Christmas came early this year, but it also was the result of a ton of work. Before I even get started i have to acknowledge the hard work and effort that several people showed over the past 4 days. subyspawn (Keith), lorenkb (Loren), lminette (Louie), snowcrzy (Dave), worldrallyblue (Albert), Rally OBXT (Dave), rollo (Phil), g wilikers (Greg), and my brother Jason all took time out of their busy lives to come help out a DI friend who REALLY needed help.

And lastly but not least I have to give a huge thanks to JacksonRally (Kyle) for his non stop amazing welding and fabrication skills and his patience to deal with me and my sometimes idiotic questions about how to undo relay blocks and airbag harnesses. Not to mention letting the PRRS sit in the shop for a year…

So I was under a time constraint to get the rally car out of the shop by the end of the year. The new deadline was announced and things had to spring into action real quick. As it sat, the PRRS was at the paint shop with a fresh coat of white paint on the interior, trunk, and engine compartment but that was it. It would need to be completely assembled from almost the ground up. The good motor and transmission were still in the other car. The plan was to strip down the other RS, put its motor / tranny into the rally car, and pull off all the usable spares parts from it, then dispose of the shell. Sounds good on paper, but we only have 3 days to do it. My work was cut out for me big time.

Day One

Here is the old RS with the bent frame and rust all over it. Its a piece of crap and i hate this car. Avoid buying cars from the east coast or midwest if you’re going to be disassembling it. Poor girl had a good heart, but was just put through hell. Its motor and tranny were going to find a new home in a clean California rust-free chassis. I drove this car out to PlaCar / Jackson Rally in the morning on Friday (called in sick to work)

Scott at California Auto Collision did an awesome job at painting the inside of this car. Their prices were very reasonable too, so overall i was really fired up at how it came out. Hooray for no more rusting raw exposed metal! Night came and the temperatures started to drop dramatically. It was fricking cold outside the shop where i was working on taking everything off the old car. lorenkb showed up later in the evening and gave me a hand with lots of the odds and ends. As we were pulling things off the car I was loading the keeper parts into a uhaul van. This was my “service rig” for the entire weekend and actually well into the week.

Work went on late into Friday night and it was chilly by California standards… (yeah i know nothing like the east coast...) but we got a lot done. Lorenkb bailed and I crashed on the couch at Kyles place, but my mind was plagued with thoughts about what was going to go wrong through the weekend.

Day Two

Reinforcements arrived on Day Two. Rally OBXT and subyspawn were on hand to help out. Keith started attacking the assembly of the dashbar and wiring in the new car, and would also come out to pull of random bits as needed. Dave was helping me out with dismantling the old car even more. We got a ton of things out too. Louie showed up too and together we were making a real progress on the parts to be pulled off the dead car.

Kyle was busy prepping the roof for the new roof skin. Now you’re probably wondering why we didn’t do this before the car went to paint. Well, the simple answer is… because I’m a dumbass and didn’t think. The long answer is that i thought i would have more time to do it later, and was running very low on funds before the car went to the paint shop.

Old 2.5RS roof skin was removed. For those of you who might not be familiar with NASA / RA rules, you can’t have a sunroof on your rally car unless it is fixed shut (welded) or removed. I opted to go the route of getting a RA roof skin and having Kyle drill out all the spot welds and then install it. The new skin was painted this same day and was off to the side drying.

Afternoon rolls around, and Dave had to bail, but he was replaced with help from snowcrzy Dave! (You might remmber him from Project Rally RS episode 1). Dave is very knowledgable about motor swaps and i think he’s probably lost count how many times hes done it. We got the motor out and sat it on some dollys. It would be wheeled next door to Millennium Motorsports where g wilikers (Greg) would run the compression test on it. The motor checked out great with only some minor maintenance items that will need to be replaced before we really romp on the motor. Things like the valve cover gaskets and plug covers. This was a huge relief to get this news. . I drained the oil pan, and replaced it with a new one because i had dented / cracked the old one during one of our Holy Jim’s excursions earlier in the year… yeah, whoops!

