So, I suppose an update is in order. I've been quite busy with the STI since my last update. I'll make it concise because I don't feel like typing a life story, as I could probably write a 15 page paper on what has happened. Here we go:
After I found out the secondary air injection valves were seized, I spent a solid week trying to work up the motivation to rip the whole system out without going in there and adding any mods since I would have the whole thing apart anyhow. I thought about it some more and realized at how ****ed up it was that those valves had seized at 55k miles. I know it's not an uncommon issue. However, it shouldn't happen at this low of a mileage. So, I bypassed the dealership and called SOA. After minimal discussion and a free diagnostic by the dealership, SOA offered to replace the valves free of cost as a "one time courtesy". I was surprised, but gladly accepted.
Fast forward, my car goes in for the work and I get it back the next day but I can hear the turbo. Now, it sounds beautiful as we all know, but not when it's not supposed to sound like that. Took the tech for a test ride and i could tell he somehow didn't know much about turbo cars. Had to come back the next day and take the foreman for a test drive while showing him my real time data coming through the AP as to how far off my A/F correction was and that I wasn't hitting target boost by a solid 2-3 psi. I though it was a boost leak. They inspected and found the turbo inlet boot was folded on itself. This happens all the time. I get it back and still having the same issues. Foreman takes another look tightens down clamps etc. noise is reduced but I can still hear the turbo.
At this point I just take it home for the weekend and baby the **** out of the car because I had already planned to put my new summer tires on the next day, install my front lower camber bolts the day after and on that Friday have a performance alignment done for the upcoming autox that weekend. It became apparent I wasn't going to be doing autox that weekend at that point, but I still wanted to get all that crap done.
I decided to spend that weekend diagnosing myself. So I build a boost leak tester out of bits and pieces from Home Depot. Called the foreman on that next Monday and told him I was still having issues and was building this boost leak tester to track down the issue. He told me to let him know what I find and to also bring in the boost leak tester I built because he was curious lol. Anyhow, come to find out there was no boost leak. Rather, the intake boot was barely half on the turbo AND there was a crack in it. I told the foreman and he immediately offered to replace that at no charge. 5 Days later the part comes in and they replace it. Problem solved! All in all it took about 3 weeks to go through that whole process. But I was glad my local dealership clearly wanted to make sure it was done right, no matter what. With all the horror stories I hear, I feel lucky to have such a great dealership nearby.
Moving on, over the past 7 days, roughly a week or two after all the shenanigans above, I have been awfully busy with more car stuff. While installing my camber bolts a few weeks back I noticed my front passenger side outer cv boot had a tear in it and was flinging grease all over my wheel and had caked the inside of my knuckle and caliper. Yay. Couple that with planned preventative maintenance and it's been busy and expensive.
So, Sunday I did my oil, transmission fluid and rear diff fluid. It wasn't too bad as expected. Yesterday I did spark plugs, replaced with OEM NGK iridium's. That, as most of you may know, was a PITA. Subaru gets some sort of sick pleasure out of cylinder #4. Finally, tonight is some beer and the replacement of my CV axle. After this, it should be it! Hopefully this will allow me to focus on some much needed paint correction from the previous owner's negligence.
Oh, and the next local autox is this weekend, which I plan to attend. This will be my first autocross and I'm excited. If I remember, I'll update about how it goes.
Continuing on the boring track though, I don't have any future mods in the budget at this point. I just plan to work on my driving skills for the foreseeable future.
Also, if anybody knows someone that is interested in a Ducati Monster 1100, let me know!
Cheers,
-Billy :thumbup: