Well hello. Let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time I was a contributing member here, I had a 2006 WRX named Roo and she was my everything.
She died and I was sad and I sort of dropped off the face of the planet for a while, but secretly in the shadows I was always up to something..
Vehicles have come and gone since then, but this story is about two very special ones.
I present to you: The Goon and The Darkness.
Both vehicles were acquired quite cheap with some work needed on them, both are in rough shape cosmetically, and both are freaking awesome.
-The Goon-
The Goon was acquired shortly after Roo perished. She was bone stock and old and ugly and gross. After a while of daily driver duties, I got a different daily and had less use for a stock non-turbo Subaru, so she chilled in my back yard for a while. Once I got some time I started poking around with her and she ended up with some forester suspension on lift blocks, truck tires, circle track low offset steelies, a badass roof rack etc. She is my little itshay disturbed and I love her.
We go on many adventures together, and just see where life takes us.
Status - on the road, but needs some love. I have been tracking down some electrical gremlins that showed up after The Goon spent most of the summer sleeping in my back yard. Most have been fixed, but the rad fans still aren't coming on and I'm blowing rad fan fuses. I think some critter must have munched on some wiring somewhere. Shouldn't be too hard to locate.
-The Darkness-
The Darkness is actually my most recent vehicle purchase. I got her at the end of last winter, in desparate need of a few minor things (alternator, suspension, tires).
I happened to have some random struts and lowering springs in my garage, so I chucked those on there
I then proceeded to drive the crap out of her on the daily. Ripping tires off on frozen lakes etc.. all sorts of fun stuff.
Continued driving her through most of the summer on my old 17x9 Mach V 'Awesomes' that I had for Roo.
They "fit" but need new rubber
I also threw an absurdly cheap ebay exhaust on there. It sucks, it's off now lol
So now we fast forward to about a month ago. My old '06 has been patiently waiting for years in my back yard/personal pick & pull.
I decided it was about time to pull her around front and start some serious dismantling
The 'ol used car lot that is my driveway is starting to get pretty full..
So basically the plan is to take anything and everything I can off the '06 and swap it over to the '02. With added upgrades while I am at it, of course.
Right then, yank everything out:
(Yes, my garage is a disaster. My life is a disaster. Mind yo bidness.)
The 2.5 had many goodies to swap onto the 2.0, oil pickup/windage tray, oil pan, el header, TGV deletes, injectors, vf43, yadda yadda
While everything was apart I decided to do some sexy wrinkle black on a few parts
And a new clutch was badly needed
Many many other things were swappable from the body, I decided to go with the longer sedan control arms and lateral links. That way I could make use of the whiteline sway bars.
For the rear end I decided to just swap the whole subframe over
Other goodies: group n engine and trans mounts, whiteline pitch stop, kartboy shifter
The reassembled engine went back in without a hitch
And I cleaned up and refinished all the exhaust stuff from the '06 as well. The eBay garbage was not cutting it
With the car starting to come together and a few days of real cold weather stopping by to let me know who's boss, I spent some time on interior stuff
Pretty much all of it was donated by Roo, except for the head unit. Trying a new direction with that
One of the last things to get done before it's driving time again is the 4-pot/2-pot brakes, complete with new pads rotors and lines
As of yesterday evening this is how The Darkness sits, not a whole lot left to do. Going to give everything a once over, throw some wheels on, finish up some wiring, then start the clutch break in and ecu tuning process.
I've been doing a bunch of reading on the romraider forums and I'm going to try my hand at tuning this myself. The old 2.5 was expertly tuned by Sunny at Airboy Tuning.
Plenty will be happening with this car if I have my way, and spring should bring some cosmetic upgrades so she doesn't look like a beaten puppy. I have all winter to lock down the tune before I have to beat on her for autocross and track days, and I'm really looking forward to it.
