Rally's MY04 Forrie- Poverty Pack special

Purchased second hand. Rear diff and instrument cluster replaced under warranty. First change was to fit CB UHF GME radio. Car has externally mounted windscreen aerial bracket. Just purchased set of new KYB shock absorbers- the originals have had it- will install when they arrive. Next step is to replace standard steel rims with MY99 WRX rims. Then sump guard and driving lights.
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Once upon a time there was a Subaru Forester. It could go lots of places, but only very slowly. The engine, you see, was gutless, The solution was to replace it with a more powerful donk. So here is the before shot
 
The next step was to remove the old engine, which was quite easily done.



 
The next stage was to make the car ready to accept the new engine. This required swapping the front crossmember for one from an XT Forester. A WRX cross member will not do.




 
As the power steering lines would foul the turbo intake pipe, I needed not just new lines, but a new pump and reservoir. I already had lying around an MY06 STI steering pump, lines, reservoir and cooler, so I installed them, although I had the pump overhauled. Not cheap. I wrapped the lines with some heatproof wrapping so as to prolong the life of everything. The car had never previously had a power steering oil cooler, so I had to make it fit as best I could. The front of the STI is different to the Forrie so it was not quite a bolt in.
 
The original clutch master cylinder never had to worry about clearing the TMIC, as there wasn't one. But it would not clear it when it was installed, so I had to get one from a WRX. As you can see, it is angled to the drivers side whereas if you go back to the first photo it comes straight out
 
So far, it all been pretty straight forward, but now it would start getting increasingly difficult. One stuff up and I risked blowing my brand new Haltech ECU. First thing was to know what on the engine wiring did what. This required a multimeter and pen and paper, and then what seemed thousands of continuity and later voltage tests. Once I had figured out the engine wiring, I then had the harder task of figuring out the car wiring, deleting what was not going o be used and then adding what was now needed. the old engine ran a single coil pack, whereas this engine ran 4. The old engine only had one cam sensor and no valve control, whereas the new engine ran 2 cam sensors and 2 solenoids to control the cams. The knock sensor on the old engine ran a single wire, the new one 2 wires.

The new engine had 4 connecting points to plug in. I eliminated one and used it for some of the Haltech wiring I would be needed. I used the injector wiring through the firewall, and connected it to the Haltech on one side and to the engine wiring on the other. However, as the standard car only had 2 connectors for the engine near the firewall, I had to run additional wiring from the firewall to the connectors near the fuel filter.

The Haltech is wired totally differently to the Subaru ECU, and for the most part switches to earth. Once I got my head around that, it became much easier. All the while I was still doing continuity testing- multiple times for each wire. Slowly I worked my way through them all. Eventually I had to start looking at providing power. not just to the ECU, but for some of the sensors and all of the solenoids. This would include the idle control solenoid, which, unbeknown to me at the time, was faulty. This would come back to haunt me later.

For now, it was a case of removing the inlet manifold in order to allow me to run cable throttle. While the manifold was off, some holes were drilled in it. Once to mount the intake air temperature sensor, the other as a vacuum source for the rising rate fuel pressure regulator. Also while it was off, I upgraded the injectors and split the fuel lines, while at the back of the car, an upgraded fuel pump was installed





 
It did not take long for problems to arise. I had been using wiring diagrams off the internet, and these proved to be wrong. The cooling fan wiring could not have been more wrong. A voltage test averted disaster. A return wire meant to have no current turned out to have 12v. That would have been more than enough to blow the ECU. So i cut the wire at both ends, bypassed the factory relays and fuses, and made this wire an earth wire back to the ECU. Instead of running the fans separately and with 2 speeds, the fans would run together when needed at full speed.

I would come to tick of each circuit and move on to the next one. Crank sensor, main cam sensor, second cam sensor, L/H cam solenoid, R/H cam solenoid. TPS, Idle control, knock sensor, coolant temp, oil pressure, power steering and so on. Each wire was soldered and had heat shrink applied. Eventually all the wiring in the engine bay was done. I then turned my attention to the wiring in the cabin. That is when things really started to get hard.
 
The problem was I realised that the schematics I had been using were wrong, so I contacted a mate who lent me Subaru's workshop manual wiring diagram. Sadly, this also proved to be wrong. I was a bit unsure which wire fed the tacho and which wire fed the speedo. Eventually I was fairly confident which was which and as things turned out, I was right. But it was next to impossible to be sure which was the CEL. At all times I was aware that a stupid rooster up could cost thousands.

I also had to wire in the A/C, as well as the fuel pump. These would prove fairly easy to do. What would be the real problem was the VSS, the temp gauge and the fuel gauge. You see, this is where Subaru got it all wrong.

I had wired the car to the stage where I could turn on the ignition, withe the ECU disconnected. The bad news was that the fuel gauge was showing empty when I knew it was not, the temp gauge started drifting up without the engine ever been started, and the VSS was totally confusing.

Now armed with the factory supplied schematic as used by dealerships, I thought I would find it easy enough to get the fuel gauge working. According to the schematics, power was supplied to the dash and then the gauge. The return was to go to the passenger side fuel sender unit, then on to the drivers side sender unit. From there there the schematics had the wire going immediately to ground, or to ground via the ECU. So there I am looking everywhere for the wire either at the ECU, or at various points around the car's earthing points. Nothing. Then one day while doing yet more continuity tests, I discovered the problem. The return wire did not go straight to earth, or to the ECU. Despite what the schematics said, this wire earth back through the dash. Days wasted, which was really weeks because I did this on the weekends.

