409industries

Hello! My name is Aaron and I have been building a Production GT class rally car out of a 2001 RS for about a year and a half now at the time of this post. Its taken me this long because I don't have a lot of money, but do have some patience and am willing to work hard to make the transition from weekend rallycross guy to stage rally driver!

If you get a chance be sure to drop by my website DirtyImpreza.com - The Off-Road Impreza Community.

The ENTIRE build history prior to today can be found here.
DirtyImpreza Project RS (roof scoop install pending) - DirtyImpreza Forums

Here's just some highlights to bring you up to speed.

Totally Stock RS:


Stripped:




Motor pulled for donor for another working stock motor / transmission.


cage building begins:


Seam welding:


Cage completed:


Interior painted:


Roof Reskinned:


Other motor swapped in:


Repairs:


Group N Motor / Tranny Mounts:


Roof vent installed:


Vinyl graphics applied:


Rally it!


Well that's about it for now. There is still plenty to do to the car to get it completely stage ready, but ill try to keep this thread updated. You can always see the latest on the DirtyImpreza.com Project Rally RS here.

Thanks!

409industries

Here is some video from a recent rallycross event!



Try not to pay to much attention to my non-stop sawing of the wheel. I was kind of all over the place for a while. I never broke into the sub 2:00 times, but was pretty consistent all day. Only a couple of cones here and there, those few cones was enough to keep me from snagging second... D'oh!

Enjoy the video! Its been a while since i've released anything. I have to thank my buddy Jeff that was riding shotgun with me all day for bringing his GOPRO camera. They're pretty cool deals for $200. The files are somewhat hard to edit with in Premiere Pro, but thats another discussion all together...

409industries

I finally got some free time over the weekend to pay some attention to the RS. Car got a bath among other things, it actually looks pretty good clean. Its been covered in a layer of desert dust for so long, it almost looks like a brand new car (well not really...)



A few weeks ago, I randomly came across a guy on Nastysock selling what looked like a Rallispec roof scoop (that was painted black already!) for $80 shipped. The ad was over 5 months old, but I PM'd the guy anyway to see if he still had it, and he did! This just goes to show a few people actually rally on the biggest Subaru site in North America..wtf! Anyway, this was a great find so i happily paid the guy his asking price for the scoop and he mailed it out. Brand new these things are around $200.

Install was a pain in the ***. This is another reason to not roll the car. I don't want to have to put another roof scoop on. The scoop didn't fit exactly with the RA roof vent because the vent door was slightly too large to fit under the "feet" on the inside of the scoop. I spent some time using the dremel to get everything cut out ok, but still leave enough material to drill the holes that the bolts will go through to hold the scoop on. Blue tape was used on the roof of the car so i could trace the outline of the scoop. Next the scoop was traced on a piece of cardboard where i marked the holes that were drilled in the fiberglass. The cardboard template was then matched onto the roof of the car so that the holes could be marked on the roof. This method worked out pretty well and i was able to get the holes drilled into the roof pretty accurately on the first try. I used some metric hardware from the local hardware store (bolts, locknuts, washers) to fasten everything down, snug but not too tight. Getting my hand into the scoop to hold a 10mm wrench and reaching into the car to ratchet from the inside was not easy. Im sure to anyone walking by it must have been a funny sight. So here it is, the RS with the roof scoop installed!







Gooped on some clear caulking on the bolts inside the car to hopefully keep the water out. We'll see how this goes next time i wash the car...

409industries

So i've received quite a few comments about what mudflaps are being run on the Project Rally RS. The car is sponsored by our long time supporter RallyArmor Mudflaps.






(Yes the front bumper is off for some custom shennagins, more on that in the future)

They provided us many months ago with the same material that they send the Canadian teams that they sponsor. Referred to as the "mspec" mudflaps (short for Motorsport Specification) these flaps are made of Urethane I believe 7 times thicker than their standard UR mudflaps. I have seen many rally cars with broken / tattered mudflaps and I am more than confident that it is not going to happen to these bad boys. Even in freezing temperatures, frozen rocks hitting these will not cause any damage. If their standard UR mudflaps have lasted me 2 full rallycross seasons plus several DirtyMeets (and they still look brand new!!!) then these can take everything just short of a nuclear blast. ;-)

The flaps showed up on my doorstep has 4 large rectangles, so it was up to me to decide how and where to mount them up.



The rears were relatively simple to put on, although i did modify the inside edge to be more of an angle to clear some underbody components. They were attached to the bumper and and using one of RallyArmor's proprietary brackets from their GC line of flaps, i was able to secure the inside edge of the rear flap a bit better. Now, when (not if... but when) the rear bumper gets ripped off, these flaps are probably going go with it but i can hope that it wont... .......got bumper?





The fronts, I used the factory tabs that are normally used to hold in the OEM fender liners to mount the outside edge of the flaps.



