Ab's '09 OBXT Build Thread

I have had this car since October 2018 and I (like others) would like to document the progress/history in one place.

Most recent photo of the car 2009 OBXT LTD 5MT-(I will keep this current)

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Edited November 2, 2020 by Abductee
Updated photo

Specs/Parts List-

 

-Grimmspeed Ceramic downpipe 007091

-GS TMIC 090027

-GS 3port Boost control solenoid 057032

-GS Intake 060071

-GS AOS 078016

-GS Delrin Shift knob 038007

-GS Ceramic turbo heat shield 092007

-GMS Turbo Inlet GMS-INLET-08+-BK

-BNR Evo3 16g 8cm

-Turbosmart Kompact BPV TS-0203-1210

-AEM fuel pump 50-1215 340lph

-AEM wbo2 gauge 30-4110

-Injector Dynamics ID720's 725.48.11.WRX.4

-Cobb Accessport v3 AP3-SUB-003

-OEM TGV deletes

-KStech Air pump delete KST-APD-W/G-HW

-Koyorad Aluminum radiator VHO91662

-Kartboy Short throw shifter KB-001-LEG

-Nameless 5" axleback mufflers (u)

-Whiteline 20mm rear swaybar BSR39Z

-Whiteline control arms KTA124

-Whiteline shifter bushings KDT957

-OEM Legacy GT bump stops 20501AE00A

-OEM Legacy GT upper control arms 20250AE021 20250AE041

-BC Racing F-04 Legacy GT coilovers (u)

-BC Racing F-07 extreme low rear dampers 220125AR114M12

-OEM Diamond Ignition coils 22433AA541

-Primitive Racing skidplate 3/16" w/ holes SKIDF16187

-Fumoto drain valve FMTF10SS-LC-10

-ProSport Evo Oil pressure gauge 216EVOEOP.PSI

-OEM short block

-OEM rebuilt heads

-OEM STI radiator fans (u) 45121FJ000

-Group N STI pitch stop D1040FE000

-Torque Solutions steering dampner TS-SU-310

-Torque Solutions cylinder 4 coolant mod TS-SU-585

-EBC Brakes slotted discs red stuff pads S4KR1122 S4KF1230

-JDM Outback front end swap

-Torque solutions silicone radiator hoses TS-SU-420BK

-Diode Dynamics LED brake lights DD0112P

-Diode Dynamics Trunk light DD0022S

-Diode Dynamics license plate light DD0022P

-Diode Dynamics map lights DD0071P

-Diode Dynamics dome light DD0071S

-Diode Dynamics SmartTap flasher relay CF18

-Federal Evoluzion ST1 235/50/17

-Vibrant Silicone vacuum lines

Edited October 29, 2020 by Abductee
Add more parts

Me-

I am a Chevy guy and have personally had only a few import vehicles as transitions between v8's when necessary. My first car was a 1964 Chevy Malibu back in 1989. I have done all my own repair work/maintenance/upgrades except for automatic transmission rebuilds and proper alignments since my first tricycle.

I work here as a Mechanical/Electrical Team Leader-

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The car-

The first day I had it-

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My son drove out to Colorado for the summer to work and wound up wrecking his Lexus. Once he healed up and went back to work he found this car at a Subaru shop in Broomfield I believe it was. It had 165k on the chassis and a fresh short block and turbo. He used it for the rest of his time there and headed back home. I had seen an 05-09 Outback a couple of times before and always liked the way they looked, but didn't know anything about them. We got together for dinner and he asked me if I could show him how to shift really fast. I drove him in the Outback to pick up the pizza and in Sport# ran through the gears a few times. I was surprised by the car, especially the fact the traction control kicked in on the 2-3 shift. I have/have had fast cars before and this car was not "fast" but was pleasantly quick. This was only the 2nd turbo car I had ever driven with the first being my wife’s 2008 Mazda Speed3 for the couple of years we had it around. Fast forward a few months, and my son decided to pick up a new 2019 Civic SI and asked me if I wanted the Outback. It had been several years since my last row your own transmission, and the 250k mile 2002 Suburban 2500 4x4 I was currently using as the daily driver was in need of a rear main seal so I said sure. My wife jokes about my fleet of vehicles, which has thinned out lately. I do not care to have a brand new vehicle, so I have always had several used vehicles that I rotate out as the situation calls for or as I want. One breaks, I stick it in my shop and drive another one till I fix it. I have gone through many many vehicles. Currently, I have 4 though one is for sale. The goal for years has been to wind up with what I call the perfect fleet- 1st a sporty, comfortable, quick, cool looking, utilitarian, family friendly daily driver. 2nd a big, go anywhere, comfortable, somewhat family friendly 4x4 SUV. 3rd the raw, visceral, unedited power of a loud, lowered, cammed, peel your face off American made v8 powered C10. My 1985 C10 has been in the fleet for 16 years and will never leave. It mostly satisfies the 3rd slot requirements. My 2002 Suburban will wind up filling the 2nd slot after I finish the solid axle swap (trailing arm front, 4 link rear on coilovers) and other required accouterments. Surprisingly for me, the Outback has easily stolen the 1st slot.

First task- Son says the AC doesn't work.

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Gotta clean the cabin air filter kid!

The lack of air flow killed the fan for the evaporator coil. Somehow or another I found out the fan for a RAV4 was the same and only $40 (I don't remember what years or part number). Swapped that out and shimmering blue waves of cooling goodness poured forth. Already liking the Subaru more.

Second task- Oil change.

Took the car to local Subaru dealer where my wife bought her 2015 Outback limited. I figured I would let the "experts" tell me about the car and what was wrong with it so I would know what to fix. After telling me all about how rare an OBXT with a 5MT was, the tech and I made friends after I noticed he was using Proto tools and complimented him on his choice. Seeing that he had 21 years as a Subaru mechanic and was not a total retard I proceeded to pick his brain about all things related to this car.

VF52 and accessport? Mental note made to find out what those were.

Watch for cylinder 4 misfire and AVCS filters? No idea what AVCS is but noted.

Check oil regularly? Doesn't everyone do that?

Air bubble in the cooling system means overheating? Pain in the ass to burp radiator? Noted.

Zero toe when aligned. Roger.

OEM everything where possible. Depends I said. Yeah on if you want to do it twice he said. Noted.

Honestly he told me more than I could take in. One thing he told me that really stuck with me was that these cars are pretty easy to work on. That piqued my curiosity.

3rd task- Complete fluids change.

Exactly as described I changed all the fluids. With an OEM oil filter, crush washers, and my lubricants/fluids of choice I changed everything except rear differential. It looked like a 1/2" drive would work. Company23 13mm square drain socket ordered. Sourced replacement drain plug and after cleaning up threads on the housing I finished the fluid change. FYI I always change my engine oil in all vehicles at 2500-3000 miles regardless of what the manufacturer says regular intervals are. Oil analysis every 25-30k miles.

4th task- Stupid sticky shifter knob.

Lots of play and sticky- it had to go. Shifter linkage was fine, just needed bushings. Learned about Whiteline, Kartboy, and Grimmspeed. Picked up and installed Whiteline shifter bushings, Kartboy short throw shifter and Grimmspeed delrin shift knob. Much better.

5th task- Oil pressure?

This is one of the only cars I can remember owning that didn't have an oil pressure guage. I used an Elm 327 Bluetooth obd2 adapter and the Torque app to monitor things in the Suburban, so that will work here right? Wrong. Check engine and lights blinking everywhere. I only tried it once. Pulled battery cables and reset ecu. I picked up a ProSport Evo oil pressure guage and sending unit, oil galley plug adapter, remote mount kit for sending unit, and a 3d printed cubby pod guage bracket on eBay. Used brass 1/4" npt tee and ran remote mount for sender and OEM oil pressure switch from front oil galley. I learned a long time ago it's always best to get oil pressure closest to the pump. Works great. Now I know I am at 90+psi at startup. Seems kinda high. I always pick up the OEM technical service manual for my vehicles. Time to get one for the Subaru. I found a guy who posted links to a bunch of OEM Subaru manuals for free (I don't remember where- NASIOC I think). Armed with info, I find uh, hmm-- it's within spec. Well, there is no upper range, they don't call out "too high", and it always drops down to 20psi or so at idle when warm so I will just keep an eye on it.