Dave stuck around late even after the subframe battle to help us get the motor in the car. We replaced one of the transmission brace parts because the other one was bent. Everything went in pretty smoothly. With the motor in, everyone is pretty fired up on how the car is coming together. We call it a night after that.

Day Three

Exhaustion is setting in, we worked 16 hours straight yesterday and we were defintiely feeling it. Kyle didnt want to get up, he looked like a zombie and I was just rolling around on the couch. Keith was still on the mattress on the floor. So stoked for Marra’s pancakes… hell yeah. We get to the shop and Loren and Albert are already there.

Threw the trunk and rear bumper back on, tail lights are back in too. At this time Kyle was busy plumbing the new stainless brake lines. They are so hot… seriously beautiful work. I also learned that AN brakeline fittings are very expensive, even the “cheaper” stainless steel ones. The touch up paint I sprayed on the top of the roll cage is nice and dried, and will provide an extra layer of protection from rust, etc. Meanwhile Keith has just about finshed putting in all the wiring, dashboard, HVAC controls, and fuel lines.

The task of getting everything reconnected for the motor to work was taken on by just about everyone there. Phil roll up mid day to help out too. Keith got all the wiring ziptied up nice and tidy, along with the hood and trunk latches. We threw the front bumper beam in (with that sexy-ass Jackson Rally light bar) front bumper, lights, corners, etc. Loren and i tackled the front axles, headers, and exhaust. The headers are totally fux0red and leak like crazy because of some bad exhaust studs, this will need to be fixed at some point. Filled the motor with oil, radiator with coolant, and tranny with gear oil and we were ready to rock. I was away getting food for everyone with Loren when they fired it up, but came back to a running motor! Awesome!

Kyle did an awesome job with the door cards and the door bars. There is literally one small cut for the door X and that’s it. The door shuts easily, and the cards don’t look hacked to pieces either.

The roof skin was installed with precision, as Kyle had to do some custom fab work to get the RA skin to work with the car. There were missing tabs that are there to hold the moulding in place so he had to use that magic touch of his to get it all rockin. He did, and it looks soooo sick. No sunroof FTW because not only does it look sweet, but the sunroof piece is like 20 lbs. With the roll cage poking through into the engine bay, and down to the frame rails, the fuel filter had to be custom mounted.

Jay came by and pulled the windows out of the old car, so i can have some spares if i happen to break windows while rallying. By about 10pm the old RS was completely stripped. It is hard to believe that i actually drove this car to the shop only 2 days ago. Here it sits waiting to be picked up by a tow truck to go be crushed.

So here she sits. The DirtyImpreza.com Rally RS.

Stock seat for now, just to get the car around. It has not been driven since it is not registered right now. I had a tow truck come and pick it up from the shop and bring it back to my apartment.

So the car is in a good spot now. I can actually drive it to get things done as needed. There are some small things that need to be worked out, but overall its running very well. It has been a long and bumpy road to get where we are right now, but man am I stoked.

Jay came by again the following day and put all the windows in before the car was picked up by the tow truck. Good thing too because it got rained on during the trip home. That would have sucked if there were no windows in.

It was midnight when I was getting home on sunday with a uhaul full of parts. LITERALLY full of Subaru parts. So i said screw it and got a padlock and just left the truck at the store parking lot by my house, since it wont fit in my parking garage. My brother came over the next day and we fit everything into my storage unit that is only 5x8. That’s right, we fit an EJ25, transmission, axles, doors, hood, fenders, bumpers, drive shaft, steering rack, hubs, a-arms, rear diff, etc etc etc in there. I need to get a picture. It was an amazing feat. The look on the other resident’s faces when they saw an entire car’s internals strewn about was priceless.

I still have to throw out mad props to everyone who was involved in this insane marathon wrenching weekend. So stoked, thank you everyone so much.