Impreza Sport Project
05 February 2012, 01:18 AM
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Impreza Sport Project
Thought I would post an article on the work I have carried out on my impreza (may be of interest to someone?.. although my girlfriend would disagree J) The car started its life as a standard impreza sport in very good condition:
Unfortunately in December 2006,. Slowly edging out of my driveway with limited vision, some idiot speeding down the road hit the brakes in the wet and skidded, clipping my front end!
(hard to see in the pic, but I measured 13metre skid marks!.. and ironically if he hadn’t skidded there was enough room to get a bus past me – does it show that I am still annoyed, even 5 years later J ) anyway the damage was done..
and since I was pulling out it was down to my insurance to pay. Fully comp the insurance assessor came to value the damage to my car. Requiring a new bumper + support bar, indicator, headlight washer,number plate, grill and bonnet,. With labour and paint the assessor said it was borderline CAT D - uneconomical repair. Since the front end was going to be replaced I pushed my luck and asked if they would put the wrx bumper with the spotlights, but they wouldn’t do it (not even if there was some cash put infrom me ;-) )… they offered me a full payout, or £1700 partial - £500 excess and I get to keep the car,. So I jumped on ebay (with the assessor still standing there) and priced up the repair with the front end I wanted,. And took the payout. So the project began,..
Unfortunately in December 2006,. Slowly edging out of my driveway with limited vision, some idiot speeding down the road hit the brakes in the wet and skidded, clipping my front end!
(hard to see in the pic, but I measured 13metre skid marks!.. and ironically if he hadn’t skidded there was enough room to get a bus past me – does it show that I am still annoyed, even 5 years later J ) anyway the damage was done..
and since I was pulling out it was down to my insurance to pay. Fully comp the insurance assessor came to value the damage to my car. Requiring a new bumper + support bar, indicator, headlight washer,number plate, grill and bonnet,. With labour and paint the assessor said it was borderline CAT D - uneconomical repair. Since the front end was going to be replaced I pushed my luck and asked if they would put the wrx bumper with the spotlights, but they wouldn’t do it (not even if there was some cash put infrom me ;-) )… they offered me a full payout, or £1700 partial - £500 excess and I get to keep the car,. So I jumped on ebay (with the assessor still standing there) and priced up the repair with the front end I wanted,. And took the payout. So the project began,..
Last edited by paulhills; 17 September 2013 at 06:28 PM.
05 February 2012, 01:26 AM
#2
some of the pics arnt working mate and that looks like a GL to me not a sport and i9m sure on here one of the breakers will hve a facelift bumper that you could buy to make it look like a sport 
also www.imprezasport.net
also www.imprezasport.net
05 February 2012, 03:11 AM
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the first thing I did was pick up a facelift wrx front bumper with crystal fogs. Managed to find one in 792 silver (which do not come up often) in good condition, so I fitted it straight away, whilst I looked for the other parts I wanted
Since I was going to replace the bonnet I decided I was going to do a facelift wrx lookalike (externally, but keeping the interior and engine standard), including honeycomb grill, side skirts, rear spats & sti splitter. I liked the silver with black detailing look, so decided I was going to keep the skirts etc black.
Months went by, as they do, until I finally had all the parts and the time to do the work (in fact according to the dates on the pics it was july 2008!). so on went the new bonnet,. And off it went to the body shop
Being a perfectionist I opted for a full respray including the roof (even though the guy spraying it tried to talk me out of doing the roof).. after viewing and rejecting the car 3 times (I kept finding minor blemishes in the paintwork and was not taking it back until it was perfect),. And agreeing not to have the ‘subaru’ letters on the boot since they seemed incapable of sticking them on straight and with equal spaces,. The car returned..
Since I was going to replace the bonnet I decided I was going to do a facelift wrx lookalike (externally, but keeping the interior and engine standard), including honeycomb grill, side skirts, rear spats & sti splitter. I liked the silver with black detailing look, so decided I was going to keep the skirts etc black.
Months went by, as they do, until I finally had all the parts and the time to do the work (in fact according to the dates on the pics it was july 2008!). so on went the new bonnet,. And off it went to the body shop
Being a perfectionist I opted for a full respray including the roof (even though the guy spraying it tried to talk me out of doing the roof).. after viewing and rejecting the car 3 times (I kept finding minor blemishes in the paintwork and was not taking it back until it was perfect),. And agreeing not to have the ‘subaru’ letters on the boot since they seemed incapable of sticking them on straight and with equal spaces,. The car returned..
Last edited by paulhills; 17 September 2013 at 06:30 PM.
