Reassembling the engine was a great experience, if a little nerve-wracking. Taking things slowly, keeping everything scrupulously clean and following the instructions in the service manual exactly is critical! A couple of good torque wrenches and an angle gauge are a great investment if you’re thinking about tackling this kind of project yourself! Another tool that made the job much easier was the Valco Tube-Grip, a simple dispenser for any kind of sealant in a squeeze-tube. It makes it much easier to control the bead of sealant, and the leverage it provides means that you can squeeze out a narrower more precise bead. I got mine from Racer Parts Wholesale.

While the motor was apart I threw in new rings, a Maxwell Power Services blueprinted oil pump, ACL race bearings, and a new timing belt. I also took the opportunity to tidy up the fuel system with an adjustable Sard fuel pressure regulator and Walbro pump, and replace the intercooler hoses with Samco pieces and t-bolt clamps to ward off any leaks.

Once everything was back together, it was time to put some break-in miles on the car before the much-awaited DomTune. Luckily Dom was coming out to Albany so last weekend I drove the car out there to meet up with all the Albany guys, catch up with a lot of old faces and meet a whole bunch of cool people.

The drive out to Albany was a little nerve-wracking as the car only had a few hundred miles on it and was still running on the base map, but I was able to caravan out with Jim & Brent from CNY Subies and we made it without incident. After hanging out for a while at ACC watching the Autox it was time to get into tuning. Local fanatic (and owner of the crazy Project Pizza Guy STi!) Byron was kind enough to volunteer his garage as a base of operations and while Dom took each car out the rest of us amused ourselves with assorted installs, leak testing, and talking Subarus (and Saabarus).

At the end of Sunday night the Legacy was running smoothly and making enough power to put a very big grin on my face! It still has one small issue with a single count of knock we couldn’t tune out around 6000rpm, but at that point I’m pretty much maxing out the STi “pink” injectors so those will have to be replaced before we can push things any further. After I called it a night at 2am (I have no idea how Dom & the other guys were still up and tuning!) I grabbed a couple hours sleep on Dave’s sofa and headed home.

Now that the dust has cleared a little plans are forming for where to go next, but those will have to wait for another post.

To wrap up I’d like to say thanks to everyone involved this weekend, but especially to Byron & Danielle, Dom, Dave & Allison, Jim, and Brent for all the help with making things come together this weekend.

After pulling the various plugs off the block I hefted it onto the bench and removed the flywheel, then split the case and this is what greeted me:

Needless to say, I’d found the problem.

Next stop will be the machine shop to find out what will need to be done to get the crank into shape again, and have the block hot-tanked.

More pics are here.

We noticed that the car was running lean under boost, and although I didn’t get any misfire codes or hear any detonation, I suspect that a rod bearing is on the way out. After replacing the fuel pump we fired the car up again and noticed a tapping/knocking sound emanating from the engine between 2000 and 2500 rpm.

So it’s time for a complete teardown, hopefully it’s just a bearing and no other damage has been done. Right now I have the engine out and on the stand, and I’m waiting for a hardened 10mm allen socket to break the notoriously-difficult cam gear bolts loose.

I decided to go with the Pioneer AVIC-F90BT because it had all the features I wanted at a reasonable price.

The Sport Edition has a 10-speaker single-disc JBL sound system, so in order to keep the OEM JBL amp I went with a PAC TATO kit for the audio connectivity, PAC SWI-PS for steering wheel controls and a Metra 95-8202 dash kit.

The PAC units were very easy to work with, and a nice surprise was that the TATO came with a 4runner-specific harness for the SWI-PS and the proper R1/R12 and R5/R10 plugs.

I only had to solder 4 connections to hook the TATO harness up to the AVIC (after removing the unused outputs from the black AVIC connector):

The car doesn’t have the R9 connector for vss/reverse/park on the factory nav, so I had to tap into the main harness. I pulled VSS where it enters the HVAC ECU on A16 pin 8 (Violet w/ Red stripe). For reverse, I used 1F pin 10 (Red w/ Yellow stripe), which is the connector right next to the fuse box in the driver’s side lower panel. I ended up doing a hardware bypass so I just grounded the park wire.

I placed the GPS antenna on top of the HVAC ducting to the right of the center speaker, it seems to be pretty secure there and I’m getting great signal.

I was a little worried about how the Metra kit would fit (having read some horror stories), but it isn’t too bad. I didn’t have to trim it at all and my only complaints are the small gaps at the top and bottom, and that it sticks out very slightly further than the stock plastic surround.

In those pics you can also see the TATO (black box) sitting on top of the wiring harness, and the SWI-PS hanging down. After it was programmed I was able to tuck it down beside the HVAC ECU.

I pulled the driver’s side a-pillar trim to route the mic wire, that turned out to be much easier than expected as once the grab handle is removed it slides right off by just pulling the top towards you and wiggling a little to free it from the dash.

I have to find some stronger tape to hold the mic itself in place, but I’m very happy with the location and it seems to pick up voices just fine.

Finally, a couple shots of the finished install & the truck.

I was starting to freak out a little when I stopped at some traffic lights and there was smoke coming out of the hood scoop, but as far as I can tell it’s just the heat wrap from the downpipe bedding in. Other than that the trip went smoothly and the car was running well.

Since then I’ve been taking care of the loose ends that remain, still have plenty to do but it’s getting there.

First up was the new battery, I ordered a Deka/BigCrank ETX30L a while ago but was waiting for the proper terminals for it, which arrived this week. It’s a sealed AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) battery that should give me plenty of grunt for starting the car in the New York winters, but weighs only 21lbs. It’s held down with a modified SPT battery bracket and custom stainless steel tie-down hooks.

It seems the WRX body integrated unit couldn’t handle the load of the added door lights in the Legacy, so I swapped it out for a spare and removed them temporarily until the LED replacements I ordered arrive. Hopefully they won’t draw as much current as the incandescent bulbs and the body integrated unit will be able to drive them without problems.

Another project completed this week was the wiring for my fog/driving lights. I modified the fog light circuit so that the stock fog light switch turns on the fog lights when the parking lights or low beams are on, and when I switch to high beam it automatically switches over to the driving lights.

Once that was out of the way I was able to get the fender liners installed, so now I don’t have to worry about being caught out in the rain. I also swapped out a blown bulb in the cruise control switch and changed the boost gauge backlighting to match the rest of the gauges.

Finally I started work on a duct to seal the hood to the intercooler, as I figure I have to make the most of what little hood scoop the Legacy has. I made it out of 1 1/4″ x 7/16″ self-adhesive foam, and it seems to be working out pretty well. The only problem is that on the passenger side the intercooler doesn’t extend as far as the hood scoop does, so it’s tough to get a decent seal there.

I still haven’t had a chance to wire in the LC-1, but I took a look tonight and have pretty much planned out how it’s going to be set up. I even managed to find a couple of unused lugs for the all-important ground points.

Unfortunately the weather has been terrible so I didn’t get to take it out of the garage again until today. Luckily we had a break today and I took the opportunity to take some photos!