Welllll where to start with this, after i sold my last car i was left cringing for power any time i got into a car. A few months later after searching and spending hours on craigslist i found another to bring home. This time around i found a 03 black evo 8, my previous cars had been white, and yellow. My yellow car got me into too much trouble and my white one was my baby, but it had a bad case of car cancer and it discouraged me from sticking any more money into it. I daily a 02 wrx wagon, and plans were for the evo just to take over that spot and flip the wagon. Only took a few weeks for that to go the opposite direction and the evos heart laying on the floor of my shop. Ill update with pics soon.





Here's my old white car on the left next to my buddies built m20 e30.

 

Here she is before I picked her up, previous owner had some goodies on it and Devin@boostin performance had his way with it. Making around 350wheel it made my wagon feel like a d series civic. Needless to say I had some fun on the hour drive home on the freeway.

Made it home in one piece. Always loved the fog lights built into the headlight housings. Never not have them on when I'm driving around.


A couple days after I got it and enjoyed a few drives around town and to work I started looking at a few things. The car came with cams, larger injectors, swapped over to speed density and some other things. Upon purchase I knew the car had a clutch issue and had previously been a high horse build. The bottom end had been swapped out as the previous one had exploded haha. The head was fresh with over sized valves and some light porting. Once I started digging into it, I noticed a lot of things that bugged me. So I decided to take the engine out and fix everything my way, and the right way. Lots of corners were cut, all injector clips missing, tps ect. **** like that bugs me being a technician for a living. So, I found a shop space with a few buddies and then got in over my head.

A few hours after I took it to my shop and moved some stuff in, I started getting to work. I want the car on the road and tuned by May so there's no time to waste.

 

As usual the stock wing had terrible carbon fade some of the worst id ever seen, so I sent it out to my buddies shop to have it re cleared. Here she is looking good as new for the next time it hits the road.

 

One full Saturday and a lot of swear words and cuts later I got it out. It wasn't uneventful either, the chain I was using decided to snap somehow while pulling it out, and landed on my t case for safety :| this also all happened around midnight so I glady stayed another few hours to rechain it and pull it that night. After it was out I called it a night.

 

That was enough for that night and then i went back for more the next day, got the motor on the stand and started stripping it down/ selling the old parts to fund this project. Once it was down to bare block i had my buddy check out the crank and block to make sure it was suitable for a build, everything came back good. The crank is true and the block is uncut.

 

Got a little snow here in Wisconsin, so took some time to have a little fun in the daily. The roads by my shop don't get plowed so we have a drift course set up. It's a good time.





Everything's out at this point. Ordered internals and found out they're on back order for around 3 weeks. A shop space and nothing to do on the car leads to extreme boredom. Pull the Evap line out from under the car alone with the canister. re routed the filler neck vent line as well.

 

Since I'm waiting on motor parts and pulling my hair out I decided to do a little rust repair on the core support. The cars surprisingly clean, but these cores always rust. The foam around the condenser collects water and nature works it's magic. Spent some time grinding it all away and spraying a fresh coat on to prevent further corrosion.

Pulled the sub frame and cross member to have it blasted and powder coated. More dumb things to keep myself occupied.






Local buddy makes a decent business off of refinishing headlights on subarus, so I had him do mine now while I have the time. Turned out amazing and cannot wait to get them on the car again.

 

Good luck with the build. You are another example why I don't want to ever sell the Evo, I know I will want to get right back into one

 

Haha I plan to keep this one, I've lost so much money buying parts three times over. The money into this car will never be earned back so hopefully that motivates me to keep it. I have some good plans for it.

 

headlights looks great man. good luck!!

 

Pulled the rear diff out tonight to re plate it in the mean time. Snapped a few pics for enjoyment.

 

Couple parts coming in here slowly, still waiting on my internals to really get the ball rolling. Fp red, Fp manifold, and tial wg.

 

Got around to pulling the diff apart tonight. Looks way more complicated on paper, once you pound the ring gear off and pull the four Phillips head screws, you just re arrange the plates. Curious to see how this locks up now compared to stock. I also need to get my hands on a lsd front diff to get rid of this open diff garbage.

 

Plates rearranged, cleaned/hot tanked. Torqued the caps down and need to seal the cover tomorrow.

 

Little stuff matters to me too. I love Oem goodies more than anyone. Scooped these for $20 shipped.