Relocating the Stock-Aerial Part 1

I know Scooby's aren't designed with aesthetic perfection in mind, but its a shame they follow the utilitarian Japanese convention of bolting a tacky plastic thing on afterwards with an 80's pull-out style aerial in, usually on the driver's A-pillar. Even the 60-reg Toyota Hilux coming in at work, which are pricey trucks, still have these things and, while I'm sure they function superbly, they don't half look crap.

I've been planning to re-locate the aerial onto the roof of the Scoob for a while now and change it from a tacky telescopic metal one to a BMW-style 'shark-fin', but you could fit a rally-style mast-aerial, a bee-sting or a GPS-box lookalike in the same way. Its not a difficult job at all, but a brave enough one for me to struggle to get round to it. Doesn't look like it'll be any time soon, with all the other jobs mounting up [power-steering is gonna need looking at first I think], but I reckon its a sound idea so I'll write it up anyway.

Removing the Stock Aerial:

Unclip and remove the plastic cover on the driver's A-pillar inside the car and cut the wires going to the aerial-mount.

Remove the two screws holding the aerial-mount with a flat-head screwdriver and prize the plastic-mount away from the a-pillar.

Bridge the holes in the a-pillar with metal-filler, or just stick about 5 layers of black-tape over the back of them, then fill the outer layer with P38 body-filler. Its only a tiny area so shouldn't be hard to sand, prime and paint-match.

Installing the New Aerial:

Inside the car, unclip and pull down the roof-lining. I'm still unclear on how to do this so, for now, refer to the Body section of the workshop manual here - http://www.scoobylab.co.cc/2010/12/manuals.html.

Find a suitable spot and drill a hole wide enough for the new-aerial's mounting-stud. Drill from the outside in and it's easy to dent the roof so drill slowly, use plenty of oil on the bit and it might be worth starting with a small pilot-hole to make sure the location is accurate.

Place the mounting-stud of the new-aerial through the hole and stick the base down onto the roof. Tighten the nut onto the mounting-stud inside the car.

Extend the cut-off wires at the a-pillar, if necessary, across the inside of the roof to meet the cable on the new-aerial and tape it into place. It's likely the new unit will have a male FM-aerial connector on it [same as the one in the dash that plugs in to the head-unit], so you could cut it off and hard-wire it, but for a nicer job I'd recommend getting a female FM-aerial socket from Halford's for a couple of quid and crimping it to the a-pillar wire. That way the aerial can be un-plugged easily if some idiot decides to nick your new bee-sting and you have to a quick replacement.

Clip the roof-lining back up into place and replace the plastic-cover to the inside of the a-pillar.

Lowering the Roof Height

Its not a mod I would have thought of for a Scooby, but I spotted this absolutely mental Blobeye STi in a mag [built by Jap shop C.S Hiro http://www.cshiro.co.jp/], with its roof lowered! I've only ever seen this done to classic cars, mainly American metal, although I've seen a few Vauxhall Victors with it done in the UK, but as it turns out the modern Scooby shares a key bit of design with the aforementioned that makes it an ideal motor to do a roof-chop on!

The Impreza has sashless-doors, which of course means that there is no frame around the window glass and that means no alterations need to be made to the doors at all. When the roof height drops, the windows will still rise up and fill the gap perfectly, with the lower part of the glass permanently sitting in the door. In theory the four windows would each fit flush even if the roof wasn't perfectly straight. Chopping the height out of 4 normal doors separately, then matching them to the roof would be a difficult task and this makes it a super-expensive job for most motors. Examining the Scoob though, it looks like all you'd need to cut are the 6 roof pillars and this makes it a much easier job, one you could do at home in fact with enough time and ingenuity.

THEORY:

Roof-Chop:

Wind the windows fully down. Remove the front and rear windscreen, along with both wing-mirror chassis, the roof-lining, a-pillar covers, parcel shelf and unbolt the front seat-belt holsters off the b-pillars.

Sand the a and c-pillars down to the bare metal.

Mark along the base of each roof pillar and cut straight through into the cabin, without deforming the metal. You could probably do it with a small grinder, but an oxy/acetylene 'plasma-cutter' would be ideal to cut a neat curve.

Lift the roof off the car. Mark around the neck of each pillar at a suitable height for the roof to be lowered by [probably about 3 ins.] and cut them again, then file down the remaining pillar ends, as well as the cut-edges on the car body, to as flat an edge as possible.

Lower the roof back onto the car, marry the pillars to their bases and weld completely around where they meet. Grind the welds down and rub them flush to the body with emery cloth. Build up around the visible joins with metal-filler and P38-filler and sand them in a smooth line between the body and pillars. Re-paint the a and c-pillars. Shorten the plastic pillar-covers to fit and replace the roof-lining etc.

Roll-Cage:

** The rigidity of the roof is probably compromised quite a bit by this process so its essential to fit a roll-cage really to stiffen things up, but primarily for safety. If this isn't a major concern you could get away with just bolting or welding in a steel-tube down the inside of the b-pillar from floor to roof.

