fmj

If a member then call Keith Michaels from here. Even as a 52 year old and having held my licence since 1977 and with no claims made one insurance company wanted more than £3500 to insure my car with mods declared. Keith Michaels obviously did not!!

I doubt he will be able to help. I tried contacting him when I was about 22-23 and he asked what the quote I already had was. I told him and he didn't even bother to check he just told me that I was young and he wouldn't be able to do anything better. So don't hold your breath.

It is illegal to insure a car in your name if you are not the main driver! The difference in cost between 3rd party and fully comp is not a lot as it is the liabilty that costs. A car can only be insured by one person but someone who is fully comp may drive another vehicle as long as that vehicle is already insured.

Agreed. If you are the main driver then the policy MUST be in your name. Even if your parent owns the car. Insurers are not stupid. They will know if you mum and dad already have cars and policy's. They will realise this car is actually yours and that you are the main driver. They will then void the insurance when things go wrong. Then you will NEVER get insurance because you will have to explain that you lied to the last insurer.

As a fully comp policy holder you can SOMETIMES drive another car which is A. Not owned by you. B. is also insured.

HOWEVER. Watch out for the small print. Some fully comp policies don't cover this and some do but not if you are under 25!

It's a minefield which serious repercussions so be honest.

As for modding, you are added yet another stumbling block because some companies won't insure modded cars and those that do will add a fortune. Also an old cheap Impreza will be a ragged out, worn to death impreza which will need a lot of work on it until it eventually dies.

If you take in anything take in this.

Insurance companies will take your word on anything pretty much. They will insure you and you will get away with lying cause they rarely check. They do this because they have the lies recorded and as soon as you want money out of them they will then do the checks, catch you out and wash their hands of you. Meaning that you get nothing and they are laughing with all the money you paid them. Not to mention you are then guilty of being uninsured. Which means at least a 165 seizure of your car, £150 recovery fee, £20 a day storage fee and £200 penalty with 6 points! Maybe even prosecution and civil court to sue you.

I got a UK Turbo classic at 21 years old with one years no claims but I had been driving for two years. It cost me £2150 to insure fully comp the first year. I had no points on my license.

That was six years ago so now I should imagine the same qoute would be over £3,000. For your circumstances I would do a confused qoute. I have done plenty and never received any junk mail! For the purpose of the qoute you will have to add two years to your age and make out you just passed your test. You will also have to pretend you want the insurance to start within 28 days from now. You don't need a reg as you can just pick the car from a list. Putting false info in is not a problem as you are not actually going to take out the quotes.

Confused will give you a list of prices but you will find its a very short list as most insurers simply will decline to offer to insure you on a group 17 car. I would guess that the quotes will be over £4,000 but that's plucked out of thin air. Don't forget that if you pay for the car and insurance with say this £8,000 and almost half of that is insurance within 12 months you will need to find the same amount again and so on EVERY year. It won't drop much until you are 25. You will be limited to UK models as you won't get a jap one insured under 25.

Good luck but don't be surprised if you have no takers. A turbo Impreza is not a good first car or even second car if you are still a teenager. This is IMO but I am sure I would have crashed it if I had jumped straight in one at 17.

you cant go wrong with a new air filter. cotton ones can be restrictive. depends on the car as well. some people are devise on the subject of air flow. my advice is get an induction kit then get the cars ecu remapped. more air and more power. simples

Actually the standard Airbox is fine for the stock setup and even for modded cars up to a point. For most people spending £800 on a remap to allow them to run a £80 induction kit is a bit crazy. Also you would want a decat at least to make it worth it power wise.

As for the choice of filters. If it fits then it will work but the material it's made of will effect performance. You have a balance between filtration and airflow. You can have good airflow for more power (potentially) but this will let a load of crap into the intake causing reliability problems. Or you can have great filtration meaning a nice clean engine but less airflow. Or you can have a mix of the both which is what the manufacturers will have tried to achieve. There have been several tests on the different panel filters and all are much the same BHP wise but some filter better then others. You don't want a really oily one as it can mess with the MAF.

Induction kits are always advertised as added power but they really don't add much and can be effected by heatsoak from the engine bay unless they have a proper cold air feed. By the time you do this it is probably not much less restrictive then the OE setup.

