The Subaru WRX (technically the STi) has been on my list of dream cars since I was in grade school.  My love for the car came mainly from video games I played growing up over a decade ago.  It started with the ‘04-‘05 blobeyes; they caught my attention and had me hooked until the ’06 hawkeyes came out.  Then, I thought the front end was ugly.  I’m sure a lot of people did at the time, but as the years passed and the GR platform came around, I started to love and appreciate the hawkeye WRX to the point of it being my absolute favorite car at the time.  In high school, my hands-down dream car was the 2007 Satin White Pearl STi with the signature gold BBS wheels.  It looked perfect, it was my favorite color combo, and I had to have one.  Then reality hit me as I looked for them online and saw price tags of $20k+.  Several years later, this “project” I now own is about turning a kind-of dream car into the dream car I’ve always wanted.

I’ve been looking forward to the day I get to write about my own car.  I know it’s incredibly cliché, but it’s a love/hate relationship.  I’ll just say a lot has happened to it and with it these past three and a half years.  Dozens of road trips; Indiana to Florida, Florida to Maryland (a few times), South Carolina, Virginia, a few trips to North Carolina/Tennessee (for the Tail of the Dragon, of course) and all throughout Florida for car shows.  I’m quite proud of it, especially in the current state.  It’s taken a lot of time and effort to get it where it is now, and I’m glad I can finally get the wagon some attention and show it off.

My wagon’s predecessor was an Obsidian Black Pearl 2007 Impreza 2.5i sedan that I still miss dearly.  It was my first car that I drove, abused, worked on, rallied, stanced and enjoyed, and I would certainly not have my WRX without owning that Impreza first.  That car is what sucked me into the Subaru world and culture.  The funny thing is, selling it hadn’t even crossed my mind until the night I saw my WRX for sale on Craigslist.  Less than three weeks before I got the wagon, I bought a 1981 Volvo 242 as a project car due to boredom with the Impreza, so I had absolutely no plans to get another car.

My old 2.5i in its prime, Fall 2014.

I frequently go on Craigslist just to see what’s out there – it’s just fun for me.  I like looking at cars.  I remember very clearly how it all went from the night I found the ad for the WRX to the night I drove it home about a week later.  It was early January 2015, and I was living in Fishers, Indiana at the time.  In the back of my mind, I was interested in owning a WRX wagon for a while – which led to me searching every now and then to see if any popped up.  On that fateful night I found this mint 2006 Impreza WRX Limited Wagon with only 82,000 miles that was posted just hours before I found it.  I still wish I had the screenshots from the ad, but the car looked great.  Bone stock of course, black leather interior, sunroof, cold weather package, and basically every single other option you could get from the dealer back then.  I texted the owner on impulse, excited to see where this would go.

The night I drove the wagon home.  This was the very first fuel fill-up.

We ended up meeting the next morning at a Starbucks on my side of town.  It was a very cold morning with snow and ice still on the ground, and I headed out of the house with a smile on my face.  It turns out the owner of the car was an older gentleman who bought it for his wife brand new back in late 2005 from a dealer in Chicago.  I test drove the car and looked over every inch of it before we parted ways.  I was in love, and I knew it was the one.  After our meetup, I scheduled an appointment to have a dealer do a mechanical inspection, since my knowledge at the time was very limited.  During the inspection, the owner handed me a folder that had to be at least two inches thick, full of maintenance records and information.  I love old people owned cars – this guy had record of every single oil change the car had ever had, among other more significant things as well.  The inspection went well, and there was nothing at all wrong or needing attention.  That sealed the deal, it was time to bring my dream car home.

What a fun commuter car!  Parked safely in a corner at my school’s parking garage, downtown Indianapolis, IN.

I left the car stock and untouched for about a month.  After a few days though I ripped off those protective hard plastic strips around the edges of the doors and fenders, if that counts as “touching” it.  Basically, the first month or so of driving the car around I learned what a manual, turbo, AWD car felt like.  I learned how to shift it properly, what RPM range was the most fun, how it handled snow (amazingly), and just spent the time enjoying such a drastically different car than my last.

My unstoppable winter setup – beefy snow tires on ’04-’05 WRX wheels.

I remember my first modification on it was my SPT intake, a part my good friend Drew recommended.  I was new to the turbo life, and he was the only friend I had with a turbo Subaru, (a blobeye wagon actually) so we became better friends pretty quickly.  After that, I remember I had some ‘04-‘05 WRX wheels with some beefy snow tires on them in my garage, so I plastidipped them black and put them on the wagon.  It was such a blast in snow, I really miss those days.  Next up, I put the coilovers I had on my Impreza onto the wagon and attempted to do the front brakes.  Things were starting to happen!  I had a set of 3SDM 0.06’s that were ready to go on the wagon from the Impreza as well, and I ended up keeping this setup for over a year.

