridge Stainless Steel Braided Brake Hoses
-Carbotech XP12 Front Pads - Track Pads
-Carbotech XP10 Rear Pads - Track Pads
-Custom Brake Duct Backing Plates
-Perrin Master Cylinder Brace: PSP-BRK-400
-2006 STI Steering Rack - Used
-F4M High Pressure Stainless Steel Braided Teflon Coated Powersteering Line


Suspension/Wheels/Tires:
-STI Aluminum Front Control Arms and Rear Lateral Links (15mm Wider than Wagon Stuff)
-JDM Version 8 STI 5x114.3 Hubs with Brembo Front and Rear Calipers
-STI Stock 20mm Front and Rear Swaybars
-Feal 441 Coilovers: 8k/7k Springrates, Rear Camber Plates
-GTSPEC Rear Strut Tower Bar
-TIC Super Sexy Suspension Kit: Forward & Rearward Trailing Arm Bushings, Lateral Link Bushings
-TIC Unabomber's Sexy Rear End: Rear Differential Mount Bushings, Rear Differential Subframe Bushings, Subframe Lockdown Bolts
-05 STI BBS Wheels: 17x8 +53, 5x114.3, Powdercoated Cadillac Grey & Gold Flake Clear Powdercoat w/ Dunlop SP-01 Tires in 235/45R17


Interior/Exterior:
-OEM STI Sedan Front Bumper, Front Fenders, Side Canards, and Foglight Covers
-Saabaru Rear Bumper, Rear Taillights, and Rear Bumper
-Ebay Replica 04/05 STI Front Lip
-Custom Fog Cover, Door, and Rear Hatch STI Decals - All in Black, Mimic OEM Style
-Satin Black Center Console Trim & Air Vent Bezels, JDM Red Hazard Button, Gold HVAC Dials, Subtle Solution HVAC Overlay Decals
-OEM Option STI Duracon 6mt Shift Knob
-Version 8 JDM STI Front Seats: Seat base from USDM stock driver seat swapped over to what was passenger JDM seat for height adjustment for driver
-Alpine Ida-x303s Single Din Headunit
-Autometer Dual Gauge Cluster Surround
-Innovate Motorsports ECF-1 Multi-Gauge - Ethanol % (Not hooked up), Fuel Temp, Fuel Pressure, Wideband AFR (Not hooked up)
-Prosport Performance Mechanical Gauge: Boost 0-60 PSI & Prosport Gauge Cup
-Defi Racer Gauge 52mm - Oil Pressure


The 2nd Motor (excluding the original owners broken one I replaced):
Well, the motor that was installed when the car was first purchased had some oil consumption issues, .5 quarts every ~250 miles. Didn't really try to figure it out either. Went and played around on the highway with a friend who also had an 04 wrx wagon but his was stock except for TBE and BOV. I got into doing a long 5th gear pull which I don't do usually. Maxed out the speedo, felt awesome, got back, parked it until the next day. Went to drive the 5mins to my school for class, car is making a clicking noise that changes with revs. Come back and start researching possible problems I could have, research points to most likely a spun bearing so I park the car and stop driving it. I pull the motor myself and tear it down to a longblock (most I had ever dug into a car by myself). I took the longblock to a local subaru mechanic, they tear the block apart and discover I spun not 1 but 2 rod bearings. Time for a new longblock again.
I found a JDM EJ205 for sale with 20,000miles on it with an STI oil pan and Killer B oil pickup & baffle, awesome, right? Kinda, I purchased the longblock, I got a Ver 7 wrx ecu, JDM sti pink injectors, the IA Performance AVCS Engine & Bulkhead wiring harnesses and the Forge BOV. I installed the motor all by myself (crazy, right?), and when I tryed to hook the AVCS up, I found out it is different. It is too different, the cam position sensors and solenoids were USDM EJ25 but the block and heads are all EJ20.I got a refund on the wiring harnesses and sold the jdm ecu. After I got everything else hooked up, I had a bad oil leak and an exhaust leak. At this point I am fed up with the car so I took it to the subaru mechanic. The oil leak was from bad crush washers on one the turbo/avcs SS oil line banjo's and an unblocked port for an air pump system. Didn't even know about that system before. They fixed that and the exhaust leak and re-adjusted the tune. The whole time I am wondering what kind of motor did I actually buy. My current best guess after some good research and talking to certain companies is that my motor is a 06-07 non-USDM & non-JDM EJ205. Dunno but the car finally works.

