Hey guys I got a bit bored so thought I might do a little write up about our wrx.

When Jem first got her license she bought a fake white wrx lookalike 1.6l fwd with the plans of eventually swapping wrx running gear into it.
We owned the car for a few years and a guy ended up rear ending the car on the freeway one day.

We ended up buying a wrx with a blown headgasket. It was pretty much standard excepts for an exhaust system, unichip, and some cheapo BOV.




The first thing I did was swap the rims and rear lights over to the wrx, aswell as install some coilovers.



The car pretty much stayed like this for ages and was running fine with the blown headgasket. We looked at the price of repairing it and worked out it would be cheaper to just buy a new motor, atleast that way we could get some use out of the car until we had the money saved for a replacement motor.

We ended up getting a motor with 20,000kms on it (atleast the dash said that and judging by the rest of the cut looking brand new there was no reason to believe otherwise).

The motor got swapped in while I was working away and was running pretty good... for about 5 months until BANG another headgasket was blown.
To put it fairly I wasnt happy after spending all this money and losing another gasket, especially when the car was standard, running lower than stock boost, never boosted and being driven by Jemma to work and back and thats it.

The car sat around for a while and I installed a FMIC I had lying around and painted and fitted a my00 bumper I had picked up a while back.Then the decision was made that if you want something done properly you have to do it yourself.


So I pulled the motor out:








I stripped the heads off and took them in to get dipped, resleeved and new valves/serviced etc.




I had read that your pretty unlucky to blow a headgasket on a basically stock ej20g but to have had 2 blown so close together (even though I was pretty sure it was the Unichip that had done it) I didn;t want to take any chances.

I got 2x 1.6mm genuine metal headgaskets and a set of ARP headstuds.



I thought that seeing as the motor was out it would be a good time to go over all the old seals and gaskets and things so I pulled off every old seal and gasket and got new replacements aswell.
Pulled apart and degreased/cleaned the engine and assembly lubed it all then started fitting the headstuds/gaskets and heads.



I also painted up the rocker covers black to go with the theme. I had grand ideas of buying/making a see through timing belt cover like some of the motors I had looked up but by this stage I was running low on funds and was sick of driving Jem to work every bloody day.

So I put the motor back together and got ready to drop it back in the car.




Then got the car ready to be sent off for a lookover and tune before I'd let Jem drive it.




Turns out I was right and the unichip was causing the problems. Infact the unichip wasn't just badly tuned it was completely buggered and had to be removed.

The car has now been run in and is back on the street running smoother than ever!

The next plans are to update the front end of the car, fit the spotlights to the new bumper and sand back and paint the roof black, and funds permitting, get the tint pulled off and nice new black tint put on.

So far the build has:

Engine:
resleeved heads with new valves etc.
ARP headstuds
1.6mm STI metal headgaskets
FMIC with removed BOV
standard 95 TD05g
Pod filter
Custom intake pipe
Excedy sports tuff clutch

Body:
Adjustable coilovers
17" rims with low profile tyres (I have no idea what brand as they came with the old car)
Underbody H brace
3 1/2" exhaust
MY00 front bumper with STI lip
Aftermarket rear lights
Dewinged
Aero mirrors

I may have forgotten some stuff.

If I get around to doing anything else to it soon I will post some updated pics.

Looking nice mate.

Unsure what the savings would be but you pretty much only need a hairdryer/heat gun and a razor blade to remove window tinting 'plus solvent of choice to remove excess glue stuck to the glass'. You just have to be extra careful when doing the rear window so you don't cut into the demister

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Have you done it yourself and was it hard to put the new tint on?

I've removed tint myself but never applied it.

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Very cool, i take it all that work on the motor was difficult? Also i may/may not have a spare set of fog light covers depending if mine can be repaired or not, if you ever want them feel free to send me a pm (i don't want anything for them)

PM sent mate, cheers!
The work wasnt really difficult it was more time consuming. Ive worked on lots of differant motors before but never a flat 4.
The trick was to just take my time, ask questions on this forum and just go steady, steady. This place has a wealth of knowledge if you search or ask.

The hardest part was getting the balls to turn the key when it was done. I kept questioning - Did I tighten everything? - Did I assembly lube all necessary parts? - What if it seizes on startup? - What if the timing is out and I bend all the valves?

I turned the key and with a clackety clack and a roar she blew some crap out the back and I've never seen any smoke or anything since!

The other trick was that I labelled everything (Thats what the red electrical tape on everything is) so that there wouldn't even be one plug or screw left over.
I'm sure we have all worked on cars and there has been one screw left that just doesn't seem to go anywhere. Well not this time! It also made the reinstallation of the motor a breeze, I ended up doing it in one evening.