long travel Outbacks or making Subarus faster and more reliable offroad

[pontoontodd]

My friend got his Forester running again.  Needed an ECU and he had to sand the starter ground.  Starter is still anemic, so is the one in my Impreza.  Since the Legacy/Outback starter is supposed to be better I got one at the pick a part junkyard and he's going to try it.  Took the Forester a while to relearn to idle but other than that and some backfiring (only has half an exhaust system) he said it runs smooth, AC still works.  When it warms up the alternator doesn't spin, which throws the belt.  He has a couple other alternators, none of them work perfectly but one of the others is mostly functional so it's going now.  Says there are some scraping noises, he's thinking either rusty drums or a bad wheel bearing.  The cruise control hasn't worked for a while so that will be a future troubleshooting project.

 

Since he got that going and we've got my cars pretty intact, we decided to disassemble the short block from the Forester.  Came apart pretty easily, even turned once we got the case split a little.  Three of the rods are bent though.

 

 

 

 

It looks like that added material in the beam is right about where they want to bend.  I wonder if that was added after they started making EJs.  Crank still spins nicely in the block so it can't be bent much.  Pistons look pretty good except a chip out of one of the skirts.  They slid out of the bores much more easily than I thought they would.  Piston pins came out easy too.  I think the main thing keeping it from rotating was with that one rod shortened the piston couldn't go all the way down.  Plus he said some of the idlers were seized up.

[pontoontodd]

My friend's Forester has always cranked slow.  I've read the Legacy/Outback starter is better than the Impreza/Forester starter, and it definitely looks different like it has gear reduction.  They're interchangeable.  Cable to the Legacy starter might be longer but I grabbed that out of the same car I took the starter out of, both are pictured below:

 

 

Old starter from his Forester on top, Outback starter doesn't seem to crank his engine much faster but now we have a spare.  He's been driving the Forester for a few weeks now and it's mostly good.  AC, cruise, and gas gauge don't work.

[pontoontodd]

My wife and I took a two week vacation out west with my 99 Outback.  Tried not to do any crazy offroading, but we were off pavement most days.  Visited relatives, tent camped about half the nights, did some hiking.  I wanted to see portions of the Trans American Trail to see what that's like.  Didn't get to see much of it but what we saw was not too challenging.  I'm going to do a post for each day or two so it's not one giant post.

 

We stopped at Maramec springs state park in MO to stretch our legs a bit and make a sandwich. It's the fifth largest spring in MO and has tons of fish, a few muskrats, small waterfalls, an iron furnace and related equipment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pontoontodd]

The next day the odometer turned 234567. We made it to northern Arizona on 40. We wanted to see Grand falls in the Navajo Nation even though we knew it would be dry. I asked a guy at the casino and he said we didn't need passes or permits or anything. Took a dirt road off the interstate that went straight north to the falls. At first it was quite rocky, most of it was wide and fairly smooth but with a lot of washboard.

 

 

This was the main north/south road in this part of the reservation, the side roads looked worse.

 

 

We got to the falls and it did look like they would be cool when the water is flowing.

 

 

We headed west to Flagstaff on slightly better roads. The only campsite open near where we wanted to stay this time of year is Lockett Meadow. It's a somewhat rough and narrow dirt road up the mountain to get there, it's on part of a huge extinct volcano over 8000 feet.  This might be the volcano we read about elsewhere that deposited up to 1000 feet of ash on the central US when it erupted millions of years ago.  The road closes after the first major snowfall. It was dark by the time we drove up there and it was cold and windy that night. The wind came in gusts, you could hear them coming in the trees every twenty minutes or so and when they got to us they shook the tent. It was probably the coldest sleep we had this trip, not shivering all night cold but not comfortable.

[pontoontodd]

First stop the next morning was Cinder hills ORV park, we saw some Albert's squirrels and large eared deer on the way in.  The Albert's squirrels were cool but we didn't get a good picture of them.

