Hey mate, once you start rallying that Subaru you'll wonder why you ever bothered with all those shitboxes before! If you get the right bits, spend a few bucks up-front, they're surprisingly inexpensive to get decent results. I reckon cheaper to run than a good Escort for instance. My GC8 still has the same unopened engine that Fats put in it back in 1998. CAMS has recently allowed VF34 Turbo on GC series too, much more suitable than VF22 and VF23 that were homologated.
There's plenty of good info on here and finding the parts you need is as simple as a 'wanted to buy' advert. There's a few sharks lurking, just do some research before handing over dosh to certain members.

nice too meet you and welcome

G'day Wavey.
Good to see you and Curly have finally joined the Subaru camp!
Give me a yell if you need parts. we have a heap around the place or steer you in the right direction.
What are you going to do with the BFMR?

Karl

__________________
[B][COLOR=navy][B][COLOR=navy]Rally Driving Perth[/COLOR][/B][/COLOR][/B][COLOR=navy]
[/COLOR][COLOR=blue]www.rallyaction.com.au[/COLOR]
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
[COLOR=navy]Rally Action Driver Training[/COLOR]

G'Day Wavey,

Good to see you and Curly have finally joined the Subaru Camp!
Give us a call if you need WRX parts, we've got a heap about the place or else we can steer you in the right direction.
What are you doing with the BFMR now you're Rexxing?

2nd what Waz said too about the Rex being cheaper to run once built than an Escort....

Thanks, Karl

__________________
[B][COLOR=navy][B][COLOR=navy]Rally Driving Perth[/COLOR][/B][/COLOR][/B][COLOR=navy]
[/COLOR][COLOR=blue]www.rallyaction.com.au[/COLOR]
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
[COLOR=navy]Rally Action Driver Training[/COLOR]

Hey Karl,
The main things we are going to be after is some good Struts, and some more 15 inch wheels to fit over the 4pot brakes. We have a restrictor, and have to sort out what we are doing with the ecu.

BFMR is still sitting in my garage, gearbox out, waiting for some love! not sure if we are selling it fixed or broken yet.. planning on getting rid the mazda before working on the WRX...

Wavey.

Bloody computer! Crashed the first reply last time, then posted twice... Oh well.

Best bet with struts is to get a new set straight up. Unfortunately not a cheap exercise, however money well spent. DMS are very good and so are MCA/Proflex. 15" wheels to go over the brakes is another reasonable cost for new wheels. You can run Audi wheels which are alloy, light weight and fit straight onto the GC8 and clear the 4 pot front brakes. A few people run them quite succesfully, probably the cheapest option. Failing that, I've got a few prices and contacts on various brands of wheels, just email me and I'll forward them through. ECU wise you can get a few different types. The most popular is autronic for WRX rally cars as it is plug & play. At the time we couldn't source an Autronic unit so we went Vipec with my engine management. Apparently Vipec is like a mix of Autronic and Link computers and is the brain child of Ray Hall. The Vipec is good and the Anti Lag and rotational idle work very well. I've had my ECU tuned by All Star Garage (after recommendations from several rally people) and the car goes much harder now.

Sounds like you're doing exactly what I did with my BFMR. I was repairing the gearbox ready for sale just as we started building the WRX...

Karl

__________________
[B][COLOR=navy][B][COLOR=navy]Rally Driving Perth[/COLOR][/B][/COLOR][/B][COLOR=navy]
[/COLOR][COLOR=blue]www.rallyaction.com.au[/COLOR]
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
[COLOR=navy]Rally Action Driver Training[/COLOR]

Awesome stuff mate, you and your brother are going to have so much fun with it.

Hope to see you at one of the local events, track days and even REXPO next year.

__________________

221.7KW-ATW 498.5NM MMS ROLLER DYNO & BUILT BY STi NINJAS, BUILD #318/600

EBISU SUBARU, SHIBUYA-KU TOKYO

Well, this is a blast from the past, our Subaru has been running like a champ over the last 2 seasons. After a few teething problems early on, detonating a motor at Forest rally 2010, due to leaking injector o-ring.
Safari 2010 we burst the standard plastic intercooler pipe, Experts cup 2012 we stripped 3rd gear.
We have had some good results though, with 3rd WARC at Forest 2012, 3rd outright Safari 2012, 2nd State at Forest 2013, 2nd outright at Experts 2013.
The current spec of the car is:
Stock MY99 wrx motor,
Pod filter,
straight through exhaust
Autronics with antilag
VF23 turbo with no restrictor
stock my04 wrx gearbox
stock wrx viscous R160 diff
4pot front, 2pot rear brakes
DMS 50mm dampers
no front anti roll bar, stock rear
Kevlar sumpguard
Usual rally interior.
Kumho Tyres

The car gets driven to and from(if possible) each event including 280km to Donnelly and 250km to Forest rally. It is putting out about 230hp on 17psi, shoots big flames, does big jumps, gets the front discs glowing, and is great fun to drive!
We do most of the work on the car ourselves, using mostly secondhand parts, and take a lot of advise from the guys at STechnic, and from Stona. We would like to upgrade the Gearbox and Diffs, but that would add weight, and we are nowhere near being able to afford it, so will continue on with mechanical sympathy on stock parts.

At the Experts Cup this year we cracked the dump pipe, which held to the end of the rally and the drive home. This was then welded back up, but it didn't hold for Lewana, which resulted in a fire when the Power steering lines caught fire! The 2nd of our 1kg extinguishers just put the fire out luckily! and that was the end of the rally. We now know that we should be running an exhaust mount to the Gearbox, to take some weight and twist off the Turbo flange.
The repairs are well underway with a STI quickrack going in, with some extra heat shielding, new CV boots, kits through the master cylinders, and some wiring to be repaired, and possibly replacing the loom, depending on how bad it is.

We are on track to be ready for the Safari rally in October, and plan to do some testing beforehand at RAC or Bormsa, to confirm that all is well after the fire.

I will put some pics and Video up in a minute.
Wavey.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Sjk0euUYlK0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjk0euUYlK0

Attached Thumbnails

     

Good stuff Wavey! Wondered what the view out front was like when the steering wheel was doing 360's (or more)!

I think you should post up the "smoke" video - come on, show us ya smoke!

Cheers
Chris M.