I ordered my kit and got my 2003 WRX donor about six weeks ago. FFR says it'll be ready to ship 11/22/14! I figure I'll get it sometime in Dec or Jan. I've been in tear down and parts sales mode since then, working a couple of hours a few days a week, more on the weekends. My mechanical experience doesn't go much further than brakes and an occasional radiator hose or alternator so I figured I wouldn't really have much to add here. But after looking for a thread by someone with similar experience (or lack of) I figured it might be helpful to post my experience with the 818 build. I have rebuilt a couple of thumper motors with new pistons, and did a valve adjustment on and old Yamaha FZR600 once... but nothing like building a kit car, or even taking a WRX apart.
I'm keeping a running list of the parts I need to replace: front wheel bearings, one front ball joint that I mangled, possibly a front hub that I hit with a chisel while getting the bearing off (it looked so easy on youtube!), caliper rebuild kits, axle nuts, rotors... and my engine runs but I don't know much more about it than that... $15k huh?
I've also been running the parts through the bucket of doom (thanks Rasmus!) that I managed to remove without mangling and then painting them. I've gotten through the calipers and hangers, front knuckles, front hubs, couple others. Following the subaru manual I pulled the front axles then the intercooler, radiator, and this weekend I did the alternator, ps pump, and ac compressor. I'm hoping to get the engine/transmission out in the next couple of weeks and then keep going on the suspension/rear end/wiring harness. I've also gotten the column and about 75% of the interior out. I definitely need to get the donor out of the garage before the kit arrives!
I learned a little tip about the bucket of doom: hooking up a car battery in line to the bucket to trick a harbor freight battery charger into charging is not a good idea.
I'll post up some pics of my donor ($2500 on copart) and some progress pics. Can anyone help me figure out if this bracket that I found in the trunk of my donor is the left side intercooler mount that I can hook a chain to? It doesn't seem all that beefy and my intercooler wasn't mounted to anything on the passenger side. If this is the correct bracket does anyone have a pic that shows where it mounts on the engine? If not can someone show me what the bracket is supposed to look like? Thanks!
-Noah in San Diego
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