 

 

Park has trails running everywhere and they're basically all on pea-gravel like cinders, similar to the Badlands off road park but much bigger.  Most of it is wooded and the trails just go all over between the trees.

 

 

Most of the trails were whooped out pretty bad so we had to creep around most of the time. I did climb up one hill that was hundreds of feet high and got us near the top of two hills/mountains with a good view.  Started out in second, dropped to first, had to use low range but then ran about half throttle and 3-4000RPM to try to go easy on the car.  This is the only time I definitely had to use low range on the trip.  The wind was blowing hard from behind and pushing our dust in front of the car.

 

 

 

Wound back down around on some other trails and left the park. I think this is when I first noticed the trans will sometimes pop out of first or second when engine braking, usually going down a bumpy slope. Going to try to get a stiffer detent ball spring for that.

 

We headed up to Wupatki and checked out most of the native American ruins there and headed for California.

 

 

 

 

There was a blowhole in the ground which was a small opening to a large cave. Depending on the weather there is either air rushing in or out of this small hole.

 

We met some relatives in southern California and stayed the night.

[pontoontodd]

We spent a couple days hiking, camping, and visiting with relatives.  We headed up I15 and got off near the west end of the Mojave Road. The trans am trail follows this part of it and there is a slot canyon, lakebed, and lava tube in the western section of the trail I wanted to check out. Shortly after we got on the road it crossed a river/pond. I figured since most of the ground was hard that the bottom would be fairly solid.  It was swampy and badly rutted and we got stuck just before we made it across. We ran the jacks up before I got out since the water was well above the bottom of the doors. That worked and I was able to get the ramps under the rear tires. The passenger side jack went back in but the driver's side wouldn't move.  Eventually I unbolted it and discovered the shaft was bent, so I fed it into the car and unbolted the foot.

 

 

At least the air and water were warm. First I tried backing up but couldn't but I was able to drive forward onto solid ground. We had been stuck for about a half hour. I used low range but probably didn't need to.  That was the only time we got stuck on the trip.

We drove along the road to a slot canyon.

 

 

Walked into that as far as we easily could, had to use headlights for at least half the time, it was a few feet wide but probably hundreds of feet deep. Walls looked like mud with rocks stuck in them.

 

 

 

 

 

At this point we were a little short on time trying to get to our next destination that afternoon so we tried to follow a supposedly main road out. It was washed out with a big berm in front of the washout so we drove around for a while. Drove on some old small railroad tracks and found a mailbox out in the desert with random stuff in it.  We eventually got on a main road farther north and took that up to I15. On the way there was a sign indicating we were in an ORV area which explained all the random tire tracks in the desert that were confusing us.

 

That afternoon we got to Johnson dinosaur track site in St George. It was a pretty cool site that the owner stopped development on when he found dino tracks. A building was constructed over them and they're still working on excavating all the tracks.

 

 

In the mural along the wall was a Delorean.  What other kind of car would have been able to visit that time period?

 

 

That night we drove to a campground along Lake Powell north of Page.

[pontoontodd]

We've wanted to check out Antelope Canyon, the pictures look amazing, but there was a line of cars waiting to get in for a tour and it hadn't opened yet, so we kept driving. Drove to Canyons of the Ancients in SW Colorado. I drove through a different section of Navajo reservation on the way there through Shonto and hit a few jumps on a dirt road. My wife said she can't really judge what will be a jump but when I hit the gas she knew it would be. We were trying to find a blanket to keep us a little warmer at night. We stumbled on Navajo NM so we hiked a short trail there to an overlook where you could see a settlement built into an overhanging cliff.

 

 

 

I took another couple of dirt roads to Kayeta where we also couldn't find blankets but filled up with gas. On the way there I think is where we hit the biggest jump of the trip, at about 50mph we got decent air and should be recorded on gopro.  We eventually got to Canyon of the Ancients which is a bunch of fairly small native ruins on poorly marked trails in the southern portion of the park. Saw a small tarantula on one of the spur trails.

