Ray's 818C Build in Maryland

[Ray Vidal]

I received my kit today! I now have 45 days to do the inventory. After a 5 month wait I am surprised to find that there are several parts either circled or left blank on the inventory form. Those parts should be shipped later. I have a donor 2002 Subaru Impreza that I started taking some small parts off of but I have a long way to go. I recommend anyone buying this kit to read through as many previous posts you can for advice before beginning the tear down. For one thing I am labeling every wire I take off of a component so I can figure out whether to remove it or keep it for later. I plan to take pictures and document the whole process. I plan to include any parts I find worn beyond reuse and where I find new parts. So for now here is the pics I took today!
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[mikeb75]

Welcome! Where in MD are you (there are several builds in the area).

[Ray Vidal]

I'm in Lake Linganore. New Market area of Frederick County.

[mikeb75]

Sweet, just a few miles from me (Damascus) and a few others; plus I need to head that way to hit the wineries and restock ;).
Feel free to reach out if you have questions, need a hand or a certain tool, or want to see a relatively complete 818.

Have fun!!

[Newkitguy]

i'm up in westminster, my build is complete if you have any questions feel free! also if you have a facebook local 818 builders have a group chat

[Ray Vidal]

I took all the body parts off the chassis and now I need to start the parts inventory.
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[fletch]

Hola from NM. We are here to help, as best as we can. Good luck. You can do it.

[Ray Vidal]

I have slowly and patiently removed the wire harness from my donor car. There is no rush as FFR hasn't sent all my parts yet. But I did send them an extensive list of parts that were not in my kit that they said was. The weather here is good for the moment but its going to start getting cold out soon and I'm building in my driveway. I do not have a garage. So for anyone trying to figure out the best way to strip down your donor this is what I recommend. Start with the trunk lid, Hood, and all 4 doors. Then start removing the wire harness from the tail lights and move forward. As you go label everything. WARNING: Subaru runs wires through strange places. So just follow the wires and remove everything out as you go. Rear seat, front seat, carpet, dashboard, heating/cooling fan, AC, then go to the front of the car and start with the head lights and move back toward the dashboard. eventually you will have something like what I have here in these pictures.154726154727[ATTACH=CONFIG]154728

[roadrashrob]

Ray, I feel your pain. Removing the wiring harness was definitely an "interesting" experience. When all was said and done, I opted for Wayne at VCP to do my harness. SO much cleaner, but you do give up the factory ECU. I'm actually really enjoying the AMP/EFI one Wayne supplied and learned a lot about programming/tuning it. I have a front mounted fuel tank, so I opted for the ECU IN the cockpit, but Wayne sets it up so it mounts neatly on the upper right of the rear firewall in the engine compartment. This picture shows how clean the tunnel stays without all the "extra" Subaru wires...

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If you do decide to tackle dieting the Subaru harness, hopefully you got Craig's (Zero Decibel Motorsports) delete list. Totally indispensable...

Good luck

[biknman]

Sorry I've been slacking on keeping up on other builds on the forum. Welcome to the MD FFR crew. I'm In Baltimore City I have a 818r, but I also race in SCCA with a 96 Impreza Coupe and use to race a 03 WRX (10 years) so lots of Subaru history and experience.

I post more on IG see my profile @ biknman.

FYI for my 818r and my Impreza coupe I went the iWire harness / services route even though my day job is wiring and I've wired lots of street and racecars.

[Ray Vidal]

OK so I had a patio put in on the side of my house and then put a big tent called a portable garage on it. I moved the frame in and made a small workbench out of some spare lumber I had laying around. So at least my build will be sort of inside. However my donor car (2002 Impreza RS) still sits in the driveway. I have a car cover over it so the HOA doesn't come down on me about having a torn apart car in my driveway. Most of the car has been striped down. I started with the wire harness and just removed things as I went like the seats, carpet, and so on. I have not identified all the little black boxes that are tied into the harness yet but I bought the Chilton's book for the car and should have no problem identifying them later.
So far for my build I have installed the underside panels and the front. Then went back to stripping the donor car because now I need to lower control arms, Spindles, Wheel hubs, breaks and so on. Unforunatley for me most of the suspension and break parts are rusting away. I feel these parts are too important for me to use them so I purchased new Spindles and hubs but the lower control arms are in good shape. I will clean them up and repaint them. I'm going to try to clean the calipers and frames and get new disks. I have also found a site that sells entire emergency break kits for this car. So far I have shopped Rockauto, partsgeek, carparts, and benzeenautoparts. Not to mention eBay and Amazon. If you know of other places that have slightly used or new parts please feel free to share!
As of this writing all I have left to remove from the donor is the rear end and the gas tank. Unfortunately for me the weather here in Maryland has finally turned cold. We had a nice warm December and if I could have spent Christmas in the driveway I would have. My wife would probably have left me if I did that though. I may have to brave the icy cold to pull the rear end out this month so I can continue with my build. If my spindles and stuff arrive soon then I will start on the front suspension. I just need to remove the lower control arms from the old spindles.
Lastly but certainly not leastly. I would like to thank you for reading this post and sharing your wisdom!159736159737

[STiPWRD]

Hi Ray, I'm also near by in the area if you need any help. I can email you the Subaru factory service manual and wiring diagram if you'd like, it's very useful especially if you plan to diet your OEM harness. I went through that whole process with my 02 wrx donor.

[Ray Vidal]

Hello STiPWRD....Yes I would like those diagrams. Please send them to rayburn05@comcast.net. Thank you! I do plan on using the wiring harness that took me a month of Sundays to remove!