Improper Builds, Big Rapids, MI (2026)

07/14/2025

LONG TIME UPDATE POST.

I ended up getting the wagon to a good running and driving point after my last post. But then I discovered that its motor had a bad head gasket. 4-cylinder problems were chasing me. Then I looked at my H6 swapped Impreza and thought that maybe I'd just borrow its motor for a little bit. Swapped that into the wagon to drive it while I accumulated head gasket parts. The motor had around 145,000 miles but sat for a long time. Besides the head gasket issue, the motor ran great and sounded great, so it deserves it.
I started putting some miles down on the wagon and figuring out what else it might need. Before I could finish the head gasket job on the old motor, the H6 Impreza motor (now in the wagon) started knocking. . . super not ideal. Hard to be upset though because it lived a hard life in the Impreza. Had probably around 300,000 miles on it and saw redline more than a motor should. . arguably. But I ended up getting time to machine and wash the heads for the old motor myself. Then I got the rest of the motor clean, reassembled, and dropped in the wagon again. She's been good since and went on a 9-hour trip to see the fall colors, a Subaru car meet, and lots more.
I still have quite a few things I'd like to do to this car before calling it done and listing it for sale, but in time. I've also had a lot of life changes that have required a lot of my attention and money, like moving. Been super busy between work, housework, garage work, vehicle work, boxing up bolt kits, responding to inquiries, working on wiring, and you name it. I am finally getting more wrapped up with a lot of these things and looking forward to wrapping this wagon up.

I will also be restocking and updating the website within the next two weeks. I will ideally keep products back in stock permanently once I am more caught up here soon.

03/16/2024

WAGON UPDATE:

It’s been awhile since the last time I updated about the wagon. Finding time to work on it has been an issue but also finding enough money to keep going. Minimal time left for myself outside of school also means less time to work and make money for it. Regardless, I have made some great progress on her and have even drove her around town a few times.

Last time I posted about her, I just got her started. I confirmed my wiring was correct and everything seemed fine. Next steps were to fully wrap up my harness and permanently install in the car. Done. Next was to put the interior fully back together. Done. And at this point I cleaned up the engine bay and the car was the most complete it has been in the last year. But I still had one of my largest issues to tackle. Which was fitting a 6-cylinder radiator in the front end factory position.

I found out this chassis has one of the smallest radiators offered from Subaru. Not ideal. This meant I had to get creative and make space. I’ve seen plenty of people do this but also have seen plenty of people do this very crude and ugly. I figured I could do better than that though and plan it out for the minimal amount of work while still looking OEM. After looking at the lower radiator support and comparing to my other cars, it looks like Subaru just changed the top most section of the lower radiator support to be higher for a smaller radiator. So, I drilled out the spot welds holding the lower support “sandwich” together and cut the sides to remove all together. Then, I peeled back/down the lower layer of this sandwich to get out of my way. Then using slightly thicker metal I picked up at a local supplier, I cut out a rectangle shaped piece that I bent into an L shape. This is going to replace the upper layer of the sandwich and do the opposite of extruding up like the factory version and extrude down to lower the radiator. This took some time to make sure everything was in the perfect position but after many test fits and adjustments, I got it sitting in the car as if it came that way. After this, the lower section I peeled back earlier got pushed back up against the bottom of my new piece and spot welded in place. This way it looks almost exactly like how it came from the factory from underneath. To finish it off and make the rest blend with the factory areas, I opted for some seam sealer, Subaru Glacier White premixed can, and some 2k clear.

I would say it turned out pretty great for my first radiator support. I have had my fair share of welding projects but never anything that mattered as much as this did to me. I still need to cavity wax the inside of the support, hang the lower engine bay harness permanently, and order some factory replacement stickers for the upper radiator support.

Now I have the factory exhaust merged to the 6-cylinder headers, new upstream O2 sensor, 6-cylinder power steering lines, a battery being properly charged from the 6-cylinder alternator, and a reflashed factory 6-cylinder ECU. The ECU flashing will get its own post though, as that was an entirely other struggle I fought with for weeks.

03/16/2024

EZ30 INTAKES!

I’m in an engine airflow class right now in my final year of college and about to start work on my final project for the class. So, I thought I’d share what my plan is. . .

I’m comparing flow between a phase 1 EZ30 and phase 2 EZ30. I’m under the impression the plastic phase 2 flows slightly more cfm. I would like to confirm this after taking some baseline readings low-high and compare against the cast manifold in the same situation. The cast manifold should be quite fun having the "Induction Valve". As of right now, I am thinking of taking readings with the induction valve opening as if it was operating like normal, but would also like to run the same tests with the induction valve removed since that's what it seems like most turbo guys do. After that, I would like to see if I could clean up the cast manifold enough to match the flow of the plastic one or better.

Seems like the main three benefits of having a plastic manifold over the cast are,

1. Less weight

2. Better cooling and ideal for more consistent cooler intake temps.

3. "Better" flow.

In an attempt to try and better each of these on the cast manifold, I would like to take initial weights and see how much material I can safely remove from the cast manifold. I understand it will never be as light as the plastic, but still curious.

I would also like to do a type of heat dissipation test on each manifold. I'm thinking I can take a temperature reading off my personal car after getting it hot, set the engine oven to that temp to warm the manifolds up one at a time, and take measurements as they cool to room temperature. That way I could put some actual numbers to it and graphically show how much faster the plastic manifold should cool down.

I’ve gotten plenty of input from other people to hopefully make this as accurate as possible. I am very excited to see the results.

12/08/2023

This isn’t for the wagon but for my daily driver.