Also, on the inside edge I drilled some holes into the body of the car and tightened down a screw and washer in two spots. These front mudflaps aren't going anywhere. The whole front fender is going to have to get ripped off before these fall off. I figure its most beneficial to have the front flaps on real good, since they are going to help reduce how quickly things on the underside of the car get destroyed by gravel. The rears merely keep rocks from flying up in the air out the back of the car. :tongue:



So there you have it, the custom mudflaps on the Project Rally RS. I highly doubt these will ever go into full scale production due to the cost associated with getting the heavy-duty Urethane, but I never did get an official no from Costas. It is a very niche item since many people choose to build their own mudflaps out of things like cutting boards. Ikea flaps are cheap yes, but they will be destroyed after one stage rally. It just becomes a game of how valuable is your time when it comes to replacing shattered mudflaps after every event?

Flo555

Very nice project, a bit different Impreza

409industries

Rocks being hurled at your wiring harnesses at 100mph is not a comforting thought. So, since the front bumper is off the RS for another side project, i figured it would be a good time to protect some of the exposed vital electrical wiring on the car. In lieu of full fender liners, i am wrapping wiring in the wheel well area in some thick plastic tubing that is reinforced with fiberglass webbing. I think this is really for washing machines, it seems really tough though. I was able to buy this at my local hardware store.



Measure out a length of tubing that will cover as much wiring as possible. Cut it lengthwise so that it can be wrapped around the wires to be protected.



The front of the car is to the left, this is in front of the driver's side front tire. Wrap the wires with the gap in the tubing facing the front of the car. This will ensure that the rocks and debris by the tire being flung forward will hit the solid side of the tube, and not the "seam" side. Use zipties to pull the tubing around the wires tightly.



Then ziptie up the whole solid tube with wires to the inside of the wheel well, to keep it from moving around.



I also made sure to leave the tubing a bit long so that the bottom part extends past the inside of the wheel well out of harms way.



Periodically it would be a good idea to cut the zipties and clean out any dirt or rocks that accumulate inside the tubing. Also inspect for any frayed / worn wiring (hopefully there will be none, because of the protective tube!) The process was repeated on the passenger side to protect the wires over there too. I'll need to go back and take off the fender on the driver's side and get some of the other wires that run up along the top too, but the concept is exactly the same as this bundle. Maybe sometime down the road i will make some fender liners out of UHMW urethane for an extra level of protection but for now i need the money for other important components.

409industries

The concept is simple. Have two bumpers for the rally car, one that has some beautiful HID lights in it for the night stages, and one that does not. Simply swap the bumpers out at service so if I stuff the front end on a day stage i won't kill two of my Solteks. In addition to this, i figured it would be cool to cut out some more of the bumper for better airflow, and also install a screen to keep rocks from damaging the radiator fins too.

Backside of the stock RS bumper:


Dremel everything out you don't need:


Wire mesh material. I found this in the contractor's supply section of my local hardware store. It cost $5 for this huge sheet.


Cut the mesh to a rectangle roughly the size of the opening, cut the ends so that they can be folded neatly near the corners. Drill about 40-50 small holes all around the edge of the opening that was cut. Fold the metal mesh around the opening neatly then loop tiny 4" black zipties through the holes and then back through the mesh. The more zipties the better as i think this would spread the load more when a rock or stick hits the wire.


Cut off all the loose ends on the zipties.


From the front:


Closer look:


Install on the car and see how it looks:


Closer installed:


Super close up:


If you get really close to the bumper you can see all the zipties that look kind of like stitches. There is kind of a frankenstein look to the whole thing, but only if you really scrutinize the mesh. I think it turned out really well, and looks pretty hot. We will see how well it holds up to a direct rock hit.

Now I will need to throw together some kind of a quick release system to swap bumpers out at service when switching between day and night stages. Right now it can easily be done in 5 minutes, just pop the grill out and remove the snaps. There's only 1 on each side near the wheel wells too (5 total) surprisingly its on really sung.

409industries

Entry into The Monkey's Trunk car show at Chino Valley Subaru was free so it was a no brainer to enter. As soon as i heard that Ken Block was going to be there with the new Gymkhana car of his I definitely wanted to check it out. The turnout was pretty huge actually. Pre-registrations for the show were capped at 100 subies, and then another 50 or so were allowed to register the day of the event. On top of that there were a ton of cars out parked on the street, many of which could have easily been a part of the "show" too. Id estimate that there were probably 200 Subarus of all makes and models there that day.

The RS was pretty clean already, i wiped down some of the dust from the inside of the car and on the cage, and threw on the black BBS's from the STi. I figured it would look more like a tarmac rally car or something (except it sat way too high!). I was able to squat on Rally Innovation's vendor booth, so that was super cool of them. Having two rally cars next to each other in a sea of slammed / body kitted / polish lipped subies was good stuff.



