long travel Outbacks or making Subarus faster and more reliable offroad

[pontoontodd]

Low mileage H6 in, bad H6 out.

 

 

Got a set of BFG Mud Terrains to try.  Only have two Hankooks with decent tread left on them.  Going to run BFGs on one side and Hankooks on the other and see if one side gets more flats than the other.  They seem to be the same diameter and tread depth (new), but the Hankooks are about an inch wider.  Both 215 75 15.

 

 

Took the front suspension, steering, and axles out of the parts car before they picked it up.  Figured this was the easiest way, I really just want the axles and aluminum control arm bushings, but some of the other stuff might come in handy.

 

 

What was left of the sedan, my Impreza, 99 Outback, and the front suspension in the background.  I did keep one shock/spring from the rear of the sedan.  Seems like 10" of travel will be pretty easy, probably can get a few more inches of droop than that too.  And it will be much cheaper and easier than building struts.

 

 

One of the biggest improvements I wanted to make to the struts was to ID grind the housings for the bushings.  The last few times there has been a lot of hand sanding to get the shocks to slide into the bushings, the bushings would slide out of place, etc.  Now I just press the bushings in to the step with a spacer in between and the shock slides in, shaft goes out the hole in the bottom, much easier.  Assembled on the left, parts and ID ground housing on the right.

 

 

Rear struts fully assembled.  Put them in and the new springs make the car sit about 3" higher than before.  So now it sits above the middle of the travel rather than below.  Drove it around a bit, the ride seems about the same as before.  Another plus is you can buy these rear springs in 25#/in increments.

 

 

I realized once I'm done with this I'll have a full set of strut parts and springs that are in decent shape, just need shocks and front control arms.  If someone is interested, PM me and maybe we can make a deal.  Or maybe I'll replace these shocks for the V2R and I could sell a complete used set.

[pontoontodd]

Noticed a crack in the front subframe when I was putting the new struts on.  No idea how long that's been there.

 

 

 

Threaded insert for the RF control arm bolt came loose in the body.  I had threaded it out far enough to be able to cut it off and get the arm out of the way.  Welded this bar on the end of the bolt but couldn't thread it out.  Cut a hole in the body to fish it out.

 

 

Sort of held down by little welds but I think mainly the rectangular shape is what was keeping it from turning.

 

 

Made a new insert.  One problem I've seen is that a lot of the bolts thread past whatever threaded insert and that extra exposed part of the bolt threads is what gets really rusty and doesn't want to come back through.  So for that reason and for better welding, made my insert about the length of the bolt threads.

 

 

Here's the insert in place, drilled a 1/2" hole to plug weld it too.

 

 

Since this part of the body was doubled up and obviously fairly structural, I welded the two sheets together as best I could and then welded this 1/8" patch over the top of that.

 

 

Paint dried to that fast, didn't have to worry about runs.

 

 

Another thing I wanted to do was replace the aluminum control arm bushings.  Old one is on the right, as you can see it's pretty beat.  It's been on the car a few years.  I need to at least get new rubber bushings from the dealer sometime to press in and see how long they last.  This aluminum bracket was bent towards the rear of the car, so I pressed the bushing in the "new" one towards the rear of the car to get it bolted in.  The front crossmember is bent back a bit I'm pretty sure.  Passenger side wasn't as bad, bracket wasn't bent at least.

 

 

 

One thing we did different with these front struts is to use modified eccentric bolts all around.  Basically shorten the eccentric part to about 1/2" to fit the thick plates on the strut tabs.  Then all of the holes in the spindles are 14mm after we sleeve the top holes in the front spindles.  All the bolts are the same and adjustment is more obvious.  But the main advantage is that with the stock bolts you are just relying on a 14mm thread pushing against a fairly thin mounting tab, that always seemed to get worn out.  I think the RF CV axle had been making noise so I replaced that while the suspension was apart.

 

[pontoontodd]

Front bushings and spacers.  I drilled and tapped these for grease fittings.  Should have done the same in the rear.

 

 

 

New front shock tops on the left, old on the right.  The new ones have a larger ball joint (3/4" ID vs 5/8" ID) and locate on the ID of the steering bearing rather than the OD like the old ones.  I'm still surprised the old ones held, there wasn't much of a ledge holding that bearing mount from sliding up.