Windscreens:

With the roof sorted, the real challenge is to make the windscreens the right length to fit. Normal Scooby windscreens are about £200+ so a tailor made narrow one probably isn't cheap, but I've found TW Windscreens in Southampton who will make one. On the other hand, I've seen cut windscreens lying around at work done using a great grinding-disc that only damages about half a cm around the line of the cut. We reckon you could cut the bottom away from the windscreen and seal the fractured edge with epoxy-resin. Then, when the windscreen is sealed in place, make a plastic or rubber sill to overlap the bottom edge [which seems to be the case on the C.S Hiro car anyway] and a smaller one for the rear.

Seatbelts:

Belts are a major safety thing, so if you've made the mounting-holes on the b-pillars too low then its worth scrapping the lap-belts and installing racing harnesses, which the standard STi and post MY96 seats will take. Otherwise you'll need to drill a new hole further up the b-pillar if possible and thread it with a fairly large tap, but the bolt might need shortening as the gap behind gets narrower at the top.

360° Spirit-Level in Engine Bay

The skip at work really has yielded some great items to fab-up car parts from, as well things like lightweight-alloy bolts [just like the ones available from Demon Tweeks, £5.99 for 5!] to build them with. This trick multi-directional spirit-level was no exception - it's basically a circular spirit-level with a ring in the centre so the bubble is level in every direction. I couldn't see it thrown away, so I've fixed it in place next to the intercooler to add a neat little instrument to the engine-bay...

It's handy to have for finding some level ground to check oil/fluid levels properly or work on the car, but most importantly it's ideal for making sure each of the four coilover-shocks are set at the same levels for balancing the car's suspension! In theory it should work a charm, so I'll have to get the front two TEIN shocks on asap... I know I keep saying this.

I found a nice place for it on the right intercooler-bracket, got the car on a flat piece of ground and, with the help of a normal spirit-level, found the right angle to mount it level. It's set in an aluminium-bracket so I had space to put a small self-tapping screw through it into the intercooler-bracket. I finished with lashings of ally-tape to stop it from tilting, as even the slightest movement will misalign the bubble.

I'll have to re-calibrate the position of the spirit-level again when I get the front coilovers on and all four corners will need to be set to the absolute bottom so the car is completely flat, but it'll make it so much easier to get the balance right when lifting the car later! Techy!

Carbon Fibre - Rear Wind-Diffuser - Part I

With the mould looking pretty good it was time to look at the different types of carbon-fibre covering to wrap it in. There are dozens of stick-on imitation carbon sheets available, but I didn't want it to look fake even under close inspection so I had to go for real stuff. I've seen people making real carbon parts for ages and it doesn't look too hard, but the price of it used to be outrageous. Not any more it seems, as I've found sheets of all sizes of raw carbon-fibre on eBay, often being cheaper than vinyl stick-on sheets of the same size! My diffuser is about 60cmx40cm and I didn't want to worry about matching the weave up with separate sheets, so I went for a half square-metre to cover it in one go, which worked out at £19.50 delivered for 100% twill-weave carbon, whereas the 3M-vinyl sheet that contains no carbon at all [but does look a LOT like it] was £27.99 delivered - nearly a tenner more expensive! Needless to say I went for the real carbon - from a firm called [grp_supplies], unfortunately no longer trading under that name and I can't find the new one on eBay :(

OK, so I had to buy some clear epoxy-resin to set the real fibre as well and it turned out to be dearer than I imagined. I could only find small tubes of the stuff for less than ten quid, but the amounts [and the cost] jumped up massively after that. I needed quite a bit for the diffuser too, so I grabbed the best deal I could find - 1kg of resin and 0.5kg of hardener for £28 delivered, which was good value even though they arrived in unmarked and unsealed bottles. They work great though - from a firm on eBay called [CreativeResinSolutions].

I originally intended to just cover the stiff plastic mould and re-fit it, but the carbon provides its own stiffness so the weight of the tough plastic van-undertray just seemed unnecessary. The thick plastic must weigh a couple of kg on its own so even the spaceship-light carbon would be a useless increase and the back end is already well planted with that soundsystem...

This meant I had to get the carbon off the plastic after it had set, which turned out to be stupidly simple. A professional would, of course, produce a fibre-glass cast of the part and use it as an inward-mould for the carbon. Not only would this mean forking out more money, I'd also have to completely re-design the fins on my diffuser so, with the carbon already there, I thought of a workaround, which I'm sure would be howled at by any respectable composite-engineer, but here is how I prepared the mould - after a few tests on a small dash-panel [here] I found this to be the easiest way of quickly fabbing up my carbon part :

PROCESS:

1. Smear the part in a thin film of vaseline. Apply a layer of cling-film to the part, sticking it in place with the vaseline. Repeat the process for several layers of cling-film.

