Up To Speed

Since I've had my driver's license, I've been a Subaru enthusiast.  I've owned a Subaru for most of my driving life.  My first car, a 1998 Legacy L, was my pride and joy.  A list of suspension mods a mile long,0 JDM 4-pot brakes, Wheels, Tires, a few engine bolt-on's, and a stereo.  It was an automatic, but still fun on the autocross course and it got me around.  For some reason, which I still can't recall, I traded the that car in for a truck.  It was dumb.  That brought me to my second Subaru, which I bought as a daily driver to offset my new purchase's fuel costs.  It was a 1998 Legacy Outback that I found in the ad bulletin, listed as needing a new motor.  I went and looked at it, finding it to have the same lifter ticking that all Subaru's of the era seem to have.  It was dirty and rough, so I offered the guy $600 (half of his asking price).  He accepted.  I cleaned the car up, put quite a few hours into the paint, replaced the knock sensor and exhaust, and later sold it to my parents for less than I had in it.  At around a quarter million miles, that car is still in our family and runs fine to this day with the original motor and transmission.

After about a year, I went on the search for another Subaru, aiming for a two door Impreza or Legacy GT.  Craigslist lead me on a few wild goose chases, including an Outback with a five speed in mint condition that the owner decided to keep once I committed to buying.  I finally found a Legacy GT a couple hours away.  It was rough, had a noise in the motor, and needed a ton of TLC.  It was a 5 speed, though, and silver like my old car, so I jumped on it.  This car had been beaten on.  A few modifications had been done by previous owners, but the car was in a state of disrepair.  The more I dug into it, the more I found broken.  I fixed a lot of little things, threw my roof rack on top and some JDM Projectors on the front, painted the stockers, and drove the hell out of the car.

My fun didn't last long, though.  The motor noise, which I had brushed off as severe lifter tick ended up being much more.  One night, while I was driving home from work, the engine threw a rod through the side of the block.  Normally, I could have picked up a spare engine from someone decently local for a hundred bucks or so, but those motors had all disappeared.  I ended up finding one just a couple miles away and paid $800 for it.  It had already had the headgaskets replaced, so i threw it in.  It fired right up, and the Subie lived again.

It wasn't long after this that I went to fix a nagging vibration in the front of the car.  I started by replacing a front axle, which lead me to find a bad wheel bearing and tie rods.  While the car was apart, I replaced both wheel bearings, ball-joints, inner and outer tie rods.  This ended up taking a while, as money was tight and the car was a third vehicle to my fiancee and I, but we had just gotten a new house with a garage, which kept the Subie warm at night.

This pretty much brings us up to speed.  The car already has an aftermarket rear swaybar and differential brace, as well as strut tower bars.  The struts are shot, though, and will be replaced before long when they are replaced with the springs.  I will eventually be building a new exhaust for the car, repainting it, swapping in a newer transmission (my 3rd gear synchros are shot, as well as the shift linkage), and rebuilding the brakes.  I would like to swap the seats out for something from a WRX or newer Legacy as well.  It will be a slow build, and this car will never be fast, as I don't need it.  More on that some other time.