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Thread: STI donor teardown - Zach34

  1. #1
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    STI donor teardown - Zach34

    I liked Tamra and xxguitarist's approach of making a dedicated donor tear-down thread separate from the eventual build thread, so I figured I'd do the same.

    I'm building an 818R, and I picked up my donor today. It's a 2005 WRX STI. I got it through Insurance Auto Auctions. AJW Performance was nice enough to broker my bids and really made the whole process easy for me. I highly recommend that route to anyone considering the auctions. FWIW, this car came from the Bridgeport, PA lot and appears to be unmolested as far as I can tell since it was placed there probably 10+ months ago. If anybody is curious about the process, feel free to PM or just call AJW.

    It was a minor debacle getting it on the trailer, sifting through I-95 rush hour traffic, and getting it off the trailer in the dark. After a quick inspection I'm pretty excited about the condition of the car. It has 135,000 miles. It was a victim of a theft/interior fire. The fire was contained mostly in the back seat, but melted the backsides of the front seats and ruined most of the interior. The dash appears untouched by the fire, although everything is covered in soot and there is a large hole where the thieves ripped out the radio. After some time doing my best impression of a TV forensic detective, I suspect that when the theives cut the big 4 AWG power cable for the amps in the trunk, they just left the loose end dangling, which eventually shorted on something and caused the fire. The upside is no collision damage to worry about. There's twitter hashtag stickers all over the place, which has been great for finding a bit of history about the car.

    I did get it to start up after charging the battery for a bit. Planning on a quick test drive before the big tear-down.
    20141027-WRX pickup-105538.jpg20141027-WRX pickup-105633.jpg20141027-WRX pickup-105807.jpg
    Last edited by Zach34; 10-28-2014 at 10:22 PM.

  2. #2
    fasterer and furiouser longislandwrx's Avatar
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    make sure you post teardown pics to that guys instagram.
    A well stocked beverage fridge is the key to any successful project.

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    Yeah, I'm tempted to reach out to him and ask if he had any issues with it, etc. I did find this gem: http://instagram.com/p/hrR3XhuJn6/?modal=true

    ... hm

  4. #4
    Moonlight Performance
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    Thats funny! I found myself doing the same digging when I came across random forensic bits in my donor. A sewing kit, volunteer application to a grade school, a humane society volunteer T-shirt receipt, and........ Four frequent customer punch cards to a coffee shop that advertises the exceptionally large bra sizes of its employees. So....... Yeah.

  5. #5
    fasterer and furiouser longislandwrx's Avatar
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    you better hot link that coffee shop!
    A well stocked beverage fridge is the key to any successful project.

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    Senior Member xxguitarist's Avatar
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    Looks like a great starting point! Hope FFR has the 6 speed setup ready for your timing.

    When's your delivery/pickup day?

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    Nov 8 pick-up for the kit. I gave the STI it's last drive today, just around the block to see if there were any problems. Rather conspicuous car to putt around in. It has a Magnaflow exhaust that's essentially a straight pipe. It seems to idle extremely low (about 500 rpm). It also tended to kind of bog/surge when returning to idle upon coming to a stop. Would that be something to expect of an engine running a big straight pipe exhaust that probably was never tuned for it?

    It was a little tough to shift into first gear. A transmission rebuild would probably be smart. Otherwise no issues. The dash works fine. The engine came up to temperature and the cooling system seems to be fine. There's a very small oil leak around the oil filter somewhere. Coming from the domestic V8 world, I was impressed with the power. This motor will be incredible in the 818R. The dash works. The rotors were heavily rusted, but the brakes seemed to work well and the calipers showed no evidence of stickyness.

    If I understand correctly from other posts here, the 6-speed is simply a matter of custom axles from DSS, correct? The front spindle brackets will be an easy modification. I was unaware FFR is planning a 6-speed option package. They didn't mention anything about it when I told them I was using an STI.

    Work's been killing me this week so far. I should get a couple hours of full-bore tear-down tomorrow. Pics to follow.

  8. #8
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    If you want you can use the front axles rather than having some made. They are a little longer than the WRX axles that ship with the kit so you will have a wider track and probably should go with adjustable lateral links to correctly set CV joint float. Sponaugle, Kurk818 and maybe a couple others have pioneered this route.

  9. #9
    Senior Member STiPWRD's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zach34 View Post
    It also tended to kind of bog/surge when returning to idle upon coming to a stop. Would that be something to expect of an engine running a big straight pipe exhaust that probably was never tuned for it?
    Does the car have a vent to atmosphere blow off valve? Sometimes if the spring pressure isn't set properly in those things, it can cause the bog/surge effect.

  10. #10
    Sgt.Gator's Avatar
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    Nice finding an uncrunched one!
    Do you mind sharing what you paid for your donor? Have you done compression and leak-down checks?
    "Good Judgement comes from Experience. Experience comes from Bad Judgement"
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    My winning bid was $6700. Total with fees was just under $7300. I may have been prepared to go to $8k due to the fast-approaching kit pick-up date and the fact that I knew I was getting un-bent suspension parts and a usable set of wheels. If I can make a few grand back on unneeded parts, I'll be looking at a pretty good deal. I think a regular WRX in the same condition would go for a lot less. STIs command a premium everywhere.

    I did not do a compression test. I have a leakdown tester and I'll do that sometime soon. I have little reason to suspect any significant issues judging from the way it ran on my test drive. It was low on oil by about 1.5-2 quarts, which is concerning but I'm hoping that is due to the oil leak around the filter.

    I didn't have much time to work on it this week. I only got as far as getting most of the dash disassembled and much of the dash harness labelled.

    The interior is a fitting scene for Halloween weekend.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by Zach34; 11-02-2014 at 12:22 AM.

  12. #12
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    So I found about 3 days a couple weeks ago to go full-throttle on the teardown and get it finished. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but will post some later. Not too many issues. Tagging and bagging all the hardware is already paying huge dividends. I'm saving all the random bolts from the interior. There will be a lot of parts going up for sale soon, including a stock STI intercooler and some of the parts needed on the 818S but not the R.

    I pulled almost everything off the donor. The husk is sitting in the driveway while I await my new title before taking it to the scrap yard.

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