Topic: 2000 GC8 with some cool stuff on it. (Read 4037 times)

deadlydave · « **Reply #75 on:** December 15, 2011, 11:06:46 PM »

Awesome to hear man

. You really kicked ass on this thing.

SideshowBob · « **Reply #76 on:** December 16, 2011, 10:45:19 AM »

Yeah!

Gonna be awesome.

hydrochloric · « **Reply #77 on:** December 16, 2011, 11:29:04 AM »

Sweet, can't wait to see her on the road! ...in 4 months.

Iant333 · « **Reply #78 on:** December 16, 2011, 02:22:58 PM »

Short of some new issue popping up it should be on the road a few hours after I get my gasket in the mail.

hydrochloric · « **Reply #79 on:** December 17, 2011, 04:27:12 PM »

Eew, in this weather?

SideshowBob · « **Reply #80 on:** December 19, 2011, 10:59:19 AM »

It's not a Ferrari.

hydrochloric · « **Reply #81 on:** December 19, 2011, 02:29:27 PM »

...even though those show up, too.

Iant333 · « **Reply #82 on:** January 25, 2012, 06:09:08 PM »

Oh hey I drove it on the road today.

And its done. Just gotta put the hood on it tommorow and bring it to school for an alignment and to screw with the ride height on Tuesday. It took a few month's to get a little spacer in the mail to make my camber plates work so I just let it sit until about 2 days ago when I got it in the mail finally. Now it drives great, no CEL, no wierd noises, no overheating. Now just cant wait to have it tuned

peter32892 · « **Reply #83 on:** January 25, 2012, 09:28:23 PM »

I would adjust your ride height before an alignment because if you adjust it afterwards your alignment specs are going to change.

deadlydave · « **Reply #84 on:** January 25, 2012, 11:22:06 PM »

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome! Almost done man

. Can't wait to see the car in person at a meet or two this spring.

Iant333 · « **Reply #85 on:** January 26, 2012, 02:10:27 PM »

Quote from: peter32892 on January 25, 2012, 09:28:23 PM

I would adjust your ride height before an alignment because if you adjust it afterwards your alignment specs are going to change.

Yeah that was the plan lol

SideshowBob · « **Reply #86 on:** January 26, 2012, 03:40:23 PM »

My post didn't show up?

odd.

Anyways, CONGRATS!!!!!!!

hydrochloric · « **Reply #87 on:** January 27, 2012, 10:53:07 AM »

Quote from: Iant333 on January 25, 2012, 06:09:08 PM

Just gotta put the hood on it tommorow and bring it to school for an alignment and to screw with the ride height on Tuesday.

Hoods aren't required for road legality....

Iant333 · « **Reply #88 on:** February 01, 2012, 03:18:52 PM »

I brought it to school yesterday for an alignment. Went fine I guess, final specs are

Went for 13.5in from center of the wheel to the fender as the ride height. Basically lowered exactly 1 inch.

Toe:
Front: pretty much zero, there is like a 1/4 degree of total toe out which is almost nothing.
Rear: Exactly zero with 0.00 thrust angle

Camber:
Front: -1.4 degrees driver side, -1.3 on the passenger, couldn't get the passenger to have more and stay that way and didn't feel like loosening up the camber bolt on the other side for 0.1 degrees.
Rear: -1.3 Degrees on both sides

Caster: I have the camber plates set all the way in which should give me max caster, well both sides are about 3.0 degrees which is the bottom of the factory spec so I think the camber plates have an offset and were put on the wrong side because I should have more than that. There is no other way to adjust caster short of maybe getting an extra 0.2 degrees by loosening the x-member and control arm and moving them forward a tiny bit.

I'm gonna swap the camber plates across and see if that makes it better, I wanted more caster and more like 2 degrees - camber up front.

Drives pretty good on the road otherwise. But its gonna get a carpet and the interior back in soon. LOUD doesn't even describe riding in this thing.

Iant333 · « **Reply #89 on:** February 14, 2012, 02:40:08 PM »

Figured out my problem with the alignment. The camber plates have extra bolt holes that you can move the retainer bolts to to get more travel. I never noticed them. Going to realign it in a few days with a more ballsy setup.

I have about 200 miles on it so far, no problems besides it starts hard when its hot, i've heard of similar problems from people who have the same fuel rails, they are prone to getting hot, boiling the fuel and causing vapor lock. It doesnt really bother me enough to bother doing anything about it though, just have to crank it for like 6-8 seconds when its hot. Also was bored and did a compression test, 155-160 across the board so everything is healthy and then some. Changed the oil 3 times so far, prolly just going to keep whats in there until 1000 miles now though. I want the break in period to be over so I can get it tuned.

I think i'd like to get a cage for it sometime around when I paint it. I've been looking at a Cusco one. The main purpose would be chassis rigidity and drag strip legality (for the time in the near future when I have a turbo bigger than a VF series) but it wont have to be anything crazy.

