Just got back from picking up a retired postal Subaru Legacy.
250k on the clock, big stack of receipts for work done in the last three years, passenger front seat in good shape, even came with the USPS magnet for the side!
She's rough around the edges, but that's to be expected from a work vehicle.
(also, for what I paid for it, not surprising)
(worth noting that all rust I've found so far is superficial, she's solid)
Short term plans revolve around freshening her up, preventing rust from spreading, etc.
Longer term plans may involve outback shocks and springs, hopeful rallycross action.
Even longer term plans include thoughts of JDM turbo engines.
Hold on, is this RHD?
I guess it makes sense being an ex postal car.
Ran to the hardware store for bolts to reattach the passenger seat.
Hey, look, seats!
(That should clarify any questions as to which side the wheel is on)
Couple minutes with the ol' heat gun solved the sticker problem
plus removal of the USPS magnet from the side and voila, only the misplaced steering wheel gives any hints.
Gonna scrub her down and vacuum after work tomorrow, then I get to learn how to stop this rust from spreading.
(AKA will search these boards)
Fun. I had a first gen legacy wagon and it went everywhere. Great for road trips, camping, bike races, stream crossing, snow donuts. Seemingly unstoppable.
I will be watching this.
I miss my '93 L wagon, still my fave of the Legacys. In for more!
Big progress today!
And by 'big progress' I mean that I got new wipers.
Did go through the stack of invoices that came with the car, so, from oldest to most recent:
(starting @ 225k miles, in 2011)
New Fuel Pump and filter
New Alternator
New front left knuckle, hub, rotor, pad, caliper
New Harmonic Balancer
New Left control arm bushing
New Trans mounts
New Steering rack bushings
New Pads and Rotors (all four corners)
New Outer tie rod end (right)
New CV axle (left front)
Cliffs: significantly more money has been spent on this car in the last three years than I paid for it
Good looking Legacy, those. Shouldn't be too pricey to fix up the front end either.
Yeah, I'm scouring local(ish) Craigslists for parts, the stuff on ebay is surprisingly mostly expensive.
(scored a cheap seat belt receiver so whoever is riding shotgun wont, you know, die)
There's a guy a couple hours south who seems to be sitting on a healthy stockpile of parts for these cars, other than obvious things like the right fender and corner light housing, and possibly a door or two, anything additional I should be looking for?
Link to said ad
Took her in for an oil change (yay coupon) they 'reminded' me that the tires should probably be replaced soon, also that the cooling and PS systems were low.
So, fluids inbound.
Three times now I've had a CEL pop up, only while driving long enough to warm all the way up... but not every time it's driving while warm.
Used the diagnostic connectors, haven't yet been able to recreate the code
(though I've verified that the code system works by disconnecting the air flow sensor and forcing a code that way)
We'll see.
Looking at a JDM EJ20R from the ebay, compression test video looks solid, but there's really nothing else I can go off of other than the sellers seller score, right?
Link to ebay auction I'm pondering
Thoughts?
Shipping would be another ~$300 to my door.
And yes, I realize that I'm in one step doubling the amount of money I have in the car.
Just did the math, if I fill the back of the Lego with my spare wheels and tires I can make room in my garage for an engine and hoist.
Oh yeah, made an offer on that engine and trans.
You people and your enabling.
(Does this mean I have to learn wiring now?)
So, yeah, about that wiring...
the offer was accepted, she'll be headed my way on Monday I hope.
Picked up some 15'' steelies with lightly used Falken Ziex 912s mounted, threw those on to replace the very very worn shoes she had before.
I won't bother wasting the bandwidth to post pictures, the car looks and sits almost identically now.
Slowly widening my search for some stock height Outback or Forester springs, I'm finding it hard to believe that given the number of modified subarus around here nobody has any just sitting in their garage.
Just saw you were looking at the ej20TT. These can be problematic with the TT. First there are clearance issues on the DS of a LH drive car. They were only delivered to factory RH drive cars. Steering linkage is your biggest concern here.
The TT have a funky vacuum system that locks out the PS turbo until you reach a certain boost threshold and then it opens a previously closed exhaust manifold to spool the second turbo. There is a transition between these two creates a lag of sorts.
Most people pull off the TT setup and install a single turbo manifold. Better turbo technology and ease of installation.
You might also want to see if that ECU is compatible with the open source tuning such as RomRaider. Many of the older ECUs can not be tuned.
Love the project hope it works out for you.
In reply to jpnovak:
Lucky for him he has a RHD car. 
I wish you were closer to me. I know scads of people who do dumb things with these cars including another RHD one that came into the country cut cleanly in half. Looks like fun.
I love how the RHD part manages to be subtle despite staring you in the face.
Showed it to a coworker from the tire shop today, he couldn't figure out why I was excited about this POS Subaru until the third lap around the car.
At which point he busted up laughing.
The engine should get here next week, currently trying to figure a way to have my roommate or a neighbor around to open up the garage if it shows during the first half of the delivery window, as I work until near the end of it.
JP: Thanks for the heads up, I'm aware of both the LHD clearance issues and the so called 'Valley of Death' as it switches from one turbo to both.
The way I figure it, even in that 'laggy' area it'll be more ballsy than the 250k NA 2.2 I'm running now.
Plus, the manual trans will make rev control up to me.
(bonus points for any improved spooling from a free flowing exhaust/etc)
Subaru + mudflaps = good, right?
Picked these up from Flapatax, are intended for a later model, worked fine with one hole drilled per corner of the car.
As always, sorry for camera phone lack of quality.
There was a toooooon of dirt stuffed behind each fender liner, cleaned all of that out in the process, these bad boys should keep that problem at bay.
(you can see the pile from the front left corner in the above picture)
ZOMG the engine and trans arrive tomorrow.
Have my roommate and my neighbor ready to accept delivery as I'll be at work, they've been told where I want it and to take pictures during delivery if anything seems too beat up
Aaaaand my paranoia at everything being FUBAR or the delivery guy being a dick and dropping it off at the curb have officially beaten out my trepidation at having very little idea what I'm doing.
Still, I'm excited.
SVreX
MegaDork
5/13/14 1:02 p.m.
SnowMongoose wrote:
Look, it's Japanese!
Sort of.
That's a US built car from a Japanese company with some Japanese writing on the VIN tag (like all the Subies I've seen).
Good score on the car. I'm not sure why I've wanted a RHD car for so long...