 

 

 

 

Put the front struts on the car and drove around a bit last night.  Can't really tell the springs are 50% stiffer than before, rides about the same.  Sits two or three inches higher in front than before also, so both ends are a little above the middle of the travel at ride height.  Rear sits about 1" higher than in front.  With that and the lower profile skid it definitely has more ground clearance than last year.  I don't think it's really much higher than it was way back with the 1.5" strut spacers and no cage, fuel cell, and six cylinder.  I think all the added weight and sagging of the springs was getting it to be a lowrider.  Anxious to see how the added power and ride height will do offroad.

[jf1sf5]

Nice custom built struts !

 

What rate are the springs and how much travel/stroke do you theoricaly get ? Did you fit any seals ?

[pontoontodd]

Nice custom built struts !

 

What rate are the springs and how much travel/stroke do you theoricaly get ? Did you fit any seals ?

 

Thanks.  They're very similar to what we had.  About 11" shock travel rear, 12" wheel travel.  About 10" shock travel front, 11" wheel travel.  Measured without bumpstops.  Yes, wiper seals above the bushings.  Shocks are completely sealed.

 

Springs are all about 225 pounds per inch now.

[jf1sf5]

It will be perfect for rallying !

 

Have you tried to lubricate the bushings (PTFE) with fork oil ? Made a huge difference for my application.

[pontoontodd]

It will be perfect for rallying !

 

Have you tried to lubricate the bushings (PTFE) with fork oil ? Made a huge difference for my application.

 

We just use Fox shock oil in the shocks.  Grease on the bushings, they only have wiper seals on the top so oil would just run out.  Seems to work well.

[jf1sf5]

Did you drill any hole in the housing ?

 

I did that on the Proflex inverted coilovers with a hose and a fuel filter that I later replaced with a bladder (soft container) so there wasn't too much over/under pressure in the housings.

[pontoontodd]

Did you drill any hole in the housing ?

 

I did that on the Proflex inverted coilovers with a hose and a fuel filter that I later replaced with a bladder (soft container) so there wasn't too much over/under pressure in the housings.

 

We have a couple little breather filters on the bottom of the strut housings.  I like your bladder idea, seems fairly simple and should keep the system sealed.

[pontoontodd]

Reused the skidplate we made last year to build sides for the new skidplate.  Basically had to do some trimming and welded some vertical pieces to the sides.

 

 

Here are the new sides welded and trimmed.

 

 

Here is everything bolted on.  A bit of a hassle to put it all on but it definitely protects a lot of important things.

 

 

I noticed a couple more little cracks in the body where the fenders meet the windshield on both sides.

 

 

 

Welded them as best I could.

 

 

 

Engine compartment wiring basically all loomed and taped now.

 

 

The coolant line and hoses at the bottom front of the engine looked questionable so to be safe I got new ones from the dealer and replaced them.

 

[pontoontodd]

One of our friends who is planning on racing his 1600 buggy in Texas was looking for a place to run it for a little shakedown.  We all went out to another friend's place so he could drive his buggy up and down the road, then we drove around in the woods a bit.  The H6 and stiffer springs are a definite improvement.  You can easily spin the fresh mud tires on dirt in first gear.  It was far from a scientific test but I think it bottoms out less on rough ground now that it sits a couple inches higher.  At one point I hit a little triple jump he has a little too fast, hit the third one pretty hard, which launched the whole car into the air.  It flew nice and level but landed hard.  The blower motor immediately started making all kinds of noise.  I had knocked a rock and one of the wiper bushings I must have dropped into it.  Other than that, everything seemed to work well, cruise control set at 62 on the way out there, running 180-190F on the road, 190s in the woods, temps in the 70s.  Only the passenger side fan was coming on if you let it idle long enough at about 199F, quickly drops to 190F and shuts the fan off.  Even with a resistor in the temp sender it's only turning the passenger fan on.

AC doesn't seem to leak but still isn't working but haven't wired it up to the ECU yet, going to try that today.

 

You stop when the body stops buckling tie that skid in to the role cage and rear framework or your gona be lookin for a new rig sooner than later

 

When we got back the driver's door seems to rub on the fender a bit when you open it, don't remember it doing that before.  Passenger fender also looks cracked near the top of the door, don't remember that before either.  I've been thinking about putting a strut bar in the front but I'm skeptical it will do much good.  I'd like to tie it into the trans mount on the firewall but can't think of a good way to do that.  Ideally I'd run tubes from the strut mounts to the top of the cage but there are various hoods and windshields in the way.  Any suggestions?

[jf1sf5]

Now I'm waiting for nice videos to see it in action

[pontoontodd]

Now I'm waiting for nice videos to see it in action

 

I really shouldn't have done that one jump but we should have gotten video of it.  I was thinking we'll just be playing around in the woods so why bother getting video.  We're going to Texas in a couple weeks and should get some good video and pictures then, but it might be a while until I edit and post it.