Ken Block was signing autographs for hours. I heard he was only supposed to be there for 2 hours, but stuck around for over 4 to make sure that everyone got their posters, intakes, gauge pods, (pretty much anything that could be ripped of a car) signed. I waited until the line died down and got a poster and chatted with Ken for just a few moments. I was stoked that he asked how the site was doing... no idea if it was because he remembered me from interviews or X Games last year but it was cool regardless. I wished him good luck at X Games this year and mentioned that i'd be sure to catch up with him there. Hopefully he and Alex will do even better this year. Oh and the Gymkhana car is sick. I still like the old GD one better though, it has a full interior and no cage. sweet.

The show went extremely well. I was able to chat with lots of spectators who had questions about the lights, roll cage, and graphics. That's one thing that people really dig about rally cars... the lights.



Its super cool thought to see people poking their heads in the car, etc. I have a feeling i am really going to like the Parc Expose part of rallying Throughout the day i walked around the entire show and put a DI spotted card on just about EVERY single Subaru there. This was also a great opportunity to show of the sponsor decals on the car at a publicized event.



More to come soon!

409industries

If there is anyone who knows precise alignment specs, its drift guys. My buddy Phi agreed to get me hooked up with a full alignment if I cruised down to Drift Speed in Los Alamitos one evening. The positive camber in the rear and generally totally fubar'd alignment on the rally car was getting somewhat annoying to deal with (crooked steering wheel, uneven tire wear on the street) so I got my butt down there to get it straightnened out.

While there, we had to install the camber bolts in the rear to get the zero or slightly negative rear camber that I wanted. We got the car onto the alignment rack / lift and pulled off the stock 6 spokes and put the rally wheels and tires on front first.





Once all the gravel wheels were on, the reflectors for the laser alignment could be attached. These things kick so much ***.







The machine is very sensitive, it measures down to the tenth of a degree for everything like toe, camber, etc. Even bumping the car while tightening bolts down could throw everything out of whack. The wife called me wondering why it was taking a couple of hours to do an alignment when Pepboys will do one in 30 minutes. I had to try to explain how getting your car to track straight and actually having even toe and camber settings is the difference between Pepboys and doing it right. So for those of you wondering, I am basically running zero camber and zero toe in the rear, and about -1.5 camber in the front with zero toe. My goal is to make the car track as neutral as possible for now. It is really nice to have a steering wheel that actually sits in the center when going straight down the highway too. We will see how long that lasts though... ;-)

A big thanks goes out to my friend Phi who set this all up. I know i'm like the black sheep bringing a rallied out Impreza into a drift shop full of huge turbo swapped S14's and S15's but as promised I left very little dirt on the floor! (I even pressure washed the underside of the RS before taking it down there) LOL. I'd also like to thank Quoc for sticking around all night making sure that everything got dialed in perfectly. These guys are the alignment pros!

super_ted

iTrader: (30)

looking very good!

409industries

There were several suggestions that the RS would look better with the grill mesh pastidipped, and the metal behind the bumper painted black. I thought so too. Even though it will probably eventually get jacked up its nice to know it looks good now

The mesh has about 6 coats of plastidip sprayed on.

old:


New:




Thanks for all the feedback guys!

DJ_Jon

iTrader: (7)

Pretty cool Prezza, just out of interest, is it not possible to fit the turbo engine into this car or is it case of the class you rally in or keeping costs down?

409industries

Fortunately it is very possible to do a complete motor and drivetrain swap into this car from either a WRX or a STi.

I am planning on keeping it the way it is (power-wise) for now to keep things cheap when they break, and to also get some driving experience in a slower car first. Eventually the motor will be swapped out of this car.

DJ_Jon

iTrader: (7)

Makes perfect sense, cheers for the reply & good luck with the rallying

409industries

Fourth of July weekend was cool, hope you had a great one too. While normal folks catch up on yard work, I had a chance to focus on a few smaller projects on the rally car that I have been putting off for quite some time. There are still a thousand "micro-projects" that need to be finished, but at least now its 1000 minus 3. In between hanging out at the pool and drinking lots of American beer, this is what i got done.

Hood pins - hell yeah. No race car is complete without hood pins. I even learned how to use a pop-rivet gun. That thing may be used again in the near future. Super handy device that guy. The front grill, headlights, and corners have to be pulled out for proper fitment of the pins. I saw that a guy on RS25 pulled the rubber hood stops out and used the holes for the pins. This was a VERY clever idea, i did the same. Once fitted, the studs of the hood pins needed to be trimmed down so that the headlights could fit back in.



Super cool trick is to cut the OEM bumers down, and then drill out the center so that they fit over the hood pin studs. This provides a cushy platform for the hood to rest on.


There is something strangely satisfying about drilling [more] holes in your rally car. Its nerve racking a bit because you have to get it right the first time.


