pontoontodd

Did a few other things while the car was up on jackstands and I was waiting for trans parts. Passenger side rack bushing has been coming out for a while, rack doesn't really move but I replaced it. Got a set of Whiteline rack bushings since they were cheaper than the standard bushings from the dealer. I was only able to replace the passenger side but the driver's side still looked good. Whiteline control arm bushing on the driver's side is looking pretty rough, but that's mainly because the crossmember is pushed back a bit and it's smashing the bushing. Trimmed that up. Used a bottle jack to push the crossmember forward and added a couple of tubes from the crossmember to this arm mount, but they interfered with the exhaust so we took them off. Planning on bracing the front crossmember to the trans crossmember. I've noticed this steering rack tab has had a little crack for a long time, and neither of them are fully welded from the factory. So I welded them. I also welded a few other seams that were split or looked like they were starting to split. Trans assembly next.

Looks like you had a good time. You could have easily just driven over that birch sapling that was laying across the road. Are there a lot of roads like that near you? Photos don't show up on your last post, says "please update your account to enable 3rd party hosting", your other ones are fine.

Ever since the Vegas to Reno I've been meaning to weld the seam on the side opposite the one that split open. It's had a small section that's split open for a year or two, figured it would be best to weld it while it's still mostly intact. Easiest way I know of to remove the undercoating is with a propane torch. Heat it up until it burns and shrinks up a bit, then scrape it off. Had to basically tack weld the length of it to burn the rest of the sealer/undercoating out, then was able to put a decent weld down the whole seam. The little beads off to the side near the middle were little cracks in the sheet metal. Then I primed and painted it. Hopefully it's stronger than stock. I can definitely see why this is step one of building a proper rally car. That whole seam had at most a dozen spot welds holding it together. And it's the main thing attaching the front suspension, steering, and engine to the rest of the car.

Video from the last Vegas to Reno race:

It's better than the stock struts at any speed. Yes, they help at low speeds. High speeds is really what they're made and tuned for though and where they work great.

Yes, we have the same springs and valving on both cars. The struts and springs are set up more for the Outback. The Forester is probably 500 pounds lighter so it doesn't ride quite as well, but much better than stock. We can get various rates for the rear but I haven't found much in the size we're using for the front springs. Also, the start of the video is about the lowest speed they're tuned for, it really starts to smooth out over 40-50mph.

Got the video edited from our UP trip back in July.

I made a brass spacer .240" thick the last time I put the trans together after reading about that on here. Yes, it lines the reverse gears up much better than stock. I think the idler gear going past the others actually helps hold it engaged though. I made a .140" thick spacer I'm going to put in this time so the idler is somewhat past the other gears so they hopefully hold it in place. I've been unable to find stiffer detent springs which I think would help too.

Yes, I have the 1.59 low range. The 4.11 that was in the trans had a slight chamfer on the ring gear. I had to swap in a different 4.11 gearset and grind a chamfer on it in the lathe. I posted about it a while back. I haven't found stiffer springs. I'm thinking about putting a little spacer behind them.

I'm not stopping you from adapting struts from a different car to fit your Subaru. I have not found a good chart or list of strut lengths. Again, I think the other problems I would have is that they will probably not have enough compression damping, so they will bottom out easily, and they will probably bend if driven hard, especially if they are longer than stock and bottom easily. I think Bilstein sells generic strut inserts with up to 9" travel for inverted struts, but you would still have to make bodies and fit springs to them. The stock Subaru rear struts have 8" of travel, you might have a hard time finding something off the shelf with much more than that. If you do find something post about it.

The 4.44 gears would help some but that's a lot of work for 8% more reduction. Also, would the ring gear even fit in the front with the low range? I already had to clearance the 4.11 ring gear. Is there a high strength reverse gear available? It seems like the idler is the first one to go, which is odd considering the gear on the input shaft is half the size. I'm tempted to make a few but it would take a while and/or be expensive. Does anyone know of a fix to keeping first and second from popping out of gear? I think it only happens when driving down rough grades while engine braking. Not a huge problem but I'd like to do something about it while it's apart. I can't find any springs for the detent balls that are stiffer than stock from McMaster or Lee. Mine have a small patch of white paint on them, I'm wondering if Subaru or some aftermarket company sells something stiffer.

Yes, we made the same long travel struts for the Forester as we've been using on the Outback. Go you youtube and look up channel pontoontodd. I am uploading one right now, and have four more to edit this winter. You can read through this thread for ideas. In the first post I listed modifications we've done with most important at the top. If you won't buy better struts I would at least look into lift springs. In your case I'd save your money until you can buy a rust free car. I've learned that the hard way. Just go out, drive around on backroads and trails with at least one other car, have a good time, and see what you want to improve.

