SLODRIVE Racing was born this past summer when my buddy and I decided that playing with cars in the dirt, with the intention of eventually going rallying, would be a good idea. We decided on a Subaru because, well, I guess I dont have to explain why, LOL. We felt pretty confident because we've been around Subies: My buddy (Rob) has owned 7 or 8 Subarus, and I (Greg) used to work at Super-Rupair in Boulder, and have built quite a few "other" motors, as well as a dirt stock car.
The same week we came up with the idea, we found this beauty on Craigslist, a 1-owner '93 L. AWD, 5-speed, and still full of R-12 in the air conditioning. Can you believe this car was $500?
Not even 48 hours after buying the car, we took it out to CORE, the big off-road/rally park, and had a blast, until we took an unexpected jump and destroyed the oil pan and front struts.
We towed the car home and scored some parts from Super-Ru, and I learned how to change the pan without lifting the motor, but not without cussing a lot. I also adapted a skidplate donated my the used parts department, what a great thing to have.Since we were happy with the car, we went budget shopping some more...a set of Forester wheels for $40, a turbo hood in the right color (yay!), and $60 Hellas from Wal-Mart.
Lookin' good...
We went back to CORE, and found out that Forester wheels bend really easily, and the Craigslist Michelins on them were junk to boot. On went the 14" steelies with some Winterforce tires we got a crazy deal on ($25/ea. NEW). That setup worked really well, both on the rally track and up in the mountain trails. From the end of July through October, we racked up over 3000 trouble-free miles, a lot of them full-throttle at CORE.
Here we are up somewhere near Rollins Pass:
Things changed dramatically about 3 weeks ago. Thanks again to Craigslist, we traded our faithful "Type L" wagon straight across for a total pile of crap. I'll explain, and then show pictures.
The Good:
-1992 Legacy SS
-Good 5 speed, good limited slip rear
-STi rear struts, AGX front struts, stiff springs of some kind
-TurboXS MBC and FCD, operating boost gauge
-Big honkin' FMIC from a Volvo 740 installed (I removed this right away, see below)
-No bottom-end knocks from the motor
-Manual front seatbelts installed
-Drilled/vented front rotors, Axxis Metal Master pads all around
-An actual rallycross/rally car, apparently it had placed well in national events.
The BAD:
-Body damage on LR quarter and LF door/rocker panel
-Sheetmetal, silicone and rivets in place of sunroof
-Interior basically gone, just filthy front buckets and flapping door panels. No carpet, plastic trim, console, etc. Also came full of trash, dirt, busted tools and cigarette butts.
-Awful paint job
-Hood is simply butchered. It had an extra scoop added to clear the intercooler, and...well, you'll see.
-Wire nuts used extensively throughout the car's wiring
-And the worst part...a bad head gasket and/or cracked head, and a lot of noise from the right head. It runs, but overheats and pushes out coolant the second it sees boost.
All told, we figured the good parts were still worth more than what we had in the wagon, so we swapped him, less our turbo hood and skidplate.
Here's how it looked when we got it...get ready...
Notice the non-existent grille (for Hella clearance) and the non-centered sunroof deflector bolted on the front of the hood, to clear the intercooler. Nice.
See the clear "reverse scoop"? Yes, it normally goes on your heating vent at home...but there it is, siliconed onto the scoop opening. Oooo baby!
Here's the intercooler...I just couldn't stand it. It appeared to work though
Here's the motor after cobbling some hoses together to ditch the intercooler. I did notice the coffee mug in the intake. Also notice the stainless mesh air filter...Gee, is that good for dirty conditions?
Yes, it's disgusting...so I got on it right away. The day we brought it home, we went to a salvage yard where I had spotted a '93-'94 SS with a good interior. $110 later, we had seats and door panels all around, and I scrubbed/hosed all the dirt out of the inside. There's still no plastic trim, carpeting, headliner or anything like that, but it looks a lot more rally-ready.
I also had to fix the front-end right away, because just looking at it made me ill. I scored the grille of the SS in the salvage yard and quickly rattle-canned it white, and put my old hood on. I re-used his hood pins since there's no hood latch at all (and I dont feel like replacing the whole thing). Looks a lot better now, at least the front does:
We're not too worried about making this car mint, since it's going to be a rally car anyway, but it'll get a lot nicer as the winter goes on. Before the body gets fixed up, I'm pulling the motor, probably this weekend, to replace/repair the head gaskets/heads. It'll also be getting a FXT TMIC I already found for $50, and a TD04 when it goes back in the car, along with any necessary supporting parts. I'm feeling pretty good about this, as I just finished rebuilding an EJ257 for Rob's '04 STi. We'll see though, hahaha...
Anyways, now that I'm here, you'll be seeing a lot more of me, as I have already found a lot of great info here, and I hope to contribute as much as possible.
Cheers, and thanks for reading!
-Greg
Get her out of those leaves!