2. Mix a good chunk of 2 parts epoxy resin with 1 part hardener and wait about 15 mins. until it starts to go tacky.

3. Paint a thin layer of the epoxy over the cling-filmed part.

4. Slowly drape the carbon-fibre sheet over the part and press it into shape. The tacky resin should make it easier to hold things in place. Tightly fold the fibre over the edges of the part and tape them in place on the back.

5. Mix some more epoxy-resin and immediately paint a good thick coat over the part, leaving it to dry for at least 8 hours.

**The part should pop easily off the mould by this point once the edges are trimmed and most of the cling-film can be peeled off. You can keep them together until the part is finished, but there is probably a higher chance of it bonding to the mould.

6. Give the part a quick sand with some rough paper. Remove any sharp points, resin drips and bumps. Don't worry about making the surface too even yet, but try not to go down into the carbon.

7. Mix more resin and apply another thick coat to the part, leaving it to dry for at least 24 hours this time. [One nice, thick coat should do it, but repeat process 6 & 7 if it looks too thin or uneven.]

8. Sand the part down to an even[ish] coat, then use finer grade papers to give it a smooth surface and apply the finishing touch to best show off the weave - either a coat of normal car spray-lacquer for the wet-look, or using T-cut / rubbing-compound to buff it to a dull racing-car shine.

As you can see I only got as far as the final coat. I've rubbed it down a bit, but still haven't found time to finish it, so I'll have to cover that in another post.

All things considered though, not a bad try for a beginner! It certainly looks the part - the carbon weave looks very authentic, but the dodgy moulding technique does have it's pitfalls. The heat of the epoxy drying causes bubbles in the cling-film to expand, which doesn't affect flat areas, but has made the back-edge of the diffuser a little sloppy round the fins, although it has given the skinny fins a nice rounded profile. A pro-diffuser would cost most of a grand remember, so for about £20 and a couple of afternoons work I think its turned out superbly! We'll have to wait and see if its a go when its finished and fitted.

Carbon Fibre - Making the Mould

Right its really time I wrote up some of the carbon fibre stuff because I'm desperate to move on to things like the brakes. The whole carbon idea started when I found an old plastic-undertray from a modern Ford Transit van at work. I thought it could help to fix where my front-undertray has snapped, but as I examined it I could see potential in the chunky design for greater things...

Rear Wind-Diffusers [like the one on the right] are common on race cars and are basically just a flat tray beneath the rear bumper with down-pointed fins for the air to flow past and give the car more downforce. They are almost exclusively made of all carbon-fibre and that means they aren't cheap either - any I can find for the Impreza start at £700 and go up, so considering they would have no real use for road driving except the style factor, they are out of reach of any sane modder.

Looking at this plastic Ford Transit undertray though I could see the beginnings of my own custom-built imitation diffuser, so I cut it into a flat piece and taped it under my back bumper. Its not quite as wide as I would have liked, but the edges do fit nicely within the number plate recess, so I thought what the hell, it can't hurt to have a crack at it.

With the main piece fitting OK and looking promising, I cut four equal sized fins from the off-cuts and just superglued them into place along the bottom of the tray, which conveniently has four vertical lines along it as a guide. I figured that whatever type of carbon wrapping I used later on would hold them in place properly and besides, this thing was never going to be an aerodynamic aid, so I'm not too bothered about structural integrity as long as it looks the part.

Its definately got that diffuser feel and I can't see it making the aero-dynamics of the car any worse [provided the leading edge is flush to the bottom of the car so it doesn't turn into an air-brake, of course!], so I decided to swot up on my carbon-fibre coverings...

Custom Alloy Footwell Plates!

I got hold of a nice big sheet of checker-plate aluminium so I'm fabbing up a few nice little touches for the car. I've already made a few under-bonnet styling pieces, but with the lions share of the plate I've started making some rally-style alloy footplates for the driver and passenger.

Its a great racing-car look [no chrome-plastic imitations here] and really suits the Impreza interior. Its a lot harder wearing and easier to clean than the mats, but the downside is its a bit slippy when its wet, as I've discovered with the recent bout of gloomy weather. Checker-plate is pretty cheap to buy, but these footrests aren't cheap items - eBay has some budget pieces starting from about £20 per side, but if you want a brand, Demon Tweeks have a Sparco set @ £91 for the passenger footrest and £34 for the tiny driver's clutch-rest!

Making them was a doddle. The whole driver's side footwell had to be covered, but I didn't have enough plate for both so I decided to give the passenger a large footrest and just cover the bottom wall of the well. I took a few measurements of the footwells, cut the plate to fit and rounded the edges off with a file for a neat finish. For the driver's side I bent the thin end of the plate up about 45 to match the floorpan and cut a gap out to fit round the plastic-stopper under the go-pedal in case I stifle the throttle. [restrictor-plate? :)] Well my measurements we're a bit off, but without scrutinising the fit doesn't look too bad at all. A boss bit of rally-bling for the cockpit - not bad for a free off cut of alluminium!

Custom Cold-Air Duct + Some Engine Dressing

I've never felt that the standard cold-air feed has been good enough to feed the induction-kit. The OEM duct consists of 4" wide plastic pipe that feeds the airbox, which has two inlets that join in the O/S front-wing - one comes up from a vent somewhere in the front-bumper and another that just catches ambient air at the side of the grille.

