Hi guys as the title states I've just purchased a cheap 02 bugeye, seems a solid car to be fair, purchased spares or repairs as it was smoking like a train, once delivered I discovered the engine contained about 12 litres of engine oil. Rectified this with 4 litres of Mobil one cleaned out the intercooler etc and seems to have sorted that problem relatively cheaply car no longer smokes doesn't seem to have done any major engine damage. I have a slight misfire on tick over so going to check compressions in the week, sparks plugs tips have however turned white so may just be that, there is also fault code p0340 I believe to be cam sensor, would this put the car in limp mode, it seems to hesitate on boost doesn't pack the punch I used to get from my old gt4 a blue blob eye I bumped into whilst driving home left me for dust overtook amd gained on me by some way, any tips and tricks would be much appreciated, don't plan on getting rid of the car keeping as a restoration project and some weekend fun
​​​​
​​​

 

Seems as there was so much interest in my thread I will continue 🤣🤣🤣

So ​​​​Oil level sorted car didn't smoke anymore actually drove alright, besides hesitation on boost, few days later fitted a cam sensor purchased from ipc and the eml was off, also fitted abreteictor pill to the actuator vaccum hose and boost was soo much better, however still a little miss fire on tick over after a few days the car threw a misfire cylinder 2 fault up decided whilst changing the plugs to some ngk pfr7b would be foolish not to take compressions found 100 psi cylinder 1 and 50 cylinder 2, 150 psi in 2 and 4, still wheing up my options but first port of call is engine out and though whilst I'm there going to remove everything I can and powder coat underseal arches change all bushes so this is where I'm at


so far

 

Bit tight in the garage but managed to pull the engine, and give the car a good shake down as far back as the fuel tank, due to the limited space il be driving the car in when it's up and runni g to tackle the rear subframe amd floor, the car was actually not in bad nic the only serious rust I found so far was the lower rad panel wich I had to weld a jew one in




Garage is a bit tight managed to get the engine on a stand sideways and squeezed down the side of the car

U shape subframe has seen better days thankfully my brother is a welder fabricator so will be doing all the nesacery repairs before powder coating it for me,

One snapped steering rack bolt on this bad boy not too bad though managed to drill it out easy enough

Bay fairly empty however bogging


Had to romove the panel taught a small repair on the top would be fine until I tried removing the harness clips

Part panel part Swiss cheese

Icp supplied an new panel 👌

Part prior to blasting

Limited space so struggled to get inside the vehicle I've left some stuff in the bay and masked up just because I can't get around the car properly to remove it all, still beets working in the rain though

Primer

Bit of 01g and laqour

Next up decided to attack the calipers more to follow on them, deox c is amazing by the way never used it befor but an incredible product


From red flaking rust to bare metal with a wire wheel and deox c


Took them to work to use and I use the term loosely the "spray booth" pretty much the Compressor storage room lol

Tackled the under arches and floor pans whilst waiting for shot blasting



Surprised how much crap came off, started with a wire wheel on a drill bit soon switched to a wheel on an angle grinder got most of the crap off with ease

Used a zinc primer on some of the joins just where I'd ground surface rust off

Gave it all a few coats of u lol gravitex pretty good stuff sprayed on with a schultz gun using a small compressor witch was the loudest thing I've ever heard lol


Touch of 01g on the floors too nice coulour to contrast the subframe and stuff when it goes back inn


Back from blasting



Call me sad but I got pretty excited when my brother sent me these photos love seeing a bit of coulour going on, when for a dark textured grey for mast parts just a few touches of blue here and there





Got some ht paint on the calipers after a coat of electrox, then used a paint pen to touch up the embossed subaru, also fitted a seal kit whilst I was in there these look a million times better than they did