Edited April 17, 2017 by pontoontodd

[ferp420]

Jack it up in the middle and let it sit for a few days like that and then add some braces through the fire wall to the cage and some under body tie in points weld some plates over the welded cracks and run it ive bent a few cars like that i just kept driving them the ford explorer was the worst the doors were almost 4" out from closing the tow truck guy had to strap the doors shut lol fixed it got almost 10 years out of that rig but it was a body on frame rig if it were me i would keep running this one till its belly is dragin but find a new body asap and reinforce the new one so it dosent fail in the same way i dont race and i have extra loyale body laying around for when my wheeler gets to bad just sayin start planning now there unibody rigs its bound to happen sonner than later or just tube it all F the front window F the a pillers b pillers tube it bla bla bla if i ever get around to building up my outback im gona tie the front bumper to the back bumper and to the cage and since its gonanbe 4 linked its gona have a frame under it too all tied together even my loyale the front bumper is tied in to the rear end just behind the rear wheels it dosent go to the back bumper though but wouldent take much to conect it all together but i wanted some kind of crumple zone still my tube work is all that is holding the rear pasenger side quarter pannel in place

Your struts are inspireing i want to give building a set a try my self and langthen my front control arms im thinking 8" of traval might be posable with out getting to crazy and be doable on my budget

[pontoontodd]

One of the last wiring projects was the air conditioning.  The 99 system is pretty simple.  There is a wire for the AC compressor relay the ECU grounds.  The ECU also runs the radiator fans.  There is another wire that goes to the ECU that I assume tells it you have the AC switched on.  It goes through the temp sensor on the evaporator.

The 2002 system is much more complicated. Four pages in the FSM versus one for the 99.  There are at least five wires going to the 2002 ECU related to AC.  Long story short I couldn't get it to ground the AC compressor relay. 

The 99 is pretty simple so it was fairly easy to hotwire the AC.  I plugged the connector from the 99 that goes to the compressor into the H6 compressor.  There is 12V going through the pressure switch and the thermal overload and then to the AC compressor relay.  If the pressure is too low (or maybe too high?) or the thermal overload is open, the relay won't have 12V.  The 2002 H6 compressor seems to have different thermal overload wiring than the 99, so I hotwired that.

 

 

I wired up a four pole switch to ground the AC compressor relay, fan relay, main fan relay 1, and sub fan relay 1.  This seems to throw a fan code on the ECU, I assume when the ECU sees the fan relay is already grounded when it tries to turn them on it gets confused.

 

 

So now the AC works.  Cycles on and off sometimes, either my low pressure gauge isn't working quite right or the orifice is occasionally clogged, but discharging the system a bit seemed to make it run continuously.  One good thing about this setup is that we could just unplug the compressor or compressor relay and turn the switch on to run the fans if it's running hot.  The biggest downside is that it doesn't turn off at full throttle.  That wouldn't be too hard to do, not sure if I'll bother.

 

The last wiring project was the lights.  They will probably help at night, but the main reason we added these is so that people can see us coming in the dust.  It seems like the first thing you see when someone is catching you through the dust is their lights, the higher the better.  Drilled a couple holes in one of the roof rack crossbeams and zip tied the ballasts to the bottom.

 

 

Here's what it looks like installed.

 

 

Finally got the rest of the dash in.  Had to leave out the passenger side air ducts and it was still difficult to get it in.  Normally the driver is hotter than the passenger so it should work out.  Added a tablet mount to the steel plate that covered the passenger air bag.  My friend made a little panel for the roof lights and AC switches and two cigarette lighters.

 

 

Tablets for GPS and gauges and tire pressure monitor.  That all works pretty well.  The angle in the picture is deceiving, they don't block your view at all.  Going to make some visors for them though, when it's sunny and they're dusty they're difficult to read, especially the tire pressures.  Before the V2R we want to figure out some kind of rear camera system for the one tablet.  The mirrors leave a lot to be desired.  It would be nice to also have the temp readout on that one too.

 

[pontoontodd]

Modified the old front a arm jig to make a rear lateral link jig.

 

 

 

Turned the ends on the lathe out of some thick tubing, fit pieces of 1" x .120" 4130 for the links.  The stock links are 3/4", no idea how thick, we've never broken one, but they bend pretty easily.

 

 

 

 

I wound up buying Group N bushings, they're cheaper than the stock ones.  Pressing them in was difficult.  I turned up this funnel to help with that.  Soapy water or any other lubricant also helped.