Aired out on my Rotiform SPF’s at H2oi 2016, Ocean City, MD.  Photo by Eli Mullen – @elijah.mullen

Aired out at the Florida Subaru Mega Meet, December 2017.

Our second trip to the Tail of the Dragon, photo from the TougeFest article, November 2017.

Throughout the years, I’ve had probably five sets of wheels on the car, three sets of coilovers and an air suspension kit, three exhausts and several different exterior modifications.  Currently, my favorite exterior modification would probably be my rear flares with my roof rail delete being a close second.  I give CJ credit for the reason I even got these flares.  He showed me them online and it got me thinking.  I eventually saw a WRX sedan with them and my mind was set.  I had the typical quarter panel rust on both sides, so I figured it would be a good time to get that cut out and replaced with fresh metal with the flares molded on top.  A local body shop did all the work and did an outstanding job molding them and color-matching them.  It’s a shame I’ll end up cutting out the quarters again for the sedan widebody conversion though… More on that later!

Other notable exterior mods of mine include my APR carbon fiber exhaust heat shield, my HT Autos side skirt extensions and rear valences, my JDM tail lights (although it bothers the hell out of me that the rear fog light is on the wrong side for a LHD car), and my bright white Work CR Kiwami’s.

I originally bought these wheels when I was bagged with stretched tires.  It was for a new stance-y style, coming from Rotiform SPF’s.  I went from running a 215/40 tire on the 18” x 9.5” +30 wheels to a 265/35 tire – a massive difference.  How on Earth could I fit 265’s on a [kind of] stock-body wagon?  A LOT of camber and height adjustments.  I’m running about -4 degrees of camber up front and around -3 degrees in the rear.  I have camber plates on the coilovers, adjustable lateral links in the back and two sets of camber bolts up front to achieve this.  Yeah, the car flops all over the road with this much camber and tire, but it sure looks good.  One of the reasons I left air suspension for Fortune Auto 500 coilovers was to be able to run wider tires and have a more firm and stress-free suspension setup.  I love bags, don’t get me wrong, but it just makes more sense for coilovers with the direction I plan on going.

I didn’t really get into the performance side of modifying the car until early 2017.  At this point I had only gone as far as a Cobb OTS Stage 2 map with an exhaust, downpipe and intake.  The single insignificant event that led to a mountain of work and parts was my secondary air pump valves failing and throwing that pesky CEL.  (F.Y.I. my check engine light has probably been on more than off in the past year – just Subaru things.)  Since doing an air pump delete with block off plates seemed a bit more involved than I was prepared for, I took the car over to Circuit Motorsports in Orlando to get that taken care of, along with getting the car protuned.  While it was there, I learned my stock TD04 had bad shaft play.  Awesome – time to throw it out and do something cool.  I bought a round of parts consisting of a low mileage VF48, a Grimmspeed TMIC, ID1000’s, a Walbro 255 fuel pump, a new intake and a few other things and then got the car tuned.  With all these new parts, I’m at a nice, fun, and safe 320whp/330ft-lbs.  I haven’t done much else to increase power since then, but I do plan on doing flex fuel, equal-length headers and maybe even a front-mount intercooler setup someday in the future.

Whenever I would start getting bored with the car, I ordered a round of parts.  One of the most exciting rounds of parts to me would be all of the chassis-stiffening parts I’ve installed.  Whiteline sway bars front and rear, endlinks, strut bars, Cusco subframe brace, Megan racing H-brace, etc.  These parts really made a difference in the handling of the car, and paired with the new coilovers, it feels like it’s on rails.  I jokingly tell people I built my car for touge runs on the Tail of the Dragon, but honestly, it’s starting to seem like that’s true.  Each time I come back from that area, I know what needs improvement on the car, and I take care of these needs before the next trip and feel my hard work pay off.

Inside the car, I haven’t done anything drastic.  I’ve done a Whiteline rear strut bar, which definitely helped the chassis rigidity and makes the rear end much more tight in corners.  Perhaps my favorite interior piece is my very-hard-to-find Audio Integrations subwoofer enclosure.  Such a small detail to most, but for me it’s quite a big deal.  For nearly three years I drove the car around with a 10″ subwoofer and box falling all over my cargo area.  I finally got tired of it and used a bungee cord to strap it down.  It looked terrible but did the job.  One day, after quite a long time of searching, I came across someone selling their enclosure.  I texted him immediately and offered full asking price.  It’s a perfect fit and doesn’t move around one bit, even on the Tail of the Dragon.  It’s a shame Audio Integrations doesn’t make them anymore, but I am glad I was able to snag one.  Up front, I have a fire extinguisher bracket made to bolt to the front of the passenger seat rails.  This fine piece was made by Dakotah at Endless Horizon Fabrication out of Southern California.  I love my Limited interior too much to gut the car, but I have entertained the idea of getting black leather aftermarket seats at some point, as long as they look similar enough to the rest of the interior.