I bought a 2005 RS years ago back in highschool and loved it until I crashed it into a tree a year later running late to school. Thought it was the end of the world at the time. But the older I get, the more I believe “everything happens for a reason”. The first example I saw of this was fixing that 2005 RS and diving deep into cars because of it. I ended up not just replacing the whole front end, but face lifted it to a 2006-2007 front end. Then I took care of the very little rust the car had and painted it Chrysler Dark Garnet Red (saw it on a challenger back in highschool and loved it). Then 3 years and A LOT of miles went by and I found myself standing between a 2003 Outback H6 I had at the time and my 2005 RS with both engines hanging above each other. Swapped in the phase 1 EZ30 to the RS and proceeded to beat the living crap out of the car for another 2 years until now. Now, the car is still my daily with the same crude H6 swap and I’m in a class in college where I go through the entire process machining and assembling an engine. I’ve done quite a bit of different work including a lot of engine work, but never machining. This was pretty daunting to me but ended up not being as tricky as I originally thought and a bunch of fun. I just got my case halves cleaned, blasted, cleaned, bored, decked, and cleaned two more times. And now time to order the internals. This car will be getting a built phase 2 EZ30 for boost and much more to go along with it. Can’t wait to start working on it but first I’ve gotta finish building this motor.

11/08/2023

I was tired of battling the EZ30 front timing chain cover bolts and decided to buy new hex head hardware for myself. . . annd then bought 10x more than I needed.
So I have 10 front timing chain cover bolt kits for sale. These will only be for the phase one EZ30. If enough people want a "30R" kit, I can as well.
Bolts are all zinc-coated 8.8 grade with a 10mm hex fl**ge head.

Price is $45
Go to my website up above and check them out!

07/30/2023

Got a ton wrapped up on the wagon!

Deep cleaned with a brush and rag everything and everywhere I could. Painted the side injector covers, balancer bolt cover, engine cover mounts, and throttle cable bracket. Finished up the wiring for the newer 3-pin style alternator. And lastly, wired in the power steering pressure switch because the old one was completely severed.

Really I need 3 things to get this guy back on the road now.

1.) Find a parts Outback EZ30 to grab power steering lines & reservoir, AC hard lines, AC evap core, throttle cable/pedal, Cruise control cable, downstream O2 sensor extension harness, and the bracket that mounts above the serp belt for the engine cover.
2.) Get my STI Brembo brakes back from powder coating and order my caliper seals, rotors, pads, SS braided brake lines, and rear struts w/ top hats.
3.) Get my ECU file from Australia to reflash on the new EZ30 ECU.

All I heard was $$$

Before we do any of that however, we need to finish up my 91’ Mazda B2200 project to get listed for sale.

04/24/2023

Wellllllllll . . . I GOT THE WAGON RUNNING! Finally found a day to “finish up” the harness merge and toss in the car. This was just a test run to see if my harness work was good enough to fully wrap up and permanently install on the car. After hooking up mostly everything I’d need for it to run, it was only cranking for me. My first thought was “Oh boy the fun begins. Where did I screw up in my wiring?” But then after tracing power from the ECM to the B22 brown engine plug for injector and coil power, it was good. I could also hear the fuel pump kicking on so I assumed it was a spark issue and maybe being disabled from a bad sensor somewhere (which could also be my wiring somewhere else). Then I checked power at the injectors and at the ignition coils and it was still good. Weird. Physical problem then perhaps. Decided to double check my rubber fuel lines going into the engine since I’ve screwed that up before . . . And sure as s**t they were backwards. As soon as I swapped them to their correct homes and turned the key, she fired right up. This was SUCH a good feeling! Before I take this harness back out, I need to make sure all my other electronics throughout the car work and so far there’s only a couple small things not working how they should but I am blown away by this still. I will be making a video going over my wiring job when I take the harness back out before permanently installing.

04/11/2023

The wagon will be getting this beautiful weighted walnut shift k**b that was hand made locally by Mike Wi Ku !

04/11/2023

Here’s an update on some polishing fun that’s been getting done on the intake manifold, valve covers, and radiator. All obviously needs a lot more love but a very rewarding process. The intake casting has such a terribly rough finish from the factory that some more aggressive sanding was required and leading to a lot more time working on getting the old sanding marks out. Will be selling a set of Phase 2 EZ30D valve covers (“EZ30R”) very soon if anyone is interested.

04/11/2023

After my personal vehicle broke its radiator inlet neck, I had to steal the brand new OEM one that was meant for the wagon knowing I had time to get another one for it. Ended up having two different guys reach out for two different aluminum radiators. This Koyorad or a nicer looking Mishimoto. I’ve heard mixed reviews on Mishimoto but that wasn’t even my deciding factory to go with this Koyorad that obviously needs some love. My main reason was that someone already had a second top inlet welded to the radiator! These 6 cylinders are weird in the fact they require two top radiator inlets for each side of the motor. I will be washing, straightening out fins, respraying the original logo back on, polish the outside, and then drop my lower radiator support to fit it!

04/11/2023

When I was trying to make up my mind on what suspension to run or at least start with on this wagon, I had to realize who I was aiming this for. I Want it to handle better than factory without sacrificing ride quality and ideally also dropping the ride height slightly for a better overall look and feel. Then a nice set of WRX wagon KYB struts paired with some Swift lowering springs popped up for sale local. One needs a new top hat as the car they came from had a rusty strut tower in one corner, BUT I knew I had to have these to try out.

04/11/2023

GD Subaru STI Brembos for the wagon! They will need to be stripped and powder coated (and was originally planning on a very different color), but now I think we’ll have to go with the same teal/turquoise color after seeing these bolted up against the white paint! The stock rotors should give you a good size comparison from where they were and where we’re going. All four corners will be receiving some SS braided brake lines that will pair beautifully with these calipers.

Improper Builds

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07/30/2023

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