1998 Impreza L: The Go Slow Way

Figured I should start one of these for my project. Car I'm working with is a 98 Impreza L.

Here is how it looked when I bought if for a whopping $1300 off of a local forum. Didn't come with the white BBS's for that price unfortunately.







First thing I did was rattle can most of the exterior in a black sandable primer just to get it all one color.




I also swapped in a all black interior including a full RS dash and center consul, bugeye rear seats, and RS front seats. I'll have to get a pic once I get the dash back together.

Then on the way home from a trip to the mountains, the car developed bad rod knock and was going to need a rebuild or a new engine. I had just sunk around $300 the week before in all new timing and gaskets after it jumped a few teeth due to a seized idler, so a rebuild would be the most cost effective way to get the car back on the road...But I wasn't at all happy with the piece of junk Frankenstein that the previous owner had pieced together.

Spent about two weeks asking around what was available for engines and doing my research before finally deciding on this particular EJ20G. I cannot confirm this to be 100% truth, but from all the research I have done on this particular example of the EJ20G, it should contain forged rods, pistons, and crank from the factory. It is also one of the rare examples of the closed deck EJ20G.

Here is how she sat when I got all the pieces home.







Old piece of junk getting yanked out.





The car was in a bad front end collision before I bought it, and had a white JDM front end welded on. They didn't do the cleanest of jobs, so we cleaned it up a bit.



my dad working the grinder.


All cleaned up


I went with a VF30 as it was a good match in size to the original TD05-16g that came on the car(which wasn't included with my engine) and also it was designed for a 2.0L, so it should have a good spool and top end.



Here is the engine all ready to drop in.





Have most everything hooked up and ready to go here.



That's all I'll post for now, I will get to the wiring later today.

Heck ya Mike!! That's awesome.

I want you Intake Manifold!!!

Does is manifold flow better?

Build looks cool. Good luck

Thanks for the comments thus far.

I wanted to paint my intake manifold Wrinkle Black before I installed it, and I'm really kicking myself for it now.

I'm looking forward to getting this thing on the road. The Z4 ecu I have for it is supposed to do okay with our crappy US gas which is a big plus because we only get 91oct out here in Colorado. Another plus to the ECU is that it is very adaptive so I can put on a intake, cat-less exhaust and a FMIC without having to worry about a tune. Obviously I would get more out of the mods with a tune but its not a requirement. Someone local with the aforementioned mods and some injectors and a tune made 280hp/274tq on one of the higher reading dynos in the area. In a 2800lbs car that sounds like fun to me.

Here is a side by side comparison of the 98 L fuel pump assembly vs 94 STi fuel pump assembly

I kind of slacked off with pictures for the rest of the swap as I really was just focused on getting it done, but the car is now alive and running. The up-pipe that came with my motor ended up having a crack in it so I had to replace that yesterday after getting it on the road Wednesday night. The EJ20G actually came with a cat-less up-pipe so I'll have to get an Invidia on their down the road as I just threw on ally's catted one from the 2.0L that once lived in her car. Up-pipe installs are not so much fun so I'm not exactly eager to do it again but it should go quickly now that Ive done it once.

The car is an absolute blast to drive in its current form and cant wait to see the gains made by removing the 3 restrictive Cat's and adding an intake. I'm also hoping this will help lower the rpm at which my turbo spools at as its a little laggy for my tastes at this point...but once it comes on boy does it pull hard. Only running 12psi of boost for now on the VF30 but hopefully by the end of the summer it will be tuned for 17psi on 91 and maybe even a E85 tune.

Probably my favorite aspect of this engine is its ability to just cruise around town at 1400ish rpms with no sign of bogging down netting me some pretty impressive gas mileage numbers. Of course that doesn't last for long as I have a very hard time keeping it out of boost.

I think Ally and myself are going to go on a little cruise later and take some pictures so I'll be sure to include those in here.

Nice can't wait to see the pics. : tup:

Want to race?