2006 Subie STI rebuild

Ah, ok. Nah, I like the stock side skirts. They just need new mounting clips, which I'll get around to.

Putting the stock wing back on, the proper STI wing. The WRX wing was what came with the car when I bought it but this is a true STI so it's getting the correct wing. I'll run that for now and if I find something that I like later, maybe switch it up.

 

Time to break out the bubble wrap

I'm pretty bummed, I was waiting to get my socks knocked off by a new STi and trade my 19 WRX for it.

 

when you swap the wing, if you dont already know, just keep in mind there are different set of tension rods inside of the trunk for each the no wing, the wrx wing, and the sti wing.

 

Well, like I said, mine is an actual STI so it already has the stronger tension rods. Even with the WRX wing on there, the trunk would fly up hard.

 

No bubble wrap for me. Cars are meant to be driven. I'm not doing all this work just to put the car into storage. I want to enjoy it!

You can always trade up to a 2021 STI. Those will gain value too, being the last ICE STI ever produced.

 

yup gotta be careful with that catapulting trunk lid

 

Spent the morning finish painting the trunk lid. It came out pretty nice I think. Lots of orange peel but that should sand out with 1500-2500 wet sanding followed by a good buffing. Need to give it some time for the paint to harden up before that happens tho.

Started off with a self etching primer on any bare metal and then a filler primer, both in grey.





Then it was a black base primer.



Once all the primer had flashed, about 30 minutes, I used about 2 cans of the Grimmspeed WRB spray paint for the base color coats. The pic is after the first can/coat.



Once all the color was laid down and flashed for another 30 minutes, I used 2 cans of gloss 2K clear.



You can see the orange peel pretty well here, in my reflection. I'm guessing it's because it was still a little cool out in the garage when I sprayed. No big deal. I'm not going for a show car finish.

 

Paint was dry enough that I was able to put the lid back on the car but still too soft to wet sand. I'll give it the week to further cure and do the sanding next weekend. I've pushed the car back out of the garage far enough that the hood is in the sun now, which should help with the curing.





Really hard top capture in a pic but the original paint is almost a blue/purple compared to the Grimmspeed paint. You can definitely see it with the naked eye. Maybe that will change as the new paint sun fades and I am able to get the whole car polished and eventually ceramic coated.





Also depends on the angle you look at. This is pretty much a prefect match.



I'm super happy with the results either way. I hate the silver with the blue, even with slightly mis-matched paint, this is much, much better.

 

I'm happy enough with the trunk lid that I decided to go ahead with repainting the hood now too. Pulled that off today and started sanding on that. Need to order up more paint and clear now.

 

Damn, gonna look like a whole new paint job especially if you do some paint correction on the doors and whatnot.

Looks good!

 

I'm going to drop off my Tacoma so you can do a few upgrades upgrades on it as well.

 

Trunk lid wet sanded, polished and new emblems installed. It could really use a little more wet sanding and a better polish job tho. My first time using a DA polisher and I still have swirl marks in the paint from it. But it's good enough for now. I'm tired of sanding and polishing at this point.

 

New tail lights were just delivered. So they got installed. So much better, Subaru shouldn't have changed them.

 

Way better than those Altezza looking lights.

 

Yes. And those were factory too. Shouldn't have changed them.

 

Motor update: Still waiting...

Heads are still with the machine shop to get ported. They've been with them for about 2 weeks now. Hopefully have some more news on them next week.

Head studs came in. I actually found a set on ebay and grabbed those since the garage has been unable to get them from their normal sources. Which includes MAPerformance. The ebay headstuds came from MAP. My guess is that they are hoarding several sets for sale only on ebay as they continue to tell the garage they are on back order.

Top mount oil cooler should ship Tuesday. I had to call the supplier yesterday to get an update on that.

Still no word from SteamSpeed on the turbo. Giving them another week to get it figured out and then telling them to take a hike, refund the money and we will go with a Blouch Dominator 3.5XT-R or similar.

New Cobb intake, Killer B hard inlet, injectors, clutch and everything else are on hand now.

The 4 remaining clips I needed to install the wing came in last week, so the wing is finally on the car and the ass end looks like it did when the car left the factory, other than the 04-05 tail lights. Very happy with how it came out.







This is how it sits as of this morning. Still need to continue with sanding on the hood and you can see the passenger side roof molding is off because I decided to fix the failing clear coat above the passenger doors.



Hopefully I am able to get the motor installed and start doing the fun stuff in the next couple weeks.

 

Looking good

 

Love this build. Been following your thread on NASIOC (other car is a '14 STI hatch) but this at least this forum uses tech from this century so is 10x better to use.

 

Thanks!! Yeah, I hate the old forum software NASIOC uses. TW's software is miles better.

 

Received the new head unit Friday and got that installed this weekend. It's T'eyes CC3 Android. Installed it with reverse camera and a front DVR. I like the android HUs because I use the crap out of google maps for driving. And bluetooth is so easy. Also do wifi teathering to my phone for better service when driving.

The old head unit, circa 2010-2012, maybe.



Replaces the center bezel, just like the Seicane does. Painted the new one to match but did a satin clear on it this time. Might redo it later in a matte clear but then I also have to do the rest of the center pieces as well.





It's also nice because it's pretty shallow. More room for airflow behind it to keep it cool. About as thick as the AC controls in back.



Waiting for paint to dry on the shifter bezel, so it's not reinstalled yet.