Motor #3, EJ207 Powaaaaa:
This story begins with a nice snowstorm in February, we got 11" of the white stuff. I hadn't played in the snow with the Saabaru since 2 winter previous. Had a perfect parking lot, large, smooth, and just a few light polls. Afterwards there was a clicking/whirring sound coming from the engine/trans bellhousing area. This noise was heard only when decelerating in gear with the clutch engaged but the rpm had to be up past 3k to hear it. I decided to take it to a guy that has worked on Subie's for a while and has one himself (08 WRX pushing 400whp, he's fixed his 5 speed a couple times, lol). After inspection, he concluded that the trans is fine and that it was probably the wheel bearing going which they were. We decided to pull the engine to refresh some gaskets, replace some injector seals since Kris(Mechanic) thought there was a vacuum leak for one possibly causing by Misfire codes and lean condition code. Once the motor was pulled, we saw that the 2 small screws holding the bearing surface to the flywheel had snapped and the main bolts were loose. Rear main crank surface was dented and some bolt holes were stripped after removing the bolts. The motor would have needed a new crank but since the block already had 2 stripped bellhousing bolts and a motor mount bolt hole, along with OEM shortblock being supposedly on backorder, I decided to get my finances in order and get a EJ207...finally.

The "New Motor", Motor #4 (1st EJ207 go Boom, Another EJ207 goes in):
Full Story is on Page 8 (Desktop Version). Was doing a fun track day at Gingerman Raceway, power felt a little bogged down on one straight away, then there was a thump noise and I turned it off. One connecting rod was left in the oil pan. Found another used Version 8 EJ207 complete engine, swapped the longblack and then a bunch of other setup changes happened too.

Almost the End

Go to pages 5 & 6 (Desktop Version) for all the info and goodness of the 6-Speed Swap.

This is where the Saabaru chassis ended, before terrible rust was discovered in the strut towers.



An 05 WRX Wagon was sourced from California and everything was swapped over from the Saabaru, except for the front end. Thanks for reading this crazy long post. Congratulations on completely reading this post (essay).




Hope you enjoyed my thread and let the Subaru(Saabaru) Ownership and modding continue.

Some photos taken By jsfauxtaug and the guy that gave me the Subaru Inspiration, Faster_Gun. Thanks

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[Saabaru300]

Oldest to Current

[Gixhost]

Sick...I love the look of the 9-2X.

[Saabaru300]

Originally Posted by Gixhost

Sick...I love the look of the 9-2X.

Thanks

[Zulu-]

Love these, my car gets mistaken for one all the time and I'm not mad about it.

[djuss21]

I was like hmmm these cars look familiar small world

[Faster_Gun]

^ is that from the block party in Chi?

Edit: Doh. Its clearly Murder city.

[Saabaru300]

Djuss21, your image is not showing itself to me. What bis it? :/

[Amazing Asian]

Welcome to the Saabaru family. I have one myself and love the cheaper insurance that goes with them. Almost $600 cheaper/year than a wrx of the same year lol

[Saabaru300]

Really, hmmm, I really need to get this car paid off then.

[Saabaru300]

Djuss21, your photo is working now. Yeah, small world, how are you doing?

[maxgtr2000]

Nice, trying to get into one of these or the subaru wagon.

[ForeverSupra]

Sweet "saabaru" my buddy might be getting one of these.

[Saabaru300]

Thanks for liking my Saabaru. I love it.

