Group N Tranny mount successfully installed. Still need to install a couple more parts before this area can be torqued down to proper spec.


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My newest addition to the parts pile, a brand new, unused Racetech RT4009HR seat. This seat is absolutely amazing. A big thank you to boost junkie for selling me his bnib seat to go in my project. If you haven't tried a racetech seat, I highly suggest you do so if you are looking into upgrading to true racing buckets. A neighbor had one of these as well as the a regular RT4000 bucket seat in his spec bmw and I was blown away at the quality and comfort compared to the sparcos I had sat in. This seat is absolutely top notch, fits me perfectly, holds me very securely but comfortably. I am blown away and very excited to get this into my car. Thing is super light, only weighing approximately 20 pounds, and will allow me to lower my seating position in the car when moutned correctly. As you can tell, I am very excited with this purchase, a part like this truely belongs in projects with goals a lot bigger than my humble aspirations, but you can never make safety too high of a priority. Once again, big thank you to boost junkie for the seat as well as advice on parts selection for this little project.


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Here's another view of this seat, very proud to be running this in my vehicle.


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Shot of the backat, and most importantly, the all important FIA certification.


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Picture comparing the oem rear shifter bushing to my kartboy rear shifter bushing. The Kartboy bushing is obviously a higher quality, much more robust and rigid. With this my entire driveline will be locked down and flexible rubber removed and replaced with either spherical bearings or polyurethane. A lot of people shrug these little parts off as they can add up in price (especially high quality spherical bearings) but in my experience they are essential to a functional end product. On my 240sx I replaced all bushings to spherical before upgrading to a mid level set of coilovers and was astonished at the capabilities of that car. These bushings are what allows you to gain tenths both on the track and skidpad, and give you the confidence to push the car to the limits of adhesion. The amount of confidence non-compliant bushings give in driver confidence is astounding, once you take the plunge you will be astonished how vague cars without spherical bearings feel.


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It's funny how sometimes the simplest tasks can suck up the time. So, I foolishly hadn't looked at where the Kartboy rear shifter bushing was located and assumed it was on the tranny for some reason. So I reinstalled and torqued to spec the driveshaft and driveshaft shield, then saw I had made my life more difficult by partially obstructing the install of the bushing. So, since everybody else can install the bushing without dropping the driveshaft, and I am at least decent with my mechanical skills, I figured I could at least replace two bolts for the bushing since everyone else was able to. No dice, I could not get the bolts to cooperate, got frustrated and tried to force it, and ended up stripping the threaded nut. Grrrrrrr!!!! So, in the end had to drop the driveshaft again, go to the hardware store and get a tap, retap the threads, and then with all this extra room to work, of course the bushing bolted right in. Frustrating, a very simple install took up a chunk of time, but it is correctly bolted in and another project is crossed off the list. Gotta laugh that it took that long for me to replace a part that is literally two bolts.


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Shot towards the front of the car. Tranny is now solidly mounted and torqued to spec. All bushings are replaced in the drivetrain and suspension with either spherical bearings or hard polyurethane, to limit unwanted and undamped movement. I can not recommend highly enough the improtance and consistency of solidifying your suspension and drivetrain in driver confidence and predictability at the limit.


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Cobb Stainless Steel Rear Brake Lines installed. The front Stoptech BBK will get a set of new braided brake lines by stoptech, but was able to use my Cobb Lines on the rear. Very much like the quality of Cobb's brake lines, has a lining around the stainless braiding to cut down on unnecessary wear on surrounding components. The brake setup on this car will be a Stoptech BBK up front, OEM sliding wrx rear calipers in rear, stainless lines all around, and stoptech street/track pads at all four corners. I will see how these work, if they do not meet my requirements/expectations I will switch to Performanc efriction dual purpose pads for the street.

Rear end of the car is almost completely reassembled, all that is left is reassembling the parking brake assembly, throwing on the rotor, and bolting on the caliper, then bleeding the brakes. Down the road, I will be upgrading to a set of OEM STI rear Brembos, and when I wear out my current rotors will upgrade my front brake mount and 2 piece discs to 355mm brake setup up front.



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Next project on the to do list, upgrading to brand new STI aluminum control arms and Whiteline Motorsport ALK. Must say, in all my previous research I could not find anyone who made a tubular control arm for the wrx, was looking for one similar to the products SPL makes for the S13. Could not find anyone, anyone, who made a reasonably priced product. After getting these arms, I later found out about MSI. If I hadn't already purchased these arms and the Whiteline ALK, I would have definitely spent a little extra and got MSI's tubular front control arm compatible with the oem ball joint (and subsequently whiteline extended ball joint) and the whiteline motorsport adjustable alk. I feel the quality and performanc eadvantages of these products would more than justify the slight increase in price. This is definitely on my next round of upgrades, I just couldn't justify it at this point in time. For those who are considering this upgrade, you would be remiss to not at least price out the parts from MSI, the further reduction of unsprung weight, rigidity, longevity, and most importantly performance capabilities.


