Hood heat shield replacement

After driving with no oil cap I ended up with oil all over the heat shield which destroyed it. 100 bucks and a week later (Thanks Subaru) I had a new shield.

Bottom is the new one, top is the bad one.

Front license plate mounting bracket

I decided to try out a front license plate mounting bracket that allows you to angle the plate. I picked it up at a AutoZone just down the street from my house. It comes in chrome but I am thinking about painting it black or possibly a red. Overall I am not sure if I like it. Having the front plate on makes me feel a little better since every time a cop passes me I get a little nervous for having a 20% tint (legal is 35% and higher) and having no front plate. So less reasons I give them to pull me over the better.




Here it is still in the packaging:

Installed on the car:

Front Agency Power end-links and sway bar install

In a previous post I installed rear end-links and a rear sway bar so in this post we will do the front. I found the front end to be easier to install, however it requires you to pull more parts off the car to get at the sway bar mounts. Once I figured this out the install was a piece of cake though.

First get the annoying plastic protector removed.


2nd, remove the jacking plate. There are four bolts in the center and two on each side. Note that the sizes of these differ. The front most bolts have nuts on top which you need to grab onto.



Next, remove the big 'u' or 'c' shaped piece. There is a total of 11 bolts (two different sizes), 2 plastic covers with two plastic clips each. Sorry, I don't have pictures of me taking it off. First remove 3 exposed bolts from each side then move back and remove the plastic cover by removing the two clips. Once the plastic cover is removed this will expose another bolt, remove it. Keep going back and you will see another bolt that is deeper into the frame. Loosen this bolt but don't remove it. Now remove the bolt from the front center of the piece. To get it out pull it forward. The ends of each side slide into an area on the frame (remember those bolts that were loosened but not removed?)



Here is everything removed. This is a little further in the process since I've got the sway bar and end-links off but it shows everything including the new sway bar and links.

This is what the driver side looks like with the 'U' shaped piece and jack mount removed.

Passenger side:

Next, locate the mounting brackets and bushings for the sway bar. Loosen the bolts on both sides, but don't remove them.

Locate the end-links on each side and remove the nuts to get the end-links off the sway bar and control arm. When doing this you might end up with the nut and bolt spinning together (this happened on the passenger side but not the driver side for me). I got a pair of pliers and used that to hold the bolts from rotating.

Once the end-links have been removed go ahead and remove the bolts for the mounting brackets. The sway bar should be free and you can pull it out. Seen below is the stock sway bar, end-links, new sway bar, new end-links, mounting brackets, and finally, bushings.

I've put the 'lub' grease stuff on the rubber bushing and stuck both bushing on the sway bar. I then placed the mounting brackets over the bushings, and bolted the brackets back to the frame, I have not torqued the bolts yet, this way I can move the sway bar around easily. Next I attached each of the end-links. I had to rotate the sway bar up to get the end-links to line up. Sorry, I don't have pictures of each of these steps, but it's really easy.




Attach the 'U' piece back to the frame. As you can see trying to get to the mounting brackets is almost impossible without removing this piece. I am sure you could get at the mounting brackets with the right tools though.





That's it... The last thing to note is to make sure the sway bar it centered. My end-links have a good amount of travel so it's possible to not have it centered.

(Intake) Silencer Delete

After looking at a graphical representation of my entire intake/exhaust system I discovered this silencer that sits between the intake and turbo. After searching into what this is for it became clear that it had to go. Since I am no longer running the stock intake I really had no need for this silencer. Removing the silencer allows the turbo to spool up slightly faster as well as making the turbo itself more audible (all though in my case my SPT intake kills any noise the turbo might generate). The removal is a very easy process and took me less then 30 minutes.

First remove the front passenger side wheel.

Next, locate all the clips that hold the fender lining in place.I was able to remove six clips to get the lining to pull back enough to get at the silencer.


Here is the liner pulled back. The white plastic thing is the bottom part of the silencer.

Remove the top nut from the engine bay. I am pointing to it in the below picture.

Next, get under the car directly under the silencer and look up, you will see another bolt, Remove the nut. Now the silencer is free. You will need to move it around to get it out.

...And finally the silencer after it's been removed.

Rear Agency Power end-links and sway bar install

This install was a win-win for me. Not only is the rear end rock solid with the new Agency Power end-links and a 22MM Sway bar to connect everything up, this also fixed my suspension geometry problem. The problem was that the passenger side of the car was sitting about 1"-1.5" higher then the driver side. This was entirely due to a bent (and I mean bent) passenger side rear end-link. It was bent so far that both rear end-links and eventually the OEM sway bar itself were digging into the control arms. This install proved to be difficult at first however I was determined to get the install done and I managed to figure out how to work around all the problems I came across. I tried doing the install on jacks with the wheels on, this failed. I tried the install with the car on ramps, this failed. Finally, I put the car on jacks and removed the wheels, this worked! I have no idea about all these how-to's out there talking about the car must be on the ground or the sway bar must be under tension. This is a bunch of BS!

The install began with first removing the OEM sway bar, bushings, and all mounting hardware. On my '07 STi this is very easy to do on the driver side however the passenger side is a different story.

Here is the driver side OEM end-links, sway bar, bushings, and mounting brackets. The picture on the left is the end-link with the sway bar attached to the end of it (the other end of the end-link is attached to the control arm). Notice how the control arm is damaged, this was caused by the end-link and sway bar digging into the control arm while cornering.

Here is the OEM hardware from the passenger side. Notice how bent the end-link is. The bottom picture is the bushing with mounting bracket. Notice all the cables that surround the mounting bracket, this made it a major pain to pull that puppy out. You can clearly see where the sway bar itself has dug into the control arm.

Pictured here on the top is me holding the sway bar on the passenger side. I've got it removed from the end-link and as of now the sway bar is connected to nothing, it's hanging freely. The bottom picture is the driver side. The sway bar is free from the end-link and the bushing is hanging free.

Here is the the entire OEM sway bar 'kit' removed from the car. The sway bar, bushings, end-links, mounting brackets, and all bolts, nuts and washers are shown.

Of course I had to show the new kit with the OEM kit. Notice how the Agency Power items are by far 'beffier' then the OEM counter parts. The OEM sway bar is 19MM while the Agency Power is 22MM.

Here are the OEM and Agency Power end-links. Notice how bent one of the OEM end-links is! The other one is slightly bent. I still am not sure as to the exact cause of why these bent but I have a strong feeling it was due to my Cobb springs. The new Agency Power end-links are ball bearing and way stronger then the OEM ones.

Here I've got the mounting brackets and the sway bar hanging in place. The top picture is the driver side. The bottom picture is the passenger side. Getting the passenger side mounting bracket on was a major pain in the ass. The bolt is shared amongst two other items on top of piping and wiring running right on top of the bolt head.

Sway bar has now been introduced to the bushings which are used to attach the bar to the mounting brackets. Top is driver side, bottom is passenger side.

... And finally we attach the sway bar to the control arms via the end-links.

Some random pictures with the completed install...

Now that the rear is done I still have to tackle the front sway bar and end-links. I did the rear on a Saturday with intention of installing the front on Sunday but I had a nasty hang over, plus it was the Superbowl! The front will have to wait for another weekend.