The car isn't exactly gasping for air, but with the straight-through exhaust and induction I think its time to rethink the bumper inlet and fit a bigger, more direct duct. For the meantime, I've thrown in an extra temporary duct-hose to aid the air flow a little. I found a nice length of flexi-hose that fits nicely between the cone and a gap in the grille, but its not much more than 1" in diameter so I'm not expecting a great improvement in performance. It's some more air flow none the less.

*EDIT: Just found out that the flexi-pipe is the heater-duct from an LDV Maxus van so we're now rocking British Leyland parts on the Hamamatsu bad boy - how quaint!*

In an attempt to catch more air for the rear of the filter I have started to develop a custom cold-air box around the cone. The exposed filter also has the downside of sucking in hot air from the engine while the car is standing still and the box will also hopefully help to prevent this somewhat - only time will tell.

So far I've installed a back for the box made of plate-aluminium. I got hold of a nice big sheet of the checker-plate and I'm making a few nice bits with it for the front foot-wells and made the piece for the airbox from an off cut. It does look pretty sweet and I've seen alloy used for these before, but ultimately carbon-fibre insulates heat much better so I'll be moving to it, or kevlar, if the design works.

I just cut the plate about 18"x 8" and bent it at a 45° angle halfway down so it curves underneath the cone. I then cut a small metal 90° bracket down to fit and fixed it to the inner-wing using one of the existing wing bolts. I drilled a hole in the top left corner of the plate and attached it to the bracket with a nice yellow allen-head bolt.

Great looks and a nice bit of engine dressing at zero cost! Great, but whether it is functional is yet to be seen. To complete the job I'll add a angled side piece to the right of the plate and some rubber strips to the underside of the bonnet to create a complete air-box.

I've also plenty of checker-plate left over so look out for a host of nice little alloy touches for the interior!

STi Carbon/Titanium Strut Brace!!

Anyone who's into modding cars knows about strut braces... It's basically a stiff bar that bolts across your suspension-turrets to brace them against each other and stiffen the suspension up. I've always liked the idea of buying one, but it's never been high on my priority list. This all changed when I saw the STi one [in the photo] and I figured that seeing as we've gone to all the trouble of TEIN coilovers, I may as well go the whole hog and finish beefing up the chassis in style.

They haven't made any of the STi ones for a long time so it's hit and miss finding one. Demon Tweeks' cheapest alternative is £100, but it's a heavy steel number from Sparco. eBay has some cheap, but great looking ones from about £50, which are made of much lighter aluminium, but they're unbranded and untested. Subaru really had it licked though with their STi one, fitted to V4's onwards - it's made of carbon-fibre rods with titanium-billet joints and is way lighter than the others, as well as looking achingly good. These usually sell for a ton or more and are quite sought after, but a few are cropping up right now on eBay and there are bargains to be had. I spotted a cheap one and put in a hugely optimistic max bid of £60. My chances were low, but the rival bidders must have been napping because I got it for £55, despite another selling an hour later for £81. The seller went above and beyond as well, only charging me £4.50 for standard-parcel even though it arrived within 2 days! :)

I am very surprised at how much difference this brace makes. I've still only got the standard front shocks on, but the whole front-end of the car is stiffer, feeling much flatter, especially round hard bends, but also noticeably firmer over bumps too! Absolutely brilliant for only £60 - I can't wait to get the remaining TEIN coils fitted to the front, it'll be one seriously stiff chassis! The strut-brace really is light too, I would say it only weighs a few ounces, yet it evidently takes some force. It's clearly built to take it too - it has 'Aerospace Division' emblazoned next to the STi logo, which is awesome. It's eye-opening to see how much the body and suspension flexes - I'd recommend fitting a strut-brace to any car!

FITTING :

This couldn't be any easier - all you need is a 10mm wrench. This is for the STi Classic carbon strut-brace, but the fitting is identical for all other types, though the nuts may be different sizes.

1. Pop the bonnet and remove the 3x 10mm top-mount nuts from each of the suspension-turrets. The weight of the body is resting on the top-mounts so they won't move at all.

2. Loosen the 10mm bolts on either shoulder of the strut-brace so the end-rings can be adjusted easily.

3. Lower the strut-brace under the rear bulkhead and the end-ring holes over the top-mount studs so that there is a straight, snug fit and the end-rings can be pushed flat to the suspension-turret.

4. Replace the 3 nuts to each top-mount with a 10mm wrench and give it a good tighten, making sure the raised mounting-points are all flush against the suspension-turret.

5. Tighten the 10mm bolts on either side of the strut-brace so the entire unit is solid across the turrets.

There you go - fitted in 10 minutes and the difference it makes is astonishing!!

Quickshift Install

I've fancied a quickshifter, which reduces the throw-distance of the gearstick when changing, for a while now and the stock shifter and ball are quite worn and a bit sloppy anyway so the car benefits all round.