This is before i got the headlights back in.




The pop rivet gun is pretty easy to use, but with this style of hoodpin, you have to bend the "tracks" back so that the head of the gun can fit in to do the last rivet. Once everything is in place, some chanel-locks are good to bend everything back into place.


I picked up some stock endlinks from a guy local for like $40. PGT rules say that stock endlinks must be retained, but you can use any aftermarket bar you want. I sold the endlinks that were on there and put the stockers back on with my RalliTEK rear swaybar. BORING i know, but rules are rules...







Finally, i ordered up some "blank" black vinyl with my last batch of DI goods from redline rally. The purpose of this was to make my own 100% opaque windshield banner. I've been paying very close attention to some of the national level rally cars (Ken Block's comes to mind) and I saw how ridiculously large their front windshield banners are to block sunlight. Mine is pretty modest as it only comes down 10" from the top of the windshield, but its still covers quite a bit of the window. Next time ill be sure to get the vinyl masked... i had to do it myself. woops! It turned out WAY better than i expected. This started as an over sized rectangle of black vinyl. I affixed it to the window (using the water trick) and just cut it down to size. Only a couple of bubbles here and there which i was able to get out OK. I think a DirtyImpreza.com windshield banner is going to look fricking epic on top of this.





Lots and lots of small projects in the works. Keep coming back to check on the PRRS... I may be down on cash, but ill keep working on this car as much as possible! ;-)

409industries

Money is tight, but there's lots to be done on the car. I figured i'd try to knock down the extremely long list of odds and ends stuff that needs to be done while I save up for my seats. First on the list was to (re)install my wiring for the Soltek Fuego lights. Since i had already done this on the other shell, and removed everything i had a pretty good idea of how everything was going to come together. Personally, i hate wiring as electricty and I don't really get along to well, but i've learned quite a bit from doing this the second time around. I have a better understanding of how relays work in conjunction with the ***-backwards reverse grounds on Subarus. Part of the wiring will have to be redone again when the battery is relocated to the trunk, but its only a small section of the entire system.

When you don't have a garage, you have to make do with what you got. Dining room table = workbench.


Had to figure out a decent place to mount the hot 12v constant fuses. The OEM horn mount seemed fine as the lines had space so go around the existing battery, and still could be connected to on both sides.


These are he hot leads (currently disconnected from the battery) waiting to be plugged into the relays once the relay holder is in a good location. The white wires will be the signal wires back from the toggles inside to activate the relays.


Soltek's weather proof connectors are super easy to assemble.


Back inside the car, i decided to splice into the high-beams wire under the steering column. This is because per NASA rules:

The correct wire to splice into is yellow with a thin blue stripe. It terminates in the connector on the driver's side of the steering column.


This green wire then runs down behind the center console where it is split into 3 wires that will activate 3 relays.



Wiring back to the front of the car from the relays to the actual HID's is cleaned up.


Connectors will hangout in front of the grill for easy connect / disconnect from the lights


Relays hooked up. There will be one relay controlling 2 lights, for a total of 3 relays.


I actually hot glued the wires in place on the plastic holder that guides the disconnects onto the relay prongs. This should keep them from rattling out and disconnecting. The plastic holders (not pictured here, but on the underside of the relay block) is ziptied in place for extra strength.


The block is mounted way back on the firewall, and behind one of the shock towers to hopefully keep it dry and relatively cool.


No access to fancy metal for me, so i rigged up a Plexiglass panel switch. Easy for me to work on with basic hand tools, and a dremel.


I actually messed the first one up and made a second version, this one pictured here. Lots of fitting, cutting and trimming but it came out pretty nice. It has a sturdy feel because it was pretty thick plastic. I painted the backside of the panel black so it won't get scratched from either the driver or co-driver.


Wired up the first 3 toggles, each one controls a pair of lights. Shrink wrapped everything all nice. The other two toggles will be used for something else, possibly custom interior lighting and a co-driver map light.


Panel screwed into position, i simply used some longer screws and nylon spacers on the OEM holes behind the dash to get it flush with the cool fake CF bezel.


Plenty of space left below these five toggles for an electrical cutoff, horn, and whatever else might need to be mounted. Lights work great so far, i can't wait to get out on some dirt roads at night to try them out. I have the entire wiring diagram that I went off still so if anyone is interested in that i can scan it and make it available. All the fuses, fuse holder, relay block, and relays were purchased at rallylights.com

409industries

More odds and ends getting done on the car. Nothing too exciting but since I like to take pictures of everything, here it goes!

Autometer Pro Shiftlight. Yeah they are a bit rice, but i've always been a fan of shift lights. Not having to keep a close eye on the tach has always been a big plus whether it be racing in autocross, rallycross, or eventually on stage where taking your eyes off the road for a second is sketchy. This guy will just give me a quick heads up before i bounce off the rev-limiter. I still need to get the right RPM pill, as this one is from another car and is way past the redline of the RS. So this was the install.

