Sask 818C

[Scoobs]

Hey guys, so I took the plunge and and bought an 818

Donor
2002 WRX that was an insurance write off. Picked it up for $1,800 canadian, so that's like $75 USD. Has 180,000 km, basic stock motor, cat less up pipe and down pipe.

Car had some minor front driver damage, kid hit a curb, and bent a few pieces. This allowed me to dig in and pull some pieces apart to make sure I know what I'm doing. I bought a set of lower aluminum control arms, along with some upgraded brake discs. I'm going to stick with the original calipers.

Currently have a production date of July for the frame,

Goal from now till then is to get my import paperwork in order, and start the teardown process once work slows down.

I'll try to attach some pictures, I'm on mobile so I dono.

[longislandwrx]

Picked it up for $1,800 canadian, so that's like $75 USD.


Lol, welcome and good luck with the build. I've never seen oem two piece rotors. nice!

[Loring]

Picked it up for $1,800 canadian, so that's like $75 USD.

I lul'd

Welcome to the party. :)

[lance corsi]

You have about the same donor car I started with. Good luck with your project. I would advise ordering your frame unpainted, cause for sure you will want to alter something.

[Scoobs]

How to start?

TL;DR
The Good
Donor teardown down is going quickly
The Bad
Still waiting on the kit to show, only 2 more weeks.
The Ugly
Broke my collar bone last week, so that has basically put a hiatus on car building for another month.

Teardown.
Went better than expected, was able to pull the full car appart in 2 weekends and working during the week after work.

One of the best bits of recommendation I read on the forums was to buy your lights like you buy tools. There was numerous nights in the garage where it would be pitch black outside and it was nice and bright inside.

I have also sold ~$1,000 in body panels, and lights off the donor.

Once I'm moving around again I need to start with prepping the donor parts. My colour scheme is that all of the suspension bits are going to be neon green, with the rest of the car black.

For rust removal, I have an electrolysis bucket setup to run all parts, however I may need to increase the size, it's only a 5 gal bucket. But we will get to that hurdle later.

For the kit, scheduled ship date is Monday the first, however with Canadian importing, the shipping company will only go as far as the boarder. Therefore I need to meet them at the boarder to pick up and take it the rest of the journey.

Pics attached

[Frank818]

Collar bone?? Oh ****! Not good for car building, no! Hopefully you'll recover quicker! Full strength and dexterity will be affected for longer but maybe if you move it often while building (after a month) it'll recover 100% quicker. We all wish you.

[Scoobs]

Updates

Finally back in the garage, still dealing with physio, doc says I should be 100% by Christmas, so that's a plus.

Picked up the frame from the boarder, imported it myself, super easy to do. I was nervous at the border because you never know what could happen, but the border officers were also super interested in it. They said the usually see Mk4's come through, but have never seen an 818. Once I gave them my paper work and paid the Canadian taxes, I was on my way.

Started rebuilding all of the donor parts. (I love my rust bucket) Saskatchewan doesn't aggressively use salt, it's mostly a sand compound, but the majority of the parts were just garbage.

Rebuilt the calipers
New coat of paint, new Pistons, new seals, new aggressive sport compound pads.

New timkin bearings and seals

Cut up the donor and am in the process of taking it to the scrap dealer.

On my 1,800 donor ive sold 1,200 in parts. The upgrades I've done to the donor car have cost an additional 2,000. This includes new brake pads, rotors, bearings, alum lower control arms, gaskets, paint, wiring stuff, and there is probably a bunch of other random things too. The worst part of Canada is the shipping, it adds an additional 15% minimum to anything that I buy.

I started to pull parts off the motor and noticed that the motor mounts are mangled. I guess the car was in a more severe accident than I thought.

There's probably more to add, but I have a full weekend ahead of me, good thing it's canadian thanksgiving this weekend. Woo long weekend. The parents are towing up the frame from storage so I finally get to start mounting parts

Pics wont upload without wifi, so I'll have to do it later.

[Canadian818]

Glad to see your making progress. Shipping sucks, I usually try to wait until I have a long list to order. Also, for those small items with ridiculous shipping I just email them and they typically can do better.

[turbomacncheese]

I like the organizing box for spare bolts.

[Scoobs]

Winter is here. 59441

[Frank818]

Oh crap... :( I hate that season so much! Starts pretty soon over there!

[Scoobs]

Inventory time. So much paper.
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Plan of attack & goals.
As it is now basically winter here, day time high of 0 degrees Celsius, working in the garage is going to suck without heat. Therefore before it gets super cold out I want to get the following done.

1. Suspension, front and rear
Need to prep the brackets that attach to the spindles, and bolt everything together
2. Steering
Mount the rack
3. Instal motor.

Once those are done I'll retreat to the basement, where I'll strip down the wire harness.

Longterm goal, running gokat by May.

[Scoobs]

So between work, sports, and the gym, I have maybe an hour each day to accomplish anything, however picking away at I'm slowly getting stuff done. Today I got the floor on.
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Here is a neat trick

If you can't get permanent marker off the aluminum with brake clean, draw over top with a dry erase marker. It comes right off with no effort.
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[Scoobs]

How much "persuasion" do these take to get on? They are so tight.

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[Frank818]

Mines are so loose they spin freely around the shock, which makes it difficult when I adjust ride height with the ring, the sleeves are spinning at the same time. Never there would be that much of a difference between 2 sets of shocks/sleeves.

