mka

Truly the realest most impressive approach.

Well, everything was sort of in place for me to get a first order test fit even with my bum leg. Doc says I'm good to do pretty much anything that doesn't stress the break through my new aircast boot, but no running, jumping, sprinting, wrestling, or heavy lifting. Basically I have to be deliberate with my movements and creative with the use of wheels and levers when it comes to heavy stuff. I'm not pushing it, even though this update so soon may appear otherwise. I had all the heavy stuff in place already, so today was just minor manipulation to see how things sit. The new diff does in fact mate directly up with the original front diff mount, exactly where it needs to be. The bolt patterns are exactly the same and the lengths are almost identical as well, so I will be reusing the OEM Brat front mount for the differential. I may need to figure out a replacement option for the rubber bushings that secure the front mount to the frame, but for now the originals are intact enough. There's a little interference on the tires at the front of the wheel wells which I should be able to counteract by placing the trailing arm mounts correctly in combination with narrowing the wheelbase. As far as the width goes, one could ostensibly leave that alone and just flare the wheel wells out to accomodate things, but that's not the direction I'm going to take with this build, as I'm going for a more subtle outward appearance. Lastly for the big rear diff subframe, it is a few inches too wide and will need some trimming and a creative solution to mount to the frame. likely more bracketry. In the spirit of the build I'm hoping to reuse what I can from the Impreza - I bet I can come up with something to allow me to repurpose the bushings that mounted it to the undercarriage of the newer car when I narrow the pivot points governing the rear wheelbase - the plan for which I've sketched in on the photo. Red dashes indicate cuts and shifts I plan to make to the pivots, green indicates the trimming of the outside edge so I can move the frame mount bushings to a place where they will be able to be attached to the frame. It looks like the original fuel tank will either need some serious modification to fit in the space with the new subframe, or I'll need to fabricate an entirely new cell. I suspect I should be able to find something serviceable that will fit behind the entire assembly and still meet up with the original fill spout. Just need to take some measurements once I've got the new differential subframe into place. It seems easy enough to put a new cell behind the differential, under the bed, but I'm a little concerned that may turn my Brat into a Pinto in the event of a rear end collision. There's also an empty space up behind the cab, but I'm not exactly excited about that placement, either. Suggestions for solutions are welcomed but as usual not expected

Couple more updates... some good, some not so good. The good - Late last week I managed to get the new subframe stripped of the coils, and rolled it under the chassis of the Brat. It looks like the original front mount for the differential will line up great - it is almost exactly the same size. This is super lucky in that it also appears that the rear wheels will line up with the exisiting wheel wells- at least axially, I'll still need to move the wheels inboard about 4-5" on each side to get everything to sit under the car. I may also need to flare the wheel wells just a little if I can't get the wheelbase shortened quite far enough. The not-so-good - 1) Fuel tanks don't clear. The impreza tank is far too wide to fit in the Brat frame, and the Brat tank interferes with the Impreza subframe. Current plan there is to remove the Brat tank to get the impreza rear diff subframe lined up and chopped to fit, then potentially modify the brat tank (hopefully some clever hammering and denting will be enough) to get it to fit over the new suspension mounts and components. 2) Annoyingly the neighbor with a penchant for anonymous code complaints is back, and along with several other neghbors I've received another note from the city about a number of minor infractions, to include the car. Called the compliance guy again and he's been super helpful. Made it pretty clear I'm not trying to litter up the place and that I really just want to work on my car and not have to worry about getting called into court over it, so looks like the car cover from the impreza is going back into regular service. 3) Lastly and most obnoxiously I found out today that I have been hobbling around most of the last week on a broken leg (due to activities unrelated to the car project) so I would expect major updates to be sparse for the next while. Fingers crossed for good news at the specialist visit in the morning, though i'm expecting not to be able to lift and shove brat parts around for a little while. Maybe I'll be surprised though. Either way - little pieces of progress are still progress, so I'm gonna keep plugging at what I can when I can, so stay tuned.

Yeah, the initial plan is to chop and shorten the stock Impreza CVs to get things rolling . If need be later down the line I'll get some custom built but I'm a decent DIY-er in my own right so I'm hoping to get lucky and not need to outsource.