I really wanted a Kartboy shifter [www.kartboy.com], from a tiny little american company specialising in go-karts and now making parts for Subarus. Their shifter for classic Imprezas is now discontinued :( and finding one is nigh on impossible, even on import. The next one that caught my eye is GoFastBits one [gofastbits.co.uk/WRX5spdShifter], which features adjustable brackets so the throw-distance can be set to preference. I can't find this on eBay though and it's a bit steep @ £138+VAT from good old Demon Tweeks, but the real turn-off is when I Google this part I find people talking about them being prone to snapping...

eBay was awash with cheaper [and cheaper looking] alternatives though and in the end I decided on one in the lower end of the price spectrum from a small firm called 800bhp Tuning for a piffling £23.50 delivered, which doesn't look great and isn't that nicely made, but is a sturdier looking design like the Kartboy and, for that price, not so much of a worry if it snaps, although its a 10mm thick steel bar so I doubt it'll snap too easy anyway. The pic shows the stock-shifter on the left next to the more compact and shinier short-shift.

The fitting process was actually very quick and easy, even though the instructions provided we're pretty vague and the photos weren't of an Impreza dash, but we did have one nasty little snag that caused a lot of frustration, so if you don't the same fuss make sure you have a set of O-ring pliers handy...

PROCESS:

1. Screw off the gearknob. Gently prize up the edges of the centre-panel around the gearstick until it comes out along with the rubber gear-gaiter. It can be easily forced clear of the dash centre-console and handbrake panels without having to remove them.

2. Remove the 6 crosshead screws that secure the metal baseplate down and lift the plate clear. [The shortshift instructions said to remove four 10mm bolts from the baseplate at this point. I am not sure what model Subaru this refers to that the kit fits, but this shifter only covers Impreza models 97-00 and these will have 6 screws, not bolts.]

3. Remove the long nut and bolt from the shift-rod that holds it to the shift-arm bracket using a 12mm wrench. The shift-arm is able to move around quite a bit when it is free from the rod.

4. This is where things get a bit tricky. You'll need to get right under the car so lift the front and make sure its secure. [Use ramps if you have them. We still don't so we used those large concrete blocks again. I'd hate to get that far under with just axle-stands.] Locate the base of the shoft-rod under the car, behind the prop-shaft. There is a metal O-ring that holds the plastic base of the rod down and this is where we had all the trouble. This will probably be a lot easier with a pair of O-ring pliers, but we spent ages filing down a pair of needle-nose pliers to do the same job. Once the O-ring [second photo] is off, the plastic base should pop out with the shift-rod.

5. Remove the upper O-ring from the plastic base [much easier off the car] and pull the shift-rod ball out of the base.

6. Grease the ball of the new shortshifter [we used the Castrol LM grease again], put a little more into the plastic base and snap the shortshifter into the base. Replace the upper O-ring.

7. Push the plastic-base back down into its mount and replace the lower O-ring. This was a nightmare for us again. You'll need a second person here to hold the plastic-base down so it doesn't push out again every time you try to put the O-ring on. [Getting the O-ring back into place was impossible with my makeshift pliers - it just wouldn't hold the ring at the rightangle. In the end we removed the rubber-boot entirely and dad had to push his fingers through the gap from inside the car to guide the O-ring onto its seat successfully, a brilliant solution albeit long come to.]

8. Raise the shift-arm to meet the shortshifter bearing and replace the 12mm nut and bolt to the bracket, tightening it to a snug fit, but allowing the shift-rod to move through the gears easily.

9. Replace the metal base plate and the 6 screws. We had trouble here too, which wasn't mentioned at all in the instructions. The gap in the metal-plate comes down diagonally at the top left and most shortshifters work by lifting the shift-arm up a bit. The higher angle makes the arm come into contact with the diagonal edge of the plate, so we had to cut that away to give the arm space to move freely [in the right photo above].

10. Replace the plastic centre-panel and the gearknob.

I'm leaving my centre-panel and gaiter off for now until I've re-designed it a bit to better display the shifter, involving a bit more of my carbon-fibre. [My carbon wind-diffuser and other bits are coming along well too, all will be revealed soon!] The shortshift has definitely reduced the throw by about half and the car is singing through gears, not bad at all for the money. The gearknob itself has been raised nearly an inch too, which is weird at first, but with that thinner stick it gives a real race-car feel to changing gear!

Sparco Carbon-Fibre Pedals!

With the serious MOT work out of the way it's time to throw on some more tacky parts, starting with these ultra-light, 100% carbon-fibre racing pedals from Sparco. I've always wanted a set of these range-topping pedals, but figured £55 was a bit much. Luckily I tracked down an unused set on eBay for just £24 delivered - win.

There's one small catch though, the set only comes with 8 of the 12 nuts+bolts and one of the stick-on grips is missing. Oh well, I doubt I'l be using the grip tape anyway [it'd ruin the look!] and I got away with just using 2 bolts for each pedal [for maximum weight-reduction, obviously] so I've 2 spare anyway.

