IZichard

Welcome to the club, nice wagon! What happened to the fog light? That is a version 8. Fairly sure the differences NZDM vs JDM with your car are just little things. Front grill, speedo, seats (maybe?) also the little end cap bits on the side skirts and rear bumper. Not sure if there are any more. The tune will likely be a little more conservative to allow for the lower quality fuel.

+1 for paying for your own insurance from the start. Hurts a little when you are young but once you get a few years down the track with a good record it is well worth it.

I thought you had to shorten the clutch reservoir and modify brackets? Doesn't exactly "fit" but definitely possible. At least this is what I have read, I've never attempted it myself. Edit: http://www.scoobypedia.co.uk/index.php/Knowledge/STi8IntercoolerOntoMY00Classic

Yeah they'll swap all of the I'd plates over to another body if the first one gets written off or something. Or if the one they are swapping is stolen. Some people are really rough. You don't see it too often but I don't trust what people write in their listings anymore. Best to back it up by double checking in person.

I seem to remember you saying you had the rear bar on the softest setting? Test out the others and try a front bar before throwing $$$ into struts.

You wouldn't last on on the Dirty South Facebook page everyone is swapping plates, tags and certs haha. I don't trust that sh*t unless I see everything match with my own eyes. I did see the model code I just think it is good to maintain some skepticism untill you can check it all out in person.

It is hard to judge a car by kms alone. How it has been treated has a much larger effect on the state of the vehicle both mechanically & cosmetically. @Kiwi_Fozze's sti has done close to 300,000kms but I have heard of others that need to be rebuilt at at 120,000kms. Personally I try not to care about kms when looking at a vehicle, it matters to some extent but thinking "I want to buy a car with under 140,000 so it will be reliable" is a bit silly. Look at the car for its condition, not the odo.

I'm not 100% sure either. I have a feeling someone in Japan had fun playing with that car to make it look like an STI then when it came here the compliance officer didn't know what he was looking at. It has all the correct sti badges (minus front grill) but it also has some tacky ebay sti badges on the front and back. Differences between wrx and STI wagons afaik are: Seats front and rear (blue on STI with STI embroidered in front seats) Silver surround on gear lever different speedo with higher rev limiter of course ecu, block, heads, intake, turbo, intercooler, intercooler water sprayers etc. (ej205 vs ej207) 6-speed trans and different rear diff on the STI vs 5-speed on wrx STI has red inverted struts vs black standard struts on wrx swaybars larger diameter on STI STI wagon still has Subaru 4pot/2pots same as wrx, not brembos like on STI sedan. STI wagon still has steel lower control arms same as wrx, not wider alloy arms like STI sedan I may have missed something but that is most of it.

I forgot about the ad, I edited the link to skip it. I'm fairly sure there is no such thing as too much spool noise, I want all of my driving to be filled with the sound of rushing air.

Super keen! I'm for sure going to make the trip up for it. Little gutted I couldn't make it up to Welly for the last one. I'm interested to see what the turnout will be like.

Matt Farah one take in a Subaru powered tube frame 818C. Awesome car! The turbo induction noise this thing makes is crazy.

If you have a seat belt out of the car often they won't unwind unless you position it upright at the same angle it would be in the car. I believe this is so that in a rollover you don't fall down to the roof after the vehicle stops.

Painted part of the inner headlight. Before: after:

To be fair they don't look as bad without the Tonneau cover. Still not my thing though. Edit: This might even fit in with some of the lowered outbacks on here

Is this what you are after? http://a15ff11300g.sakura.ne.jp/

Did you end up getting the adjustable rear lateral arms to work in the end? Or were the axles popping out for another reason?

Think about it like a lever. The longer the lever the less force is needed to twist the bar. So the holes further away from the bar are softer bar settings since the weight transfer has a longer lever to help it twist the bar and the holes closer are harder since it will be using a shorter lever. In the case of your rear bar, the hole closer to the front of the car is the softest setting. The hole towards the rear being the hardest setting.

9 owners in 11 years though

I looked at car jam there looks to be on issue with the kms but i think it is a typo from someone entering kms at a wof. They stay consistent either side of the error. 9 non dealer owners in NZ since imported in 2006 Used to be Q1KSUB https://www.carjam.co.nz/car/?plate=Ezw470

Me likey, I'd go check it out for sure.

If it were me I'd just use the factory links for now and see how long they last. If you have the factory ball joint links they will probably be fine since they aren't as flimsy as the plastic links on some models. Plenty of time to sort a replacement anyway.

+1 for this. After adding a whiteline 22mm rear sway bar with the 19mm wrx front bar my car was a little strange to drive. As Firenza said it had a weird tight rear but loose front feeling. Better than stock imo but strange. I chucked an STI front bar 21mm and it was much better to drive all around. This was on a v7 wagon though so your mileage may vary. I had to swap to ball and socket endlinks with my alloy arms also. I just used the factory Subaru ones.

So I fixed the electric aerial on the gc8 in the weekend, it was stuck half way out and all bent. After testing and getting no power at the plug on the motor I pulled the radio out and found that whoever put the radio in didn't bother hooking up the aerial signal wire. I connected that and fixed all the other connections for the radio which were joined with the old "twist and tape" but the muppet used packing tape instead of electric/insulator tape. Who does that?? Then straightened all the aerial segments, used crc and manually moved them all to clean the grit out from the joins. I then moved it up and down a whole lot to get the thing nice and lubed up. The aerial now stands very erect I never realised how tall these things were, seems every one I have seen is broken!

My bugeye is the same, it is a "ten-metre-car" and I'm ok with that.

Will the banners be coming back in stock on the store? I saw the facebook post about them...