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Evo 5Rs Resto-Mod

86K views 782 replies 62 participants last post by  Ian6xtreme 
#1 · (Edited)
Well its been 7 years of owning an Evo, loved every minute of owning it and loved every minute of the 50 mile drive back from the importers :crackup:

Quick introduction, I've been in to Evo's since 98 when I laid my eyes on a Red 5, I had previously had a 3 door blue Impreza Sti from Japan, I imported it brand new at the time on an S reg, proper proper car. I still love them now, but I always had the hankering for the 5, lack of info and a baby on the way I never got to have one. That want never went away, I knew one day I would get one, lucky for me I sorted some money and started to look. I did as much research as possible, even back then they obviously had their rust issues etc, so I wanted a fresh import. I found myself looking at SVA's site all the time, they had a lot of nice examples in, I was aware of their lets say "colourful" reviews. However one particular car took my interest. I was never that fussed about mileage or even buying an RS, but it had to be a 5. Anyway, a 10,000 mile 5rs came up. Too good to be true, its been clocked, no way, were some of the comments. However, I went to take a look. In all honesty the mileage was a bonus, my feeling was it would be fresh underneath and easy to take to pieces :mhihi:

I had a BIMTA mileage check done for piece of mind, it came back pukka. It was probably 3 grand more than the average Evo back then, nowadays its nothing! But it was a fair chunk more than an equivalent 5rs there which had 80k, but I liked it, nice original base car.

So the deal was done, picked up the car and drove back to my house. Front end in to the garage and turned off the engine. Little did I know that would be the last time I would drive it :blush::lol::lol:

My original plan was just to own it, thats it. Sit it in the garage and drive it now and again, the problems started when I decided to have a look properly underneath. Now SVA were great, I had it on the ramps and all was great. They had used black waxy (not ****ty underseal) all over the bottom of it on import. Well before I had a look at it. So I decided to wet a rag with some petrol, you know, just to see what's underneath. Curiosity killed the cat, and all that :wallbang:

The problem was, the more I uncovered the more I just wanted to get it all off. So below is going to be a thread on what I have done, hindsight is a wonderful thing. There is a huge amount of things I should and shouldn't of done thats for sure. However, I think the most obvious was I should of reversed in the garage :blush:


Feel free to comment, take the ****, be a dick head or whatever. Its really not my thing doing a thread, I'm pretty private. However its hopefully good reading plus it may be an inspiration to some to do theirs or even for people to think **** that!! Its a massive amount of work and money what's to follow, and this is no big build. As the title suggests this is a rest mod, I'm not in to polishing or staring at a car, I want this to be better than factory and useable . Each to their own of course, but the last thing I would want is to make a car so clean I wouldn't want to use it, lets be honest 50 miles in 7 years is good to keep it low miles, but a bit of a shame :handsup:

. I'm no master mechanic, and I have done most this work with second hand tools and random purchases. I love doing the work myself, thats how you learn.

I didn't even take pics of the car out in the open before I took it apart so apologies :lol: but we all know what a 5rs looks like.

So first question, I'm uploaded to Flikr. Do I need to resize pics?
 
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#6 · (Edited)
So below are a few pics of the car with suspension out , arms etc . Also the black stuff is now mostly gone, its a real shame it wasn't that quick and easy in reality! There was no real easy was of doing it to be honest.

I started by jacking the car up with a really nice bit of kit from SGS Engineering. Its basically a truck jack, lifts to 650mm or something silly, so alongside that I purchased 4 stands for each corner of the Evo. These gave me approx 500mm under the car :lol: so not much and I'm not exactly small!

Jacking this up while under the car in the freezing cold was not exactly safe or fun. I had to do a bit at a time front to back, not easy or quick!

The pictures of the tyre well make it look rusty, it was in fact the black paint the Japs randomly chuck over anything they don't like when it comes to service time!