 

I found the manuals here

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/showthread.php?18087-Subaru-Factory-Service-Manuals-(FSM)-Every-Model-USDM-EU

Edited October 29, 2020 by Abductee
Added FSM link

6th task- Smoke from hood scoop.

Driving home from work I got off the interstate at my exit and got stopped at the first light. I noticed a little white smoke coming from the hood scoop. Turned the AC recirculation off and I smelled grease or oil burning. I pulled over at the next parking lot and took a look. Dark tacky grease in a line from my cv axle boot. It was a small tear but enough to get everything gooey. Started researching replacements and sure enough pretty much everyone echoed what the Subaru tech had said about OEM. A few people mentioned Raxles in Gainesville FL. They reman axles using OEM parts and better boots. Contacted them and had a replacement in a few days. I sent back the old one as a core, which they had subsequently thrown in the trash as it was not OEM. I haven't had a problem since and Raxles had a good price for a great product with excellent customer service. I will definitely contact them again if I need an axle. I know I could have changed out the boot, but my line of thinking was that axle was the original with 175k miles on it. In retrospect I am glad I didn't spend the time and money to put a new boot on a used autozone cv axle.

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Also, spent about 7 years (felt like) peeling off the invisible bra. It was lifting and trapping water and leaves and the like so it had to go. Found Stoners bug and tar remover which worked pretty well.

7th task- Smoke from hood scoop part 2.

Driving home from work I got off the interstate at my exit and caught the 1st red light. While sitting there I noticed a little white smoke coming from the hood scoop. The smoke smelled sweet. Coolant- dang. Pulled over and checked it out. The upper neck was leaking from a hairline crack. I made it home fine and found Rallysportdirect. Ordered a Koyorad aluminum radiator (VHO91662), new OEM thermostat with gasket and had it in a few days. I picked up new upper and lower radiator hoses and Peak antifreeze from Napa, and had the radiator swapped out pretty quickly. Burping the radiator turned out to be a breeze as I simply followed the factory service manual instructions and had no issues. Also swapped out the sway bar bushings I noticed when I changed the axle.

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8th task- Cobb Access port.

I had been keeping an eye out for used Accessports but was wary of the idea of it in general. Not wary of buying used as I have plenty of experience with saving money with good used parts (some things you only buy new though) but wary of tuners in general. I have shelled out good money on GM tuners only to go have it actually tuned by a pro and the difference is night and day. The AP seemed more useful with the data logging and multiple maps so I was willing to try it but not at $600. That's ridiculous. I found an AP3-SUB-003 on Offer Up local to me for $35 with a cracked screen and was missing the bezel. I grabbed it up and kept looking. Over the next few weeks or so I found another on ebay SUB-002 that wouldn't power up and the USB cable had been broken off in the port for $20 starting bid, and another one that was still married and pretty beat up. A few days later I sat down and merged the 3 into 1 working AP. I lucked out and the motherboard from the one with the broken screen was unmarried. I bought an obd2 cable from Cobb and was in business. Total cost of $91 not including the cable from Cobb. Flashed a stage 0 tune and started watching parameters and learning about the car. It was a good thing I got that oil pressure guage as there's no PID for oil pressure with this car. Found some knock but nothing terrible. Went stage 1 like the rebel that I am.

9th task- Smoke from hood scoop part 3.

