Grassroots Motorsports

Rallycross…Our Subaru Impreza is here! Jul 14, 2005

We've been looking for a cheap Subaru to build up as a rallycross car (and possibly a full-blown rally project) Unfortunately, Subarus are pretty hard to find in the Sunny south.

With the going rates for high mileage, beat-up Imprezas with the 2.2 liter engine and AWD hovering in the 3-4k range, we picked up this 1995 Impreza LX for $800. It has only 75000 miles on it. The catch is that it needs some bodywork (two fenders, hood, etc) and it's an automatic. The good news is that the parts are all available from junkyards and they're pretty cheap. We think we can have a nice-enough looking 5-speed car for under $2k.

This weekend, Per is going to scour the local junkyards for sheetmetal and a headlight. After it's not an eyesore, we'll start hunting down the parts that we need for the transmission swap.

We bought the car from Warehouse Motors. Jeremy, the owner, bought the car for parts at an auction and then realized it really was too nice to part out. It was then rallycrossed once as-is and then it sat for a year. As Jeremy says, this isn't a car that his company would sell to the public. 

Impreza…good news….and bad. Jul 15, 2005

This car is all about good news and bad.

The good news is that our local Pull N Save salvage yard has a 93 Impreza in the yard. It's going to donate its hood, lights and bumper for the cause. There's also a sale this weekend on body parts, so that hood and bumper are only going to set us back $20 a piece.

More good news: there's also another AWD Subaru with a 5-speed transmission. We could probably pull all of the conversion parts fairly easily.

The bad news is that the frame rails are going to need to be straightened. We stopped by Body Werks, our bodyshop of choice for difficult projects and they quoted us $125 to pull the frame rails back into position, but without doing any bodywork. This will allow us to bolt new fenders and a hood on fairly easily.

More bad news: we figured out why the power steering was low on fluid when we bought the car, the rack is leaking. There's fluid coming out of the driver's side boot. 

Busy Weekend Jul 18, 2005

Our local junkyard was a treasure trove for us this weekend. Here's what we got:

From a 1993 Impreza (FWD) Hood both headlights turn signals side markers complete bumper assembly misc. interior trim

From a 5-spd AWD Subaru manual transmission pedal cluster shifter mechanism driveshaft differential flywheel

The grand total for this haul was $344.

We also ordered a remanufactured power steering rack for $217 from Autozone...it should be here by Wednesday.

Weight Loss Jul 20, 2005

We started cleaning the interior of the Impreza with a SteamVac. This evolved into using a garden hose and a wet-dry vac. That then became the wholesale removal of the carpeting and rear seats. Yes, it was that gross.

Before we started, we weighed the car with a full tank of gas: 2757 lbs. We then removed the spare tire and tools: 27 lbs Rear seat: 39 lbs. carpeting: 13 lbs. rear seat belts, stereo: 24 lbs.

We wound up getting the car down to 2643, but we've got some more work to do.  

Subaru Body Work Jul 21, 2005

The GRM crew dove into the bodywork on the Subaru on Tuesday night. We unbolted the bent up fenders, hood and bumper and got the car ready for a trip to Body Werks. Tom Prescott, the owner, is helping us get the unibody back into shape before the new body panels are bolted on.

Subarus might be tough mechanically, but the sheetmetal is pretty darn thin! We're hoping that everything goes back together without major misalignment. We can cover a door ding with some cool GRM stickers, but a misaligned fender just looks cruddy.  

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