Ethelbert

[Spicer66]

With summer fast approaching and the parts pile growing I've decided it's time to start documenting my build, more for my own personal enjoyment so I can look back on it...but why not do it on the forum so others can check it out and follow if they so choose.

So here is my Raven Fr-s, Ethelbert.



Back story on the name, I found it while digitizing an Acadian museum archive in Prince Edward Island. Some islander from the late 1800's was gifted with that gem of a name, which I thought was both awesome and hilarious, and since then I have been naming things Ethelbert.

The theme I'm going to try sticking with is function over form, keeping it reasonable since this is my only car and it's daily driven. I've never been one to buy a product based on it's manufacturer, but I'm going to give a go when picking up parts for this car and see if it really is worth it to pay for a big name manufacturer's name badge on parts.

Keep in mind this is Canada folks, -40 C winters and potholes the size of watermelons limit what and when I can do certain things.




Running Tally of what's in there;

- Blackvue 400HD
- Pioneer Appradio 2
- North American version TRD exhaust
- Escort Passport 9500ix annoying beeping thing
- Rays TE37 18x7.5 +48 in gold
- Nitto Invo 225/40R18
- TRD air intake
- Rev Works header
- ARC front pipe
- Bright red aluminum pulleys
- ECUtek 94 octane tune
- Bride Zeta III Type L
- Takata 4-point harness
- Kartboy short shifter
- Grimmspeed master cylinder brace
- Stoptech brake upgrade (rotors, pads and braided lines)
- RS*R coilovers
- Lower control arms
- Eibach sway bars
- Winjet fog lights
- Helix smoked side markers
- Password JDM strut brace
- Red wrapped OEM tail lights
- Cusco drift button


And, what's waiting in the depths of the garage;

- Nokian Hakkapellita's (Winter Driving Mode enabled)
- Advan TC2 wrapped in Nitto NT05 (Race Wheels)
- Sketchy custom muffler delete, single exit in the center

First night with the car, which doubles as the most nerve racking drive of my life. First brand new car, losing traction in 6th gear in traffic, and only going 60 km/h. Needless to say the summer tires were gone the next day. (Side note, it's December 12th, Merry early Christmas to me, best present ever?)


And here's the eye candy that replaced the stock rubber and rims, on the lift at what is now my place of work.


While it was up there I took a snapshot of what the underside looked like, I'm a curious person.



And that's the end of 2012 folks, the end of the world and no more car parts were added...but that never happened so just kidding. Being winter and all, plus working in an electronics retailer during the boxing day/week rush kind of limited my time and will to do anything to the car for a while. To be honest it still puts a smile on me when I sit down and the seat gives me a hug. A strong love of cars and being strapped into a 2002 Grand Am for a long time really makes you appreciate all the little things and not take them for granted, I really hope that doesn't fade away anytime soon. Plus the upside of winter in Edmonton is anyone can be Ken Block, you just need to know where a road that has no cars or small children is, add a little snow or ice, and good times occur. No need to add the +100 whp brake rotor paint when you have that kind of fun at your disposal, and there aren't really meets or shows in the winter months, so no need to pile in the parts for a while.

...Or so I thought, the dealer called and said my exhaust hitchhiked in from Vancouver and was ready to be installed. Dealer installed TRD exhaust, why did I pay roughly double the price of an aftermarket exhaust that makes the same noise and power gains? Because, A: OEM is classy, and Ethelbert is classy...easy choice. And B: it's only an extra $7 per month added on to my car payments (that's less than $3 per letter of TRD for all you numbers guys and gals).


Between the exhaust and wheels I picked up all kinds of electronics that I don't need, but hey who can say no to buying them at cost through work. They are all very not photogenic so I just won't take a picture, but to summarize I now have the AppRadio deck, radar detector and dashcam all mounted in and around the dash, all of them blink LED's, and 2 of the 3 make ugly noises that I drown out with exhaust noise. All that being said I really enjoy having these installed, and for the price I got them for, I can definitely justify adding the extra few kilo's to the car.

