My 2nd Impreza RS

So you guys might have read through the RX-3 thread and heard that I decided not to pick up that car (sweet as it was). The next day, I found this Impreza RS on CL for a total steal. Needs a sunroof and headgaskets. Here are some pics:

All the lights, the bumpers, and grill that are missing in the pictures came with the car. The interior is pretty mint and other than two real small dents there's no body damage. I'm thinking I might bring it to the challenge this year just for fun, provided I have time to get the engine put back together before then (ah, too many projects...). I picked it up real cheap, so I would still have a pretty good amount of money in a $2012 budget for tires and the headgasket kit, sounds like a plan!

I'll probably be selling my other beater RS pretty soon as a result of this purchase - I'll let you guys know when.

Ok, off to build a driveshaft for Wreck Racing now. I'll post some more pics when I get a chance.

-Jared

good jesus how did you get an rs that good for way less than 2k?
when you sell the beater one you should instead trade for my Z. These are seriously one of my favorite cars ever.

Lawdy I'd be all over that like a politician on a campaign contribution!!!

WR Blue, 2-door, and the only good looking Subaru ever?!? Be still my fluttering heart!

Where'd you hide your mask and gun when the deal was over?

Very interested in the beater you might sell

The RS's are out there! Its rare when I see them but I was able to steal err... snatch one up myself off CL lately...

Around here peope want $5000-$6000 for well driven ones.

In reply to fornetti14:

Sweet. Your RS looks like my beater car probably did 10 years ago (long before I owned it).

I think I like the black better than the WRC Blue. Pretty ballin'

In reply to corytate:

Yeah, definitely a good deal, but it does need the engine torn down and headgaskets replaced. Also, it needs a replacement title which might be a slight pain, but it came with all the paperwork from the Po-po stating that it wasn't stolen, etc...

Those have always been a favorite Subie of mine. Sadly out here in Oregon people seem to think there should be a premium tacked onto every Subaru sold even if it is beat to hell.

GRM Staff - If one of you could move this to the build section that would be awesome. Thanks.

Been a while since I posted about this, but I've been tinkering away on it in my sparse free time...

I started working on the engine pretty much right after I picked up the car and spent a few hundred bucks to replace the headgaskets, timing belt, timing pulleys, water pump, etc... I also spent some time cleaning up the engine and the engine bay.

I get everything put back together in a couple weeks, but... ...when I stated up the car for the first time I was greeted by the unwelcome sound of bottom-end knock. I was pretty pissed and the car sat in my basement for another month or so while I tried to decide what to do with it.

Finally, I decided that I would take the engine out of my '99 2.5RS beater and swap it into this car (thus making room for a boxer 6 and manual transmission in the '99). I knew this would be a fairly involved swap since between '98 and '99 there were some major changes to the engine (DOHC vs SOHC and MAF vs MAP). This requires swapping the entire engine and dash harness with the motor and making some adapter harnesses to tie into the body wiring. This was all made more difficult by the fact that the '99 was an automatic and I wanted to use that harness on the '98 which is manual.

It took a lot of time to pull the dash boards on both cars (including all the HVAC parts) then remove the complete harnesses. After that, I wrote up a big set of wiring diagrams so that I could match the dash-to-chassis pin outs between the cars. After that I cut off the OEM connectors and attached my own connectors to the ends of the harness with the correct pin outs to mate the '99 auto dash/engine harness to the '98 manual body/chassis harness.

Once I had the wiring complete and re-installed, I pulled the engine and trans from the '99 and dropped the engine into the '98 after changing out a few bits and pieces.

This weekend I finally got everything hooked up and was able to start the car for the first time. It idled at 3000 rpm, died when I gave it any throttle, was throwing check engine lights, and smoked like a chimney due to all the old coolant sitting in the exhaust system from the previous blown headgasket. However, after tracking down a huge vacuum leak, adjusting the transmission wiring, and running the car for about an hour to burn off all the old coolant, everything was pretty much perfect.

I got the body work and lights re-installed and the car is running great now (not even a check engine light). I still need to put in the sunroof, finish re-installing the dash, and fix up some of the exhaust, but after dumping a lot more time into this car than I was originally planning, it's all coming together. Hopefully I'll have it on the road and be driving it around town in another week or two.

Here's the car as of this afternoon:

Here's the full album link if you want bigger pics:

https://picasaweb.google.com/114214530923004599532/9825RS?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCMWDz9vt6vn2twE&feat=directlink