Rare 90s impreza
Discussion
Some might say I make stupid decisions. Others say financially reckless.
I say yes to both, but you’re only here for a brief moment so do what you enjoy.
I enjoy 90s to mid 00s jdm cars.
I think it stems from the GT days on the PlayStation. Also watching group A and WRC on tv.
I had an extremely rare 2004 Impreza Spec C RA. To those unfamiliar with rare jdm cars it was 1/300 made. The spec c were subarus version of a gt3. The RA was like a gt3 RS.
It had the whole sti catalogue thrown at the suspension. At the time it was the fastest saloon car round the ring with a sub 8minute lap time. A Ferrari 360 CS was only a couple second quicker to put the achievement into perspective.
I was offered a good price for the car by another enthusiast so let it go. I can’t afford to keep all the cars and no space to store them so it’s a one in one out policy.
With the RA sold I looked at a few cars. Ek9, DC2, GR yaris, GR86 ect. I even contemplated an evo 6 or 9.
The newer cars didn’t excite me the same way as the 90s stuff did. They were pleasant, normal and safe. Good for a ln only car but I wanted more.
An evo is on the list and I will get one eventually but not yet. I’ve got one last subaru I haven’t owned.
I haven’t a 2dr gc8 “classic”. This leaves you with 3 options.
Option 1. 22b
Option 2. P1
Option 3. Type R.
I’m not a millionaire so option 1 was out. In my opinion option 2 is just a watered down version of option 3.
So option 3 it was.
I started looking for a Type R. Preferably a limited version.
I was sent adverts for a couple but they weren’t what I wanted. I decided this one had to be blue, have the big stupid wing and all the vents, bulges and flaps of the ott subaru era.
I was sent some pictures of a car. It was dusty, sat in a lockup unit and looking a bit sorry for its self.
I arranged to view it not thinking I’d buy it but these are very rare so worth a trip just to look it over and see if it really is what I want.
Left there agreeing to buy it. Whats this nonsense about dont buy the first car you see. When there’s none others for sale at anything like this price point you’re a captive audience. Its buy this or nothing.
A couple weeks later. Car now registered in the uk. I’m the first uk owner of this magnificent 90s wrc icon.
What I’ve bought is the last of the classic shape Impreza. To give it it’s full name.
Subaru Impreza WRX STI V6 Type R Limited.
This one isn’t standard. It’s got a lot of goodies on it and if you are a purist will think it’s ruined. But I think they are o ly what subaru would have done If they had the technology and money at the time.
Im still working my way round the car figuring out what it’s actually got.
Engine and gearbox out of a newage car. So its got a semi closed deck block with a working dccd 6 speed gearbox. Its also running a vf37 twinscroll turbo and equal length manifold. This means it doesn’t have the classic subaru sound. But the performance gain in having a twinscrol turbo and equal length manifold far outweighs the small loss of boxer burble.
Öhlins coilovers, prodrive gc010e forged wheels, Recaro SP JS seats and a load of japanese electrical nonsense.
I’ve started the endeavour of removing the accumulation of jdm weirdness. The amount of cables Ive removed is insane. A 20l box is rammed full of cabling.
I still need to remove a load more.
This car is far from perfect. It needs a lot of work to bring it up to a standard I’ll be happy with. It’s not getting a full resto but will be tidied up.
This will be a long process as a lot of parts for these are now NLA and the parts you can get are mega money.
Pair of metal door sills. That will be 1.3k please.
Oh a new roof flap. Thats 2k please.
More pictures will be posted after this weekend this will be its first proper wash. Its filthy at the moment.
I say yes to both, but you’re only here for a brief moment so do what you enjoy.
I enjoy 90s to mid 00s jdm cars.
I think it stems from the GT days on the PlayStation. Also watching group A and WRC on tv.
I had an extremely rare 2004 Impreza Spec C RA. To those unfamiliar with rare jdm cars it was 1/300 made. The spec c were subarus version of a gt3. The RA was like a gt3 RS.
It had the whole sti catalogue thrown at the suspension. At the time it was the fastest saloon car round the ring with a sub 8minute lap time. A Ferrari 360 CS was only a couple second quicker to put the achievement into perspective.
I was offered a good price for the car by another enthusiast so let it go. I can’t afford to keep all the cars and no space to store them so it’s a one in one out policy.
With the RA sold I looked at a few cars. Ek9, DC2, GR yaris, GR86 ect. I even contemplated an evo 6 or 9.
The newer cars didn’t excite me the same way as the 90s stuff did. They were pleasant, normal and safe. Good for a ln only car but I wanted more.
An evo is on the list and I will get one eventually but not yet. I’ve got one last subaru I haven’t owned.
I haven’t a 2dr gc8 “classic”. This leaves you with 3 options.
Option 1. 22b
Option 2. P1
Option 3. Type R.
I’m not a millionaire so option 1 was out. In my opinion option 2 is just a watered down version of option 3.
So option 3 it was.
I started looking for a Type R. Preferably a limited version.
I was sent adverts for a couple but they weren’t what I wanted. I decided this one had to be blue, have the big stupid wing and all the vents, bulges and flaps of the ott subaru era.
I was sent some pictures of a car. It was dusty, sat in a lockup unit and looking a bit sorry for its self.
I arranged to view it not thinking I’d buy it but these are very rare so worth a trip just to look it over and see if it really is what I want.
Left there agreeing to buy it. Whats this nonsense about dont buy the first car you see. When there’s none others for sale at anything like this price point you’re a captive audience. Its buy this or nothing.
A couple weeks later. Car now registered in the uk. I’m the first uk owner of this magnificent 90s wrc icon.
