subisubisu

That Outback looks like mine! Or would, if I had ever seen it on a lift. Right now really wanting one, since my S4 is in need of a starter, and while cramming a V8 into a 4cyl car makes for some fun, it is a misery whenever you need to do work in there, especially on your back on the floor. No leverage to break bolt torque, hard to shift to angle your arms into spaces, etc. You are living the dream!

While at a bit of a pause in trying to wrap up the tune in my '05 OBXT refresh, due to data dropouts in the AEM AFR stream to ROMraider (guessing to fire the parts cannon and hope a new sensor will be good enough for long enough to wrap the tune process up, since intermittent dropouts are not so easy to diagnose with the gear I have on hand), I took care of an annoyance and a hazard. The annoyance was the rear hatch pneumatic struts. Did my normal amount of internet "research" and decided to get the StrongArm set. Easy out of the old set (which looked like a replacement set themselves) once I removed the trim around the rear light clusters, L & R, easy in of the new set. Now the hatch practically springs open once I coax it away from the latch position. The hazard was that it seemed to me that I could see too much of the water pump down where the lower radiator hose attached to it. I was using a silicone hose that came in a set on a slow boat from China last year, that may or may not have been made from a mold suited to the LGT/OBXT. Anyway, it was way too long, and it seems I may have cut it too short. It didn't seem that way when I installed it, but it's possible that things might shift as I drive it and reduce the amount of caution I use in applying the gas and brake pedals. It didn't seem easy to get just the lower rad hose in silicone to replace it, so I just ordered an OEM one. Not much of a job to replace it, but I managed to have to do it three times, but only drained the coolant once, and captured most of it in a pretty clean pan for reuse. Getting the thing clocked properly so that there is no kinked restriction was one thing, and then giving up on getting the original spring clamps over the lips of the outlets to properly locate them, replacing them with some decent quality Breeze screw clamps. The silicone hose that I suspected might be too short was a pain to wrestle off the lower radiator outlet, but twisted off the water pump with almost no effort. I am VERY glad to have that replaced, and VERY glad that I spotted it before I suffered a massive coolant loss at the lowest point of the system.

ACT Stage II and STi single mass flywheel so far standing up to the JMP-rebuilt VF39's heavy breathing on the 6MT swap from a JDM Spec B.

I did something similar - I put mine in an OBXT and removed the lifting spacers in the process to put it at Legacy height, and used some Whiteline parts for more adjustability on the suspension. There wasn't much to hook up, electrically, and the connection from the OBXT 5MT plugged right in. Given all the other "fun" that I had in my project (which was much more than the Spec B 6MT swap), the actual 6MT connection was pretty straightforward. Good luck!

Ha, my wife calls my OBXT my "Lego" toy - I've spent hours and hours in the garage replacing most of the suspension, doing a 6MT swap and engine build with turbo upgrade. My "other" car (not counting what she drives and a pickup truck, because you have to have a pickup truck if you live in Alabama, it's a law or something) is a B7 Audi S4, which I have also had the engine out of (to renew the timing chain guides that are that model's Achilles heel) in my garage. I paid about 3x for the Audi what I paid for the Subaru, but wrenched plenty on both, and aside from the packaging difference that comes from cramming a V8 into a 4-cylinder car, effort-wise they are about the same to work on, including similar minimal needs for special tools for what I have done, mainly in the timing-setting area for both cars. New Audi parts are more expensive than new Subaru parts, but are similarly available online and I don't want to take either to the dealership to pay their prices. With 30k now on the reinstalled Audi engine, I guess you'd call it my DD, and it is a tighter and smoother driving experience in a much more luxurious cabin. I also have had occasion to scoff at the German "more is more" engineering approach, but my experience is that once you start breaking out the wrenches for either one of what I have, they require comparable effort and yield comparable results.

Hear hear! With no windshield view, won't everyone just assume it was recorded on a closed competition course, professional driver, do not attempt? And while I don't have the specific STi FPR, I do have a Radium FPR replacing the stock unit in my 2005 OBXT, with the vacuum reference relocated to the BPV connection, and I have that hesitation in the 2k's. Plus now I have diminished hopes of getting rid of it.

Welcome, nice looking OBXT! I just rebuilt a 2005 OBXT I bought exactly for that project. I don't have near the experience of y'all who are talking above, and even less when I started it, but I wanted it. It had no compression on #4 due to an exhaust valve problem, but still on the original turbo so I rebuilt my own block with forged pistons and had a machine shop do the decking and rebuild the heads. A variation that I did was the 6MT swap from a JDM Spec B - there is some chatter in forums about the 5MT being overcome at higher power levels than stock. I also pulled the spacers that made the OBXT taller than LGT and used LGT-height springs and shocks. I also have the 2015 STi steering rack and Killer B oil pickup and pan, plus a Koyorad aluminum radiator. I bumped up to the 11mm oil pump with the extra sump capacity of the Killer B pan, and the gauge I put in is showing high 90's oil pressure when cold and under load. And I have a JMP VF39 and the Grimmspeed TMIC and DW740 injectors, which made a tune necessary. I do not want to go total all that up, but it's all googleable at current prices in case any of those options interest you.

Please clarify - did you correct the timing belt to be aligned with the marks so that now it runs well with the alternator belt off? Or did you leave the timing belt off by one tooth? Probably not your situation, but elsewhere in the forum you can find mention of a practice of setting the timing off of the marks when swapping the cylinder heads for ones from a more recent engine. If yours is all-original it won't apply to you.

I'm just getting started with my OBXT driving experience, after finally getting my rebuild back on the road. I just went with a friend to a used car lot today where he bought a 2016 WRX, and we talked cars a lot. I told him that I don't want to drive a rolling wifi hotspot/video theater that steers and brakes according to its own opinions. It's a real serious question how much longer this or other older cars can be kept going, but I think this era is about when driveability peaked and most of the "improvements" touted since then are things that I don't need or want. Now get off my lawn.

There are DIYs on YouTube for replacing the pump, pulling the bucket, etc. There are O-rings in the bucket that should be replaced. I have had some challenges with mine (getting everything in the bucket to seal after putting the new pump in), and I'm currently running a cheapish Amazon pump/bucket assembly (disappointing Max, no doubt) just to get past the problem as I was getting my car back on the road, but it's in my plan to put a quality pump back in there.

You might take a look at those service manuals Max linked. There's a 2005 and a 2008 at least. I think there is a difference in the heads between those dates, but I am not sure exactly where it comes in. The earlier heads are marked B25 and the later ones are D25, and there are different emissions systems in them. So, if you try connecting an earlier engine to a later ECU, you won't have all the connections. There are other differences in the harness, too - there is a thread about how the TGV motor and sensor connections changed over the run of the 4th gen from earlier this year, I believe. So, I think it matters that you match the engine to the ECU.

Bon voyage! Since I don't know how to say it in Japanese.

AC/DC fans might remember it as "Black in Back".

Frankly I didn't remember on the pull (three years ago!) but I checked my phone picture history and apparently I left all the exhaust on it up to the turbo. I know that when I dropped it back in this summer I had everything on it up to the up pipe. I didn't want to risk banging up the new turbo on the way in. So, it can be done that way. Certainly removing things will make it easier to maneuver in the space available.

I hope you can get the info you need and track down your troubles, soon. I did pull the engine and transmission (after a 6MT swap) as a unit from my 2005 OBXT. I've mated the transmission under the car with the engine in place a couple of times and I much prefer doing it outside the car. I'd recommend removing the radiator and putting the hood up to its near-vertical position. I was able to do it with a garden-variety engine hoist.