Off Road Upgrades To My Subaru Impreza 2.5RS

2009 wasn’t exactly a great year for upgrades on the rally car. Unfortunately, unemployment has a way of doing that. However, 2010 is shaping up a lot better. The car has been gutted, the sound deadening removed, all the seams have been prepped for seam welding, and Kyle from Jackson Rally has begun the cage construction.

I had to remove the sound deadening material from my car, which can be quite a daunting task if you don’t know the right technique. Fortunately for me, I had the help and advice of several other people who had previously performed the same task. When it comes to removing the sound deadening material, dry ice is absolutely the best way to go. You place pieces of dry ice on the floor of the vehicle and let it sit. You’ll hear crackling and popping as the sound deadening material contracts (due to the extreme cold). Once it has sat for around 5-10 minutes, you can simply remove the dry ice, take a hammer, and hit the floorboards. This will crack the now brittle sound deadening material, which will allow you to remove it in large chunks and leave very little tar residue behind. For vertical or heavily corrugated areas, I found that an oscillating multi-purpose tool with a scraper attachment can be very helpful.

Once all of my sound deadening material was removed, it was time to get rid of all the seam sealer used by the factory. The seam sealer is flammable and can cause blowouts when you are trying to seam weld. This basically requires a good drill or angle grinder equipped with a wire wheel. You want to make sure that all the material gets removed and that the two halves of the seams are ground to bare metal. Once all of this work is complete, then you are ready to start your seam welding.