Especially if the engine is just complaining that there is no abs brake controller.
Do you have emissions checks where you are? I believe there are some states that still only have them in certain counties. And I learned yesterday that next year when my car will officially be 20 years old it will no longer have to pass an emissions check.
That one actually concerns me a bit, because I’ve gone to some pain to include it. Since it’s not throwing codes, though, I’m wondering if that light is also related to the maf. It’s starting to look like Subaru took the approach “people don’t pay attention to the check engine light…let’s fire ALL the lights so they panic!”
I would need it for most cars, but AZ considers this a special build and I do not. A friend of mine said the inspection is fast and easy, and the state was mostly concerned with verifying that he didn’t steal the engine or transmission and charging him an appropriate tax.
I did include a home brew charcoal canister and I’m trying to keep most of the stuff intact.
‘appropriate tax’ is a scary term. I also learned yesterday the state has decided that next year a car 30 years old or older will no longer be subject to inspection but will be declared a ‘classic’ and they’ll likely be assessing a property tax somewhere around $120-150.
Personally , I think if that’s the case it should be challenged and the state should be required to purchase your vehicle for whatever value the tax charged says it should have if it’s just an old beater you’re driving around.
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Don’t get me started on taxes.
But I agree that when the state starts using arbitrary classifications to decide how far into our pockets they get to reach, there should definitely be a feedback mechanism. I haven’t had much time to think about it, but I kind of like your solution, carmax style. “Even if you don’t buy ours, we’ll buy yours”.
That would incentivise the state to slightly undervalue our property to account for likely administrative costs to liquidating it, simultaneously DISincentivising people from taking advantage of the assessed value. The amount of tax on the assessed value could be calibrated to some revenue-neutral scale, and boom. Everything is assessed value with a self-regulating escape hatch, no arbitrary categories.
Still not as good as not taxing people on things they’ve worked hard to accumulate (usually with taxed payroll dollars) but I digress.
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Hey Tony, I’ve been reading up on this kit - still pretty excited about it, but have started to form a few questions… Hopefully you don’t mind that I’m asking them here (instead of on the F5 forum) but here goes anyway…
- Do you have a good feel for how “solid” the car will feel after you’re done with the body? I saw a video where someone popped off the rear section of the body and the two side panels just kinda sprung away - looked very floppy (like a 70’s funny-car) , and got me wondering just how solid the body feels once completed. For example, do the doors feel like “real” car doors, or do they feel like something you need to be very gentle with?
- If you could go back to when you purchased your kit - would you still go with the 818S or would you likely go 818C?
Thanks - I’m still in the very early stages of considering this, but it does look like a ton of fun to build!
EDIT – BTW, just to share, here’s a pic of my current project (restoring my 83 RX7):
The car door “feel” is largely a question of detents and gaskets. I think with a little work one could get them to feel quite nice. They are quite a bit lighter than OEM doors, though, so I think that will have a huge impact.
The body panels are just fiberglass bolted or riveted on. They stay in place securely, but they aren’t the metal panels bonded and bolted/welded around the entire seam. I haven’t gotten that far yet, but my friend completed and sold his, so I’m familiar. I would say they are solid enough for a car, but I wouldn’t be happy to let anyone lean on them in a significant way. Leaning in reaching for stuff is OK, but leaning because somebody is lazy and tired…not so much. I imagine one could put in some extra effort supporting and/or bonding the panels to the frame as well.
I prefer the C, and that was the plan to begin with. I ended up with the S because of the extra cost for the C and the wife pleading for topless because she’s never had a car without a roof. My plan is to attempt a soft cover, and if I can’t make that work to order a hard top later. It’s supposed to be just a couple hours of work to swap it on.
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It’s alive! 
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Congrats!
I’m still seriously considering taking one of these on…
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What’s stopping you?
Money. Space. Kids. Harleys.
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Man, that’s a lot of reasons…
You asked 
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Yeah, i was gonna try to help with some encouragement, but that’s way over my head 
Congrats! 
Let’s see some pictures!
Kids’ sports really cut in to shop time
And the Harley lift fits in the best place a project car would be put.
I’m at the point in my life where I’ve picked my hobbies for the most part. I may still pivot and try to do one in the future, but for now, my interests lie elsewhere.
For now I’ll continue to live vicariously through you.
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Nothing wrong with that. We have a guy in his 60s that started one after I did and he’s GOING for it. Really sharp work, too.
Last year there was some talk of reworking the frame on this model to accommodate an LS, sooooo, waiting might not be bad anyway.
Doesn’t look much different…but here ya go
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Just a quick update. Not a lot happening for this because heat and cnc projects BUT…
y’all recognize how often I pay something in the firm followed by “but I’m not that smart, so…”?
The MAF sensor trouble i described earlier. The sensor housing was definitely cracked so I replaced it. No help. Somebody suggested I might have installed it backwards, so I checked. It only fits in the intake one way, so that wasn’t it. Wasted poetically 15 hours looking for other potential solutions before digging back into the wire harness, mostly because I had the same problem before I took the wire harness apart.
Well guess what. The air INTAKE will fit in backwards. It doesn’t fit as well the correct way (way too tight at the turbo inlet coupler, pretty loose at the air filter) but sonofagun, that was it. Technically the MAF was backwards after all. Now the only trouble codes I get are for air pumps and tgv valves, so the check engine light doesn’t concern me anymore. That’s acceptable. Still have the abs/cruise lights to trouble shoot, but I’ll see about those when I get to them.
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That is a very complex system. Troubleshooting is pretty insane on a standard build, custom build makes it significantly more complex. You seem to be doing great from my perspective.
I helped a neighbor troubles shoot his car for hours. We ripped all sorts of things apart, checked all the wires…replaced the funky sensor. Turns out it was a bad gauge cluster, despite what the obdII said. To add another story with that, the other neighbor went through 2-3 mechanics. Turns out one of his 2 brand new batteries was bad and his car had thrown errors for more than a year an no one thought to check the brand new battery. Cars can be a pain. (car required 2 batteries, I stayed away)
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