These arms turned out amazing too with little effort

Finished with some powerflex bushes


A wire wheel has done miracles for the gear box

Couldn't resist a test fit of the subframe
This is as the vehicle stands now currently waiting for bolts to come back from zinc plating, and a delivery from icp using superpro roll bar bushes steering rack and trans mount + gear selector idler Bush all other bushes will be powerflex, going to go with pedders suspension too I think will be a weekend road car so cba for coilover showing my age o thi k and wanting something more comphortable, once all these parts are back on I will be stripping the engine unsure what to do for the best clearly need to see what the damage is I imagine ringlamds however do I rebuild or replace with a used ej207 i like the idea of rebuilding feels more like I've 100% put a hand to everything on the car however a 207 swap could get me more bang for my buck any sudgestions

 

Nice to see another one saved good luck wih the project

 

Yeah! Love a bit of pic heavy goodness! Looking good, keep up the hard work.

 

wow , well done nice to see it getting sorted and back on the road , how did you get on with sorting the engine ?

 

Still haven't tackled the engine, got some time off next week so going to get everything put back in and strip the engine, my garage is so small I couldn't have the subframe off and engine apart at the same time no where near enough room, depending on the state of the engine I may go for a used sti engine until its apart I don't know

 

Nice work, i'll be starting to do the same with my bug beginning of next year

 

great stuff m8! love seeing these threads and theres not so many of them these days so well done.

 

New bearings pressed In back plates ordered fairly cheap from icp

Had the majority of bolts zinc plated

Very cheap process can't recommend enough this box was £30 would have been the same price if it was full apparently

Deciding between new silver brackets or blue coated ones

Had to be the blue, got the silver ones for back up though

Gave the clean gearbox a coat of laqour hopefully stay shiny for a bit longer, did the bottom arms whilst I was at it

Brackets and cross member back on

Was only planning on getting the box in there but couldn't resist once I was going


More to go on next week then hopefully engine in bits NY next weekend

 

You're doing a great job on that mate! FYI I have the same compressor, its bloody loud but great for £100!

 

It's rediculouse ain't it I borrowed it off a mate. felt bad for my neighbors firing it up in the evenings does the job though

 

Agreed, I only got it the other day and tested it, I was hoping to do some stuff in the evening but might have to rethink that!

 

Planning on a set of pedders shocks and springs however they are way at the bottom of the list so gone for a little bit of paint on the standard shocks amd springs

Look OK better than rust but I'm not massively fussed tbh will deffo replace in the near future

Look a bit better on the car

After moving the car over to make some room finally got around to stripping the engine

With next to no room I got it in bits

And found 1 and 2 had major Ringland failure no1 had 2 cracks nowhere bear as bad as no2 pictured thankfully bores are ok

Went back and forth considered buying an engine seen a few ej207s however figured mine non running is worth nothing, going for a standard rebuild acl bearings old rods new pistons don't plan on going any more that 280 to 300 on this engine maybe an ej207 in the future though

Engine at machine shop so figured I'd have a bash at porting the headers whilst I wait, very surprised at how much material came off should make a difference in weight alone lol


Plan on wrapping the headers have a decat uppie which will also be wrapped tho a Vf34 and may wrap the downpipe don't know if there are any benefits of doing so though

 

Been away for a while, everything seems to have taken an age, finally getting on top of it though machine shop had the engine for nearly 6 weeks


Came back and I had to clean the blocks up myself despite asking for them to be vapour blasted

Came up alright though

Had a hand me down gear surround from my brother so whilst waiting for parts gave it u rud down and laqour was completely blue looked terrible to be fair


Standard build oe pistons apparently

Managed to get it back together some shape or form finally looking like an engine again


Started another little project whilst waiting for powder coating

De tangoed masks painted and lenses laqoured

Decided whilst the engine is in work I'd throw some panels back on makes hell of a difference starting to reassemble a car again

Love an sti scoop for it


Vf34 bolted up

Timing cobber painted and fitted, new bolt kit makes a massive difference


Again just ticking over during the festive period

Got the header tank painted resealer

These are the side reflector lenses painted the inside grey look a lot better than the clear in my opinion,

More progress manifold and a few other bits power coated hoping to have the engine installed by next weekend 🤞🤞🤞

 

Wow ,
What a job you are doing on the bug , absolutely brilliant.