Driving home from work I got off the interstate at my exit and caught the 2nd red light. While sitting there I noticed a little white smoke coming from the hood scoop. I pulled over and started looking around for the source. Oil was leaking from the turbo oil return line onto the downpipe. Very small leak, but there. Kept driving.

10th task- Running warm(er)

Watching things on the accessport I saw my coolant temperature was slowly climbing up at idle in traffic and after highway driving. I started snooping around and found the secondary fan relay was popped. I checked the fans out and found the right fan was hard to turn and the bearings felt gritty. I researched replacement fans and again found tales of problems with anything but OEM. I snagged some low mileage 9 blade fans from a 2008 WRX STI on ebay for $70 for the pair. The following weekend I swapped the fans and the relay. The fan side plugs were male on the outback and the STI fans were female, so I cut and soldered on the plugs from the old fans. I could actually hear the fans running now and they were moving quit a bit of air. Something to note is the STI fans are 3/4" shallower in mounting depth than the stockers for anyone looking to gain a little more clearance. Problem solved.

10th task- Fuel pump and filter

I had been noticing some knock here and there, but nothing was coming up as the culprit and it was never bad enough that I was terribly worried. I was aware that there were several maintenance items that still needed to be addressed and the fuel filter was one of them. I broke out the service manual and learned the fuel filter is in the tank? That's unfortunate. I decided if I am taking it all apart, I will replace everything. I picked up an AEM 340lph fuel pump (50-1215) and OEM filter (42072AG1GA) and gaskets. Changed it out on a Wednesday evening with no leaks. Angry bees on start up. Everything seemed smoother, but still no change in the knock.

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11th task- Downpipe from California.

In short order after going stage 1 OTS tune I started getting a P0420. I did some research and found it to be the catalytic converter or O2 sensor. I am not the type to just start throwing parts at a problem so I used common sense and my powers of deduction. I ran the car for 15 minutes and checked inlet and outlet temperatures of the catalytic converter. There was a 400 degree differential between inlet and outlet. Wow OEM catalytic converters are expensive. And once again people having bad luck with aftermarket products. Though we don't have emissions here in FL, I still wanted to run a cat so I found other options. I found a used but excellent shape Grimmspeed ceramic coated downpipe in California on Offer Up for $300. It had been listed for 6 months already but I gambled and got lucky. The guy got right back to me and we hashed out a deal. I wound up paying $330 if i remember correctly with shipping. It was about like pulling teeth to get him to actually ship the darn thing out though. Finally he shipped it and I slapped it on. I loaded stage 2 and went for a test drive. I hit 22psi boost well before 4k rpm in 2nd gear. I knew that wasn't right so I did some more research and found I had to bend the diverter wall in the bellmouth away from the wastegate for it to actuate properly. Did that and everything was golden for the time being. No codes after install.

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12th task- Still chasing feedback knock.

Swapped out the rear O2 sensor with new OEM. Line of thought was that the malfunctioning catalytic converter caused issues with the rear O2 sensor. Found a new 22641AA42A on ebay for $83 shipped. No change in knock. No codes though.

13th task- I will find that knock!

Over the past month I changed the battery, front A/F sensor, plugs, and MAF. Like I said earlier I am not one to throw parts at a problem, I want to find it and solve it. These are all maintenance items that are probably original to the car that now had 180k miles. I was hoping however that one of these things would solve the issue. It did make an improvement, but nothing ever corrected it completely. I have a hard time leaving a problem alone without a good reason. Meanwhile, I did what any sane Subaru owner would do when faced with an intermittent feedback knock problem - I bought a used set of Nameless 5" axlebacks from freaksaviour in the classifieds. Now at least the car sounds good.

14th task- JDM struts

So the OEM 180k mile struts were done. I had floated around bobbing and weaving for too long. I found some used JDM KYB struts from an 08 outback on ebay and slapped them on. I wound up about 3/4" lower and had a much better ride. As I had learned the JDM tophats aren't all rubber and have a much larger bearing. From what I understand they also have a different dampening rate. It was hard to do any sort of comparison with the old floaters, but they were eons better. I also came across a 2015 STI steering rack that was leaking from the input shaft on OfferUp for $60. Rebuild seals (34191AG050) were $27 on ebay. Changed those out and set the rack to the side for later install.