My advice? Green cotton filter in standard airbox unless you want a FMIC or big power. I am a bit confused that yourn filter says SARD and HKS... I always thought they were two different brands.

thanks for both you guys help trying them now fingers crossed either of them can help as i am stuck cant believe how hard it is for me to find some rear shocks

Well actually it's very easy. You just order them from a Subaru Dealer. Problem is they will charge you a fortune. I can't believe nobody has cottoned on to this problem and made an alternative for less.

I'm fairly sure they are quite cheep from Subaru. Maybe about £4-£5 each or something (dear for what it is but cheap compared to other parts!). Don't qoute me on that but I remember I brought a set before and wasn't shocked by the price. I have found them to be stiff before but usually a rod used to tap from behind gets them out.

DON'T OPEN THE CALIPER! The inside is sealed and I have never seen seal kits for them (only the piston ones are available).

You can get a bugeye wrx for that price these days

But don't...

Got some more info on exactly what was rebuilt on the engine.

crank journals regrinded

reclaimed and polished con-rods

all new main bearings

wiseco piston rings

Sounds like you want it mate, so go for it

But you asked for opinions and mine is steer clear.

1995 WRX Japanese import. Running at 280hp. 93,000 miles. Engine rebuilt in 2007 with bills to prove it. Screen cracked slightly. No engine smoking or knocking. Car sometimes throws up a fault asking to check the mass air flow sensor but he says that is because it's running an after market intake (not sure if true). Car has what sounds like dosing compressor surge on upshift. I know this reduces life of turbos so I wanna fix it, dunno how much it would cost. Pretty tidy all around, a few chips, interior a bit run down.

£2500.

What do you guys think?

I think no... I wouldn't buy a car that already throws fault codes. Faulty MAF's can kill engines so if there is a problem he is ignoring then you could take on a very expensive paper weight. Also compressor surge? Surely there are cars out there with no known problems for about the same money. I personally don't like to see the whole "Engine rebuilt recently" thing. A few questions spring to mind when I see this.

If you spent so much money on a good engine rebuild why sell?

How good was that rebuild? There are loads of cowboy bodge jobs around now.

Why did it need rebuilding? Was it because the owner thrashed it or didn't look after it? If so the rest of the car may be shot too and whats to say they looked after the new engine any better?

I could be wrong but I would avoid that one.

Depends how much its doing it really. I sometimes think mine sounds a bit rough on tick over and the more I listen the rougher it sounds but its been that way for the six years I have owned it. I would get somebody who knows Scoobies to have a listen. Or go to a meet and listen to others.

Is that a V3-V4 Top mount?

Do you have the Y pipe underneath?

You just need the turbo pipe to join to the Y pipe allowing the air into the cooler.

The large exit hole is obviously the throttle and the other one is the dump valve. So you just need to plumb the dump valve into that second outlet and then back into the intake pipework if its a recirc. Then blank off anything left open. You will also need modified/different mounting brackets. You may need a different turbo pipe etc i'm not really sure.

Good argument but an ecu for £1000 is a bargain compared to a full engine rebuild after a big end failure! And a p1's engine is pretty special so if ur gonna replace it say with something special like a Cossie engine an empty one cost like £9600 ex vat

All I was saying is that there is no point in avoiding the P1 just because they have a known weakness. You can get around it fairly easily with a bit of outlay.

Unless you are going for real high power I would have thought that was very much OTT. A new empty semi closed deck is about £1000, nitrided crank and decent pistons, rods, studs gaskets etc would cost far less (about half as much as the cossie block and that's for everything in it too) and still be bombproof (Tougher then the standard P1 engine). Still not cheap but £9600 for an empty block is crazy unless you are looking at crazy power.

P1 will do you just as well as any classic if you ensure that the MAF is kept good and that the ECU is remapped so that it doesn't depend on the broquet things.

EVERY car has a weakness.

My stepdad has an old 2000 W reg VW Passat 1.9 TDI. It has done over 200,000 miles and just goes on and on. I thought that a VAG diesel was the way to go for reliability. Then the ABS ECU died. Turns out all VAG cars with this type of ECU will suffer ABS ECU failure at some point as it is a piece of crap. There was a choice of second hand ones which were just as crap, a new one for over £1,000! which would fail some time in the future again as its not been updated/modded or a recon one. He went recon one which will hopefully last a while but it's just an example of another weakness on a supposedly reliable car.

