Owned my impreza coming up 7 years now. Was my daily upto around a year ago when a cambelt idler let go and its sat in my garage since.

Recently decided to get my **** gear and get it back on the road

I took the engine out last year, it was really grubby as its done 170k odd. You can see the toothed idler is missing all its bearings.



Took the heads off






Couldn't see any marks on the pistons where valves had hit, so got away with it really.

Sent heads off to get everything checked, valves lapped in, new stem seals and cleaned up.




Turbo had some play so off for a refurb


Started cleaning up the inlet manifold



Cleaned and wrapped the loom


Cleaned the engine bay up, still needs another going over really.


Engine cleaned up a bit, heads back on



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Nice work, soon be back on the road,

 

What she looked like before

 

Thanks hopefully won't be long. Once the engine is going I still have a few jobs to do. Rear subframe will be coming off to be refreshed. Then off to the bodyshop to sort the passengers arch.

 

Been slack as since the last post. Had a bit motivation last couple of days though and wrapped the exhaust manifold. Cut all the old heat shield off, degreased it all and wrapped in the dei black wrap.


Loads left to do, hopefully get the inlet, headers, Turbo and ancelleries bolted on over the weekend.

Then got rear subframe and bodywork to tackle.

Spent small fortune so far:
Heads refurbed
Turbo refurbed
Gearbox refurbed
Hard race gearbox mounts
New suspension with the p1 style springs, whiteline topmounts, and sti rear mounts.
New hoses
New Cross over pipes
Heat wrap
​​​​​​Rmc cambelt kit, water pump
Head set

Still to come:
New fuel pump
Rear subframe refresh
Replace any bushes that haven't already been done.
Gearbox linkage refresh
Body work





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Whats the rust like (don't mean it in a nasty way) if you're doing the rear subframe have a poke around. Sills and strangely the front wings at the bottom.

 

Front is fine. Needs one rear arch and rear of the sills are on the way out. Will have a proper look once the rear subframe is off. Dreading getting the bolts off that hold it onto the body.

It might not be worth restoring in money making term's but I have lot of memories in this car. It was my daily for years and my son has grown up with it so it's a bit of a family diy project.

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If it was always about the money then there would be none left lol. But seriously take the side skirts off and check the bottom of the wings.

 

Cheers I will give it a a proper check. Got me worried now.