15th task- Obligatory plastidip

The grille was starting to bubble up in some spots causing the plastic chrome to look terrible. I dipped the grille and rear hatch chrome strip flat black. Looked way better.

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16th task- Still chasing knock

I decided to change ignition coils since I felt the majority of the fueling system was good and the plugs were newish. I found some new Cosmis racing ignition coils from Infosecdad in the classifieds and picked them up. I had read about aftermarket Subaru coils and once again the majority advised against it, but I didn't want to spend $320 on OEM to test a theory. I installed the coils and low and behold the knock was easily 99% better. Hooray for a little while. At about 1k miles I started getting a cylinder 4 misfire. While driving home from work I was about 3 minutes away from the plant and all of a sudden- bang running like garbage. I set my AP to check misfires and saw cylinder 4 misfire every time it was supposed to fire. Checked for easily fixable obvious roadside problems , saw nothing and decided to continue on home the rest to the 12 miles. Ran terrible on the highway till downtown then- bang- smoothed out and no more misfire for the next 6 miles home. In my head- can't be a loose wire, or a valve, or a bad plug, or a ring- injector? Nothing but misfire codes- surely there would be an injector code or something. Fouled plug got clean? I dunno. Next morning ran fine the whole way to work. It did the exact same thing coming home at almost the exact same place. Pow- misfire cylinder 4. I took the same route home and it cleared up at the same place and ran fine. When I got home I swapped coils 2 and 4. Next day no issues till coming home. Pow- cylinder 2 misfire exactly the same. Needless to say I went ahead and ordered 4 new OEM coils, tossed the bad Cosmis coil and kept the other 3 as backup should I have an issue with the OEM's. After all was said and done, knock was still 99% better.

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17th task- Ham install

I installed a little mag mount dual band antenna and ran it to a small HT I use mostly for camping. I would like a full featured radio with better scanning and higher output, but there isn't room for anything I currently already have.

18th task- EBC Brakes and tires

I was starting to get some brake squeal and the rotors and pads were fairly worn, so I upgraded them. I have used EBC on most of my vehicles and I have always had great results. I went with stock sized outback stuff for several reasons. 1 I didn't want to shell out the money for Brembos. 2 It's a daily driver not a track beast. 3 Most of the time bigger brakes can easily overwhelm stock tires. 4 I didn't want to shell out the money for Brembos AND new wheels AND tires. 5 If I spend the money to go to a legacy setup, I might as well spend the rest and move away from a sliding pin caliper. So I did the next best thing- I upgraded the stock size brakes with some good stuff, and got rid of the crappy Riken Raptor tires and got some Federal Evoluzion ST1 in 235/50/17. I am in Florida so I can run summer tire year round.

19th task- AEM WBO2

I had not forgotten about the oil leak on my turbo and changed out the oil return hose, clamps, and outlet flange gasket. The leak was not actually from the oil return, but from the housing itself. I knew I was going to change out the turbo, but didn't know what I was going to go with. I did know that regardless of which turbo I chose, I would need to have a wbo2 running. I went with an AEM 30-4110. I have used them before and I have always had good luck with AEM products. I did the rear O2 delete and was logging in short order. Somewhere along the line in this story I took the Cobb accesstuner class ($180 booo) and downloaded atr so I could start making changes. I had already modified the fan activation set points as well as made small fueling and timing changes. Configuring the rear O2 delete was easy except I forgot to 0 out all the rear O2 tables, but had it figured out pretty quickly. When I installed the wbo2 gauge in the cubby, I also removed the 3d printed cubby gauge pod and swapped it for a metal one I got from Joey SR in the classifieds. In the summer heat the 3d printed one had melted pretty bad.