June 3, 2026

Alternator, glove box, bar and a trip to Nowy Sącz

I was driving home, enjoying the Type R and its new/old suspension, when suddenly the battery charging and the brake system warning light lit up in bright crimson. My first thought was: “alternator.” Just to confirm, I turned on the air conditioning and the windshield defroster, then got out to check the headlights. Bingo, they had that dim yellowish, amber glow. Without wasting any time, I switched off every electrical accessory I could and gently limped the car home, as if I were competing in a rally where every drop of petrol counted.

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May 27, 2026

Type R - suspension

The Type R came to me on a set of Tanabe Sustec Pro coilovers, and honestly, after the very first kilometre, I already knew we’d have to part ways. Maybe they’re good for strictly track-focused use, hard to say, but at its somewhat advanced age, the Type R deserves something a bit more dignified.

I was considering only two options:

KYB AGX - the standard off-the-shelf setup for the GC8,
KYB Ultra SR - the thick-shaft struts from an early New Age, 5x100 models.

I just couldn’t make up my mind. On one hand, there was the thicker strut shaft; on the other, adjustability. Then there was the question of springs, apparently WRX springs are the best match, but where was I supposed to find those?

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May 24, 2026

Radiator - post scripturm

There’s a postscript to the radiator replacement. Less than two weeks after that saga, I was just driving the Forester like nothing had ever happened when suddenly huge clouds of smoke started pouring out from under the hood. This is what I found when I pulled over:

The hose for the turbocharger coolant expansion tank had split open along a 3 cm section. Everything was covered with coolant. It’s a shame nobody noticed it during the radiator replacement, especially since the hose was obviously badly swollen. Naturally, the cooling system immediately got air trapped in it, and the engine started overheating quickly. I drove back home. Even though I only had a few kilometers to cover, a lot of coolant was lost - 2.5 liters. As luck would have it, I had a spare hose that I bought together with a new expansion tank for the Type-R:

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April 29, 2026

Mini H1 Bi-xenon

Today I found a bit of time to do a conversion of JDM headlights to bi-xenon. The original headlights aren’t suitable for use on our side of the road, so the conversion seems like a good idea. I ordered a kit from HIDRetrofit, which includes:

Mini H1 bi-xenon projectors,
Mini Gatling Gun lens shrouds,
X35 12V35W digital HID ballast kit,
H1 NextGen 4500K bulbs,
CAN-bus decoder (probably unnecessary).

The new wiring harness is made quite neatly, (almost) all connectors are waterproof Superseal types. However, the layout itself is poorly thought out and doesn’t make for a tidy routing in the engine bay. Number 1 in the photo below is the power supply from the car harness, 2 is the bulb connector, and 3 is the high-beam solenoid connector. No matter how hard you try to arrange and fit it, 2 and 3 end up almost at opposite ends of the loom. The solenoid connector is of particularly poor quality, to the point that the pins in the left projector completely fell apart and I had to solder those wires permanently.

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April 15, 2026

A Crime Drama in Three Acts

Act I - Introduction
A detective and his partner: an aging veteran and his alter ego, twenty years younger. They make a perfect duo. One night, he watches her onstage in a local pub, playing with a band, radiant with life and joy. It’s the moment we understand she won’t survive the next scene.
Act II - Confrontation
A murder with no witnesses, no clear motive, only a symbol left at the crime scene, connected to a series of unsolved cases. The detective falls into an obsessive state, trying to solve the mystery of his partner’s death.

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April 10, 2026

83082FA110OE, 83082FA090OE - NLA

This is a story similar to 90871FE040 – NLA. Unfortunately, the GC8 has reached the point where certain parts have simply become impossible to obtain. That’s exactly the case with 83082FA110OE and 83082FA090OE - the window switch housings for LHD facelift coupes.

Admittedly, having the switches the wrong way around is a small thing, but it’s one of those details that separates an OK car from one that’s truly worth remembering (or so I’d like to think).

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March 10, 2026

KK 5550V

For years I’ve had a keen eye for licence plates. Back in the UK I’d find myself, almost subconsciously, checking them all the time. You get so many good ones. Pure vanity aside, plates like “B16 BOB”, “BO55 MRK”, there are matching his-and-hers sets, initials, business references. Some can get super creative as well. I remember when we had windows fitted and two vans showed up with something along the lines of “S4 SSH” on one and “CA5E WIN” on the other.

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December 31, 2025