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Sti aluminum control arms mounted, equipped with Whiteline Motorsport ALK and Robispec forward control arm spherical bearing. These parts should go quite a ways toward the overall handling of the vehicle. Whiteline ALK provides mor static and dynamic caster, which when combined with the Ground Control Camber/Caster Plates, should give me significantly more caster than stock. The spherical bearing and motorsport grade polyurethane will help the dynamic allignment of the car, meaning significantly less deflection of components, which leads to compromised suspension geometry, when the car is pushed hard. I am very excited to feel the overall impacts of this series of modifications to the front suspension. The benefits are multifaceted, more caster, reduces the need for heavy amounts of static negative camber, increased stiffness of the alloy arms, reduced unsprung weight, which will help offset the inscreased weight of the 18x9.5 Rota DPT rims I will be running. I am really looking forward to the spherical bearing in the front control arm, I have preached it multiple times throughout this thread, but until you have driven a car with spherical bearings in anger you have no idea what you are missing. Once you have you will be addicted to the loveable, crisp, immediate fele of non compliant suspension and chassis bushings. Of course I did a sort of middle ground, as some of my bushings are polyurethane instead of spherical, as they were all I was aware was available at the time, but regardless, it is farther than I see the majority of subarus go and feel the benefits are well worth it. Only time and results will tell the true story.

Obviously, still need to attach the longer whiteline outer tie rods, but here is the control arm attached. Excited to feel this effect, as it was significantly harder to reattach the front control arm with the reduced deflection of the ALK and spherical bearing. Ended up having to use a lever (i.e. large screwdriver) between the forward part of the arm and mount to leverage the control arm into position. It is this lack of play theat will produce significant increases in control, predictability, and immediacy of suspension response when driven aggressively.


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Got to the house today to do a little work on the car and found these on the doorstep. Thank you Mark at MSI, these pieces look absolutely fabulous. I am a big believer in buy the correct part for your needs, use, and goals the first time, and this is a perfect example. Like a few of the other vendors I have pointed out during this thread, I would like to thank Mark for taking time out of his busy day to come up with a setup to meet my needs. Like I told Mark in my email to him, I truly feel the parts MSI produces are a step beyond what is traditionally offered by the aftermarket. With talking to him I have no doubt that the bearings used are a step above what other brands are using in their products, at very reasonable prices for the serious enthusiast. Besides the high quality motorsport bearings, aluminum spacers to shed weight and aid response, etc. High quality parts, I am looking forward to investing in their track proven rear subframe for my next level of modifications. It may sound like I am making a big deal about a small part (endlinks) but you have no idea how frustrating replacing expensive aftermarket parts can be because of cheap spherical bearings that wear out rapidly. Getting parts of this quality and capabilities put a big smile on my face, plus I am so happy there is a company that is making proper suspension geometry a priority.


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Picture of the Aeromotive complete fuel system I will be running. This includes an fittings as well as an aeromtove fpr. The reliability of fluid transfer hoses and connections can not be overstated, and an fittings when used correctly are as reliable as it gets. Plus, with my 850cc injectors and the fueling requirements of my turbo, it would be foolish to cut corners and not address the factory fuel system. These rails will be running in parrallel instead of the factory routing, to equalize the distribution of fuel amongst cylinders in high output situations. I am still debating if it is worth the expense at this time to upgrade the restrictive factory fuel supply lines to an -8 stainless line from the fuel tank to the engine bay. We will see if that gets checked off the list for this current buildup, or put off until the next round. Still need to get some sheathing to slide over the stainless lines to reduce wear of other components in the engine bay.


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Closeup of the Aeromotive fuel rails. Great part about the fuel system, like so many other parts in this build, is when I upgrade to a built 2.5 block it will swap right over. Fueling systems on high output turbo cars driven on track should not skimp on the fuel system, as lean conditions can turn expensive quickly. These parts should give me a little bit of confidence during my tuning session and track days.


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When pushing the amount of fuel needed to create the power this little build is capable of, it is essential to upgrade the fuel pump. Most people go with Walbros, but I went another direction for a number of reasons. I am not over awed with Walbros reliability, plus I don't like how you need to keep the tank filled to prevent burning out the bushings. Did you know Walbros don't even use ball bearings, but use bronze bushes. These bushes rely heavily on the tank of gas to cool and stay lubricated. Just not the right choice for me, when for a little more you can get the Aeromotive Stealth or Bosch 044. While reading the msi build thread I learned about Fine Line Imports located near me in Santa Rosa. I called them initially to request their drop in Bosch 044 fuel pump kit, but they recommended I use the Aeromotive drop in pump instead, saving me a couple dollars as well as getting something that will perform perfectly for the task at hand. With the affordability of these high flowing fuel pumps I do not understand why people still bother with Walbros. I can not believe they do not use ball bearings.


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Had to dissassemble the front coilovers to grease the wear points on my H&R coilovers. Ground Control warned me when I got these that by getting the race version and not the polyurethane street version that they would be slightly noisier, which is not at all outrageous in NVH and you are rewarded with a vast increase in cornering power and dynamic allignment consistency. In an effort to quiet them down I tore the coilovers apart and greased the mating surfaces, we will see if this helps. If it is the same no biggie, as it is not outrageous and the benefits definitely far outweigh the nvh penalty. These camber/caster plates have so many functional features, independent caster adjustability, top mount to preserve compression travel, a thrust bearing that supports the weight of the car to prolong the life of the spherical needle bearing in the top mount itself, etc. These are an amazingly designed piece of work, and like many parts slightly more than their competitors products, but offering vastly more performance potential for the slight increase in cost. I can't stress it enough, save up and buy the right part once. It is actually cheaper down the road since the inferior part will nto work as planned and fail, and you will have to replace it early as well as other part sthat fail due to the other part failing. I've been saving a long time for this build, but the results will far surpass those ebay builds out there using chinese knock off parts.


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