I'm not completely sure why reverse was starting to go. The spacer might have actually hurt, using reverse in low range is probably a bad idea, and the climb I was trying to back out of was flexing the car so that wheels were leaving the ground. It was still working when we took it apart, I'd just rather fix things before they fail completely.

Since the transmission in the 99 Outback was popping out of reverse under load unless you held the shifter I decided we should take it out and take it apart. The last few times we've removed and installed Subaru transmissions, we've just balanced/strapped them to the floor jack and had a couple guys balancing/wrestling it in and out. With my jackstands all the way up we would generally have to slide the trans off the jack to slide it out of the car. We thought about getting the car up higher but then the jack wouldn't lift high enough to support the trans. So I made a tilting bracket that bolts to the bottom of the trans and goes into the floor jack. Here is how it bolts to the trans. That made it much easier to get the trans out and down. We were even able to tilt the bellhousing down far enough to roll it out the front of the car on the floor jack. Took the trans apart and the reverse idler is definitely damaged. Some teeth are worse than others. It probably only takes one or two bad ones to kick it out of gear. Here is the reverse output gear. It's a little easier to see in person than in this picture, but the rear half of the teeth (bottom of picture) are bent or twisted in a direction that pushes it out of gear under load. I should really replace that while the transmission is apart but I don't look forward to taking that whole shaft assembly apart and putting it all back together. I have a good reverse idler I could just swap out and put it back together today. The idler is $66 at the dealer and the reverse output gear with hub is $150. I am leaning towards just buying those new and waiting a few days. The brass spacer I made seems to line up the gears perfectly but seeing this I think I should make a narrower one so the idler gear pushes against the spacer rather than being pushed out of gear. Any thoughts on any of that? Anything else I should check/replace while it's apart? Everything else looked good and was working fine when we took it out.

His Forester has long travel struts now. EJ25 and 5MT. There's a big somewhat loose climb leading up to that jump. His Forester can normally keep up with the Outback now that it has long travel. I still have a bunch of videos to edit. I'll post them here as I get them done. In the meantime this video has a few jumps we've done: The long travel lets you jump without breaking things.

Hahhaha. Maybe you can't read english well, but it cracked the windshield and one of the corner lights popped out. Ordered 9003 HID bulbs so I can switch to the early Outback style one piece lights. Crack is still small, just the corner of the windshield right now. We've jumped the car many times, this was probably the most extreme looking, not necessarily the most air. Doesn't seem to hurt anything. It cracks me up that you would never jump your car but you think it's a shame we couldn't do that jump with the Forester.

