The Doctor's '05 White Wagon

here is a pic of my quarter , not sure is wide enough for you

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What's your wheel and tire setup? There's a good chance I'll get an itch for this once the S402 fenders are on.

What's your wheel and tire setup? There's a good chance I'll get an itch for this once the S402 fenders are on.

 

 

pictures with oem jdm post facelift fenders .

8.75 offset 35 235 40 18 .

with the s402 , if there are plus 20mm, you can clear this set up . i plan to go 9.5 offset 38 and wider tires.

please take mesure to confirm what really wider s402 fenders are , if you plan to repaint it before install ,roll the edge , in case you will go wider .

Fenders will be getting the roll treatment since they're getting painted to match the car. They defintely seem wider just from looking at them but I haven't attempted to take any measurements. My current fenders are rolled with an ever so slight pull so I'm curious to see how much width I'll gain even though it won't be a true comparison from USDM pre facelift to jdm S402s.

 

If I were to step up to a wider setup I'm not sure on the wheel specs yet but I'd want to be able to run 255/40/18 tires at least. Would probably switch over to STI pink springs at that time as well since from my understanding I'll gain a smidge of height compared to the swifts.

Alright, time for an update. All paint items are in for the JDM post facelift conversion. I'm going to be dropping them off at the shop before the end of the week and wanted to document the items beforehand. I definitely went a little over board with this by giving myself multiple options of how I want the car to look at any point in time.

 

Picked up both a 2.5GT & Spec B/STI JDM bumper. The GT bumper with the Subaru OEM under spoiler is going to go on the car first and I'm trying to find a subtle lip that will fit decently to the under spoiler. I believe a CS-1 style lip for the '11-'14 STI will do the trick and currently have a Bayson R one ordered to see if I'm right. I also purchased a new OEM/JDM STI lip for the GT bumper in case I want to take off the under spoiler and go the more typical front lip route. Still debating if I want to run the GT bumper without the fogs since they're really just accent lighting with HID headlights. Currently don't have a lip for the Spec bumper but going to try and source a genuine S402 carbon fiber lip in the future.

 

The S402 fenders are going to be rolled to give me just a little more room in case I want to try and run something wider than a 245/40 in the future. I'd like to delete the chrome on the fender vent but also feel like if that accent isn't there it will look just like an odd black spot. Once everything is done I'll wrap the chrome in either a flat or gloss black to see what I think.

 

Headlights, headlights, headlights. I've been back and forth on what I think will look best so I decided to have 2 sets (blue & grey). The housings on the blue tint versions got trashed during shipping so I'm going to transplant everything from those into the housings of the black ones. The lens from the black ones will get polished and replace the ones on the grey set since the passenger light grey has an un-fixable crack in it. Not sure which set will go on first. Shields will get flipped on both sets and I'm not concerned with the leveling function at the moment. Both sets will be sanded and hit with a coat of clear to eliminate future fading.

 

Next up is grills. I specifically purchased the S402 grill first and the other came as a bonus with the Spec bumper. The black trim from the S402 grill is going to get re-done, PPF'd, and go on the non-S402 grill which will go on the car first. This will give me sometime to have the S402 emblem restored and I'm going to get the carbon fiber grill trim from Madrig to go on that one to match the carbon fiber lip I'll eventually get for the Spec bumper.

 

Just the JDM bumper beam and side strakes (front of rear wheel) that will be getting painted and put on to complete the entire spats/strake set.

 

The front end and the spats/strakes will be getting PPF'd once everything is painted to make sure the car stays mint after all the work. I haven't taken the wagon to any shows/C&C's but I'll be anxious too once this is done.

well that a lot of good parts ! the wagon gone be awesome !

 

i m in the same boat for the 2.5 gt bumper , running a lip under the spoiler or just a lip . i was under the impression that the lip of the pre face 2.0 gt bumper fit this one . since i can find the lip for the 2.5 gt post facelift . i will investigate . but pretty sure i will fab something since i want carbon .

If you make a carbon lip for the under spoiler make 2 please . And keep me posted on what you find out with the 2.0GT lip. I'll update on the bayson r STI lip I bought in the next couple weeks.

Time for an update.

 

About 2 months ago I decided to install the JDM STI rear strut bar and the McIntosh subwoofer housing in the cargo area. Installing both of those items pretty much requires that you remove the entire interior from the rear seats back and while I had it torn apart I remember that I had some sound deadening lying around and decided to clean everything up and apply some. Not a huge difference in sound reduction from exterior noises but the interior rattles and creaks are no longer existent.

 

The STI strut bar I sourced came with the factory interior piece so I didn't need to cut up the original but I thought it was a little odd that the USDM piece has a channel carved into it while the JDM one doesn't. It wouldn't fit snug without the channel so I had to carve into the JDM piece and then hit it with some heat to melt any flaking styrofoam.