Its clear to see why these are for motorsport use only - form definitely follows function here. I've always thought the teutonic carbon look is fantastic, but the finish of the lettering, screw-holes and the entire back surface is pretty poor. I guess these aren't a styling piece then, but the real beauty of the carbon is that they're ultra light, weighing less even than the rubber OEM pedal covers and are a fraction of the weight of Sparco's alloy-pedals [like on my BMW], which cost half as much. That's the difference and damn it feels good to be elitist!

As with all bolt-on pedal sets, these were a doddle to fit. My rubber-pads had already completely worn away so it wasn't hard to find somewhere for the 2 drill-holes on the steel pedal in the space either side of the lever itself. I'd planned to cut the long plastic accelerator pedal down a bit for the carbon pad, but its a tilting one, so I just managed to cover the whole thing with the Sparco and didn't bother - it interferes with the brake pedal though unfortunately. I thought I had the clutch pedal bang on too, but its a bit close to the footrest on the left so I can't quite squeeze my foot down to it - this might be in need of a quick move to the right.

Prodrive [TSL] Sports-Cat - Emissions Sorted!

The last thing on my MOT list was the exhaust emissions, my total de-cat pipe was desperately in need of a catalytic-converter. A standard one would be £140 new and the right length to meet the joint on my Peco, but joining a pipe of less than 2 inches to a 2.5 inch big-bore would be an interesting challenge. I then found out the OEM system relies on 2 cats, doubling the price and forcing me to buy a whole new back section as the 2-piece Peco would have to be fully removed.

If I was going standard then I'd need a full system. The simplified design of the straight-through Peco replaces 4 OEM parts on my 98 model and tracking one down that looked as if it would fit was a pain. Although I could find used 'full systems'

on eBay for as little as £80, they just didn't seem to be everything I needed [from the back of the turbo, right to the tailpipe]. I'm not sure if the exhaust differs much from year to year on the WRX as most upgrade parts fit all classics, but some sets had both cats under the car, some had one cat on the downpipe and some had no downpipe at all. To guarantee the right fitment I turned to new exhaust suppliers, the cheapest quote being from Kwik-Fit @ £850!, so that was right out.

I'd heard about sports-cats, which fit onto a big-bore system and replace both cats with a single concentrated one, but at around £250-300 they seemed too dear. With the price of an OEM system sky-rocketing though it now seemed like a good idea. The ones in my price range looked pretty naff though to be honest, but I stumbled on a second hand TSL one, highly recommended and used by Prodrive, which was a snip @ £235. Of course there's always the worry that a used cat off eBay might be wrecked, but the guy selling it was none other than scooby-leicester who supplied me with the fuel-filler pipe in April, so I figured it was worth the chance just to keep everything on the car top-notch.

The sports-cat is excellent. Not only did it more than half the emissions figures and pass the MOT, but it's reduced the noise a bit too and got rid of the racing-car crackle and the pops when letting off the gas, which is great news for my neighbors and passengers, even if the car has lost a wee bit of character. The engine seems to be ticking over much more smoothly and evenly too, there's less vibration in the cabin and there even seems to be a little increase in power at low-revs - the car seems peppier anyway and I'm finding myself pulling away in 2nd now at times when I would have reached for first. The only downside to the sports-cat seems to be a loss of power at high-revs. Where the car would scream the entire way up the rev band before, there's a feeling now like something is tugging on the power when you get right to the top. It's not a great loss, the car feels just as quick where it counts and it's a bit more useable day to day now and at least I still have the de-cat front pipe there, ready for trackdays...

FITTING: [This covers replacing the front-pipe of a big-bore system (de-cat to sports-cat or vice versa), although the standard front-pipe (1st cat) is very similar to fit.]

It wasn't a lot of work to fit the sports-cat, just undoing a handful of bolts and the pipe is a doddle to replace, provided you can safely get right underneath the car, as a few of the bolts are too hard to reach otherwise. The exhaust bolts are constantly heating and cooling and they shouldn't have seized on too tight, so the job should be over in 2 hours.

1. Lift the entire front of the car, but don't use axle-stands - you'll need to do some heavy bolt twisting right underneath the car and axle-stands just aren't sturdy enough with both front wheels off the ground. The wheels don't need to come off so use ramps if you have them. Be sure to get the handbrake well on and chock the rear-wheels front and back. [We have no ramps and drove the car onto a couple of large concrete-blocks, which worked really well and large wooden blocks would be just as good, but I wouldn't advise using house-bricks or breeze-blocks.]

2. Get the front under-tray off by removing the two 12mm bolts on the cross-member and front-lip, then the two 10mm bolts on either side.

On my 97/98 model, among others, the Lambda oxygen-sensor is located on the right side of the down-pipe collar, just behind the turbo.

3. Unplug the Lambda sensor from its wiring-connector, by inserting a slim flat-head screwdriver into the sleeve that runs along the bottom of the plastic-clip. Slide the screwdriver down the length of the sleeve until the connector-plug can be slid from the socket.