Now, to get to my favourite piece yet, the Rays wheels I picked up from an interesting gentleman 3 hours south of me. The wheels are everything I wanted, and I'm super excited to put them on this summer...but the reason they are my favourite is the circumstances surrounding me acquiring them.

Story Time:

Between quitting my old job and starting my new job I had a Saturday and Sunday to try being unemployed. Leading up to this weekend a friend of mine showed me a post on another Subaru forum where someone had a set of exactly the size and style rims I wanted, bonus for me they are also super light JDM rays wheels. So I contacted the guy and he still had them for sale. He lives a few hours away so I planned an unemployment weekend vacation to Calgary, to detox from electronics retail, and to meet up with my rims. When I asked him where we could meet he told me to go out to a lake just outside town, what he didn't tell me was he was teaching the Porsche club of Calgary how to drive their cars on ice. So I drove out on the lake, and followed the tire tracks over to the dozens of Porsche's ripping around on an ice racing track, parked beside his JDM Sti, and watched them for a bit. He eventually came back to his car, we shook hands, did the whole trading wheels for money thing, and then we talked for a while. Turns out this guy is the co-owner of a car tuning shop that specializes in GTR's and he uses the money from owning that to fuel his part time professions. He is 1 half Jazz singer/songwriter/performer and 1 half rally driver/driving instructor. Talk about living the dream, he teaches douches (and probably also some not douches) how to drive their German imports for fun, and they pay him for it! I ended up spending most of the day hanging out on the ice with my girlfriend waiting in the car patiently. We did a whole bunch of laps in his car, and he taught me all the things I had already learned in Gran Turismo video games, but this time we were in a real car sliding around instead of pixels. So that was awesome...back to the wheels, here is 1 sitting beside my car. I couldn't help teasing myself with how it would look.

[Spicer66]

Suspension! Still need to give it time to settle and then adjust ride heights and all that fun stuff. RS*R Coilovers installed in about 2 hours, not too bad for an amateur I suppose.




Project Kics billet adapters really complete the suspension change, see ya later wheel gap.

[Spicer66]

Safety mod.


Moar noise.


Cooked the OEM brakes at a track day. Brand new race pads, slotted rotors, master cylinder brace, braided brake lines and new fluid were in order.


Muffler delete I welded up, 119 Db...best to save that for the race track I suppose. There's also new sway bars in there somewhere.


Multiple modifications! Strut tower brace, fog lights, smoked side markers and a TURD air intake.


Rims and tires for race days only. Advan tc2 hollow spoke beauties wrapped in Nitto NT05 255/40R17.


Straight jacket.


$20 worth of space saver spare tires from an auto wrecker. Best investment to date. So much smoke from such little tires.

[Spicer66]

Quick update, rims on!

[Lonewolf]

Originally Posted by Spicer66

Quick update, rims on!

Love the wheel choice and color...any plan for those orange sidemarkers?

[Spicer66]

Originally Posted by Lonewolf

Love the wheel choice and color...any plan for those orange sidemarkers?

As far as cosmetics go, going to take a stab at getting rid of some of the wheel gap and getting some kind of lip on the trunk before I get to the ambers. Eventually I would like to have them clear.

[Spicer66]

RS*R coilovers, definitely a much smoother ride than stock with the dampers set to soft, and with a ride height drop to boot. Hard to complain about that.

[Spicer66]

[Filipino Royale]

whats the specs of the te37s?

[Spicer66]

Spare tire torture.

[Spicer66]

No point in modding if you don't have a goal. RACECAR!

[Dipstik-sportech]

Longest build thread ever lol jk. Good read bud, looking forward to seeing it in person next summer.

[Spicer66]

Originally Posted by Dipstik-sportech

Longest build thread ever lol jk. Good read bud, looking forward to seeing it in person next summer.

I had a lot of free time one day haha, anyone with an expensive camera thinks they are a photographer. I got an expensive computer and turned into a professional internet poster? Not quite but free time is a hell of a drug lol.

Here's some shenanigans!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBL...1caFy9PuvHU-GQ