Extend the wires to reach the ECU, a good ground, and a power source.


Drill holes on the top of the steering column cover to mount the light and allow the wires to pass through.


Mounted.


Tap into the RPM signal wire off the ECU.


Good spot for a ground (behind where the stereo usually is)


There's lots of potential power sources to use, i took the easy route and used an add a fuse on the radio spot (since i don't have a radio). :-(


Done!


As you can see, the position of the shift light does not block my view of water temp, or the tach... only partially on the lower end of the speedometer.

409industries

Before you read this. Please let me tell you that no matter how easy you think putting in racing seats is going to be, it's not going to be easy. Nothing about these seats was easy to do, from acquiring the right hardware, to getting everything aligned and installed. If you want to rally though, you gotta have em so just try to smile when everything goes annoyingly wrong over and over again.

I picked up these seats from a Cobra distributor in Southern California. The labels on the side of the seats might throw you off a bit. The Cobra Imola S was replaced with the Imola Pro, so the sticker says one thing, but the embroidery on the seat says another.


They are actually very light, and probably the most affordable Kevlar seat out there. Spent a pretty penny on the seats and the sexy aluminum side brackets (unfortunately they do not export the cheaper steel side brackets out the UK) and set out to source the remaining hardware. I found a guy in San Diego that had a passenger side sparco seat bracket, swooped on that quick... used saves a lot of money. The driver's side one on the other hand was much harder to acquire. Sparco ran out right as geekmonster was going to hookabrothaup and they didnt arrive the following week with their next shipment. I poked around for a while on the big Subaru forums, but was getting bought out from underneath, and dealing with people who didn't have Paypal accounts, etc. Not rad. So i bought one from a store i won't name at this time because I am currently working on getting a refund from them.

So when you buy a Sparco DRIVER side seat base for a 01 RS / 02 WRX this is what they send you.


Are you f!@$%ing kidding me? A Wedge Engineering base, for a Buick Skyhawk / Chevy Cavalier... and its a passenger side? Seriously retarded. I didn't get a Wedge unit because they decided to not return my emails about getting a quote for one. Their loss. Needless to say i was furious because this shop's distributor's shipping sucked too (i couldn't change the delivery options so FedEx would only let me pick it up at the damn warehouse of theirs). geekmonster came though in a pinch again and was able to pull off getting one from me super last minute. I met up with him, and jetted over to Jackson Rally that same night. Seriously, thanks so much Chris you rock!

Rolled up to JR, car smoking like crazy... ripped another CV boot somehow that's another fix for another day. After the usual bribing of Kyle with pizza of his choice and multiple containers of Dr. Pepper we got to work. Pulled the old Impreza L seat out. It found its way to the dumpster later that night.... finally!




If its one thing Kyle hates, it's installing seats and I now know why. Nothing matches up. The seat manufacturer makes side mounts for their seats that don't really fit (we turned one set of them around backwards) then the bottoms of the side rails don't match up with the Sparco seat bases, and then these don't really line up with the OEM holes in the car all that well. So, how do you fix a problem like this? We'll you have to have to have a guy that knows how to make anything work with metal... and a lot of patience.

One of the many test fittings of the smaller driver side Imola. We got the distance for my short *** legs pretty good, i can still push the clutch to the floor, that's kind of important.


The Imola GT is the wider version of the Imola and is the co-driver seat. This thing BARELY fits in an RS. Its probably the biggest seat that will fit in a caged GC


Clamping things down and marking holes that need to be drilled to attach the side rails. (It would be too easy to make them just match...WTF!)


The Sparco bases are pretty weaksauce, they need additional gusseting to make em strong!






So we ended up finishing around 3am, but that is how most of my install projects work out. The seat feels GREAT i must say. I took the liberty of driving Ortega Highway on the way home and was amazed at how much more connected i felt to the car (all that padding on the stock seats is like a dead zone for feeling what the car is doing under your ***). Even though the Imolas have very low sidewalls, the still hold me in place very well, and the shoulder support is awesome. To all the haters that were claiming the harness bar was way too high, it actually worked out perfect, just as we knew it would. Here's the finished install.






Thanks goes out to Kyle at Jackson Rally again for the millionth time that he has gone above and beyond for the project RS. It would not be where it is today without his tireless efforts. Now i can finally get on to a bunch of other smaller projects now that i know exactly where the seats are going to be staying. Sparco 6pt harnesses are not in yet because i need some additional hardware to adapt them to the harness bar. Ill be running my Schroth Profi 2's in the meantime. More updates to come...

409industries

Its been a while since i've hit up this thread. This doesn't mean that nothing has been going on with the RS. To be honest, all of the crazy working on the car has slowed down a bit to focus on a few other things going on, and DI in general. One good thing though is that I have actually been driving the car a lot more, and taking it to events (including meets, photo shoots, etc). Generally using the car as its second main purpose in life... to expose the general public to what rally and DirtyImprezas are all about!

