Hey guys finally getting around to making a topic for my car after a year of owning it. I previously had a gen 2 ski fx wagon that i enjoyed but was a little slow for my liking had a set of coilovers i found at pickapart and it felt like a go kart but it was time to move on to better things.
I purchased the car on boxing day in 2017 and enjoyed the car stock for a about 2 months
Decided to do a full service and check all the filters the pollen filter was the worst
Found some wheels i liked the look of in japan and decided to jump on them hyper bronze rays gram light 57G in 18x7.5 +48. In the same container load from importmonster i got some japanese subaru floor mats which i prefer the look of.
When they showed up i was excited like most people would be I was at a mates and decided to fit them only to find 4 wheel nuts on the right front were cross threaded and completely screwed to the point we snapped 3 so the car went on a tow truck. new studs were ordered the next day and that night had them swapped in to get the car mobile again however not having a press meant risking it with a hammer and wood with no success in the end unfortunately with an abs warning light on the dash. The magnetic encoder that the abs sensor reads to determine wheel speed for the rhf was damaged while replacing the studs. luckily i was at trade school that week as im an apprentice mechanic and i was able to take the car on a test drive with a scan tool plugged in to see the readings of all the wheel speed sensors to find the abs issue. purchased a new hub and had it installed that day.
I jumped in the car one day and as soon as i got in the base of the seat broke so i was after a new seat which was tricky to get a hold of for me but i stumbled upon something a bit nicer. I found a set of tbsti seats for sale missing the bottom half of the back seat but including door trims and sill plates. Those went in and i much prefer the cloth to the leather i found myself sliding around too much with the post facelift seat design.
I went with a few mates to a tampered motorsport trackday at sandown for my first experience on a track and to really push my car to see where i needed to do in the direction of upgrading. i faced the usual understeer but i already had swaybars in mind so that was too much a shock what was a shock was the brakes after 1 and a half laps in the damp they were toast for the next hour with the shudder being so bad on any application that it was almost uncontrollable.
New pads and rotors were now top of my list and i settled on DBA T3 rotors with Project Mu hc800 pads. New Whiteline front and rear swaybars got installed the same day as the brakes and completely transformed how the car handled and stopped.
Next on the list was an ultrex front lip love how it looks even if it means scraping on my driveway at stock bilstein height if im not careful.
Now i have just been enjoying the car since and that gets us to today. future plans are a honeycomb grille to complete the styling and past there in not really sure yet. I know at some point i have to attend to the front driveshafts which both have split boots but i'll wait for it to become more of an issue before i set aside a day to do them.