 

Thats brilliant mate, should have posted this up in the project section.

Keep at it

 

Finally managed to get time to piece it back together parts were sat by my box for some time


And finally in the car


Light yellow tint on the fogs progress has been slow



Managed to get hold of an sti intercooler have a few blue hoses and a carbon scoop to go on car is motd and running however have a misfire fault on 2 and 4 that is plaguing me anly misses on idle seems to drive fine I've done one oil change at 100 miles currently upto 160 miles on miller's running in oil

 

No doubt about it,you are doing a tremendous job with the old bug. The amount of effort you have put in , must be every spare hour you have.
i reckon you are getting tired................front number plate is not level..........! 😜
Only kidding,it will look tremendous when done👍🏻

 

Fantastic thread mate 👍

 

In my defence I didn't fit the no plate 🤣🤣 was too excited to drive it so let the standards slip and didn't refit it lol, the way its going I can see the engine coming back out doing a compression check later this week I'm hoping it's just valve end gaps or something

 

Engine out again................oh jeez,you must have the patience of a saint.
Hopefully it isn’t anything serious , we will forgive you for the number plate.
Good Luck.🤞

 

Top work there, well done it's looking great!!

 

Managed to get away without removing the engine, valve lash was all to f##k a massive overlook on my part whilst building the engine, as they say hind sight is 20 20, managed to get it sorted with some shims ordered from the machine shop and getting a couple ground, whilst I was potching I managed to get my carbon scoop fitted desperate for some mesh so as small animals don't fall in there though

Surprising sing what some sand paper and clear coat can do

 

Epic thread mate, I’d have seen it sooner if it was in the projects section

There’s a serious amount of hours in this thread, is lockdown getting to you too?

Keep the pics coming, looks like this phase of your build is nearly complete!

 

Great thread indeed, some serious progress as well. you must be itching to get her finished?

 

Brilliant work.

Did you wet sand the carbon mate

 

Yeah wet sanded with 600, then clear coated, deffo needs a wet sand and polish now though,

 

love it! brilliant thread!

 

Fair bit of work going here ... Nice doing it from bottom up post , well done.

Going back right to the beginning , you were saying that you had put in a restrictor pill ? if you are running the std 2 port Ok , but if its a 3 port you might find that you don't / normally do not need it , it depends a bit on if it was mapped with one in place.
The air intake is likely to be a bit of a problem due to hot airflow proximity to Turbo , the cold air intake (under the front of the bonnet/inner wing ) of the standard system does a better job pulling in cold air ,
and does not represent a restriction until you get close to 400bhp which you won't be doing on the 5 spd box / std con rod internals. So try to sell that and get a standard air intake. The Carbon scoop is great , ( you may have a new undertray already )
but you will have to replace the WRX undertray / skirt onto make the best of the Sti IC , I have used the old tray and modified the under tray to funnel into the area to left of the IC directly over the turbo , but I sacrifice some 15% of the forced air over the Sti IC to do that.
If you are keeping your nice blue refurbed callipers ( just done mine ) then you can still improve the brakes on a Godspeed large 335mm /34mm thick disc kit ( uses original calliper with a spacer )
that's the best you can do on a budget without going to 18 inch rims. For this engine/car, Id recommend a VF35 or a Hybrid TD04 , the porting you have done will help spool a bit but you need to match the casting to the heads , then get all the cast imperfections out in the pipes as deep in as you can ( long flexishaft and Dremmel bit ) you have to take care as well at up pipe end , don't be tempted to open that end up, you should keep a small lip into the up pipe , Probably best to keep the original up pipe for now but of course you must deccat it.
You will help your spool if you raise the CR , Std is 8.0 :1 , if you have no done a head skim already and need to lift out the engine to do the buckets for the valves anyway you may as well have the heads off , use a 0.6mm gasket to get to around 8.5:1
your new pistons will do fine with that. and it will give you a much better throttle response. Your map will need to be changed to compensate against detonation, but you can drive it over "off boost" keep under 3500rpm.

Great to see you saving this car.