The day has finally arrived!
 

A decade ago I used to bring my son Alec to the meets, and later to BAM and cruises. Many of you have met him over the years. He’s also been with me to the Bay Area and Sacramento Suby vendors and mechanics during the builds of my various project cars. He grew up so fast!

I took him way out to country roads where I have road tuned in the past and I taught him how to drive stick. He took it seriously and was a natural.

Why am I sharing this on I-club???? Because the car I taught him in was a bugeye I recently bought for him for his first car.

It’s a special car because a lot of my old bugeye JDM parts are in it from when I did my part out on [URL="https://www.i-club.com/forums/ongoing-projects-31/johndabrits-bugeye-211874/"]https://www.i-club.com/forums/ongoing-projects-31/johndabrits-bugeye-211874/[/URL] I would have been stoked if my parents got me a car when I was coming up. It needs a bit of body work and a paint job but it’s definitely a father / son project and I’m really excited to welcome him into the suby community.

I’m sure he will set up his own thread for his car and to introduce himself. He’s up in Auburn area.

Welcome to the world of driving, son! I hope you have a ton of fun while also respecting the responsibility of driving and maintaining your vehicle.

Awesome man, congrats!

Sweet!

Nice father and nice car

Long time no talk i-Club. So it's a few years later and I get a phone call from my son. Things didn't quite work out the way I planned for him. He lost the key and the 3rd party keyfob to the car. I was able to source a really old Audiovox prestige keyfob and get it programmed. I took the title to the Subaru dealership in Napa and showed them the title, ordered the STi wedge key, and had it cut with the cut code upon arrival....

But that's not the worst part.

Unfortunately, the car was not taken care of. The V7 Seats are dirty... The paint looks like the car sat in the sun for 2 years without being washed...It is pretty gross on the inside and neglected.

And that's not the worst part either.

The car is not running well. According to my son, it started acting weird with power loss, especially in the lower revs, and feeling gutless with some bogging. He lost the key when he stopped driving it and didn't want to tell me. It has a P0171. (bank 1 lean) The shop I would normally go to in the bay area is no longer servicing cars.
I'm looking for a few things if anyone can help me out.

1. A Tacrix cable so I may log/view how the car is running in real-time with openECU.
2. A Bugeye downpipe as it is smog time. If I can get the car running better I'll do the DP swap and keep it on the road, otherwise, it's non-op time.
3. A reputable bay area shop that is familiar with bugeyes. I didn't think I'd have such a hard time finding a shop, but I get that many shops don't want to touch anything that is "tuned".

I've done the usual searches and combined that with my experience over the years of owning 4 different turbo Suby's including 3 bugeyes. (1 built). Before I start replacing parts I want to see what the car is doing.
Most likely parts that need to be replaced:
- fuel filter
- upstream o2 sensor
- fuel pump
- MAF

Halp!