pontoontodd

The viscosity of shock oil is certainly important. Also keep in mind that the "weight" system is almost meaningless. One brand's 10W might be thicker than another brand's 15W, etc. There are some charts online showing many different brands of shock oil and their viscosity at high and low temperatures. I've thought about changing out the oil in standard struts with something thicker for more damping but we've blown out the seals as it is, that would just happen more often with a thicker oil.

Were the springs inline with the sliding part of the strut or angled out at the bottom towards the tire? That makes a difference in theory and in practice. We have tried a few different kinds of bushings to find something we're happy with, the first few kinds tended to shrink when soaked in grease for a while. ID ground the last few sets of housings we made, that definitely helped, or at least vastly reduced the amount of hand sanding needed to make the bushings fit right. Also put grease fittings in between the bushings and we'll usually grease them all after a long weekend of riding, probably not necessary, annually would probably be enough. I have read one of the big problems with the STI inverted struts is that the grease dries out or washes out after a while, people add grease fittings to those.

Glad you like the videos. Hope to get some bigger jumps on video this spring. I don't completely understand your question about the struts. I'm not going to give out detailed plans on how to make them since I'm sort of trying to sell them. The fronts have 9" of stroke which gives 10" of wheel travel, the rears have 11" of stroke which gives 12" of wheel travel. Sorry if this comes across as rude, but if you have the ability to make them you probably don't need plans and could just go by all the pictures I've posted. There aren't many complicated machined parts but there are quite a few custom machined parts you'd at least need a lathe to make and I had ten springs custom wound for the front struts. If you look through page 25 of the thread that should give you a good idea of all the parts that go into the current design. On page 4 I posted a CAD drawing of the original inverted strut design, same basic design we're still using.

Sounds like you have the wrong O2 sensor. Which one is the plug that is in your car? I'd look up one for a year before or after your car's model year and see if it fits, return the ones that don't fit.

The recent cold temperatures (-30F/-20C) here have been a good test of my Subaru fleet's batteries. The Harbor Freight lithium jump starter has been worth its weight in gold, I think it's Vulcan brand. I have an older one from a different brand that doesn't always work anymore. The battery in my Impreza I got from a junkyard cranks slow as always, had to use the jump starter on it once or twice. The Odyssey (PC1230-75/86 760CCA) in my 1999 Outback would only hold a charge for a day, if I drove it every day it was usually fine but if it sat for a few days it wouldn't start. Unfortunately it's just past the four year warranty. That battery has been through a lot of vibration and heat and has been discharged many times. I decided to try a Duracell Ultra Platinum AGM with dual terminals (sli75dtagm 640CCA) from Batteries Plus since it's cheaper and so far it's been great, can sit for days and start right up. I think the terminals might be too far away for stock battery cables but I like the dual terminals, we've had the top post clamps come off/loose during desert races, having the cables also bolted to the side posts adds redundancy. I got an Oreilly super start platinum AGM (640CCA) for my 2002 Outback about two years ago and it works great. The last time I bought one I had to specifically ask them to look it up, apparently it doesn't come up as best fit for that car but it fits fine. Before I bought my 2001 Outback they put in a new Les Schwab battery (500CCA) about a year ago. In the past month or so it's started slow a few times and had to be jump started once or twice. It has a 60 month warranty but there's not a Les Schwab anywhere near here so I got another Oreilly AGM and it's been good.

yes for a second, we'll have to get some better jump videos this year Yes, the figure 8s are super fun, that's half the reason I go to the Badlands. A couple years ago we went there and we know how to get to one figure eight from one of the main trails but if you're just wandering it's hard to find and no one we asked even knew it existed. One of the guys who came with us kept asking why were were looking for it, we were having a good time riding the other trails. Then we found it and he went around it a few times and said he understood why we had to find it. In that last video it shows a larger one we just found last year, it's less intense than the small one but you can easily drive three cars in it at a time which is entertaining. Of course a stock Subaru can do it too, this video shows my Outback with long travel going a little faster and smoother than my friend's stock Forester: The other highlight of that park is driving the stream. You can't tell what you're running over so it's funny following a stock Subaru in one with long travel, watching them get bounced around while you're just lightly jostled. Also it seems really short these days since we can go so much faster with the long travel suspension.

If I understand you correctly I'm guessing it's your rack bushings. The bushings in my 99 Outback rack were bad when I bought it and I just swapped out the whole rack for one from a junkyard. The hardest part of that is getting to the power steering fittings near the passenger side of the engine. Looks like your boots were good though and it was pretty clean inside so that's surprising. It's hard to say for sure, post another little video of what you're seeing. We've had to replace a bunch of those u-joint steering shafts, as rusty as your car is I wouldn't be surprised if that's sloppy and noisy.

