The tale so far .....Josh's Whitekong

Started by Guest_KONG_* , May 01 2013 02:28 AM

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#21 Samwise

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 02:21 PM

Samnutz are you on your phone or are you saying you want to have a conversation with your car?

If so....just do it! I talk to mine every day!

Phone. Post fixed.

I won't deny it, I do talk to my car..

I like to think of it as borrowing someone's car and driving it better than them.

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#22 Guest_KONG_*

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 02:25 PM

Hahahaaaa

We all do!

I can see your tail lights in one of my pics!

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#23 Zac

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 02:32 PM

Hahahaaaa

We all do!

I can see your tail lights in one of my pics!

This

~~2002 B4 Rev E~~

2004 Outback Premium 3.0R

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#24 Samwise

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 02:36 PM

Hahahaaaa

We all do!

I can see your tail lights in one of my pics!

I do quite like them. Everyone is going for clear.. but something about this Subaru green, really gets set off by dark/black bits.

I like to think of it as borrowing someone's car and driving it better than them.

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#25 Guest_KONG_*

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 02:38 PM

I do quite like them. Everyone is going for clear.. but something about this Subaru green, really gets set off by dark/black bits.

I agree. They look ace!

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#26 Samwise

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 02:56 PM

I agree. They look ace!

Had to get some Cree LED's so I could reverse, haha.

Now on with Chapter 33333333!

I like to think of it as borrowing someone's car and driving it better than them.

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#27 Liberty

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 03:55 PM

Mad story man!

Loving the updates and loving where you've taken the car. Keep up the long posts!

Wanting to buy/looking for: single genuine STi rim, genuine STi front lip, Corazon or Zero/Sports grille and another OEM grille

Can you hook a brother up? Please contact me now. I have cash ready.

~

2006 Liberty MY06 3.0R SpecB wagon

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#28 Hypnotic

Everything you see is an hallucination

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 04:51 PM

I believe the story is awesome, haven't read any of it yet, will get to it soon.

As soon as she hands it to you, slowly take of your pants, then, while staring her straight in the eyes rub it against the tip of you penis, while continuing your painfully intense gaze whisper to her;

"My eye is watering, this might be a bit hot"

I should just convert to single, right?

Horsepower Factory

Revzone Auto Tuning Centre

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#29 Cam.

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 05:05 PM

Cool story bro.

Asb2OgK.jpg?1

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#30 bigboyscottyb

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 10:07 PM

whens chapter 3 coming out? well keen on a read, its good to hear tht after all of the issues you had that good old faithful still lives... im sure one day i might have a story to tell about my outback, but nothing as good, entertaining and enlightening as this

keep up the good work... just remember

"this thread is useless without pics"

SUBIE SALES

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#31 Mitch.

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 10:16 PM

Was waiting for this build thread josh. Such a nice car and by seeing it in the flesh you can appreciate the crazy amount of work put into it.

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#32 AB501UT!0N

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 11:31 PM

Really good hearing your story... was a great read

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#33 Guest_KONG_*

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Posted 02 May 2013 - 12:33 PM

Continued.....

There now sat 2 white Gen3 libs in my driveway. My beloved 99 Heritage with a dead motor & box and my recently purchased 01 My02B4 with some pretty comprehensive damage to the rear. As I said earlier, the best scenario would have been if both cars could have been repaired but it was becoming more obvious by the day that this might not be possible financially due to the extent of the damage. I still had hope and remained optimistic.

I really didn't feel good about the Idea of cannibalising this white B4. I felt it would have been such a shame to end it's life as a complete car because some poor idiot crashed into the back of it. The damage was bad, I could see how bad! But I'm not a panel beater and with this in mind I told myself (& the dog) that maybe it's not as bad as it looks on the surface. Panel shops deal with stuff like this all the time right? Might just be one of those jobs where they have a special machine or trick to pulling out the bent bits.

So the next step was to Email off 30 or so photos to the Panel beater who takes care of my employers fleet of cars. My boss said it would be cool if I dropped his name and mention he recommended I contact them. In the email I also commented on this panel shops work having seen the quality of it multiple times with the repair of the work fleet. Yes.... I was sucking up & kissing ass big time in the hope they might do it on the cheap,

The response was not good. The cost to repair was huge. He had given me a discounted price but it was still going to cost a bomb.... even without paint & even though I could supply all the parts needed.

The cost to repair the B4 plus the purchase price, plus the cost of going to Melbourne to pick it up, plus the time off work all added up to nearly the cost of buying a B4 at the lower end of the market at the time. One that had not been involved in an accident! When I also took into account the process and cost of registering a repairable write off from interstate my plans were stopped in their tracks.

After nearly a month of wondering and hoping I now knew exactly where I stood and exactly what needed to be done. I was prepared for the worst possible outcome but disappointed all the same. I did however now feel a sense of relief knowing what I had to do instead of worrying what outcome might unfold. It was going to be hard work & stressful but I was now down to my second last option.

My last option being sell the lot. Cut and run and lose a shit load of cash in the process.

My second last option....... Build the best car I could out of what I had.

This is exactly what I did!

As you can imagine, it wasn't a pleasant atmosphere inside my house at the time. My partner was unhappy with my decisions and considered my actions a complete waste of time and money. Money that a family with a young child can not afford. Time I should have been spending with my son.
To add to this, I could only imagine what my parents were saying knowing full well I had already made some bad decisions in my life causing them a great deal of stress. This was my motivation to succeed.

I had to get this shit done and quickly!

Where do you start? I knew all about turbos and had never owned one before. I had limited space and a dodgy driveway. There were many potential complications and time was limited. I needed to get back on the road as relying on public transport was affecting my work and also adding to the time I was away from my family. In essence turning a 12hr work day into a 17hr one.