My Dad also had a mint renault megane. He was driving slowly around a car park when a coil spring actually snapped! dropping the car down dramtically. Apparently this was a well known problem. Then the ECU got a fault and it was either new ECU or scrap...

So what ever you have it can always go wrong the P1 has known faults so sort them out and you will be fine.

Hi guys,

I am in the process of fitting new headers/maifolds to my impreza sti type r.

While taking off the manifold up pipe I accidentatlly pushed in the half moon piece by the rocker gasket.

Do I need a new gasket set or can I just take of the rocker cover and replace this piece and place this piece back into position?

Any advice on this situation would be gratefully received.

Everything was going so well up until this point and I am now extremely pissed off!!

Cheers

Steve

I am fairly sure you will need to remove the cover to refit the plastic part. So you will need a new gasket or it will leak.

You could just use a load of sealent with the old gasket again but I wouldn't bodge it when gaskets are so cheap.

Just shell out for a gasket set including the main one, two spark plug ones and the eight(?) little round washer ones. Get the right three bond and buy a new little half moon piece. I recently did this and it cost about £60 parts wise plus £25 for the three bond. Bit of a fidly job but not too bad really. I also replaced the bolts as I was paranoid about them being old and brittle...

Is there a chance that the piston stuck and got very hot due to the constant friction?

Please tell me the Gobstopper will be at Modified Live at Brands...

Hi all i know the standard bulb in my classic scoob ar H4 but all the hid kits for H4 are hi/lo surly i dont need hi/lo as i will still have the high beem bulbs in or do i need the hi/lo any help would be good cheers

I have no knowledge of HID kits as it's not something I have ever looked at but the standard bulbs are H4. These bulbs have twin filaments allowing one bulb to provide both dipped and main beam. So if you replace the bulb you will need something which can also do both dipped and main. I guess this is why they are hi/low.

Just got my 1996 2000 turbo running around 275hp and im wanting to change the gearbox oil & Diff oil what grades do in need and how much will i need it the gearbox and rear diff cheers

You need about 4.5 litres of SAE 75W-90. That will be enough for the gearbox and rear diff but get 5L just to be sure. Get a new seal washer for the gearbox plug and a funnel with a long pipe/flexible neck to make filling easier.

Just wondering what sort of modifications if not all are not required to be declared to your insurers.

e.g. Im contemplating a strut brace. Could this come under the suspension upgrade/ modification banner.

Thanks in advance

Gordon

The only way to ensure you are covered is to ring them and ask. But bottom line is you must inform them of EVERY modification no matter how petty. There wording on it will be general i.e. modifications declared = none. So if you have a prang and they find anything changed then they can say that you have failed to inform them of the changes and void your policy. Some people would say chance it and if you have prang take it off before the assessor looks (unless you are mangled in hospital of course and your car is recovered).

Those wipes look good. 80p a wipe wonder how many you would go through per wash/week.

they do look spot on. its prob the only auto glym product i Dont have. maybe i should start using some :-\

I wonder if baby wipes would be any good? They are pretty good for most things and I would have thought would be kind enough not to do any harm. May need to wipe a drop of silicon over them after...

Could be the idle control valve.... But that would usually throw up an engine warning light and code!

Yeah ICV was what I was thinking...

Again not sure about bug and its been years since I did it to a classic but I think it was:

Remove side lights

Remove head lights

remove centre grill

remove arch liners

undo bolt each side inside arch/wing

undo centre bolt which is in the radiator hole in the bumper

remove the plastic clips along the front bumper beam

disconnect from any undertray bits

maybe two bolts under the front lip attaching the beam under rad...

slide off

Not sure how similar it will be for bug.

If its anything like the classics you may find that the front bumper beam is made or rust lol.

Last few days, the WRX has, on coming to a halt, the engine has surged to about 1,500 rpm, setteled to normal and surged again. Any suggestions please?

John

So it doesn't hold a steady idle? I.e. it's hunting up and down the rev range?

Any recommendations on a cleaning solution to keep the hoses colourful and shiny. i.e. silicone spray polish or back to black style products

I think they recommend cleaning with warm soapy water. I would have thought silicone oil or spray would be best to wipe over them. Harsh engine degreasers seems to be bad for them.

Just be careful not to clean them with anything harsh because it dries them out. Also don't scrimp on clamps. The cheapo ones with sharp perforations eat into them and ruin them in no time. Get some nice smooth hose clamps and they will protect your investment.