Hello everybody, welcome to my slow and steady build/picture thread.Thanks for taking a look and coming along for the ride. Now, some background.
In the winter of 2013, I bought with the insurance money from my totaled Honda Prelude and some saved funds a 2003 WRX with 117,xx on the clock and nothing done to it. totally stock, one owner, but it could've fooled me.
It had its fair share of body damage and work needed, but I got a good deal that I liked, so I jumped at it.
The car served me well, and provided tons of fun over the 6 months I owned it. Come summertime, I felt as though the car had given me all it could, and sold it within a week of posting it on the craigslist.
So, I moved on, or backward, to a 1999 Jeep Wrangler Sahara.
God knows what made me go that direction, but I did and purchased a well modified one. After getting it home from purchase, I learned a very valuable lesson: ALWAYS HAVE SOMEONE LOOK AT A USED CAR BEFORE YOU BUY. Foolish, nieve, stupid me thought I could handle it and ended up with a falling out front end among many other problems. Under the knife she went.
It went through its fair share of work and modifications, but became a money pit. Although fun with the top off (ba-dum-tiss), and an absolute BEAST in the snow, I could not justify owning a gas-guzzling, slow, and very expensive to run truck. Time to move on again. :rolleyes:
So, now, where do I go next? Euro, Japanese, American muscle? To help me (and satisfy my mom's need for me to stay grounded and stop dreaming), I made a checklist of needs and wants. Gotta be fast, but functional. Prefer a turbo, but good on gas, has to fit hockey gear, but be sporty as well. I figured i'd make it easy and just go WRX again. I ran into the problem that ones in my budget were too modified or to high mileage, and clean low mileage ones were thousands of dollars out of my budget. Hmmmm, what to do? I shopped around, test drove GTI's, S2000's, and just couldn't shake the Subaru bug.
So I hit the forums and was pleasantly surprised when I came across a car I knew nothing about, The Legacy GT.
I shopped, researched, and test drove. A week passed, and went to see one an hour from me, owned by a gentleman named Matt. With cousin (jeep dodge chrysler master tech) and his good friend Dave (master body tech and Subaru nut, he owns a 2.5I hatch), we examined my find. Clean body, hardly any damage, and only 2 mods. the first,a COBB accessport, tuned to stage 2 with everything including the original box. the second was a complete Invidia turbo-back exhaust system. Here it is when I first checked it out.
Driven and examined again, I was satisfied with it. Excitement contained, haggling began. We agreed on a good price, and two days later, she was home. 67,350 miles, 2 owners, and simple mods. Good value and my mother was pleased with my purchase.
Soon I noticed that it was making undesirable noise from the front driver wheel area. Diagnosed as a shot wheel bearing (:mad:) I set to work. Didn't take long to fix, and as good measure I changed the oil in the car.She was happy with her first work done, and just felt better with fresh oil.
Fast forward a month, and I am loving the car. very pleased with my purchase. Unfortunately, the mod bug bit me. It was just a bit to pedestrian to me, and even worse, I am on a college student budget (:eek:) So, disclaimer, things will move slowly here. I figured I'd plan things out. So by June 8 2014, in time for Wicked Big Meet, I would like to have Coilovers and sway bars done. Sensible and solid mods to combat the deadly wheel gap and noticeable body roll. Tires will be needed by October for sure, so powder coated stocks (help me with a color!) with some nice dedicated winter tires then. Spring time, fresh summer only wheels (give me some suggestions!) and summer tires. Let's see if I'll actually keep to this schedule, who knows. As far as styling, I would like to go Mesh grill, trunk lip spoiler, some type of front lip, and tints. Conservative, I know. Performance wise, I am pretty happy with it how it sits now. But again, who knows. No build is ever done, and I could become inclined to hit the 300hp threshold. We'll see.
Todays project, slight styling improvements. Going for red brake calipers, and blacking the gaudy chrome grille. Ew. hopefully this will make it a bit more sporty looking, so to speak.
Before a cleaning:
After cleaning:
First coat and black on the hubs (yes, overspray was cleaned up):
Test Fit before overspray was cleaned:
Awful chrome grill now looking good in semi-gloss black
Thats all for now. As things progress, I'll update accordingly.