So many things I want to do. Uhhh

Flossy Shift Knob.
Black out roof panel with a wrap.
Get a bigger turbo and sti tmic.
Coilovers.
Sway bars.
Some awesome non-racing specific 17x8.5 +45 wheels with 245/40 tires.
&
A 12" subwoofer with custom box built by me.

Money sucks :/

Anyone else got some awesome setups on their wrx/saabaru wagons. I am on the wagon threads too so I do see some sweet setups.

[djuss21]

Doing good it was to bad my time in flint was so short this summer, your car is coming along nicely!

[Amazing Asian]

Originally Posted by Saabaru300

Thanks for liking my Saabaru. I love it.

So many things I want to do. Uhhh

Flossy Shift Knob.
Black out roof panel with a wrap.
Get a bigger turbo and sti tmic.
Coilovers.
Sway bars.
Some awesome non-racing specific 17x8.5 +45 wheels with 245/40 tires.
&
A 12" subwoofer with custom box built by me.

Money sucks :/

Anyone else got some awesome setups on their wrx/saabaru wagons. I am on the wagon threads too so I do see some sweet setups.

Here's mine at a local rally cross. Just lowered on epic engineering springs. May lift it with a forester setup and throw some mud crawler type tires on.

[Saabaru300]

Originally Posted by Amazing Asian

Here's mine at a local rally cross. Just lowered on epic engineering springs. May lift it with a forester setup and throw some mud crawler type tires on.

Nice. Same lowering springs as me. No rally cross in my area but I would love to do it a couple times. I am personally not a big fan of lifted subies but to each their own.

[Saabaru300]

Originally Posted by djuss21

Doing good it was to bad my time in flint was so short this summer, your car is coming along nicely!

Thanks. Have you done anything to the hatch?

[Saabaru300]

Had a nice trip to Horsepower Techs today, my local Subaru shop. Went there to get my tune checked out and to get some more info on my misfire. Just has the main Subaru tech is looking at my engine, we noticed my upper coolant hose was touching a radiator fan. We moved it a little to confirm that is where the noise was coming from. Then the tube burst right in front of us. I was extremely lucky this happened at the shop. Got that fixed. Tuner checked out my tune, said it was good but my fuel trim corrections at idle were at 25% which is high. Narrowed down the misfire to cylinder 1. I swapped the coils between cylinders 1 & 3 and the misfire did not follow the coil. :/
Gonna have to switch the the injectors between those cylinders and see if the jdm pink injectors could have a problem. Otherwise a fun day.

[Saabaru300]

Put the winter stockers on today.

[Amazing Asian]

Originally Posted by Saabaru300

Had a nice trip to Horsepower Techs today, my local Subaru shop. Went there to get my tune checked out and to get some more info on my misfire. Just has the main Subaru tech is looking at my engine, we noticed my upper coolant hose was touching a radiator fan. We moved it a little to confirm that is where the noise was coming from. Then the tube burst right in front of us. I was extremely lucky this happened at the shop. Got that fixed. Tuner checked out my tune, said it was good but my fuel trim corrections at idle were at 25% which is high. Narrowed down the misfire to cylinder 1. I swapped the coils between cylinders 1 & 3 and the misfire did not follow the coil. :/
Gonna have to switch the the injectors between those cylinders and see if the jdm pink injectors could have a problem. Otherwise a fun day.

I also had a local shop tell me my upper coolant hose on the verge of bursting open and I'm at 75kish miles. Had that replaced that same day. Wonder why it happens to our cars and not a normal WRX like my previous car.

[Saabaru300]

Originally Posted by Amazing Asian

I also had a local shop tell me my upper coolant hose on the verge of bursting open and I'm at 75kish miles. Had that replaced that same day. Wonder why it happens to our cars and not a normal WRX like my previous car.

I don't know if maybe the radiator sits a little farther back closer to the motor. Mine was being hit by the fan and it only happened after I had replaced the motor. Wierd.

[BraveSTi]

Saabarus look tough! I like em!

[H_wells3000]

Never been a fen of red of the rex but the saab pulls it off just right. Sexy.

[-Rizzo-]

Love me a red wagon.....sexy