Subafreak

Man that is weird. I can only suspect that being an intended road going 4wd having either the front or rear wheels moving at a slightly different speed may improve the handling of the vehicle.

They do!? Wtf? Never knew that. What was there reason for that?

I would assume you probably would have noticed this since you've done all the brakes, but make sure non of the wheel bearings are loose. If a wheel bearing is loose the first time you hit the brakes the caliper piston has to move farther to pull everything tight again and then when you hit them again everything is in place so the pedal is normal. I've seen it before. There bearings don't always make noise when they are bad, and Subarus are pretty easy to bleed the brakes on without much trouble.

Cough*rice*cough! Sorry. Had to do it. I've had these little blue LEDs for like 7 years that I still haven't put in anything yet. Lol.

Looks like I'll have some more researching to do. The only ones I've played with was swapping a 300z LSD into the the 240sx, and I barely remember what I slapped together to make it work. Lol.

Cool! That diff slider looks so much better than the crappy one Subaru sells.

That is a pretty sweet skid plate. I like the louvers too! Is the hole for oil drain access or oil filter, or both? Is that an aluminum diff skid plate too!?

Yeah a long nose r-200 would be preferable since it would be close to the r-180 for mounting, and those seem to be the only ones that came with the 3:90s. Although from all I've been reading the closest they come is the 3:91 for any of them. I'm not to concerned about what carrier I get since I'm just gonna put a locker in it anyway, and the slight difference in ratio I'm hopeing won't be to much of a problem in a part time 4wd......hopeing! On the tranny I'm useing I just welded the spiders on the center diff so that it is essentially locked in 4wd all the time. It's not as fancy as the couplers they sell but it seems to be just as solid and functional.

Thanks. I can't wait either! I've also pretty much decided im gonna do an r-200 swap in the rear, because I know I'm gonna break another STi axle and probably spit out some more clutch packs. The price difference between stronger axles and a better limited slip for the r-180 is not gonna be any cheaper than custom axles and a locker for an r-200. So I think that's the best route to go.

Weellz I didn't have time to do the rocker panel today. But I did seal up the wells. And I ordered my transfer case skid plate mount thingy tonight so I can get that all set up.

Well that was a long day. But! I got the other rear wheel well prepped, fabbed, welded, and treated! So it was a productive day. This side had a bit more intrusive rot so I had to repair it up above my wheel arch line. So it looks like I'll have to do some bondo-ing anyway. I'm gonna order this body filler from POR-15, it's supposed to work right over the POR-15 treatment so the metal underneath can stay protected and not just blow out the body filler in a year like you ussualy see with bondo jobs. Hopefully Tomorow I can get the rocker panel repair done on this side and get everything seam sealed in.

Well even the trucks break stuff too. You find a weak link and you make it stronger, then you find the next weak link, it's part of the game. Eventually you get to a point where you can do more wheeling than fixing but eventually something else will break. Even normally driven street cars break stuff over time.

That is some awesome wheeling. It would be so cool to go out there and try out that kinda area. Very nice job. I think breaking something almost everytime you go out is part of wheeling.............Subarus anyway.

Lol. I'll take one of those stickers! I'll see what I can do for video. My daughter had a sweet camera for video but it stopped working the other day. :/

Thank you very much. This is definitely the most work I've put into any of my projects. There are a lot of very impressive builds on here with a lot of very creative ingenuity. It amazes me the results people come out with here that don't have nearly the access to the tools and working environment that I have. I don't know how you guys do it! Im definitely doing this job the hardest way possible. It maybe impressive but it wont be the best wheeler, I could have gone with strait axles for that. But it should be the most capable stock based suspended lifted Subaru out there, that's just the way I wanted to do my build. I wanted to keep it as Subaru as possible, even when upgrading or modifying to better parts from other Subarus. I'm in a very unique position of haveing access to a fully supplied shop with all the tools I need and tons of random supplies to work with. Everything from bolts to wires and tubing are right there at all times. Thats why I have the ability to build it on the fly. I can't imagine how pain stakingly tedious it would be to constantly have to take measurements for supplies and count out how many of what hardware you need and them go hunting for it rite in the middle of a fabricating groove. I owe it to all these crazy subi off-road builders out laying on there backs, busting there nuckles with hand tools, running around all over town to make there dream a reality, to do a damn good job on my own car. Besides there are a lot of us out there always trying to bring new and better ideas to the whole community so we can all enjoy being those weird people people that couldn't just go out and buy a jeep like everyone else. That's why I never understood that ironically popular jeep windshield banner. Shouldnt we have one that reads "It's a Subaru thing, you wouldn't understand" ?

Yeah, short of building another tunnel in the floor for the exaust that's as high as I can possibly get it. But it still sits about an inch or two higher than the t-case so it's really not an issue, it's just very visible. Lol.

Yes. It's cooler to see things you never see off-roading. It would be cool to see how hard it would be to get a little more lift and tire under some of these. Just so they could actually tackle some of those power line trails.

Lift kit time! There seems to be so many hardly known old compact 4wds out there. Makes for quite a strange crew. Lol.

Thanks! Well I got the center pipe made up today. I'm waiting on 2 more flanges to come in so I can do the muffler pipe. I got it tucked up as high as the t-case, so if I add a belly pan to this thing at some point it will protect the exaust also with no loss of ground clearance.

Close enough to finished to toss an exaust on this thing, that and I work on it pretty late at night most times and if I need to move it out side it's very loud. Got the down pipe made tonight. It was a tight fit but not as tight as the photo makes it look. There is a braket that bolts to the bottom of the tranny there to make sure it doesn't move around and hit anything, and I added a 4 bolt flange just past the O2 sensor so I don't have to mess with the turbo flange and it's constantly seizing bolts should I have to remove the down pipe to service anything. I wanted to use 2 1/2" pipe but it just wasn't practical or economical for me to do so just went with 2 1/4". The stock turbo flange is only 2 1/4" anyway. I will be useing some of the old peices from the exaust that was on this car before. Like the cat, magnaflow resonator and muffler, since there is nothing wrong with them other than a little discoloration and I got to spend money on other things I don't have for this car yet. I also got my power steering lines hooked up tonight. Had to take them out and straiten them as much as possible so I could add my own bends where I needed them.

Sweet! I glad that worked. I probably have like 40 of them kicking around somewhere, if it becomes unusually hard for you to find more let me know and I will see if I can dig em up.

Amazing pictures! Welcome to the board you crazy mofo!

I have no idea of what the shank size and everything is but I know the thread size is rite on an SVX lug nut. They used a shank style.

Hmmm. Seems like the wiring would be the easiest part. I guess the only other option is to find a gti-r for a full swap. I'm sure it would still require some fabricating but your car is mostly set up to accept it. There is one in my area that seems to have changed hands 5 times since I've known about it. Lol.

Oh my Brat is stock. I had the rear torsion bars cranked about halfway up but the front spring perches were all the way down. It helped that my exhaust it tucked up pretty high. Yeah the slick roads would have more fun if I didn't have the auto and it didn't handle like a bucket of chum on the open sea! I would have thought the SR20 shared the same bellhousing and motor mounts as the 1.6L. Or do you mean the wireing?