What I’ve bought is the last of the classic shape Impreza. To give it it’s full name.
Subaru Impreza WRX STI V6 Type R Limited.
This one isn’t standard. It’s got a lot of goodies on it and if you are a purist will think it’s ruined. But I think they are o ly what subaru would have done If they had the technology and money at the time.
Im still working my way round the car figuring out what it’s actually got.
Engine and gearbox out of a newage car. So its got a semi closed deck block with a working dccd 6 speed gearbox. Its also running a vf37 twinscroll turbo and equal length manifold. This means it doesn’t have the classic subaru sound. But the performance gain in having a twinscrol turbo and equal length manifold far outweighs the small loss of boxer burble.
Öhlins coilovers, prodrive gc010e forged wheels, Recaro SP JS seats and a load of japanese electrical nonsense.
I’ve started the endeavour of removing the accumulation of jdm weirdness. The amount of cables Ive removed is insane. A 20l box is rammed full of cabling.
I still need to remove a load more.
This car is far from perfect. It needs a lot of work to bring it up to a standard I’ll be happy with. It’s not getting a full resto but will be tidied up.
This will be a long process as a lot of parts for these are now NLA and the parts you can get are mega money.
Pair of metal door sills. That will be 1.3k please.
Oh a new roof flap. Thats 2k please.
More pictures will be posted after this weekend this will be its first proper wash. Its filthy at the moment.
Really enjoyed the Spec C thread, looking forward to the updates on this too! Subarus are great cars but the top versions with proper diffs and gearboxes are just sublime, I have a lot of love for them, can’t forget the first time I drove a Version 6 Type RA, was an absolute revelation in comparison to my bugeye WRX I had at the time.
Some more pictures. These are the reason I bought it.
Underneath is generally rust free. Theres a tiny amount of surface rust which will be treated with some BH hydrate. To be honest I think a couple goes with korosol will be enough. It will then be treated with Bh UC and s50 for the chassis rails.
Underneath is generally rust free. Theres a tiny amount of surface rust which will be treated with some BH hydrate. To be honest I think a couple goes with korosol will be enough. It will then be treated with Bh UC and s50 for the chassis rails.
732NM said:
Terminator X said:
Nice. Think that was the base car for the UK P1?
TX.
P1 is based on the standard JDM STi 4 door running gear in a 2 door shell.TX.
There were some changes to make it UK suitable, but that's the bones of it.
I had a P1 back in the day and all of the stuff from Prodrive said it was an sti V with ABS, Prodrive spec springs and dampers and the standard 5 speed box instead of DCCD.
rossub said:
Agree they re based on the STI 5.
One visual giveaway is the STI 3 and 4 had the mid level spoiler that became the bigger one on the 5 and 6, which the P1 had its own version of.
V3 had a different dash as well. V4 onwards had the centre cubby thing the version 3 didn't.One visual giveaway is the STI 3 and 4 had the mid level spoiler that became the bigger one on the 5 and 6, which the P1 had its own version of.
You can think of v456 as mild facelift of the version 123.
There’s lots of stuff different under the skin. The were evolutions of the same car.
Subaru produced the same car for 7-8 years but every year had slight improvement or downgrades.
V1 ra had the closed deck block. By the time they were on v6 they were now open block ect.
So many variations of the same car can cause big headaches when trying to find parts or restore a car to oem.
Edited by sam.rog on Thursday 29th May 18:16
sam.rog said:
V1 ra had the closed deck block. By the time they were on v6 they were now open block ect.
So did the V1 (92-93) WRX. I know for sure as mine was removed last year after HGF and saw it sitting on the engine crane Edited by sam.rog on Thursday 29th May 18:16
Mine now has a Semi closed deck like yours, from a V7 with the ‘proper’ forged pistons that came with that model.
Escy said:
This was a car that has been on my radar but I never got around to buying one, could be had cheap back in the day. Not sure about the V6 but I think the earlier models were only 1240kg, what a great base to build a beast.
From memory, the lightest early GC8s were 1180kg and I don’t think any model ever exceeded 1300kgI think a standard type r weighs around the 1270kg range. Mine having the 6 speed swap probably weight just over 1300kg.
With the vf37 twinscroll setup it should be a comfortable 320-340hp. So should be around 260hp per ton.
Which is a bit more than a standard audi rs3 for comparison.
Coupled with 4wd and the 3 diffs it makes for a very capable back road car. The steering is heavy but the car feels light when you drive it. It s the opposite of modern cars. Light steering but feels heavy.
The only real criticism of turbo 2000 the uk got when new by uk press was understeer when pushed and lacking steering feel compared to its rivals.
The JDM variant doesn’t have this issue. They got a clever electronic centre diff, arb and a geometry tweak.
You can dial a lot of it out just with changing the geometry. A fast road setup by someone who knows how to set these up completely transforms it. Subaru dialled the understeer in to uk cars as it was safe.
With the vf37 twinscroll setup it should be a comfortable 320-340hp. So should be around 260hp per ton.
Which is a bit more than a standard audi rs3 for comparison.
Coupled with 4wd and the 3 diffs it makes for a very capable back road car. The steering is heavy but the car feels light when you drive it. It s the opposite of modern cars. Light steering but feels heavy.
The only real criticism of turbo 2000 the uk got when new by uk press was understeer when pushed and lacking steering feel compared to its rivals.
The JDM variant doesn’t have this issue. They got a clever electronic centre diff, arb and a geometry tweak.
You can dial a lot of it out just with changing the geometry. A fast road setup by someone who knows how to set these up completely transforms it. Subaru dialled the understeer in to uk cars as it was safe.
Edited by sam.rog on Sunday 1st June 09:01
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