[/URL]IMG_0531 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/URL]IMG_0532 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/URL]IMG_0534 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/URL]IMG_0570 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/URL]IMG_0571 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/URL]IMG_0615 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
#7 · (Edited)
Few here of the arches , all the factory rubber coating was mint. No need to remove any of it. Just needed a good old clean up.......

[/URL]IMG_0642 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/URL]IMG_0643 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/URL]IMG_0654 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/URL]IMG_0655 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]

On the last pic you can see that the factory paint has started to come off due to be so bloody thin :(

This later on became a bug bear .... For the eagle eyed there are some holes in the arch... Actually them holes were in both rear arches, half way down the floor pan and at the front.... Yep, it had a cage. Lets be honest, it had probably had some "fun" in Japan, no problem for me. However it wasn't for me so I removed it. That was not an easy task and I managed to pull my back a few times, not to mention hitting my head far too many times in doing so.
 
#12 ·
Thanks mate, looking forward to seeing yours also!



Thanks Ian, it was great to meet you a few years back. Hopefully will do again once all this is over and we can do some shows!

Glad to hear the bits are serving you well! I wanted them to go to a good home!

Nice to know the story of your car so far Steve.

It was great to meet you a few years back. :mitsi:Stuff I bought off you and fitted to my car is still going well. :thumbup:
 
#11 ·
And there was me thinking your car was just a myth, a figment of your imagination :mhihi:
50 miles in 7 years though, fair play for keeping interested in it
 
#23 ·
I have been involved with restoring quite a few parts for this resto project.

Have done loads of early EVO's but none that had parts prior to resto that had been in such good condition as this one. Some parts just needed the mud washed off them and good to go!

I won't post any pics etc as Steve has a way to go to catch up :naughty:

He did a bit of prodding to start the build thread though :crackup:
 
#34 ·
Evening all..

So as you can see so far the underside has come up lovely. Working towards the front removing the black stuff it started to change a bit. Not bad whatsoever but not what I wanted. This is where my first change of mind happened :lol:

My original idea was just clean all the black off to reveal a minty underside due to the mileage, now I was faced with a decision... Some of the factory stone chip had come off ironically from stones, as I said it had a bit of fun in Japan it seems, it only got more so at the front where I found my first spot of rust :lol: yes its true!

Now my brain started ticking over (happens a lot), I could either treat it locally and touch in to match the back (which was probably a bit fiddly) or.. Well I will post some pics first :lol: I was being very picky

[/URL]IMG_0618 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr[/IMG]

IMG_0616 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr

IMG_0617 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr

IMG_0646 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr

IMG_0647 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr

IMG_1525 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr

IMG_1527 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr
 
#35 ·
So not being one to do things the easy way, I decided that if I had come this far I may as well do it right. At the time it felt like it wouldn't be much more work, oh how wrong I was....

I have don't forget just decided to clean off the black waxy on a 10,000 mile car that to be honest didn't need it at all. All while I had only done 50 miles of driving :lol:

Decision made, I decided to strip the floor pan to bare metal and leave the arches as they were so clean......

In order to do this, and many people do not do this stage, the whole underside had to be completely degreased and then washed down to remove any salt deposits etc. If you just go in like many do with a drill attachment straight on to the grease and grim and waxoyl , all that will happen is it will get forced in to the seams. Obviously this is a big no no and will lead to failure of the paint and inevitably rust will form. Everything is in the prep, it took ages to get it how I wanted it before any paint was removed.

I then went back to SGS again and purchased one of their big compressors, and also an MBX Die Grinder. Mega expensive bit of kit, but what a bit of kit! Really impressive. It basically bristle blasts the steel to the same standard as blasting, so as good as you can get. It also gives a rough finish to the steel so perfect for a key.

My brain started to go in to overtime again, if Im doing the floor pan, I may as well do where the tank goes and the rear arms and wheel well.. :lol:

IMG_1669 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr
IMG_1671 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr

IMG_1684 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr

IMG_1686 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr

You can see the cage holes in the below pic

IMG_2542 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr

IMG_2543 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr

IMG_2544 by Steve Kershaw, on Flickr
 
#36 ·
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