[Canadian818]

Just warm up the collar with a heat gun, perhaps put the shock in the freezer for an hour.

[Scoobs]

Still haven't been able to get the sleeve over the shock, so I test fit the front end and the parts that I painted.

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[STiPWRD]

Still haven't been able to get the sleeve over the shock, so I test fit the front end and the parts that I painted.

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I recall the koni sticker on the shock interfering with the sleeve, you could try peeling off the sticker. Also, looks like your passenger side upper spindle bracket is on backwards.

[mistasherm]

I think someone mentioned it already but put the shock in the freezer for a bit and that should do it. I feel your "pain" - I had shoulder surgery in Sept and it put a damper on my building time and ability.

[Scoobs]

Holy crap those sleeves were tight. Heat, freezer, and press to get them to slide on.

Accomplished
1. Motor in
2. Front end done
3. Rear end in place (bolts to be tightened)
4. Trans ready to go,
5. Fuel tank ready
6. Playing around with seats, and shifter placement

Weekend goal
Break lines and radiator
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[AZPete]

I'm glad you got the shock sleeves on. It reminds me that I used a wire wheel to strip off the yellow paint from the shocks but that covered my wife's car with yellow specs and caused some grumbling. The next day someone posted to use a freezer and heat gun. Duh.

I know you are just starting your build but I must tell you that you are headed into big trouble. Your work looks so pretty with color-coordinated paint and polished aluminum that you won't want to ever mount the body panels. I urge you to go back and add some rust, crud and dried blood so people will know it's a hand-built car.

[Scoobs]

Ya it's been a lot of put it together, stare at it, go do some thing else, decide I didn't like it, change it, put it back together, make sure it fits, then take it apart and paint, then put it together for the last time.

Some days it's like I accomplished nothing, other days I get lots mocked up. It's a journy, although the "when are you going to be done?" Questions are getting annoying. However, I don't see those stopping anytime soon.

[turbomacncheese]

I'm glad you got the shock sleeves on. It reminds me that I used a wire wheel to strip off the yellow paint from the shocks but that covered my wife's car with yellow specs and caused some grumbling. The next day someone posted to use a freezer and heat gun. Duh.

I know you are just starting your build but I must tell you that you are headed into big trouble. Your work looks so pretty with color-coordinated paint and polished aluminum that you won't want to ever mount the body panels. I urge you to go back and add some rust, crud and dried blood so people will know it's a hand-built car.

ha!

[DSR-3]

Nice progress.
Are you planning on making the FFR shifter work "backwards", or maybe just messing around? I though a bit about it- then moved on to other things I MUST do...

[Scoobs]

I was messing around with it, but realized the cables are 1/2 the length if you point it backwards.
I'll probably install it the forward way, so I can drive it, then change it with different cables later on down the road.

[Mitch Wright]

Scoobs,

I would suggest if thinking about changing your shifter do it now it will save you a ton of time while things are going together. Wayne's trick shifter kit or MR2 shifter and order cables, you can all that you need in less than a week. (found my MR2 shifter on E Bay and from the time I order my cables to being delivered was 2 days)

[Scoobs]

I'm already 500 canadian pesos into the aluminum one, so, probably just going to run it.

[Frank818]

That green is great, is the body going to be green too?

Your top and fwd of side sails' triangle aluminum pieces seem to fit well, at least without the body on. I wonder if FFR cut them better now. They are the worst matching parts yet I've found.

[Scoobs]

The goal is black body, black rims. Most of the pieces are fitting quite well, however I can not find the block off plate for the brake piston. Anyone know what box it was in?

[Scoobs]

So..... Threads are supposed to start with the finished product right?

https://youtu.be/5__S3Kf97xQ

Went Autocross racing May 26th.
Car leaves ridiculously hard, really stable in the corners. Was able to beat the stock corvette that was running on the track, and kept up with the turbo'd BRZ.

The track was just a little to short for distance to be able to get out of 1st gear and still be able to stay in boost for 2nd.

The major bits are done with the car, currently working with the provincial insurance for its inspection to be able to drive on the street.

[Canadian818]

Nice to see you finished it. That track was tiny! Post some pics of the finished product.

[Scoobs]

Front suspension failure.

anyone have this happen to them yet? Upper spindle attachments bent. I guess the tires grip the road a little bit.

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was testing braking force and bias adjustment from front to back. i.e was trying to lock up tires when it happened

Tires are Toyo R888R 205/40/17 front and 255/235/18 Rear

Factory five has sent replacement arms, but ill probably add a plate to the front to make them a C channel / I beam design.


Also, fully registered in Saskatchewan. Car gets lots of head turns as your driving.
Weighed in at 990 kg ~ 2,180lbs

[Hobby Racer]

That must have been from an early kit as mine, and every other set I've seen, has a gusset plate welded to the front in the section you bent.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

I had kits #21 and #22. They both had gusset plates in that part.
I'm running R888 235/40-17 on the front and i have done many brake test including locking up all the tires with no issues.
Bob
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Edit: I see in post 20 above that you are missing the gusset. I never noticed missing.
Bob

[Zach34]

Good heavens. Hope nothing else got damaged. It actually looks like there is a slot for a gusset. Maybe they just forgot to weld it on the early kits.