The title of trying to make it all work is a commonly used phrase of mine when talking about the car.  I learned firsthand that not all sedan things work on wagons.  It may not sound like a big deal to most, but when the parts you want aren’t made for your car it can be frustrating.  My flares and skirt extensions are sedan parts of course, but even when it comes to the OEM wagon parts I still struggle.  For example, trying to fit any wheel wider than 8.5” or 9” wide.  I managed to use as much camber as I could to get my wheels and tires to fit thankfully, but it’s not easy.  The fenders on the wagons are so narrow and boring compared to the sedans that come “flared” from the factory.  This is why I’ve decided to do not only the sedan front end conversion, a common swap among wagon owners, but also the rear quarter panel transplant.  It’s definitely a job for my local body shop, but I’m very eager to start this project.  I’ve always loved the sedans more than the wagons, so I feel like this conversion is a good middle ground.  Aggressive sedan styling with wagon functionality and uniqueness.

I’m starting to get an idea of the craziness the future holds for this car if it doesn’t blow up or get wrecked.  I bought a full STi drivetrain off a local friend along with his sedan quarter panels for my conversion.  ’06 STi transmission, Brembos, axles, knuckles, driveshaft, all of it.  This is it right here, the dream becoming the reality!  An STi Wagon!  In the next year I hope to have the drivetrain swap done and working properly, and the sedan widebody finished.  I’ve been thinking about finally taking it out on a track, too.  My current end goal I think would be to have a very fun, reliable street car I can take on road trips to the Tail of the Dragon and out onto racetracks on weekends.  My end goal often changes though, but this one is a pretty strong one.

Despite my audacious plans with the car, I’m very happy with how it sits now.  It has been reliable enough to drive daily the past few months and it always puts a smile on my face.  Sure, it’s unpleasant, loud and uncomfortable, but I don’t mind anymore.  It means a lot to me and deep down I don’t think I could ever let it go.  I’ve put about 51k miles (currently at 133k miles) on it since I brought it home in January 2015, spent countless long nights fixing and modifying things, and spent countless hours driving it all over the Southeast over the past few years, and I can say it’s been an awesome experience.  Without this car I literally would not have met CJ or Zach, and MFortyFive likely would have never been started.  A lot of people who have bought Subarus after coming from other cars agree when saying the Subaru community is different from any other, and some can even probably describe it as more of a “cult.”  I’m unsure of how this strong worldwide bond started, but it’s definitely responsible for some of my best friendships.  Lastly, a huge thank you to all of the friends who have helped me build up this car over the years to what it is now, especially CJ and Zach, who are always there to lend a hand.

 

By Ethan Pfab – @supwagon

 

Ethan’s Full Build List:

Engine/Performance:

VF48 turbo

ID 1000’s injectors

Walbro 255 fuel pump

TGV deletes

IAG block plates (related to air pump delete)

Air pump delete

Cobb SF Box intake

Cobb Post-MAF hose

Tomei turbo inlet

Grimmspeed thermal coated TMIC

SPT turbo heat shield

Cobb EBCS

Grimmspeed AOS

Fumoto oil drain valve

Invidia catless bellmouth downpipe

Tomei Expreme-Ti Titanium catback exhaust

PTP turbo blanket Lava

Grimmspeed alternator cover

Cobb V2 AccessPort

Protune from Circuit Motorsports @ 320whp/330ft-lbs

 

Suspension/Chassis

Fortune Auto 500 series coilovers w/ radial bearing mount upgrade

9k/7k Swift springs

Oswald Performance lightweight aluminum front bumper beam w/ tow hook

Whiteline 22mm adjustable front sway bar

Whiteline 24mm adjustable rear sway bar

Whiteline front sway bar endlinks

Truhart rear sway bar endlinks

Truhart rear lateral links

Cusco rear subframe brace

Whiteline front strut tower bar

Whiteline rear strut tower bar

Megan racing H brace

Whiteline front roll center kit

Megan racing motor mounts, rear pitch stop and transmission mount

Aftermarket poly shifter bushings

 

Brakes/Wheels:

R1 Concepts ceramic brake pads

R1 Concepts slotted rotors

Stainless steel brake lines

Grimmspeed master cylinder brace

Work CR Kiwami wheels, Gloss White, 18×9.5 +30

Hankook Ventus V12 tires, 265/35/r18

Muteki SR35 titanium lug nuts

 

Interior:

STi airbag

STi Momo 5-speed shift knob

STi floor mats

JDM red hazard button

ProSport dead pedal

Kartboy short throw shifter

Audio Integrations 10″ subwoofer box w/ 10″ Kicker subwoofer

Pioneer head unit

Endless Horizon Fab fire extinguisher mount bracket & fire extinguisher

 

Exterior:

OEM STi rear diffuser

Roof rail delete

APR carbon fiber exhaust tip heat shield

HT Autos side skirt extensions & rear valences

eBay front lip

JDM tail lights

20% window tint

Grimmspeed hood struts

STi front grille badge

STi rear badge

RPG body-molded custom rear flares