A handful of weeks ago, I continued my build by putting the entire interior back together, swapping out my stock steering wheel, and installing my OEM Duracon 5-speed shift knob (OEM Duracon is on the right).
One of the things that was driving me nuts was that the wipers on the car were continuously on (unless the fuse was pulled), and the previous owner drove the car with the fuse pulled for their entire ownership. After doing a bit of disassembly, testing, and research, I eventually narrowed down the issue to a daytime running light module that was poorly installed on the car. It was taking current from the wiper washer pump in order to have DRL's. As soon as I figured this out, I knew the windshield washer pump motor was probably shot and sure enough it was.
Big oof on this one:
After taking the battery and all of this DRL wiring out, I decided to finally swap my battery, my battery tie down, and replace the "power" intake filter back with the stock airbox. When I was at the halfway point with everything removed from the engine bay, I said screw it and decided to replace the spark plugs as well. They weren't the worst i've seen, but it now gives me peace of mind knowing I put new ones in. The used plug seen in the photo below was the worst of the four.
The "power" intake filter (with a bolt missing
):
The cap off of the IC spray reservoir is definitely some metal cap off of an aluminum beer can or something. A replacement cap has been ordered.
My Grimmspeed battery tie down. This thing holds more sentimental value than anything for me. This tie down was the first "mod" I ever did on my first GC8 WRX back in 2012, and has been on every single GC8 I have owned since. Putting this on my Type R was me sort of acknowledging that I finally have a Type R and that this car is now mine. Feelsgoodman.
A shot of the engine bay after I cleaned it up a bit and re-installed everything:
From there, I focused more on the exterior pieces I wanted to swap from my RA before I sold it. The first was a quick change of the hood scoop!
The second, and much much longer swap was my Version 6 STI wing. Getting the trunks off the cars was very straightforward, but unfortunately the version 5 wing on the Type R was essentially stuck on the trunk. The bolts holding it onto the trunk were spinning between the actual wing and the trunk and the only way to get the nuts off the ends of them were to cut them with a dremel. Thankfully after a bit of patience and some steady hands, I was able to get the wing separated and I only had to cut 3 bolts to do so.
The trunk was actually in pretty good shape considering the age and mileage of the vehicle. No rust, just a few exposed spots to the base black paint. A cleaning up of the exposed spots and touching them up with some clear will do the trick until I eventually have the entire vehicle repainted.
And here it is on the Type R:
Following this, I posted my RA up for sale and within 22 hours I had it sold. Over the 2.5 years I owned it, including my cost of ownership/maintenance, I ended up making about 30% on the sale. I know GC8's have appreciated in value recently, but for it to have appreciated that much was pretty shocking to me.
Next up for the Type R is a once over at First Gear, and a few little tweaks here and there before it becomes my daily driver. Stay tuned.