I've managed to keep the momentum I've built this last few days by removing the hull of the Impreza from my shop. In the interest of clearing the walkway even more I've decided to start preparing to transplant the rear end, which means removing the old one. This turned out to be easier than expected - probably in part because of the practice I had pulling the subframe from the Impreza, and partly because this one had fewer and more accessible bolts holding the thing on. I've learned a few things from today's endeavors. 1) the Impreza fuel tank is too long/wide to fit in place of its original counterpart in the Brat. This "too wide" feature seems to be a trend and for good reason - the wheelbase left to right when measured before removal were a good nine inches different, give or take. As such I'll likely either end up needing to reuse the original tank and run an aftermarket pump (most appealing, easiest on my wallet), or building/locating/modifying a new fuel cell to fit. Whether or not I will be able to use the original tank largely relies on item 2. 2) While the wheelbases are different, it looks like the differentials and housings themselves are very similar in size and shape - so much so that I'm tempted to think they used a modified version of the molds for the diff cases - or at least a very close one. The only visual differences I've been able to scope out at a glance are a few missing bolt holes on the Impreza cases vs. the Brat. There will probably be something more significantly different that I find as I dig into it more. The big "what if" that stands currently is how much fabrication I will need to do in order to get the Impreza differential and subframe parts onto the Brat without causing interference problems with the original fuel tank. If I'm extremely lucky I might even be able to reuse a couple of the mounting bolt holes and front crossmember from the original brat - albeit with a bushing refresh. My plan here is to remove the struts from the Impreza rear end next - which should then allow me to roll the existing crossmember under the Brat bed to check and see what lines up and what doesnt. 3) Lastly and certainly not least - if the preceding items line up, I believe that again with some creative angle grinder surgery I can, similarly to the front end, move the pivot points for the rear suspension inboard far enough to maintain the stock Impreza components without completely custom control arms. Adjustable arms may still be smart and will probably end up being necessary to keep things tracking straight but at least this way I can still drop in off-the-shelf components for an Impreza instead of destroying my bank account. Onto the next one...

LIkely so 😅. I do own a reciprocating saw, but it is a battery powered model, and the sole remaining battery i have for it is tired. I got through one support rib with it before it decided it had had enough. Probably time to start consolidating to a singular brand of battery tool anyway, so that'll probably get replaced sooner rather than later now. In other news... I'M BACK TO ONE PROJECT CAR. I bought this brat from an enterprising young man who runs his own scrapping and junk removal service. We kept in touch a little after I brought the Brat home and he offered to pick up a load of scrap from me including the impreza hull last week. Later in the afternoon the day of loading he sent me the following: Bittersweet, but now I've reclaimed a great portion of my workshop floorspace. Granted I've still got a huge pile of parts in the place where the roller once sat but at least now I can walk around it, and that pile will slowly and steadily decline as I shift pieces over to the Brat. I suspect this is going to be the last major step achieved for a while - it's fixing to get really hot here for the forseeable future and I'm working on this in the driveway, so I'm going to have to start getting up early and invest in a shade tent to get much done on this for a while. As long as I'm making baby steps in a forward direction though, it'll get done.

Got the transmission tunnel and parts of the firewall out as well as the remaining brake and fuel lines. The husk is now well and truly a husk. Some might ask "why the firewall?" when i have a perfectly good Brat firewall and my response is to preserve the mounting hole patterns for the Impreza parts like the brake master cylinder and passthroughs. I may not need them all but this way I at least have good templates or even pieces to splice in where I need them later. Getting the Impreza body scrapped this week and putting the brat back up on stands to get the rear end removed. Looking at it I assumed the removal would be an easier task than it was - there's way more structural stuff in there than it appears at first glance, especially were I've cut it. Took me much longer than anticipated to finish the removal, especially since I was using a 4.5" angle grinder to do it. Were I to do this again or make suggestions to other folks - use a good reciprocating saw at the support ribs - it will make for much cleaner cuts.