After we got the seats in, i was able to try them out up at the first ever California City rally cross. Tore a CV boot on the up there, so it was a stinky mess all over the place with burning grease on the exhaust headers. I did my best to ghetto fix things with a mess of duct tape and zip ties.



Despite the constant smoke / smell... what a blast, i mean the car was a ton of fun out there (I still need to figure out how to keep her from understeering like a pig) but it was great fun getting some seat time up there. This venue has so much potential because its very large and close to gas stations, food, ice, and well... even a bar Looking forward to racing here again in 2010. It'll be up to our friend Rally OBXT to see if this is going to happen. I really hope it does, its a great time out there and a huge lot!





Going to try to get this thread up to date over the next couple of weeks so stay tuned for more pics!

CRonson7

iTrader: (4)

good work mate looks awsome

409industries

Finally it was time to deal with that busted inner CV on my passenger side axle. I decided to tackle it on my own because taking axles out is usually a piece of cake. Well, it is when you don't completely smash the axle nut into the axle groove that its pinched in. As i tried to un-pinch it, it got smashed in and there was quite a bit of material preventing the nut from backing off. Figured i had nothing to lose because i had a spare axle and nut. I started drilling it out. That didn't work and it was totally screwed after that, i even managed to drill into the axle quite a bit! Good thing was though, the nut was going anywhere so the axle was still securely on the car. I headed out to Jackson Rally shortly after to see if Kyle could help me with me with my new predicament.

Turns out he has a specially modified chisel tool that he uses only for "axle nut un-pinching". I now have one of these, however it didn't do us any good with the condition that the nut was in now. After about 45 minutes of grinding with a special narrow grinding bit, enough material was removed so that the damn thing could be snapped off.



With the nut off, the axle could finally come out.



THIS is exactly why CV boots are not made out of duct tape.



The "replacement" axles that i got had different outside rings (the teeth were different for the ABS sensors i think?) but with some slight modification the passenger side one fit just fine and i was on my way again without smokey axle grease flavored cabin air. I think ill be buying new axles from now on to get fresh stretchy CV boots to avoid tearing. With the gravel coilovers, i'm getting much more droop and i think it just over stresses the brittle old CV's and they break. Its not worth saving the extra couple bucks... i'll be getting new ones from now on.

409industries

The RS went to two separate events recently, coincidentally they were both at the same location! Forman Performance had their grand opening shindig so i though this would be a good opportunity to take the rally car down there and show it off a bit. It definitely got some good attention, and there were a few people that were interested in its construction, etc. So it was nice to talk to some people that were curious about what rally is all about. The event was way fun too, a DJ was playing music the whole time, and the street tacos were super good and spicy. Can't ever complain about that! Car was actually washed sometime before this event, it looks weird semi-clean.





We wish Forman Performance good luck with the new shop. If you have any questions for them, post up in their vendor forum here: Forman Performance - DirtyImpreza Forums

Several weeks later, i got word about the NASIOC SCIC 3rd annual photoshoot at the same shop. I headed down there with Bug-I Newk and mousemanthormx in their cars to get some DI representation along side all of the "hellaflush" garage queens. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of nice cars there but i made sure to not wash the RS after our fun out in the desert the week before. The vibe at these meets is so different than that of a rally event. Take Parc Expose for example, you could talk to anyone about their car and 99% of the time they are going to be more than happy to answer any questions you might have. Smiling faces everywhere. At this street meet, there were really only a few people that looked or even acted like they wanted to socialize with someone that might not know, nothing but hard looks all the time. Reminds me of lame trendy socal bars. I did meet some cool people (you know who you are) but overall, i pretty much just hung out with the guys we rolled up with. Regardless, every car there got a "DirtyImpreza.com - Dirt is for Racing, Tarmac is for getting there" sticker left on their car, or on their driver's seat if the window was open! Kickass. :lick:


Yes, that is a Buick Grand National to the left of the RS :headbang:


Yes, we all know that car shows are somewhat boring, but its good exposure for the site, and also for my generous sponsors. Gotta be out there working it with the local clubs and meet goers! I'll have another update coming shortly. Made it back out to Jackson Rally for some minor fab work...

409industries

More fun out at Jackson Rally! Minor stuff, but sh*t that needs to get done...



As much as i didn't want to deal with seats anymore, it had to be finished. Nothing too bad though. I've had these Sparco 6 point harnesses sitting around for a long time. If i'm going to get any use out of them before they expire, i figured they best get put in the car soon. The only spot that really needs and custom work is the two crotch strap mounts under the seats. Since we kept in the stock beam under the seats that runs along of the front of the seat from the transmission tunnel to the door sill, we had a good study piece to weld onto. The factory shape of the beam had some big holes that needed to be plated over, the paint was removed and prepped for the welding.