05 February 2012, 04:49 AM
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next I rubbed down and sprayed the fog light surrounds with hammerite and primed the orange wedges (tried them on the car in silver primer, but later decided to paint them black)
Then I added the sti splitter (bought on ebay –think it was htauto’s splitter I decided on in the end) and smoked side repeaters
Since I was going to all this effort, I decided to thoroughly rust proof the car at the same time. So next I moved onto the rear of the car. I removed the rear bumper
Degreased, Rubbed down and painted behind the bumper with silver hammerite. Then I coated it with waxoyl
With the bumper off, I removed the support bar, number plate light mounts and number plate screw plate,. Rubbed down and painted with hammerite
Then I added the sti splitter (bought on ebay –think it was htauto’s splitter I decided on in the end) and smoked side repeaters
Since I was going to all this effort, I decided to thoroughly rust proof the car at the same time. So next I moved onto the rear of the car. I removed the rear bumper
Degreased, Rubbed down and painted behind the bumper with silver hammerite. Then I coated it with waxoyl
With the bumper off, I removed the support bar, number plate light mounts and number plate screw plate,. Rubbed down and painted with hammerite
Last edited by paulhills; 17 September 2013 at 06:32 PM.
05 February 2012, 04:52 AM
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I also took off the rear lights, cleaned and gave a coat of waxoyl before replacing.
And finally I painted the underneath of the rear of the car with hammerite underbody seal
And finally I painted the underneath of the rear of the car with hammerite underbody seal
Last edited by paulhills; 17 September 2013 at 06:33 PM.
Trending Topics
05 February 2012, 10:09 AM
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This will start into a turbo vs sport thread again lol.
Don't worry I used to own a sport and had the conversion on it. They are really cool cars. There are quite a few sport owners current and past so we have your back if anything kicks off in this thread lol.
Don't worry I used to own a sport and had the conversion on it. They are really cool cars. There are quite a few sport owners current and past so we have your back if anything kicks off in this thread lol.
Last edited by NOSSY_89; 05 February 2012 at 10:16 AM.
05 February 2012, 06:41 PM
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hi guys, thanks for all the comments :-) .. hopefully this wont turn into a non turbo / turbo debate! Personally the reason I have a sport/gl is because I really like the way the facelift impreza looks, but I am not really bothered about performance ( I will probably get stick for saying this!). My brother is a real petrol head (currently building a camero with the aim of breaking 500bhp) whereas I have always been more of a restorer, keeping the engines standard, but trying to get them looking showroom and as rustproofed as possible (although I also went through an ice stage, kitting out my first car with 12 speakers, 2 x 12 inch subs, 4 amps, mask headunit with 10 disc changer – all kenwood, ofc cabling, gold fuses etc etc and a competition alarm with remote everything! remote start, individual window open / close, lights control, stereo on, boot pop etc – which is all common place now, but quite advanced in 1997!) .. that said it would have made more sense just to buy a sport (with the fog lights, skirts etc already there) but I kinda fell into the gl, when I leant my brother my car whilst I went on holiday for 2 weeks and came back to find he had written the car off! (apparently something snapped or came loose on the axle whilst driving on the motorway! Since he had it towed straight to the scrapyard, I don’t think I will ever know hat really happened) which meant I had 2 days to find a car before returning back to work,. Which is when I found this car. I had no plans to modify it at first, but when I needed to repair the front end and recieved the money from the insurance company, I figured I might as well have the look I really wanted (although in the end I spent all the insurance money just on the respray! – but isn’t that the way all these projects go! ;-) )
05 February 2012, 06:44 PM
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matty b -
regarding the insurance. The accident caused the biggest increase,.. it went from just under £500 fully comp to about £950 third party. Surprisingly, declaring all the body mods only increased the insurance by about £80 / year
regarding the insurance. The accident caused the biggest increase,.. it went from just under £500 fully comp to about £950 third party. Surprisingly, declaring all the body mods only increased the insurance by about £80 / year
17 September 2013, 06:38 PM
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Unfortunately the time has come to sell my impreza gl 
…I now have 2 impreza’s, 2 subaru sumo’s and I have just bought a Subaru domingo project (and only 1 driveway, 1 parents garage and 1 brothers back garden,. so kinda running out of room!.. plus its been stored / sorn for nearly 2 years, and it really deserves to be used! ),. So before it goes (and for the new owner to know what they are getting) I thought I should finish this blog..
So the next step was,. Side skirts, spats and arches. I started by fitting the rear spats (unfortunately I forgot to take pics, but they will be seen in the final pics) then stripping the front wheel arch covers and rear arch rubber trim,.
..Jacked the car onto axle stands and removed the wheels. first I brushed waxoyl onto the inside of the front wings, then I painted the underneath of the car including the front and rear wheel arches with underbody seal..
