boon

The BHs are super well put together cars but they feel pretty dated now whereas the BPs don't feel outdated at all. Also the BH H6 is not the same as the BP one, it only has a single exhaust port on the heads, goes reasonably well but the proper 3.0 is way better. We towed a 15ft boat around for quite a while with a BP Outback and it had no issue with it. p.s. every Hyundai we've owned, or my friends have owned, has been a complete f***ing lemon. God knows why we were silly enough to buy a second one, I guess we thought the first one being a turd was just unlucky rather than them being systemically s***. My mate thought a diesel Santa Fe would make a good cheap tow rig, and it was, right up until the gearbox gave up on life just outside of Methven on a family roadtrip around the south island.

By this logic you should have to go for a cert if you take your wheels off or put new brake pads in. Which the LVVTA once actually insinuated in a particularly dented Facebook post about brake rotors needing to be certed in case you installed the wrong size ones (???). Honestly they do my f***ing head in and I hope they read this, yes without them it would be very very hard (actually I don't know, would it?) to modify cars and they provide a framework for us to do that, but some times it's completely cooked. Literally from the NZ Car Construction Manual: And it's just bulls***, over the years they've had some spectacularly useless rules that have taken years to peel back and cost modifiers thousands of dollars to comply with stupid requirements that, if someone engaged their brain for about 20 minutes, wouldn't have made it past the draft stage. When was the last time you heard of a driveshaft hoop that did f*** all on a modified JDM car with less than about 800hp? The entire organisation was built around the concept of bearded hotrodders (who are wonderful, btw) stick welding bits of car together in their shed, not the "modern" version of car modding which is basically Lego except larger, dirtier, and generally undertaken by people with lower IQs. EDIT: Apologies OP for derailing your thread. I guess the sparknotes is "be prepared for some bizarre obscure cert requirement".

Standard example of one of the completely dented areas of the LVV standards. If you use all OEM parts from an identical but manual vehicle it should be a VIRM issue not a cert one. If a compatible manual ECU exists I'd go looking for one. Will make your conversion much less likely to throw a million different error codes.

Was it a slushbox? Old autos sometimes do that on the dyno.

At that point it's not a shift light, it's a bar-graph colour-coded tachometer.

Outside of the track/strip, meh. And friends don't let friends buy monster tachos.

No serious electronic work should ever be done with a soldering iron that can run off a USB port anyway.

Agree that if your car's a bit ropey/on the decline it should get a 6 month recheck, not sure about some of your criteria though... I don't think my STI has had a oil change sticker on it, ever. Fundamentally this change is targeted at owners of proper classics that get loving care and driven 2000km a year, not some 80s s***box that is somehow still on the road. Unfortunately virtually all old Legacys and Imprezas fall into the latter category.

Condensor (radiator) not compressor Although AliExpress probably do them too.....

I can source a new one ex-Japan for about 500 USD delivered to NZ, but I think that supplier only ships to NZ. There would be hundreds of them at wreckers around the country much cheaper if you would tolerate a used one. The much trickier part would be getting one to the US without it costing an insane amount. EDIT: Actually, try Amayama: https://www.amayama.com/en/part/subaru/73210ae060 As far as I can tell they will, in fact, ship to the US. I can vouch for them, I've bought all sorts of obscure parts from them.

I've kinda always wanted a flocked/alcantara dash, I think they are cool as hell. Only place I could find in NZ that does it is in Hamilton though, and last time I shipped a dash the courier completely f***ed it.

Controversial opinion: If you want a "dead" car, buy an Audi.

This is relevant to my interests, then I could run one of those lovely PW manifolds and keep my AC.

I have mine with Classic Cover, they've always been good but I've only ever claimed a windscreen.

Went to tension the aircon belt due to it being a little squeaky, and the f***ing plastic adjuster thing split. At least my local dealer had one in stock, and at a very reasonable price. Always makes me laugh how variable the pricing can be on random little OEM bits.