4. Unscrew the Lambda sensor from the front-pipe collar using a mm open-ended wrench.

5. Remove the 2 large bolts and the 3 guiding-stud nuts that run around the collar and fix the front-pipe to the back of the turbo, using a 14mm wrench [although one of our stud-nuts underneath was a 13mm fit, but I don't think this is standard]. The upper ones are easy enough to get to, though all but the bottom right one can still be accessed, just, from under the bonnet. That last nut can only be reached by lying flat under the car and reaching up into the engine, [quite scary if the nut is hard to budge at first]. The guiding-studs will hold the pipe up when you unfasten it from the centre-pipe so there's no need to leave any of the collar-bolts on to hold it.

6. Remove the 2 long bolts from the bracket that joins the front-pipe to the centre-pipe, halfway down the underside, using a 13mm wrench.

7. Remove the 13mm bolt from the pipe-bracket, just behind the front wheels. The front-pipe should now be free to lift off the studs on the turbo and out under the car.

8. Wipe off around the back of the turbo and the centre-pipe inlet, as well as each end of the new pipe. Give the metal gasket from the back of the turbo a good wipe, apply a little exhaust-sealant paste [we did, but not essential if your gasket is in good nick] and replace it.

9. Lift the new front-pipe up from underneath and replace it over the studs on the turbo. Re-insert the 2 top collar-bolts and tighten them enough so that the pipe moves up to align with the centre-pipe. The gap in the rigid cross-member is a tight fit, so the pipe is confusing to align without guiding it with the collar-bolts.

10. Seat the front-pipe into the centre-pipe and replace the two 13mm bolts onto the bracket. The big-bore system has a resin gasket so no need for sealant, but make sure the bolts are wound tight. Then replace the 13mm bolt to the hanging-bracket behind the front wheels.

11. Replace the 3 nuts onto the collar-studs on the turbo using a 14mm wrench and fully tighten them along with the 2 bolts at the top.

12. Give the Lambda-sensor a quick wipe and screw it back into it's hole on the collar of the new front-pipe using a mm wrench. Plug the sensor wiring-connector back into it's socket and you're done.

TEIN Adjustable Coilover Suspension - Part I - Rear

Only one rear shock-absorber failed the MOT in the end, even though the guys at National said both were shot. I took their advice anyway and decided to replace the two. A pair of the OEM (Kayaba Racing) shocks was £115 from Camskill.co.uk, but before I could buy them a mate at work offered me a complete set of GMax racing coilovers his friend was selling for £200. A set of these would set me back £700 odd quid new, so I instantly accepted. The next day he informed his mate had already moved them on - that or he'd figured out how much they were really worth.

I turned back to the OEM shocks, but my heart had been set on the coilovers and over the next week I slowly came to the conclusion I should treat

myself to a setup - I've been dying to spend some money on the car after all... I didn't fancy the cheap-looking GMax though and I have said all along that I want to keep it as JDM as possible, so I did a bit of research and decided on an entry-level kit from Japan bad boys TEIN [http://www.tein.co.uk], who I've heard and read a lot of good things about - they are also very nicely made and look fantastic! Theyr'e pricey @ £650 [cheapest I could find off a guy called mjd128 on eBay], but you get what you pay for...

Coilovers are a serious suspension upgrade, replacing the entire spring/shock assembly with a much stiffer, sturdier damper unit, which is also lighter and more compact as well as, most importantly, being completely height adjustable, with the TEIN set we went for dropping the car from 5 - 50mm! [The set comes with two special spanners and it only takes a minute to raise or lower the damper with the wheel off.]

Fitting:

I had a mechanic from work lined up to fit the OEM shocks, but when it came to the coilovers I found a nice vid on Youtube of two Australian lads fitting them to a Ver.5 STi and it didn't look too hard. Because coilovers come as a complete spring/damper unit there's no need to compress the spring off or on so I decided to have a go myself. I guess Aussie weather preserves metalwork better than in Britain, because those nuts were really on there and it turned out to not exactly be a breeze, but my dad and I did manage to get the rear two on in a couple of afternoons.

The task itself isn't hard provided you have a few spanners and are willing to get your hands dirty, but you need to be prepared to use ingenuity, especially if you live somewhere with a climate like Britain, to get the old shocks off.

PROCEDURE [Rear Shocks Only]:

REMOVAL:

1. Remove the rear seat-squab, seat-back and parcel-shelf by first removing the two screws from the front edge of the rear seat-squab (at the footwell) using a 12mm wrench. Lift the squab and pull it forward out of the way. Remove the three screws at the base of the seat-back using a 12mm wrench, lift it vertically up off the hooks holding it in place and move it clear. Gently pull one side of the parcel-shelf out from under the plastic on the C-pillar and once it is free the shelf should work its way out pretty easily.

2. Remove the two rear seatbelt pulleys by unbolting them from their frames at the base of the C-pillar using a 14mm wrench [though I recommend a socket-set with a few inches reach] and carefully move them out of the way of the suspension turrets.

