I bought an 04 sportback ralliart for a daily driver. I was just looking for a station wagon (this is my 6th one), and didn't even know about the ralliart. What a great find! I'm not a new gearhead (built a few ford V8s, and had a tacoma with a TRD blower on it until I became a parent). This car has enough potential to make me want to do some basic mods (minor NA bolt-ons and brake upgrades).

Now, as a new member I think I'm supposed to post something like this:
Will an Evo dipstick fit my lawnmower?

There, I feel better.

I do have a some legitimate questions that I haven't found searching the forum:
I hate automatics, but the sportback doesn't give me any choice. Still, this is the best slushbox that I've ever owned. With 53,000 miles on the car, I think I need to start on preserving the transmission, especially if I'm going to lean on it. With some of the high power auto ralliarts that I've found like the rippmods blower car, I figure this isn't new territory.

Any advice on a transmission cooler? This is a pretty low tech part, and I found some interesting ones on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...m=360221625485
I figure this would be easy to mount. I don't know how good a heat exchanger it would be, but at least some of the advantage of a cooler comes from the extra fluid capacity.

Is there a deep/finned pan for this application (dumb question, but you never know)?

Does anyone do valve body (shift kit) upgrades? Actually, it doesn't shift like it needs one, and with the electronic control maybe this is an obsolete question. I just want to make it last.

The tire shop quoted me 3 hrs labor for a tranny fluid change (about $350 total). Seems outrageous, but he said that they have to drop the cross member. How hard a job is it?

I may cut and paste the tranny questions over to the proper part of the forum, but I figured I'd start here.

 

well let me be the first to not answer your question but welcome you to the site, i as well have a pearl white ralliart wagon 2004 and ill be honest, all the reviews were terrible with this car, they all said it breaks down and that its kind of a miss. now i dont agree with this at all, i purchased it used and off the lot omg this thing is amazing! i went from a celica gt and i have to say other than the loss of higher end torque the engine in the is amazing! MIVEC is my new friend LOL. the springs as well as the front bar is pretty cool too! be prepared for people to think your car is a volvo though lol... but welcome to the site and enjoy your new purchase..

and put some pics up already! lol

 

Hey, thanks for the welcome. I've had the car for a week. Today was the first time I went somewhere other than to work, home or the store. I bought my wife a bike off of craigslist, and when I parked the car the first words out of the guys mouth were "is that a ralliart?"

I don't expect that to happen too often.

Now, about that evo dipstick...