Then I taped a line where the side skirts where going to be fitted and painted the sills with silver hammerite
I bought the original fixings for the side skirts from Subaru. Not sure if this is the best way to do it, but to get the holes to line up, I put blue tac on the fixing points on the side skirts,. Then I applied tipex to the bluetac and pressed the side skirts in place. This left white paint dots where I needed to drill the holes on the sills (the clips on the side skirts have a few mm of movement so I knew I had a little bit of room for error). I believe in the rule, measure twice, cut once,.. so I also measured the distances between the clips on the side skirts and made sure the white dots were the same distances apart… then i drilled the holes.
Then I sprayed waxoil into the seals through the wholes and brushed waxoil over the seals and the rear wheel arch rubber trims. Then clipped the side skirts into place.
…I now have 2 impreza’s, 2 subaru sumo’s and I have just bought a Subaru domingo project (and only 1 driveway, 1 parents garage and 1 brothers back garden,. so kinda running out of room!.. plus its been stored / sorn for nearly 2 years, and it really deserves to be used! ),. So before it goes (and for the new owner to know what they are getting) I thought I should finish this blog.. So the next step was,. Side skirts, spats and arches. I started by fitting the rear spats (unfortunately I forgot to take pics, but they will be seen in the final pics) then stripping the front wheel arch covers and rear arch rubber trim,.
..Jacked the car onto axle stands and removed the wheels. first I brushed waxoyl onto the inside of the front wings, then I painted the underneath of the car including the front and rear wheel arches with underbody seal..
Then I taped a line where the side skirts where going to be fitted and painted the sills with silver hammerite
I bought the original fixings for the side skirts from Subaru. Not sure if this is the best way to do it, but to get the holes to line up, I put blue tac on the fixing points on the side skirts,. Then I applied tipex to the bluetac and pressed the side skirts in place. This left white paint dots where I needed to drill the holes on the sills (the clips on the side skirts have a few mm of movement so I knew I had a little bit of room for error). I believe in the rule, measure twice, cut once,.. so I also measured the distances between the clips on the side skirts and made sure the white dots were the same distances apart… then i drilled the holes.
Then I sprayed waxoil into the seals through the wholes and brushed waxoil over the seals and the rear wheel arch rubber trims. Then clipped the side skirts into place.
Last edited by paulhills; 17 September 2013 at 07:08 PM.
17 September 2013, 07:03 PM
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I make sure I give the car a general service every summer (annual oil change, check and replace other service parts as required, clean engine bay etc),. but thought I should give it a major service this year
This included oil change (oil flush, new oil and filter), changed fuel and air filter, removed the airbox and cleaned the throttle body. Ran rad flush through the system, Removed the radiator and thermostat, flushed fresh water through rad and engine. Changed thermostat and filled with deionised water and antifreeze. Whilst the rad was off I Painted the rad top mounting brackets, the front support bars where the bottom of the radiator sits (unfortunately only took before pics and no after pics doh!)
Painted the battery clamp, belt cover, horn. Cleaned the waterfiller / overflow tank, hose pipes and replaced old pipe clips with new jubilee clips.
I also replaced the Rocker cover gaskets, including the spark plug rubber seals. Replaced spark plugs with bosch super 4’s (leads were still good, so didn’t change them)
This included oil change (oil flush, new oil and filter), changed fuel and air filter, removed the airbox and cleaned the throttle body. Ran rad flush through the system, Removed the radiator and thermostat, flushed fresh water through rad and engine. Changed thermostat and filled with deionised water and antifreeze. Whilst the rad was off I Painted the rad top mounting brackets, the front support bars where the bottom of the radiator sits (unfortunately only took before pics and no after pics doh!)
Painted the battery clamp, belt cover, horn. Cleaned the waterfiller / overflow tank, hose pipes and replaced old pipe clips with new jubilee clips.
I also replaced the Rocker cover gaskets, including the spark plug rubber seals. Replaced spark plugs with bosch super 4’s (leads were still good, so didn’t change them)
Last edited by paulhills; 17 September 2013 at 07:06 PM.
17 September 2013, 07:14 PM
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I started trigger happy on the camera, but as it went on I unfortunately forgot to take pics,.so I only have one pic of it nearly all back together (just rad to go on):
Then I kept bugging my girlfriend to take some good pics (ex professional photographer) and eventually that winter she got her camera out
Then I kept bugging my girlfriend to take some good pics (ex professional photographer) and eventually that winter she got her camera out
Last edited by paulhills; 17 September 2013 at 07:31 PM.
17 September 2013, 07:46 PM
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Last edited by paulhills; 17 September 2013 at 09:21 PM.
18 September 2013, 08:34 AM
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A lot of good work and effort gone into this, and imo the end result does justice to the means.
Hopefully that will be reflected in the price you get for the car.
I wouldn't fancy being the new owner though.
A nice looking turbo lookalike, and all those boys racers out there waiting....
GLWTS.
Hopefully that will be reflected in the price you get for the car.
I wouldn't fancy being the new owner though.
A nice looking turbo lookalike, and all those boys racers out there waiting....
GLWTS.
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