Okay, made some pretty significant strides that warrant photography and a novella of an update - (over a month ago since the last one... Jeez, life comes at you sometimes). I've also figured out how to insert photos from and Imgur hosted upload, so while kludgy I get to keep adding photos without deleting the old ones. The donor Impreza is almost out of my shop - I'll have it hauled off early next week and until then the neighbors are gonna have to deal with it being in the driveway. I've begun cutting away any mounting pieces or sheet metal with bolt holes and mounting bracketry I think I may need. This includes some of the firewall, the access panels for the fuel tank, and most significantly rear shock towers and transmission tunnel. So far I've only completed the removal of the towers, but considering the geometry involved I figured it was probably a good idea to take some time to go about it halfway properly. Before cutting anything off the body I had to remove the fuel tank and rear subframe. The subframe was quite an interesting proposition, and I managed to do it without disconnecting the rear struts from the knuckles, but that was a shortcut that turned out to probably take more time than what I'd maybe hoped as it required some creative jack and jack stand work. For those following in my footsteps in the future I might recommend taking the time to remove the struts from the knuckles, then replacing the wheels before undoing the (surprisingly few) subframe bolts while supporting the diff and carrier on a low-clearance transmission jack. I had to strain on the bushings while also rolling this on its drums to get everything out from underneath, but without the struts it would have been a much easier proposition to roll it out from under the car. This also being said, this would also be a moot point if I had a lift, which would have made a lot of this much, much easier. Oh well, wishes and fishes and whatnot. I got the fuel tank out pretty shortly afterward, but with this particular car in this particular locale, all of the rubber and hoses were very, very, very tight and dry on their fittings, so more cutting of tubing than I would have liked had to take place. that being said I'm not sure which tank I'll be using yet, the brat or the impreza, so I'll likely need to reroute fuel lines anyway. Once I'd given everything with fuel a chance to drain and/or evaporate overnight, I began the dirty, dirty work of actually cutting away the pieces I'd need, beginning with the rear strut towers. (Fire extinguishers nearby, don't you fret) I'm not sure how much of these towers I'll really be needing, so I decided to just take the whole interior wheel well. To somewhat preserve their geometry I braced them with a few pieces of angle iron tacked into place. I've been considering the difference in width of these cars, and the plan is to use the angle iron to keep everything aligned by cutting out the extra width (to be measured still) somewhere in the middle, then rejoining them with another "bridge" piece of angle and either clamps or tack welds to keep everything nominally aligned while I splice everything else into place. Wish I could say this was my original idea but there's a build thread I found (I think over on NASIOC), where someone doing a similar swap (WRX Sedan of similar year) into a Gen 2 Brat did a similar setup to get the rear suspension Frankensteined in. Other things to consider: Part of the reason I got such a good deal on this donor was the rust damage at the rear driver's side (left) strut tower. Going to have to make sure I remove or mitigate all the cancer there somehow so as not to doom my Brat build from the getgo. Also after looking at the rear subframe some, if I am going to splice it shorter, I'll need to get creative with the linkage and where it mounts. I'm not sure yet if i'll need to shorten the linkage AND the subframe, or if there's a way I can maintain the linkage geometry without running into clearance issues with the differential, all while keeping it under the Brat. Food for thought I suppose, but I'll tackle that problem when I get there. For now I forge on to cut out the transmission tunnel and a few pieces of firewall, as well as take a final pass over to pick off any other scraps I may find useful. Once the Impreza shell is well and truly gone, the Brat goes back up on jackstands so I can start removing the old rear end on that to begin making room for the new rear driveline. Onto the next steps!

No photographic updates, but some work was done today and I figured I owed some proof of life. Still need to get the engine back out of the brat to get the bracketry welded in, the frame rails boxed in again, the crossmember modified some more, and a few more odds and ends, but I put that on pause slightly so that I can move towards reclaiming my shop space from the "donormobile." I've been working for a few months now around that Impreza shell and its welcome in my workspace has been worn pretty thin. Today I rolled the impreza chassis out and started prepping it for chopping and removal of all the remaining driveline components that i still need. That ended up being just disconnecting brake lines and the sway bar, along with removing and tossing the old ratty carpet and disconnecting the parking brake cables from the handle in the cabin. I've measured out the rough length of the section of Impreza trans tunnel that I'll need, but I'll probably be just taking the entirety of it and then trimming to size. Same goes for the rear suspension mounts and towers, but i suspect I might end up fabricating more of that than I might otherwise expect. I also did a quick on-the-ground measurement comparison of the width of the wheelbases between the Brat and the Impreza. from outer edge to outer edge of the rear tires, the brat sits at about 56.5", and the Impreza at 65.5", meaning I'll need to either modify the impreza rear diff crossmember and strut towers by removing about 9" of overall width to get the stock suspension control arms to be able to drop in place, or fabricate my own mounts & crossmember to add to the one on the Brat already. I am not 100% sure which will be the simpler of the two options, or if a third path might present itself, but the way I see it most of my progress on this build has been by just getting started and solving one problem at a time. Eventually I should run out of problems and it'll work, right? Speaking of other problems to solve - it seems that on my last post I've hit my max limit on uploadable files for the forum, so unless somehow I can get that 10MB cap lifted, I'm going to start linking photos as links in either a Drive link or another photo repository. Not a huge fan of that option - might also go back and reupload my images in a more compressed format so they can be hosted natively. Can't tell you how many photobucket albums and images I wish still existed - I'd hate to have that happen here. If anyone has any insight to keep more image files hosted by the forum directly, I'd love to hear from you.

