Back in February of last year I sold my 2005 Impreza STi due to it being insanely expensive to own and most importantly insure. Here in the wonderful state of Michigan we have no fault insurance which leads to our insurance premiums being insanely high. Paying over $190 for insurance a month was crazy for a 22 year old and having the added debt was not a wise choice. So I let my first baby go , It was a sad day but overall it was the best financial choice for myself.
So before I sold my STi I was already looking for a replacement , I ended up buying a swapped 1997 GC Subaru Impreza with a Version 2 Sti swap in it. That car quickly turned into a wiring and tuning nightmare. So I quickly sold that car and resumed my search.
One day I was browsing craigslist and I came across a 2003 Impreza Wrx Wagon with 107,000 miles in Columbus Ohio and it had a great maintenance history. So I decided I was going to drag my poor brother down to Columbus Ohio to go look at this car. We got there and the car has a pile of receipts from the owner detailing that the car was exclusively maintained by Turn In Concepts in Cincinnati Ohio. Hearing that name be tied to a car and adding the fact that the original owner sold this car to buy a Nissan GTR to daily drive made me really want this car even more. So with the help of my brother we talked the owner down to $8,000 and he handed us the title to the vehicle. I was extremely happy to have such a clean and unmolested car. All it had done to it was minor suspension work and a Cobb Catted downpipe. It had no mechanical problems and was very fun to drive.
The car came with the following
Cobb Accessport V2
Koni Adjustable Struts
Turn In Concepts Old Bush New Bush Service
22mm Front Whiteline Sway Bar
24mm Rear Whiteline Sway Bar
Stock wheels with Bridgestone Winterforce Tires
Cobb Catted Downpipe
Panasonic Aftermarket Radio
That Was it and It was awesome because I did not have to fix what someone had done. I quickly had the ECU re mapped with a map from a friends Wrx that was tuned by one of the best tuners in the country. With this new tune the car woke up but was still being hindered by the stock catback exhaust. So I decided to change that and I snagged a brand new Greddy TI-C catback for $300 !
I also could not have it riding on the stock wheels so I found some 2004 STi BBS wheels locally and had them Powdercoated Gold and Wrapped with 225/45/R17 Continental DW Tires
So now the car looked good and Sounded good to me , The next step was saving for an EJ207 Conversion which is quite expensive.
But then I found an STi Genome Boost gauge and Controller for cheap locally so naturally I had to buy that. I also ended up snagging a Version 7 UKDM Prodrive cluster for cheap as well !
I also got a Prodrive Bugeye front Grille because I liked it a lot and I got it for a steal
I spent most of my winter planning things and reading up about my new job working Systems Support for billion dollar company while trying to survive the worst winter Michigan has had in a century. Every day I spent some time reading about EJ207 conversions and what I need to make it happen. Right now I am a few weeks away from ordering an entire transmission and brake package. I think they will go quite nicely with my Version 7 STi wheels that I picked up a few weeks ago !
Right now I put around 80-90 Miles on the car per weekday and I have not had any problems at all !
This all should make for a fun summer and a fantastic daily driver !
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– Joey
JN Garage 
Hi, nice job ! I am an englishman living in Belgium doing exactly the same thing. Tell me, did you have any problem fitting 225/45’s ? i.e. any rubbing, any modification necessary ? Cheers !
Not at all really , But it was standard ride height and not an aggressive wheel offset. I was on 2004 Sti 5×100 BBS which are like 17×7.5 +53