pete25r's bugeye progress by pete25r

4 minute(s) of a 160 minute read

7-7-2014

That's what I got my struts to look like before I painted them. There was a lot of surface rust. I've still gotta do the fronts so I'll get a pic of that to show you guys what I was working with.

9-27-2014

I haven't stopped tinkering with my car. Just let the lazy on club-dub happen.

Was slapping a part or two on and wondering why I haven't WTF-ed my tune yet, all that just before I moved. Now I've got some boxes and crap to move so I can tinker in my garage.

11-7-2014

Did an oil change last weekend. Oil filter had black crap on it near wear it attaches to the oil cooler. I thought I might have an exhaust leak. Now I'm certain. Black crap and it ticks under load a little.

Thank God for the long weekend, plenty of time to play.

11-9-2014

So I was able to pull my headers off yesterday to verify and locate where my exhaust leak is happening. Couldn't see any definite leakage sites but could see soot outside the gasket's ring. It looked like if it was leaking it was taking the long way to exit, it snaked around a little. 

Last time I put new head to header gaskets on, two of the passenger side studs came out. The holes weren't stripped or nothing, just some rust or something torqued to the nut more than the stud to the block. Got those out and fixed them too. It's crazy how good some stock bolts clean up with a little wire brush action.

Since I had my headers off I did a quick and lame job of polishing the first few inches of the collectors and up-pipe joint. Didn't have gaskets for the crossover pipe or I would have done it up all the way.

Well the exhaust leak tick was gone the first test run around the neighborhood. After I'd been on the highway for a little while it creeped back, not as loud but there.

On that test run my car felt good and responsive again. It was feeling kinda off like it was a more serious exhaust leak.

And today I found out that my order from Grimmspeed that was supposed to come in on the 12th showed up yesterday afternoon while I was working on my car. The arrive sooner than anticipated part is awesome, just wish the wife told me they came in... they were in a cardboard mailer thing so I don't blame her.

PS. Got some rhino ramps from the Kmarts. they had them on sale($45?)

12-28-2014

yep

What the wife got me for Christmas.

It's a low clearance floor jack that goes up to like 18". It's gunna fun playing with it!

I had and exhaust tick so I decided to use my ramps to pull the headers off and fixorz the gaskets. That worked out pretty good but I found this while I was down there. The other side was worse, worse than it was a month or so ago.

Since it was looking crazy I cleaned it. Before:

After degreasing, cussing, and scrubbing:

Oh and on the way home from getting a haircut, I rolled into the 100k range. She rolled into 100k just like a good wrx should.. in 5th