At that moment I had the fuel sender units disconnected. I then decided to check where every wire going to the dash, and there were dozens of them. Eventually I found what I believed to be the wire I was looking for. I did continuity and voltage tests, and took the plunge and earthed it, hoping this would wok. I turned the ignition to "On", and the temp gauge for the first tie stayed steady. I quickly pugged in the fuel send units, turned the ignition on and also for the first time, the fuel gauge worked.

The VSS had me stumped, The 3 wires were supposed to be power, ground and signal. Instead, they were 12v, 12v and 5v. But this would be a story of it's own.
 
The VSS would torment me for some time. I had taken a bit of an educated guess as to which wire was for the tacho, and the same was true for the VSS. The VSS was similar in design to the cam sensor. That meant one of the wires had to be earthed. I was pretty sure which one, so I took a bit of gamble- the ECU was on the line- and earthed it. The only way I could tell if it worked was to drive it. This meant starting the car. During the build, I had been in contact with Haltech, and I had told them I was installing a standard WRX engine into the car. They provided me with a base map for the ECU so that the car could start and be driven, but not driven far or very hard. All seemed to go well at first, because the car started instantly first go. During the time before I installed the engine, a new water pump, spark plugs,timing belt, tensioner and pulleys were all installed. There was no exhaust on the car. A mate had put a new exhaust on his MY99 WRX, and I had bought his old one. But the dump pipe fouled the steering, and I had had to buy a new dump pipe. This did not align with the WRX exhaust, so for now there was only the dump pipe and nothing else.

I had hand primed the power steering system, so on start up there was no cavitation and it was super quiet. I then had to bleed the cooling system, but would the the thermo fans work? The answer was yes, the system bled as expected, the thermostat opened and the fans came on and cycled as expected. I was further pleased when the A/C worked. Now to drive the car!

I carefully backed down the driveway, pleased that the super heavy duty clutch was working fine. When i went to take off, the car was undriveable. It just kept stalling and it was a battle to go 50 metres down the street. With a run up I got the car back in the garage. I contacted Haltech, and they had a look at things on line. Nothing they did or suggested worked, and I was getting worried. All they could say was that the tuner would be able to sort it out. So now it was off to the tuner. The plan was i would borrow a mates Commodore and car trailer, take the Forrie to the exhaust shop to have the exhaust fitted, then on to his place. He would take it to the tuners and they would tune the car (He apart from being my mate was a race mechanic and Subaru specialist)



 
During the week the car was to be tuned. It was not going to be a good day. Or night to be more precise, as it was being done after hours. The base tune was an absolute joke they said, it was wrong everywhere. The base tune was in fact the tune used for an old VW Beetle that had been fitted with an STI engine. The VW was known as Miss Daisy. I later found out more about Miss Daisy and found that it had a modified STI engine, whereas I had a standard WRX engine. Even so, surely this was not the final tune for Miss Daisy.

It certainly wasn't for the Forrie. They changed a lot of the tune so now the car would run reasonably well. But it would not idle. Well, it would idle but way too fast, and they could not control it. No matter what they did, nothing worked, and they spent hours trying. That was money being spent trying to find a problem rather than tuning the car. Part of the reason for the time taken was that Haltech did not show how this thing should be switched within the ECU, so there was a lot of trial and error before they decided the idle control solenoid was faulty. The car would not be tuned that night. My mate towed the car back to his place. I collected it and drove it home- and it drove really well even though I had to drive it within certain limits. There was a light at the end of the tunnel.
 
It was now late December, and it looked like the car would be sitting round till mid January before it could be fully tuned. Then I got a phone call, and a night was available. It was to be the 23rd. I drove down after work. The tuner had a spare idle control solenoid, and he was working with that. I stayed out of his way and just let him do his thing. I went and got some dinner for us, and when I returned he had sorted it all out. Never have I been so pleased to hear an engine idle!

He had a procedure to go through, and it took time. I had nothing to do, so I left him to it. Eventually the time came to put it on the dyno, and this also took time. We went through so much fuel you would not believe. We then did the power run, and I was quite surprised it made as much power as it did. It was, after all, a standard engine with nothing more than a TBE.

While the drive home was really enjoyable, as I marvelled at how much grunt this car now had as I climbed MacQuarie Pass, there was still some minor work to be done. That would be done a few days later. I have to say though that the result is sensational.


 
Once that was done, the snorkel was fitted and plumbed in. Well, not fully plumbed in, but enough for now



 
The car was now ready for it's first trip, and for along time I have had troubles getting a wheel alignment, as the rear suspension toe adjustment had maxed out, yet the tow was 2mm out on one side alone. Whiteline sell an adjustable toe link arm. Trouble was, they had nil stock. So did everyone else. I literally rang every distributor in the country, from Brisbane through to Melbourne and even Perth. No one had the kit. In the end, I had a kit imported from the USA. They dropped them off at work on the Friday afternoon, I installed them that night, and went to the wheel aligner Saturday morning. I watched as he adjusted the toe, and for the first time in memory, the toe figures looked good. That afternoon I headed off for a 3 night camping trip.

 
Awesome effort, very well done to do all that, esp the wiring! :eek::rock:

I just realised, you fitted the snorkel AFTER the tune...the snorkel will change it!

Very impressive, no longer the poverty pack! :monkeydance:
 
Not really. After all the money I have thrown at it, poverty seems most appropriate! :)
 
Rally, it seems you have the patience of several saints! Well done and great you're on the road :-)

Best regards,
 
Nice job Rally ! Don't push too hard on low gears with all that power !
 
jf1sf5 said:
Nice job Rally ! Don't push too hard on low gears with all that power !
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It's hard not to! A bloke in a GTI tried to race me- I just let him go. Pretty sure I would have had him.
 
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