 

 

Here you can see all four of the ones on the car were bent in one direction or another.  Made it impossible to get anything other than toe out.

 

 

 

Here's what they look like installed.

 

 

 

[pontoontodd]

Made a lifting foot for the passenger side electric jack.  Tried to build more section height into it than the last one.  Not exactly how I hoped it would turn out.

 

 

 

I'm nervous about the body holding up, so I finally finished a strut tower / trans mount brace I'd started on a long time ago.  Here is my CAD (cardboard aided design) model and steel bracket for bolting on top of the trans mount.  Just bolts on with four 6mm bolts, but folds around the bracket.

 

 

Here is what it looks like tacked up in the car.  Had to dodge the new fuse box and it has to be at least two piece since the strut studs are all tilted inwards.

 

 

 

Welded.

 

 

Painted and installed.  Not very difficult to install and isn't in the way of much.

 

 

[pontoontodd]

My friend showed up Wednesday morning, we finished loading up, and headed for Texas. Met another friend in central IL and he followed us down to the ranch towing his 1600 buggy. We got there late Thursday afternoon. Ate Chinese at the Great Wall in Monahans and went to Monahans Sandhills SP. Saw roadrunners, rabbits, and various grubs and beetles in the dunes. Similar to white sands but smaller and not white. Bolted in the harnesses, door bars, number plate, lights, and checked over suspension bolts. We all slept in our friend's giant tent.

 

Friday we went through tech and were one of the first cars out for the pre run. Our friend sort of followed us in his 1600 buggy, I had to keep slowing down or stopping so he could catch up, then he pulled off at the halfway point so we never saw him again during the pre run. After about an hour, about 2/3 of the way through the lap, the engine started running hot. At this point the right front brake was making noise, but we couldn't figure out why. I pulled over and we let it cool down and added water to the radiator, the overflow bottle was overflowing. We made it the rest of the way around the lap alright. When we got back to the pits my friend noticed the RF caliper was loose. The bottom bolt for the caliper bracket was gone. Fortunately I had packed some old ones so I replaced that and checked all the caliper bracket bolts. We spent the afternoon driving to town to get a radiator cap, tried that and rerouting the hoses. Seemed to maybe pull coolant back into the radiator better when it cooled down, but didn't solve the problem. The cooling fans can barely keep the engine temperature stable at idle, sometimes it creeps up, sometimes it will drop back down in the 190s. Tried a bottle of head gasket leak fix, not expecting it to work, but parts store guy said this kind was easy to flush out so we figured it was worth a try. Running 85mph into a headwind in 90F temps with the AC on, it held temperature fine (190s) but was pushing coolant into the overflow bottle. Roughly at the rate of a quart per hour.

 

Got some pictures parked next to a crew guy's STI.

 

 

 

Saturday it was much cooler, about 60F. They started the first race at 7AM, just as the sun had come up. We figured we'd see how it would go, we were already there and ready to race. About 10 or 12 miles in the temps started climbing over 200F. They would drop back down to 190F on the straights, but we knew it would only get worse. I decided to stop at the halfway pit and call it a day. We could have stopped every half lap and added coolant, but we were worried it would have gotten worse and we wouldn't be able to drive it home without stopping every hour. This is definitely one instance where if we'd trailered the car we would have just kept going until it couldn't go. The new springs were definitely an improvement though. Much less scraping of the floor on rocks, only bottomed out the suspension a couple times and I was driving it pretty hard. I think we hit 85 on one of the straights, the H6 isn't super powerful but a definite improvement.  We have about six hours of video so it will be a while before I edit that and post it up.

We waited for the first race to end to talk it over with our friend and in the meantime took the door bars and lights back off and packed up the car. He planned on staying overnight and spending the next morning with his brother, so we left.

 

Car ran fine the whole way home. To be safe we topped off the radiator at every fuel stop. It's hard to tell how much coolant it used since we'd lose some when we took the cap off the pressurized overflow bottle, but maybe half a quart every 250-300 miles. My theory is that with normal driving around it doesn't push much coolant, with the frequent full throttle and higher cylinder pressures on the course it pushes a lot more out. Just as we got into town the RF brake starting making noise again. Turned out this time the bolt holding the caliper onto the pin had fallen out. Never had any of those come loose before, need to start checking them I guess.

[pontoontodd]

To quantify things a bit, I looked at the GPS track from our half lap in the race this year compared to last year.  My time for that half lap this year was 31:29, our fastest half lap in that direction last year was 31:36.  Considering the course was rougher and I had to pull over about five times to let faster cars go by, it's definitely an improvement.  Speaking of which, I had forgotten how rough that course is, I watched the video from last year before we went and forgot how much video flattens things out.