I lost one of the threaded rods for my Aerocatch hood pins and would like to have them replace the zip ties that are holding my hood shut

. So I emailed Aerocatch to ask whether I could order just the rod from them rather than a new $95 set of them. I was very impressed, emailed me back right away and sent me one for free all the way from the U.K. Would order from them again definitely.

SideshowBob · « **Reply #90 on:** February 14, 2012, 03:06:38 PM »

I love good customer support. Years ago Bosal sent me three free heavy duty gaskets, I would buy their shit in a heartbeat just because of that.

Iant333 · « **Reply #91 on:** March 19, 2012, 05:29:13 PM »

I got paint.

I figured the best strategy would be to do the trunk lid start to finish first then go back and do the rest of the car to make sure if there are any issues with my prep/painting methods then it will be only on a small portion of the car.

Put base down on the trunk after sanding it, stripping wax off etc... first coat of base had tons of orange peel then I went back and adjusted the gun again after reading a bit online and now it's better. Until after my great idea about leaving the garage door halfway open to aid in air drying. I had like 4 mosquitos land in it. So now I am currently waiting for it to set up enough to sand them out. I had the idea to just open the door a crack and put the blower in the doorway to keep bugs out from now on. And I cranked the heat to 80 to speed up drying.

Hopefully I can get both base and clear done on the trunk today and start on the rest of the car tomorrow.

Here it is post picking the bugs out:

Iant333 · « **Reply #92 on:** March 27, 2012, 09:40:14 PM »

Ok, my learning experience with the trunk is over. After stripping all the paint off with a wire wheel (that took almost a whole day, never again), re-priming and painting it, it came out awesome. Just went out to look at it since it dried.

Learned a whole lot and i'm now confident I can paint the whole car and have it come out good. My big problem was putting paint on waaaaaay to thick and not spraying enough coats, I was doing 1 or 2 heavy coats rather than 3-4 light ones, contrary to what you would think it makes it come out smoother putting paint on thinner with more coats spaced 15-20 minutes apart and obviously there are fewer runs. My first try with the clear had 3-4 runs which I then sanded through the clear trying to get out.I started to sand it and paint over for a second try, which was better but the paint had tons of deep fisheyes due to there being water on the garage floor when I sprayed. Somehow the humidity was off in the room guess, which is where I decided to strip it and start over.

Came out immaculate this time, besides a few dirt nibs which i'll have to sand and buff out tommorow its smooth as glass, no orange peel, no runs. If I was being really picky the only imperfection I can see is a faint tiger stripe (color is darker for some reason, not much though, most people wouldn't notice unless I pointed it out) running across the top of the trunk in the basecoat. Its underneath the spoiler so I dont think it will be noticeable since there is always a shadow there anyways. I'm still really pleased with it, once I sand the dirt out it should look really awesome.

After thats done I get to start on the rest of the car

Kavik · « **Reply #93 on:** March 27, 2012, 09:47:11 PM »

> wirebrushes

looks good, considering the crappy pic quality LOL

Iant333 · « **Reply #94 on:** March 27, 2012, 09:49:30 PM »

Yeah I tried paint stripper. Makes a horrific mess and only took the top 2 coats off, the ones I recently put on. Even after rebrushing it wouldn't pull the factory base/clear/primer off.

Yeah I should take a better pic, i'm really proud of how good this looks in person.

Kavik · « **Reply #95 on:** March 27, 2012, 10:18:42 PM »

not sure what you used, but that specific stripper worked better than any other I've seen. I did it on my porch with just a few sheets of newspaper under it, no big mess. The stripper itself is very thick, you paint it on and it just sorta sticks...then the paint peels off in sheets. Hit it with some low heat while it's working and it works even better. Hit it with some higher heat when it's done and it's all dry when you peel it off. Might be worth a shot anyway

about the tiger stripe, did you use any primer? Or just paint on bare metal?

Glad it turned out so well. I always have mixed results with paint

Iant333 · « **Reply #96 on:** March 27, 2012, 10:27:01 PM »

No I primed it. I think my strokes were too close together in the one spot and it just got a little darker.

I used the same thing you pictured, the $48 a can aircraft stripper. I didnt use any heat but it worked great until I go to the factory paint. Then it just kind of stopped stripping it, even after painting it on a couple more times. I didn't try heat though, the stuff smelled bad enough and I was afraid it might be flammable lol.

Kavik · « **Reply #97 on:** March 27, 2012, 10:35:13 PM »

LOL I think it is flammable, that's why I said LOW heat

$48?

I hope you got the big can for that

and here I always heard that subaru factory paint sucks

rshaw123 · « **Reply #98 on:** March 28, 2012, 01:00:47 AM »

it must just be 02+ haha, I took my legacy through fields and close trails and barely ever got a scratch but my 05s paint has rubbed off down to the bare medal where my legs touch when I get into my car

hydrochloric · « **Reply #99 on:** March 28, 2012, 09:58:19 AM »

There are paint stripping wheels for drills. It's like foam sandpaper, it's the most effective thing I've ever used to remove paint.

Author Topic: 2000 GC8 with some cool stuff on it. (Read 4037 times)