I opened the bonnet on the B4 and thought to myself WTF have I gotten myself into. Have you ever had a look under the bonnet of one of these bad boys?
The bay is jam packed with so much wiring and complex crap! Very daunting for a person with no formal mechanical education and new to turbos..

I tracked down a Legacy workshop manual online which is absolutely necessary for this type of thing. I also found several instructional videos on Youtube that explained the process of WRX engine removal which was a big help. Not a B4 but close enough. I researched and planned out the process of stripping a car to a rolling shell.
Basically I was going to have to do this twice!
I had to find out the the major differences between the 2 models of cars and exactly what I need to transfer from one to the other. The research and planning I did prior to the actual physical labour made the whole process smooth and a lot less painful than I anticipated.

Undoing bolts was the easy part. The workshop manual explains in detail removal and installation procedures on all components of the car....although some of the diagrams are a bit child like and confusing at times. My biggest concern was the wiring. There was so much of it. I had hoped there would be sections of the cars wiring looms that might be interchangeable but there were small differences between the 2 models so I swapped the entire wiring system.

It took about 3 days to do but essentially I had to follow every loom and wire in the car to every plug. I labelled everything. In the process of doing this I found components that I had no idea what they were. So I was learning as I went. Before unplugging a thing I went through the whole cars wiring with a video camera in hand. Listing and describing as I went what I was unplugging from which part of the car, the colour of the plug and colour of wires coming out of both sides of it.

This saved my asre so many times when I was putting all back together. I had to refer back to video many times to remind myself what goes where. There is so much to take in no person could remember everything involved. Another technique I used to assist me with things like vac hoses & fuel lines etc was sticking on different coloured electrical tape on both sides of the connections so when it came time to reconnect it was as simple as grey to grey, blue to blue, red to red etc.

I'm not going to go into detail about the conversion process itself as it was straight forward enough for me and basically swapping parts from one shell to another. However, if you are considering a conversion yourself and think it is as simple as just pulling out your engine and wacking in a WRX motor you clearly need to do some more research. There are so many differences between N/A cars and turbo models whether they be subtle or obvious. I feel for people who do such conversions as I'm certain they find out things they need as they go and have to source them. I was lucky enough to have everything I needed right there with spares of some parts.

I will say though, in my opinion these cars are designed with ease of removal in mind in most areas. Of course there are weird bits but in general they aren't too bad.

So I stripped the B4 with just the nose sticking into my garage. Pulled out the engine/box. Reassembled the front suspension then rolled it out to make way for the Heritage. I then had to strip the Heritage to a bare shell which was nice and quick being the second time I had done it. I learnt a few tricks to speed things up along the way. Then it was just a matter of bolting it all back together.

I chose to give the front end an update from the old Rev A-C to the Rev D-E lights, bumper, grille and bonnet as they were in better condition. I swapped doors as the rear loom plugs were different between models and the B4's door strips were colour coded. All interior parts were transferred.

I had to cut out the bracket supports in the engine bay so the dump pipes would fit.

The whole suspension, brakes and engine cross member was transferred onto the front end along with The ABS module & master cylinder as they were a bigger unit for turbos. The brake plumbing was the same so it stayed put. I left the Heritage rear sub frame, suspension and diff in place as the diffs are the same 4.11 ratio. The B4 diff is an LSD and it's rear suspension has extra support bars but that would all be transferred in due time as time was limited and I needed to get on the road asap. It was converted from an Auto to Manual in the process.

There was a lot of work involved. I had no assistance from anyone at all, at any part of this build so I had to problem solve and improvise as I went.
There was blood, swearing, the throwing of tools and long days going to bed on the lounge in the shed because I was covered from head to toe in shit!.

Once the assembly process was complete I topped up the fluids & double checked everything.

When I was feeling confident it was ready to fire up, the nerves and butterflies set in. I connected the negative terminal to the battery turned the ignition to accessories. The dash lit up and I heard the fuel pump prime.

I was a bit surprised so I turned it off again. I checked it would do it twice in a row and it did!

The moment was here!

I turned the key and the car came to life instantly. VROOOOOM!

That moment was the best feeling in the world and words could not come close to explaining how I felt at that point. I was cheering swearing punching the air and carrying on like a retarded wit who had just been tased in the privates.

It was one of the best days of my life!

There were a few minor mechanical set backs as one would expect on a build like this but once fixed, I hit the road and have been so happy and proud of myself ever since.

The best thing was after all this stress and bullshit I had a new car. I cleaned it all up and presented it to my family.

They were gobsmacked!!!!!

They could not believe firstly I had done it, secondly the car looked so 'ing awesome and thirdly I had done the lot by myself in under 2 weeks!

My Dad said "I can't believe it! It's a new car!"

So I built my car..... and I love it! It's awesome!

I meet all kinds of people because of it everywhere I go.

My family are amazed by it and all love it as well.

Being able to pick the best bits out of 2 in most areas was awesome. Having spares was awesome. Having parts to sell and get some of the cost back was awesome. Learning so much about my car in the process was awesome.

The whole experience was AWESOME!!!!!

I learnt so much in the process and It's great seeing someone on the forums in need of advice that I can help them with and share what I gained.

Or people stuck looking for annoying hard to find little parts that are keeping them off the road or finishing their projects.... and I am able to assist them by giving them what they need for little or no cost because I know what it feels like to be off the road .

Just helping people out when help is needed is an awesome feeling too!

So in the end I won....
and I'm still winning every day when I get behind the wheel, smirk and start up my Whitekong.

Such a rewarding accomplishment!

Built not bought!

That's my story...... What's yours?

To be continued.......