Last Saturday I drove the 99 Outback down to the Badlands with a couple of friends. Our friend drove his Forester and met us there. We tried to find the figure eight and stumbled on the dragon's tail, so we went through that. They thought that was entertaining. We tried to find some new trails we hadn't been on and succeeded, mainly south of the entrance. We drove from the big concrete building down to the field. The woods at the bottom were somewhat flooded and we headed up to the railroad tracks and drove the length of that and up to the top of one of the areas with a bunch of fairly long steep hillclimbs where we've jumped our offroad race buggy before. We walked along the top and I found one that looked perfect for a good jump. It was fairly steep and smooth and had a sharp peak with a drop and a fairly clear landing area. My friend took video with his phone from the top and I drove to the bottom. As we were headed to the jump I asked my friend riding with me what he thought would be a good speed to start, 30 or 40? And he said, ya, probably 30 or 40. I shifted into second at the bottom of the hill and just maintained speed at part throttle the whole way up. We probably hit it at 40mph and we both instantly knew I had gone too fast. I basically landed in a ditch beyond the flat area and got a little more air off a small berm. We were fairly lucky the only obvious damage was a broken corner light and cracked windshield. Judging by the tire tracks we were off the ground for 40' or so. Our friend showed us the video and we were 6-8 feet in the air. My friend got out to get some other video and we set up my old gopro on the ground to film the car going over it. Our other friend got in and we hit the jump at 30mph and got no air. Then we hit it at 35mph and got nearly as much air as the first time. I decided that would be a good time to stop. Here are a couple screenshots from the video under the car on the 35mph jump. My friends tried in the Forester but it didn't have enough power to maintain enough speed to get any air. The first half of the day I kept telling our friend who hadn't been there we had to find the figure eight, and we asked a few people who had no idea what we were talking about. He kept wondering why I thought it was so important we find the figure eight. Once we finally got there I went around a few times and he thought it was awesome. We let him and our other friend drive around it a bunch of times and we were all cracking up the entire time. Then I suggested we go down the steep hill at the southeast end of the stream and my friend with the Forester said he needed to take a few laps of the figure eight first, even though we've done it a half dozen times and he and our friend riding with him were of course cracking up the whole time. We drove to the bottom of the steep hill going down to the stream in the Outback, turned around, and I drove back up it at half throttle in low range. I have struggled to get up this hill with the four cylinder and no low range, you can't get much of a run at it. With the H6 and low range it was easy. Trying to line up for the rough hillclimb on the other side of the stream I got the Outback stuck and it took a little while to pull me sideways with the Forester so I had a clear shot. I couldn't make it in low range going fairly slow so I put it in high range and just bombed up it and made it to the top. My friend tried a few times in the Forester but couldn't make it up the rough climb. He took a side trail once he got lined up and spun his way to the top. We took some muddy trails with a lot of standing water to the quarry. We eventually got to the quarry and made sandwiches. We watched a couple of Jeeps do some fairly impressive climbs and I tried a few in the Outback with the low range with mixed results. At one point it sounded like something in the steering column was rubbing or catching but the steering worked fine and the noise went away. It took us a while to get back out of that area into the rest of the park. Eventually we found the stream and followed that down to the tubes. There used to be a gap in a concrete wall before the tubes but it was blocked by a log so we drove up out of the stream. I tried going down a trail past the wall and then discovered it had a 3' drop down to the stream. I tried backing out in reverse low range but the trail was so rutted I couldn't make it out and reverse started acting up. They eventually yanked me out with the strap a few feet at a time but there was some clutch smell from the Forester. Reverse did work in the Outback but you have to hold it in under any load or it wants to pop out. It doesn't seem to skip teeth so I'm wondering if the fork is bent. We drove down to the stream on an easy trail and went through the tubes. There was a larger dropoff than we thought, didn't hurt anything but it drove worse than it looked on foot. Drove the rest of the stream. The Forester's LR tire was flat, so we aired that up. Looked like it was leaking all around the bead but not terribly. Took an easy hillclimb back into one of the open areas and headed back towards the entrance since it was about 4:30. We did the hillclimb by the entrance pond and went around the bowl near the entrance and headed out just before they closed. Went to the Mexican restaurant in Attica and then aired up some tires, removed the flags, and went home. Car ran well on the way home, cruise shut off a few times. Drove a couple hours yesterday and cruise worked fine the whole time. We'll probably take the trans out tomorrow.

It rides probably a little harsher than stock on the highway. But it's the highway so it's smooth. On the big potholes it's definitely better than stock though. There are probably some things we can do with the long travel we couldn't do with the stock struts. But mainly you can just go faster. One thing I can think of off the top of my head is that there is often a ditch or berm at the base of a hillclimb. We need momentum to get up hills, especially before the H6 and low range, but also since there still isn't a ton of articulation and/or lockers. So with the low range you can get a better run at hills and drive over the ditch or berm much faster. No, I purposely found a donor car without VDC. I've read that makes the engine swap much more difficult. One thing the low range has made really obvious is the limited articulation and open diffs. The long travel and lack of sway bars helps, but it's still not great. Also over the winter we went to stiffer springs to raise the ride height a couple inches, so that hurts the articulation a little. I still think momentum is key with the Subarus. If you add power and/or low range and had lockers or even good limited slips and really got good traction, you're just going to break the 5MT and R160. Much easier to just stick with the EJ, no low range, and just go fast. When possible, on long hillclimbs sometimes you just need the low range.

We do have to run the front wheel drive Legacy front axles since they have a little more plunge travel. I already had them on my car since they're bigger than the normal Subaru front axles. CV axles seem to live about as long as with the stock suspension. Occasionally the boots start to leak and you have to repack and reboot them. I think I've only replaced two since we did the long travel because they were making noise. Inner tie rods seem to get loose faster than before, probably because we're driving harder. That Vegas to Reno in particular is hard on equipment. Other than that ball joints, wheel bearings, etc seem to last longer than with the stock struts if anything. It's basically bolt in the struts and go. We replace the front control arms with fabricated when we do the struts to get the wheels a little farther out and forward. Probably why we need to use the Legacy front wheel drive axles. Only other thing is mounting the reservoirs somewhere in the wheel wells. With the oversized tires some wheel well hammering was required on my car so they don't rub at full bump and steering.

Many of the problems with my 99 Outback stem from the fact that it has been driven for almost 20 years and 240,000 miles on salty roads. It is possible a Jeep or truck would have had fewer issues but like I said, I've never been around a remotely stock truck that can maintain the pace we drive at, even with the stock Subaru suspension. You can buy long travel struts, you can buy lift springs, there are options for Subarus, but none of them are cheap. The cage definitely takes away from the practicality of the car, but mainly it makes the backseat impractical. We did just drive 5700 miles in it in two weeks, it's not that bad. I have ridden in and driven some serious four wheel drive trucks and it is impressive what they can go over. But they don't ride as well as the Subaru, especially with long travel struts.