3. Lift the car and remove the corresponding rear wheel.

4. Slightly loosen the three 12mm nuts holding the top-mount of the shock-absorber to the suspension turret under the rear parcel-shelf so that they can be removed without too much tension later.

5. Remove the brake-hose from the bracket on the shock by turning the collar of the hose and moving it up slightly, which should loosen it enough to pull the thin, flat metal clip out and free the hose. [Our OEM shocks had no U-shaped bracket to slide the hose out of - it was just a closed circle, the hose must have been woven through the shock - so we had to make a cut from the side of the bracket to the hole with a hacksaw and bend it open with

grips to get the hose clear without disconnecting it.]

6. Using a 17mm wrench crack off the two large bolts holding the shock-absorber to the wheel-hub. [Ours were seized on so tight with dirt and crud that we needed a very long bar over the spanner to get enough leverage.] You will then need a second 17mm wrench to hold the nuts in place while undoing the bolts and it may also be necessary to brace it against a heavy part of the axle setup to get a turn on it.

7. Remove the three 12mm nuts from the studs on the top-mount of the shock completely so that only the tension of the spring is holding the shock-absorber in place.

8. Now that that two large bolts holding the base of the shock have been removed, the brake-assembly should tilt forward a little to allow the shock room to move out. The spring will still be holding the base of the shock against its mount but, as there is no weight on it, it should work back out of the mount and down into the gap behind the axle. The top-mount studs should now clear the suspension turret and the shock and spring assembly can be lifted out of the wheel-arch.

ASSEMBLY:

If you're coilovers are fitted with top-mounts right out of the box then go straight to Refitting. If they require you use the car's standard top-mounts [like ours did] then you'll need to get them off the old shock by slowly removing the 19mm nut at the top of the damper-piston - when the nut comes free the spring won't be under enough tension to pop anything off. The piston will begin to turn with the nut, so grip it in a vice if you have space, though strong grips or better still mole-grips will do fine.

Include the top-mounts in the assembly of your coilovers, but don't tighten the nut at the top of the piston completely [the coilovers will have a notch so the piston won't turn with the nut], so that the triangular top-mount can still be rotated to find the turret.

REFITTING:

1. Reverse the lifting out procedure to get the coilover in place with the three top-mount studs mounted in the turret.

2. The coilover shouldn't be under much tension at all with no weight on it and most [including ours] have helper-springs to ease compressing them slightly, so with a little elbow grease it should move into place to get the two large 17mm bolts through to fix the

base of the damper to the hub. [We placed a thinner metal bar through the top hole to help get the coilover aligned, which made it easier to get the lower bolt in first.] Tighten the nuts using two spanners again until the brackets on the damper are clamped tight to the hub-mount.

3. Slide the collar of the brake-hose into the U-shaped bracket on the coilover and insert the flat metal clip beneath it to hold it in place.

4. Replace the three 12mm nuts to the top-mount studs on the suspension-turret below the parcel-shelf.

5. Now the coilover is seated, tighten the large nut on the top of the damper-piston to about 40PSF with a torque-wrench. [We used a lo-tech 'bendy-bar' torque-wrench, but whatever, I'm sure just a good tighten would be fine.]

6. Replace the wheel, parcel-shelf, seat-back and squab.

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This was quite an ambitious task to undertake at home - we found ourselves baffled, frustrated and dashing out to buy new tools more than a few times!

Demon Tweeks quoted me £200 to fit all four coilovers and said it would take about 2 hours. With all our figuring-out and store trips we spent a good 10 - 12 hours over two afternoons fitting just the rear pair [although I hope this guide might help one of you to do it quicker than us] - a saving of about £100 - but either way they're on and the suspension is now MOT'able!

Prodrive Seat Emblems!

The seats are all in good-nick and that deserves celebrating so I thought I'd spruce them up with some emblems to make them look like the embroidered Prodrive ones.

The emblems cost just £12 from eBay from a guy called Movi-Star - bargain. The grey Prodrive writing is made of a thick, rough suede-like felt and the blue strip is a very nice smooth alcantara type felt so they look and feel like they came on the seats, not like a cheap add-on and from outside the car of course, there's no way of telling them from an embroidered original ;)

The emblems are very easy to iron on, provided you have the right heat setting. They recommend you start on a very low heat and work up so you don't burn the seat, but the transfers won't stick at all unless the iron is pretty darn hot. It took me a good hour of working up the heat for fear of damaging the fabric, but these Subaru seats are tough stuff and in the end I had the iron almost on full heat to finally make the transfers stick, with no burning of the seats at all. Nicely nice!

[To look like the seats in the Prodrive Turbos that is, not the P1 style seats - I saw a pair of those beauties for £300 on eBay, but they're blue and have P1 embroidered, wouldn't suit. Besides, if you wanna talk whole new seats then its got to be Bride 'Holding Monster' all the way (http://www.brideseats.co.uk) - they are the Recaro of the JDM world, shame a pair costs a grand and up!!]