Kyle sizing the plates.



Welding those bad boys in.





Here's the completed passenger side plate and anchor rings.



Here you can see both of them installed.



Installing the harnesses was pretty easy, Schroth Racing has some great videos on YouTube that show how to properly wrap belts over harness bars, etc. (YouTube - hmsmotorsport's Channel), however the biggest PITA was adjusting the crotch straps to the right length in the car. This is especially hard to do because i had to guess how long they needed to be, put them through the seat, have Kyle hold the seat up while they are clipped in, bolt the seat down, sit in the seat, and then do it all over again to adjust as necessary! Getting the camlocks to release the crotch strap to invert the bracket was fun to figure out too. My iPhone definitely helped with this part, finding YouTube videos was key! Anyway, they are in and i am now even more looking forward to trailering this car. 6 point harnesses are good for racing, but sure to suck for driving to and from events.



Trunk Tiedown mounts:
I had my spare tire fly up and hit the inside of my trunk and slam down into the spare tire well upside down once when i was out in the desert. Time to get some proper mounting points to secure things in place. Kyle welded this one up front, pretty epic welding as the underbody coating likes to catch on fire near the gas tank. I got to hang out down there and blow out the flames as they appeared. See... that's teamwork right there.



The rear two (towards the back of the trunk) are simply drilled and secured in place with washers and a locknut. The tiedowns will be arranged in a triangle formation.



Its a good setup and i am stoked to be able to rip around knowing i don't have to unload everything before i can get sideways. Next on the list is to get some tool bags that can be secured on top of the spare.

Got some more goodies in the mail since this visit to the shop, we're going to get some electronic stuff put in the car soon! Subscribe to this thread to get the next update!

409industries

Over the weekend i set aside some time to really focus on getting things hooked up that we'll need rallying. Nothing too difficult, just a lot of stupid things that just need to get done. First off was finally getting the co-driver harnesses installed and tidy up the slack in the car. I had to guesstimate the size for my co-driver, so hopefully these fit as adjusting the crotch straps is a pain in the ***.





Before i could get the next batch of electrical items taken care of, i needed to get some 12V constant wired up in the car. I picked up this nifty fuse block online, and wired it to the battery. Wiring in the engine bay was run tidily across the firewall strut braces. The fuse block was mounted in close proximity to the center console, and has 6 terminals that can be connected to any devices that need to have constant power which use standard automotive fuses. There are several devices that i know will need this, including the Terratrip, maplight, horn, and interior lights. The nice thing is that i know i'll have extra terminals for anything later on that might need to be connected up and its easily accessible





I needed to get a horn working. Rather than deal with trying to hookup the lame horn piece on my removable steering wheel, i installed a push button toggle on the toggle panel. This is easily in reach of the co-driver if i need to have him honk at someone while im busy driving, etc. Anyway, i decided that it would be fun to have some of those annoyingly high pitched airhorns in the rally car. I had a set on one of my first cars back in high school and figured it would be a laugh to hear them again. For some reason the dumb horn trumpets came in red, so i painted them black before putting them in.

I found a good place to mount the air compressor, on this OEM bracket. I drilled a hole in it, and mounted it up. It looks really clean here, almost as if it came with the car.


I decided to do this the long way (the right way) and took the front fender off so that i could put some lock nuts on the back of the bolts that secure the horns inside the engine bay. Mad amounts of jumping and slamming this car around shouldn't dislodge the mount points. If anything the plastic horns will break off before the bolts come loose.



Here is the whole setup. Its loud as hell. This will be fun honking at spectators, etc!

409industries

One of the bigger electronic tasks I was avoiding was the rally computer. I'm not too good with wiring and all that so this was a bit intimidating as i have heard some horror stories about people splicing ECU wires incorrectly and frying components... (leave the magic smoke inside the box!). I picked up a used Terratrip 202+ for a good price.



After quick chat with Barret at All Wheels Driven i jotted down some notes about what to look out for. He pointed me in the right direction like usual and suggested picking up the Terratrip DSI (Dual Signal Interface) box, so that instead of using a regular magnetic probe for the odometer we could splice into the computer's ECU to get the information the rally computer needs that way. The wire you need to connect to (in a 2001 RS) is on the B135 harness #24 - Vehicle Speed Signal (its green with a small yellow stripe) which is located right off the ECU mounted on the floor by the co-drivers feet. This can be tapped using a simple radio shack style crimp splice.





A good way to check that you've spliced into the correct wire is to first jack up your car and put it on jack stands (or use a lift if you are cooler than I am and have access to one). Once this is done you can run the motor and put the car in gear to get all tires moving.