And a major milestone has come to pass. The Brat touched back down on all four tires for a brief time here this afternoon, and the stock Impreza wheels really fill those wheel wells up nicely. I've left out images of the tacked in brackets because they're A) extremely ugly albeit functional, and B ) not particularly different from where they sit in the mockup. After having completed this milestone I will say for those following in my footsteps - getting these brackets to site evenly and where I want them was very tedious to do by myself, on the ground, in the sun, in my driveway. They also need about a quarter inch spacer installed underneath them to allow the vertical edge of the upper bracket to get good contact for welding to the frame. I'll be welding a chunky fender washer or fabricating a spacer to thicken the base of the bracket to accomplish this. Installation of the bracket sets would have been much, much easier if I'd had a lift to use or removed the engine first (or ideally both.), neither of which I have or did. Egg on my face there. I'll get some more images of the engine bay and bracketry once I've put this thing back up on the stands to pull the engine and subframe. Next up is getting these welded in completely, boxing the frame rails back in, and modifying the subframe to accept the impreza power steering, as stated in earlier posts.

Well, It's been a couple more weeks, and I have a couple more updates! I had to go through a few design iterations of the brackets in order to get them even made. I'd hoped to design a version that was one piece, however due to some equipment limitations I had to go with a two-part construction. However, this appears be a more convenient method when it comes to installation, at least at the outset, and since i sprung for some chromoly steel I expect this to be adequate in terms of strength, though I may go back and add some gusseting later - I'll have to report back when I've actually got the parts permanently attached to the truck. Enough blathering, though - let's get to the actual part and placement photos! The first image is of the bracket set as received. Pretty damn close as a first fitup, but in the second image you'll see I ran into a few interference issues. The 90 degree bend on what i'm calling the "lower" bracket needed to be rebent to place it about 3/8" lower than the 45 degree bend, and the rearmost flange on what I'm calling the "upper" bracket bumped into the floorboard by about the same amount. This is true on both sides, so at least I'm consistent. I've adjusted the design files to match these changes, but for my purposes I was able to make these changes here without completely recutting the brackets. These adjustments can be noted on the third image, as well as the fact that I've also welded captive nuts onto the assemblies. Usually I'd just let the fixation carry me through and I'd actually have these installed at this point but I had some prior obligations that forced me to leave the final weldup to another day. The plan there is to clean the mating surfaces to be welded of paint and gunk, bolt the brackets to the pivot then use my floor jack to push them into place so I can tack them up. Not the most precise of motorsport fixturing and fabrication, but for this build it will have to do. Also, the way I see it these factory bushing housings have some room for slop in the way of slots for the bolts, so I have some pretty significant leeway when it comes to placing them as long as I'm even on both sides. More updates to follow soon when I have the front end on the ground (briefly) before I move onto fabrication for the steering gear and have to take it all back apart. 😅

Well, I'm so close to getting the jackstands out from under the front of this thing I can almost taste it. Did a little measuring under the car today, no convenient bolt holes but I did manage to rough measure and sketch up an idea of what my new control arm mount will look. Started on cardboard then transferred it to CAD this evening. I need to remove one of the control arms to do a more detailed measurement so I can get the bolt holes lined up where they need to be but I think withe some decent 4130 chromoly sheet this should be plenty stiff welded in where it needs to go once I get those measurements. this part will again be available to folks looking to do a similar build. First photo is of the render, second is looking in through the drivers (Front left) side wheel well towards the rear of the car. Red lines represent the assembly, blue the bolts, and green the places I intend to weld the bracket to the car. Next fitment and fabrication project is the steering rack, which I pulled from the Impreza today as well. I'd really like to get away with an install that doesn't end with me resorting to cutting up the transmission bell but that's honestly looking like more and more of a chore.If the fabrication to get the impreza rack in ends up looking like it will be just as much of a hack job I might just capitulate and try to clearance the existing manual rack as cleanly as I can. But I'm getting ahead of myself, - one problem at a time. More updates to follow once I have the control arm mounts ready to go in or once I have the impreza stripped enough to warrant a celebratory "it's out of my shop!" post.