 

Few pic's of everything installed and the interior back together. Love that I can either show the strut bar off if I choose or it stays hidden under the cargo all weather mat.

Right around that same time I worked out a deal with BooseRS05 to take his Spec B off his hands for the 6MT, aluminum suspension bits and some miscellaneous other items to throw on the wagon while he took the motor and pretty much anything else he wanted from it to put on his wagon or sell. Drove out to Pennsylvania the last weekend of June to bring it home. Was the worst trip of my life to due to a catastrophic failure that occurred with my dad's truck but still made it happen. It's currently sitting on the curb in front of my house until I decide to get it towed to the shop and begin the parts swap process.

 

While the car has been sitting I pulled some parts from it and put them in my wagon. The first thing I did was dis-assemble the door cards for the alcantara inserts and transferred those into the JDM door cards that had been sitting around the house for over a year now. Wasn't very hard to do but it's still a tedious process that takes time and care doing to not break important plastic pieces. Madrig also makes mounts for the 3" front door component speakers so I installed those and the JDM mirror tweeter housings along with the new door cards. The doors had been sound deadened before but threw some more in while everything was off.

 

Next I pulled the lower dash and center console from the Spec B to throw in. I purchased a new trim panel for the cup holders too as mine was scratched to hell. Still trying to source an EDM console to swap in but this was still a nice littler upgrade.

I love the way those strut bars look. Does it make a difference or would you say it's mostly in your head?

 

 

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Nothing major but it's noticeable. Same type of improvement as a larger rear sway bar but just not to the same degree.

Love your wagon! [emoji7]

Amazing find and build, great details on process! It’s beautiful man!

What are the exit dimensions of the exhaust tips? Those particular ones aren't available anymore.

I won't have a chance to measure them for a bit but I think either one of the links below should do the trick. I would guess any slip-on exhaust tip for the 05-13 3 series should do the trick. I was actually going to try and find another set since the Burger Motorsports ones are starting to corrode even though they're advertised as stainless steel.

 

https://www.amazon.com/ESPEEDER-Pair-Muffler-Exhaust-Pipes/dp/B0757K9KZM

 

https://www.amazon.com/SYKRSS-Exhaust-Muffler-Pipes-2005-2012/dp/B089YCK9HR/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=BMW+Auto+Exhaust+Tips&qid=1597937381&sr=8-5

Well if you want to wait for the weekend, I just ordered a pair.

getting better every time !

Well if you want to wait for the weekend, I just ordered a pair.

 

Not sure these are the q300 solution we're looking for. They look nice enough, just not sure they're long enough. Getting the tips out past the bumper was one of my main drivers for looking at new tips. I'll have to smack them with a mallet and wood block to fully seat the tip to get a final conclusion. They don't slip on with hand force, which is probably good. Even at hand tight, I feel they're almost not quite long enough. Pushing them in further won't help things.

 

If I really want to make it work I could slide a few inches of pipe into the q300 tip, then slide these onto that extension. The mounting brackets in the tips probably won't lose that much tension to keep them attached. But at that point might as well tack weld them.

Interesting. The ones from URO tuning won't fully seat on the Q300 tips either and we hand pushed them on as far as they would go and they stopped just about at the perfect length we needed them to sit past the bumper. Just did some light tapping with a rubber mallet on to get them equal on both sides. I could use a hammer to get them more seated but they are extremely snug as is and sit past the bumper. They haven't budged at all since that initial installation and have never had to adjust.

 

I wonder if you could pry up/bend the internal mounting brackets on the tips to get them sit more snug before they get passed/sunken below the bumper.

Very nice build!

Appreciate it! I wish the damn headlights would hurry up and get done so I can give you feedback on your harness that I bought months ago lol.

Cars looking good hope you’re doing well! I asked about a meet up last time i brought my car into Tom Wood and still up in the air...but if it happens it’ll be around daylight savings time switch.

Appreciate it! I wish the damn headlights would hurry up and get done so I can give you feedback on your harness that I bought months ago lol.

 

Haha all good! Let me know if you have any question or need a trouble shoot

Cars looking good hope you’re doing well! I asked about a meet up last time i brought my car into Tom Wood and still up in the air...but if it happens it’ll be around daylight savings time switch.

 

Hey, same to you sir! I would love if they did a meet. I think the last one they did the wagon was stuck in the shop getting the black interior conversion done and then they haven't had one since as far as I know. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope they do. I mean cars and coffee has been doing they're thing every Saturday for the past couple months, so hopefully Tom Wood does.

 

Haha all good! Let me know if you have any question or need a trouble shoot

 

Definitely, originally I was going to let the shop do the swap but they're tied up with a few $100k donk projects so I'm going to tackle it one weekend in the near future.

puppers update?

Puppers update, 2 1/2 years old now. Love these little shits, turned us into Shiba Inu owners for life. Also just realized I never posted pic's of the upper interior conversion to black either after looking at the last one.