 

Also, I'm not sure how the units work, but our highest speed for the whole day in 2016 was 33.6, highest speed this year was 39.77.  Equivalent to 72mph last year vs 85mph this year, which sounds about right.

Edited May 6, 2017 by pontoontodd

[jf1sf5]

Seems the job done made a good improvement. How did the suspension work ? Not too harsch on road ?

 

And a little question, could you measure a front OEM Outback CV axle for me (compressed/extended) to compare with my Forester OEM's (because the Heris I have are nearly shot...)

[ferp420]

What are you doing about the body bending are those strut braces going to tie in to some kind of sub frame or something your heavyer now so everyth8ng is gonna be more streesed like bolts bearings and the body

[pontoontodd]

What are you doing about the body bending are those strut braces going to tie in to some kind of sub frame or something your heavyer now so everyth8ng is gonna be more streesed like bolts bearings and the body

 

Not really planning on any other body/frame reinforcement at the moment.  Yes, it's definitely heavier, which has to be harder on everything.

[pontoontodd]

We've been working on finishing another set of struts for my friend's Forester.  Here are the rear strut parts:

 

 

 

 

Rear struts assembled:

 

 

 

 

Front spring perches:

 

 

 

One of the last things I welded was those and the control arms.

 

 

 

After a couple of hours of welding on the control arms, I noticed the valve for the inert gas was dripping with condensation:

 

 

Front suspension parts:

 

 

 

 

Fully assembled:

 

 

 

[pontoontodd]

Long travel struts vs stock Forester struts:

 

 

 

One of his strut shafts was badly gouged, you can't see it very well in this picture, but you can see the bumpstop has been pushed down over the strut body.  He's known this one is shot for a while but figured we'd be putting the long travel struts on.

 

 

Broken coil spring on one of the rear struts.  We didn't know this until we took them off the car.

 

 

It took a lot of effort to install the rear struts.  Body has to be hammered in some to fit them.  Might not be needed for clearance once they're on, but definitely for installation.  Then it's a battle to get the knuckle low enough to get the strut to bolt up.  It's pretty easy now on mine, maybe because the bushings have taken a set.  Also his front lateral links are the C channel style, which are a little taller and the strut hits them going in.  As he said, you must know at least ten swear words to do this job.

The front control arms, tie rods, and struts all went on pretty easy.  Welded some sleeves on the crossmember where the front of the control arm bolts in and used longer bolts like I did on my car.

His car sits pretty high with these springs.  It is definitely hundreds of pounds lighter than my Outback, but I think they will probably sag a bit after they're fully compressed a few times.

When we went to pull out of the garage for the test drive, we were treated to the sound of splines skipping.  Figured out the shaft had pulled out of the RR outboard CV when we were trying to get the strut on.  Fortunately we were just able to remove, reassemble, and reinstall that axle without completely removing the long bolt or lateral links, which is good because that didn't seem to be coming apart.  Then of course the brake line on that corner started leaking.  It has rear drums so there is a short section of hard line.  He was barely able to remove that and replace it with a piece of metric hard line I had.

We just did a short test drive around the block, but he was hitting curbs and steep driveways faster than I would have and the car soaked everything up great.

On his way home after about an hour it started shuddering over half throttle.  He's checked everything over and says it's probably the LF inboard CV.

[pontoontodd]

Seems the job done made a good improvement. How did the suspension work ? Not too harsch on road ?

 

And a little question, could you measure a front OEM Outback CV axle for me (compressed/extended) to compare with my Forester OEM's (because the Heris I have are nearly shot...)

The suspension is basically the same driving around town, less body roll with the stiffer springs. Better off road, rides about the same but harder to bottom out.

 

Sorry it took me a while to get you front axle measurements. It's kind of hard for me to get exact measurements, but all of them seem to be 27" fully compressed. This is measured without the transmission stub. The old Rockford CV tech manual pages I have say 27 1/8" compressed for various 90s Subaru models. I did notice the front wheel drive axles (Legacy 89-92 auto, 89-94 manual) extend a little more than the AWD axles. I would say roughly 28 1/2" for the AWD, 29" for the FWD. I do not know what years/models have them, but I've heard the tripod inner joints are weaker than the six ball joints. I've always had the six ball joints with my Outback and they've held up well. Pretty sure that's what's in my Impreza.

Edited May 15, 2017 by pontoontodd