I don't know of any other cheap struts that would directly fit Subarus. Hotbits sells the cheapest long travel off road Subaru struts I know of but I've heard they don't hold up to really hard use. Most human decisions aren't rational. Most modifications to cars are money wasted in the eyes of a rational person. But I'll try to rationalize my decisions for you regardless... In the US Jeeps and Toyotas aren't any more expensive than Subarus. I agree if you want to do crawling and really hard trails those have a real low range, lockers, more articulation, a real frame, and can fit bigger tires than a Subaru. My goal isn't to do rock crawling. There isn't much of that around here, it doesn't really interest me, and there's plenty of other dirt roads and trails that aren't extremely challenging. I'd rather drive moderately fast on dirt roads and trails so I can see more things and cover more ground and have enough capability to do 99% of the legal dirt roads in the US. I've been told that a Cherokee or truck with the right long travel kit rides well, and I'd like to ride in one sometime to find out. None of the Jeeps or trucks I've ridden in or gone trail riding with could even keep up with a stock Subaru since they ride so rough. A side by side, ATV, or dirt bike could go at the pace we do, but they're definitely not as comfortable for long highway trips or in bad weather. So the Subaru seems like the best choice for me. I can drive it hundreds or thousands of miles on the highway to where I want to go and drive on almost any dirt road I can find. Also in general it seems like Subarus are more reliable than a Jeep or side by side.

The front suspension is basically the same. I think even the new Subarus still have the same front struts and spindles, but the lower control arms are different. The rear suspension on the 2000+ Outbacks is multilink. That should make it easier and cheaper to make it long travel. I haven't gone into it far but I measured it once without the stock shock and I think we can get over 12" of travel. I even still have the coilover shocks we initially used for the a-arm front suspension we built for my 99 that are about the right length and should be decent springing and valving. Yes, I think the long travel suspension is the best modification we've made to these cars for what we're trying to do. The increased travel is only part of it, getting the spring rate and damping right is when you can really drive hard and not get thrashed around or bottom out. And since they're stronger you don't bend the struts. A lot of that is because even though the stock rear struts have 8" of travel they basically sit on the bumpstops at ride height, so it doesn't take much to bottom out, and that's when they bend.

Outback sat for at least a few days with the doors open to air out while I drove the Impreza. Didn't realize the dome light was on and the battery was completely dead the next time I went to start it. I tried using the lithium ion jump starter but it wouldn't work. Put it on 1 amp charge for maybe a half hour while I did some other things and then the lithium starter fired it up. Checked voltage and it was over 14V so the alternator was charging. I don't think I ran it very long but can't remember. A couple days after that I went to start it and it had a little voltage but wouldn't crank. I was in a hurry so I tried using the jump start feature on the battery charger but it wouldn't quite go. I hooked up the lithium jump starter and it fired right up. Anybody else use these things and have any tips or tricks? Or know of a better one?

Yes, I had something in mind like the top one. I would probably use plastic totes/bins so you could slide them out and get at everything easily. The bottom one looks nice but it's blocking the rear windows and they obviously don't drive where and how I do. Just look at that glass jar sitting on a wooden shelf. A few issues I've thought of: A stock sized tire doesn't really fit in the wheel well of a 2002, let alone something a little bigger. So either the spare would go elsewhere, maybe stood up like I did in my 99, or the wheel well would have to be modified. If it has no tire in it, I'd like to use it for water and/or fuel storage. It is nice to have a backseat sometimes but it takes up a lot of space. Especially since my 99 doesn't anymore. So if I did a platform I'd try to make at least the front part easy to remove and put the backseat back in or fit over the backseat (like the one you posted). But then you can't fit much under the front half of the platform. I'm really not sure how I'd do the interior. My main thoughts were to make a front (and maybe rear) bumper, skidplates, additional headlights, and long travel suspension. Try to keep it fairly light, at least not a lot heavier than stock. Probably not at first but I think a 6MT and R180 would have to replace the stock trans and diff. I need to take more measurements but I think I could make a lower first gear so I don't need a low range. Something like 4.5:1 would be good enough with an H6 and a light car.

No, there's no room to sleep in my 99 OB with all the parts and tools we usually carry. The rollcage doesn't help either. Eventually I plan to make long travel suspension for the 2002 H6 Outback and might try to make a sleeping platform in that with shelves or compartments underneath it for storage.