Second post to keep things flowing and file sizes under control- Repeated the operation on the passenger side of the car. Bolted the brake mounts and calipers on lightly, and threw a wheel on each side - one WRX alloy and a newer impreza steelie. Thinking I might go with the steels and paint them white, but that's a long time down the road. A lot more fabrication to go - control arm brackets, shorter CV axles (probably some chopping for clearance in my future here - it's a pretty clear shot but it's tight), steering rack install (still haven't solved that clearance issue at the transmission bell), transmission tunnel (still part of the impreza)... A long list but I'm really excited for the milestone of putting this back down on its wheels. Even more excited to get the impreza out of my workshop! More parts and pieces to come - Again I do plan on having these bits available for others doing a similar build - just reach out if you're interested :).

More steps forward today! I took the leap and pulled the front knuckles & lower control arms from the impreza. No going back now! One of my buddies gave me the great suggestion of putting the car on a pair of small Harbor Freight moving dollies, so $20 and a scrap 4x6 later and I'm still able to push the husk in and out of the shop after all of today's work - which is both great and not so great. Great in that I can keep my neighbors happy for a time longer - not so great in that it's still in my workspace every morning until I push it out of the way 😅. Enough about my neighbors though - onto the nuts and bolts of the matter! Jacked up the Impreza and got to disassembly. Not too hard, just took some time to keep nuts and bolts together with their constituent parts and assemblies as I removed things, moving one side of the car at a time. Starting on the drivers side I pulled the CV, knuckle/hub assembly, and lower control arm. The knuckles bolted right onto the new coilovers, however the stock cam bolts at the top from the Impreza don't fit the new coilovers - the holes are too small. Going to have to do a little figuring there but for now they're good enough to hold everything roughly in place. I'm going to have to go digging to see if they come with bolts when new or not. Minor problem. The lower control arms almost fit perfectly into the mounts on the original subframe. The distances are exactly the same and accomodate the width of the bushing like it was supposed to go in from the factory - only modification required here was opening up the holes a little bit. There's probably a metric equivalent but i took a pair of calipers to the bushing bolts and found that boring out the mount first to 15/32" and then only the front flange to 31/64" with a hand drill will accommodate the bolt with no play. Based on another build I've seen I will need to reinforce the front flange by welding in a thick washer later - suspension action has the potential to make this hole oblong over time. After that, just had to hook up the control arm and knuckle to get an idea of what this will look like. I loosely reattached the brake caliper bracketry, rotor, and a wheel to get an idea of how this'll sit and I'm pretty tickled with where it's at. I'm going to want to adjust the coilovers longer, these 15" wheels take up a lot of space in the wheel well in comparison to the old 13's. Now that that's done I'm going to have to mock up a template for the other mount on the control arm - likely will get something cut and bent like the transmission mount so I can just bolt it up and zap it in. I'll have a little peek around under the car tomorrow or early this week - maybe I'll get lucky with another choice bolt hole somewhere.

Small tangential update... Firstly, got the slots on my camber plates adjusted to where i can install all the mounting hardware. Hooray! Secondly, and more importantly - I took a little side quest to investigate using similar coilovers as replacements on a more OEM setup using these camber plates. Seems to me one more part combined with a slight modification to the lower bracketry/threaded tube on the coilover would be all that's needed to fit these into the original knuckles. The lengths are nearly perfect, the coils would still have a decent amount of adjustment in them after, and I think this will allow for a very no-nonsense approach that gets a lot of older cars a much-needed suspension refresh up front. I'm going to get a draft done, once I have that and some initial parts turned out I can test fit them off the car myself, but I will need a brave volunteer to try the kit on an unmodified EA setup. Reach out if that sounds like you!