Video from our trip to Badlands off road park last fall, some of our best stunts from last year are in this video:

Do you mean where the inner tie rod threads into the rack? If that was loose it would certainly cause slop. Just pull the boot back, wipe the grease and oil off, and check it.

Pull the boot back and take a look. On the Outback should just be a spring that you can slide off and slide the boot out. Probably inner tie rod end or rack bushing.

If you go to subarupartwholesale.com you don't need a VIN. If you need a VIN, the easiest way is just to look up that car on ebay motors and find one for sale, I think they all list the VIN.

We've had good luck with these: https://autoshafts.com/i-23374251-cv-axle-shaft.html Bigger joints and shafts than most Subaru axles, haven't found anything like that for the rear yet. Oreilly's rear seem decent. Next best thing for the front axles are from the old front wheel drive Legacy, I think about '94, also larger joints and shafts than normal Subaru front axles.

We didn't measure, but it definitely looked like it caused a lot of toe change. I think it is set up for roll understeer, probably because they figure it's a midsize family station wagon.

Yes, I understand it will work for you, just pointing out how I can't use that much bump travel without some major changes. Also keep in mind full bump for us is usually landing off a jump or hitting a big rock so the tire sidewall is already mostly compressed.

That's excellent! How well secured are your trailing arm pivots? Just wondering if those will cause a bind or limit you in some way. Also you should tack weld those pivots back on the subframe to make sure your axles are going to allow that much travel. What is limiting your droop travel? I'm not going to do that right now but I'm definitely going to think about doing something like it. One minor issue is the exhaust goes right through where you're putting those pivots. My first thought was to narrow the diff mount and straighten the exhaust. It looks like you're mainly getting more bump travel than I'm planning on. My tires already rub the wheelwells at the full compression I'm planning on so it would take a lot of work to get another 3-4" inches of compression like you show. Also it should be good for crawling but landing off a jump our tires will compress enough that the rear diff would be underground. Not the best bumpstop.

Those videos are a good demonstration of the VDC system. Your two alternatives if you don't have traction control or lockers are momentum and articulation.

Yes, I would make all (two or three) of those lateral links the same length and roughly parallel if you're just going for maximum travel. Ideally you'd want some camber change so you'd want the upper link shorter than the lowers and at a different angle but that might limit your travel. Bump / roll steer is another story, the stock suspension has a surprising amount and you could get rid of it with long parallel links. Probably best for long travel soft suspension, but in some cases the roll steer would be good. That front lateral link does twist an impressive amount. I was figuring if you replaced all the bushings with ball joints including (especially) the trailing arm bushing, you could use just two lateral links. That trailing arm bushing is pretty soft.

If you are planning on modifying the subframe at all, I would just make all the lateral links the same length as the longest (rear) links. That will reduce the plunge of the CVs a lot. If you are planning on using ball joints or rod ends instead of bushings, I'd get rid of the forward/lower lateral links completely, they'll just cause the suspension to bind. So in that case you'd just have to make the top links with ball joints or rod ends and about as long as the rear links. We just mocked up some links, I took a few pictures but it's nothing you'd want to drive on. I just got a set of bushings yesterday so I'll be making the real links in the next few weeks. I'd like to get those done and the shocks lengthened in the next month or so. Should be a good upgrade for you, it'll also give you bolt on rear wheel bearings. Will you have a different bolt pattern front and rear?

Yes, same struts on both cars, slightly softer springs on the rear of the Forester. Need to do some suspension tuning, make the shocks softer on the Forester since it's lighter.

Worth it? You're definitely not going to earn money with it somehow, so no. It does make the cars a lot more entertaining to drive though and you can cover more ground in a day and see more things so in that sense we think it's worth it. Would I do it just for crawling? If you really want a lot of articulation for crawling with a Subaru, it seems like the way to go is to use Toyota transfer case(s) and axles (there are a few build threads on this forum like that), so why not just buy a Toyota?

If you removed your shocks and bump stops you'd have more wheel travel and articulation. Your ride quality and ground clearance would be terrible though. I'm not aware of any shocks that would bolt in that would give you more travel but there must be something. You could start here: https://www.kyb.com/knowledge-center/shock-tech-for-pros/dimensions/ There are definitely better four wheel drives than a Subaru for crawling but I'm not aware of anything that can go as fast, ride well, and hold up on rough terrain. Maybe an old full size car, but those are just rear wheel drive. Unless you're talking about something like Ford Raptor, but those are still $30,000 used.

With longer links and shocks, which I'm working on, it will have 11-12" of travel, about the same as my 99. You could remove the shocks and bumpstops, that would give you more travel for zero money. Removing the swaybar doesn't give you any more travel, it would help the articulation but not much considering how soft that swaybar is. There are probably some cheaper shocks than what I'm using that would give you more travel but you have to make longer links or figure something out with the axles to get much more travel than stock.