Next hookup a voltmeter, or even a cheap test light to the spliced wire into B135 #24. As the wheels rotate, the test light will blink on and off. If you rev the motor and make the wheels turn faster, the light will blink faster as a result of this. If you have a constant volt reading (or constant test light) then you are probably on the wrong wire. It should pulse a very low voltage off and on (between 0 and 5v) while in motion.



Here is the DSI box all wired up (to provide power, ground, and pulse information to the Terratrip). This part was a little bit confusing, but not too bad. I found this great diagram over at Susquehanna Motorsports (rallylights.com):



Basically, here's how it all breaks down:

-Pin 1 is your constant power from the battery, which is also spliced into the power of the Terratrip. When you buy your rally computer you have to get the 12 pin molex adapter to make all this work ($5.00 at Sube Sports)
- Pin 3 runs from this terminal in the DSI box to pin 2 (I believe Probe 1 input on the Terratrip, it has a diagram on the back of the rally computer for reference)
- Pin 4 is the pulse wire that is spliced into the ECU of the Subaru (B135 harness #24)
- Pin 6 is the ground for both the Terratrip and also the DSI box.



There is a quick calibration process that is done on the DSI box (by adjusting a small screw) that is supposed to get everything to work properly. Once this is done, you can see that the rally computer is counting the pulses coming from the ECU. The complete instructions for calibrating everything is online. I have still yet to verify if everything is working properly but will soon. Hey look, the back lit display works too! It got dark before i completely finished.



I don't have a mount built yet for the rally computer, so for now it is disconnected and the wires have been taped up as ill be doing a rallycross this weekend. The DSI box has been mounted in the glove box bezel, pictured here on the right side. A Jackson Rally computer mount is definitely planned for the near future.

409industries

The most easy of the installs was the Peltor FMT110 Intercom. I decided to stick with the 9V battery powered setup and not go with the 12V hard wired option just for simplicities sake. "Installing" it was super easy, basically zip tying it into place and you're done! The intercom was orientated down so that i can reach the volume control and the RCA output is easily accessible for the video camera that will be riding along in the near future. It will be really cool to hear our on-board communications on video.





Next up, the Hella map light! These are available at Safe Drives. Check them out by clicking here.

This was actually tied into a toggle on the center console, even though there is an on-off switch on the actual map light. This is very easy to install, as all you'll need is 12V power and a ground.

12volt constant from the center console toggle. This was cleaned up and ziptied to the sill bar along with the factory wiring that is already there.




Now, mounting it was a bit of work, but not too bad. I opted to drill into the B-pillar and use some metal tap screws to secure it in place. Not pictured was the screw i used slightly below the base of the map light to ground the light.


There it is... in all its glory! All lit up and ready for night stages! The light also came with a red filter which is cool for when you co-driver wants to feel like he's / she's reading pace notes on a submarine.

409industries

The most easy of the installs was the Peltor FMT110 Intercom. I decided to stick with the 9V battery powered setup and not go with the 12V hard wired option just for simplicities sake. "Installing" it was super easy, basically zip tying it into place and you're done! The intercom was orientated down so that i can reach the volume control and the RCA output is easily accessible for the video camera that will be riding along in the near future. It will be really cool to hear our on-board communications on video.





Next up, the Hella map light! These are available at Safe Drives. Check them out by clicking here.

This was actually tied into a toggle on the center console, even though there is an on-off switch on the actual map light. This is very easy to install, as all you'll need is 12V power and a ground.

12volt constant from the center console toggle. This was cleaned up and ziptied to the sill bar along with the factory wiring that is already there.




Now, mounting it was a bit of work, but not too bad. I opted to drill into the B-pillar and use some metal tap screws to secure it in place. Not pictured was the screw i used slightly below the base of the map light to ground the light.


There it is... in all its glory! All lit up and ready for night stages! The light also came with a red filter which is cool for when you co-driver wants to feel like he's / she's reading pace notes on a submarine.

409industries

Starting to focus on getting my safety gear in order.



If you saw the pictures from the rallycross (Glen Helen I - 2010) you saw me running a full face Peltor helmet. I bought this used off eBay and actually got a smokin' deal on it. Before the event, i started not liking the idea of having a full face, but once i tried it it wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be. I still think open face would have been nice, but ill make do for now. I got the HANS posts, which need to be installed. Had a chance to use the built in intercom finally... that was way fun.



Got hooked up with some DC Pro Spec 2.0 shoes. Wore them around the house for a bit to break them in. They are actually really really cool to drive in. Walking... not so much, but the soles are very thin and you have very good pedal feel with them. Its easy to over tighten the velcro band on the top, so if you do get a pair of these don't crank them down to hard. It makes it awkward to pivot your foot forward and backward if the strap is too tight. I like driving in these.



Next on the list is a proper driving suit. :thumbsup:

super_ted

iTrader: (30)

amazing progress, i love this car.

409industries

Thanks super_ted! More updates coming soon...