Leaderboard

I decided to act quickly as to not have the car down too long. After tireless and borderline obsessive searching, I committed to getting a Subaru R180 for availability reasons. The cheapest solution for stub axles turned out to be Kameari which I found for significantly cheaper on Yahoo Auctions Japan rather than buying inside the US: https://www.jauce.com/auction/m1117548805. They were $417 shipped to my door vs anything US-based being $500+. The fresh hardware is a nice value add. As for the diff, I wanted to retain the 3.9 ratio paired with the late ZX close-ratio box vs the 3.54 which I initially built the car with. I did like the deep overdrive with the 3.54 for highway cruising but the 3.9 gearing is perfect for mountain driving. In the US, the 3.9 LSD was only used in '04-'05 STI's and therefore is quite a bit tougher to find now versus 10 years ago. When they do pop up, they seem to go for way too much, for my wallet anyway. So I started searching other avenues to get one of these... There are more available on eBay UK but they tended to be missing the rear cover for some reason and condition was not so clear. Then I turned to the JDM which ended up being more complicated to understand as far as which models to target. Long story short, I learned that at least the '01-'05 STI with DCCD transmission got a CLSD 3.9 R180--good enough for me. I ended up contacting Tyler at Magnolia Auto Supply (shout out: https://magnolia-as.jp/) who helped me source a diff from Japan! Japanese dismantlers seem to be very thorough in how the parts are presented, this one came out of an '03 STI with DCCD and has 89k miles on it. This path is likely a bit more expensive than the UK route but I felt good knowing more about the part. The hope is that this diff lasts the lifetime of the car given that I don't put that many miles on it. The diff is currently on its way and I'm very much looking forward to getting the car back on the road. I've got a fresh diff cover gasket and seals to install once it comes in. I just need to source a Nissan R180 pinion flange and decide on studs vs bolts for the rear cover. Note the PN: 27011AA860 Per Subaru:

In other words, I think this diff may have just become a parts diff...