 

 

We drove to Cuttthroat Castle. The main road going to the upper trail is a rough dirt road. Then it gets to a small parking area where you can either hike a mile down to the ruins or drive down a road for high clearance vehicles only.

 

 

Needless to say we drove down it, it was really not much worse than the main road to the trailhead. Took some pictures of the ruins and headed back.

 

 

The drive back up was probably faster since I wasn't looking into the sun and had an idea of what obstacles we had to drive over. Didn't have to use low range. Then we drove to Lowry Pueblo, probably the largest ruin in Canyons of the Ancients and saw a bunch of deer and a cool sunset along the way. It was nearly dark by the time we got there but we were able to walk around it and check out the big kiva.

 

Then we drove to Chaco Culture NHP across the border in New Mexico. The road going in to the north entrance was fairly rough. You could have driven it in anything but it was a lot of hard ruts and rattled the car. I was surprised there was no warning sign at the highway. I had reserved a site there for two nights so we could spend all day exploring the ruins. It was another cold night.

[pontoontodd]

There was frost on everything in the morning including the tent.

 

 

We spent the day hiking to many of the ruins and petroglyphs.

 

 

 

The next few days were perfectly clear skies once the sun burned some clouds off in the morning. These were probably the most impressive native American ruins we saw on this trip, some of them were hundreds of rooms and three stories tall.

 

[pontoontodd]

We spent another cold night in the tent again there and hiked to Wijiji in the morning. We packed up the tent and decided to try the south entrance since it looked like that road led to a major highway so we figured it might be smoother. I noticed on the map there was another ruin (Kin Klizhin) to the west of the south entrance that was a twelve mile drive on a “four wheel drive” road. This was probably the most fun dirt road we were on the whole trip. There were washed out rough sections but nothing terrible. There were lots of medium speed turns almost like slaloms through fairly flat desert. When we got to the ruins it was very quiet, if there was wind there weren't any trees to make noise. We could hear the cows a few hundred feet away walking and chewing.

 

 

From there I decided to continue west to the nearest highway.  We were still looking for a blanket and stopped at a roadside stand in Pueblo Pintado. They did not have blankets but we got Navajo burgers which had only lettuce and tomato but we both agreed were the best burgers we'd had in years. We stopped in Cuba and picked up some groceries and went in the variety store in the same building. It had quite a variety of inventory – some used books and magazines, a few puzzles, a guitar, tamborine, old CRT computer monitors, heating elements for cigarette lighters, etc.  We did buy a comforter in town and only used it that night since it was the last night we camped.

 

We were able to get to Bandelier NM mid afternoon and hike the main trail.

 

 

These ruins were short buildings built along the base of a cliff.

 

 

There are tons of natural caves in the cliff the natives had enlarged (using rocks). You can climb into some of them on sturdy wooden ladders bolted to the cliffs, in one you could crawl into multiple connected rooms.

 

 

At the end of the trail was a natural alcove high up on the cliff you can climb up to using four ladders and a bunch of stairs. There's a small kiva and some small cave rooms in the alcove.

 

 

 

We stayed that night in the campground which had only one other site occupied.

[scalman]

you so lucky you can visit those kinda places. for me i would need about 1000km to reach some mountain places. still there wouldn't be any cool tracks for offrading . 

[pontoontodd]

you so lucky you can visit those kinda places. for me i would need about 1000km to reach some mountain places. still there wouldn't be any cool tracks for offrading . 

 

The US is a huge beautiful country with many interesting things to see.  The closest mountains to my house are about 1000km away though.  Really only the western third of the US has lots of fun unpaved roads.

[pontoontodd]

We hiked the trail to Upper Frijoles falls, the trail beyond that to see the lower falls was closed. You could see where the stream runs into the Rio Grande (not pictured).

 

 

We started driving towards Texas. We stopped in Santa Rosa but I wanted to stop somewhere else that afternoon to get out of the car so we stopped at Muleshoe NWR near Lubbock, TX. There weren't a lot of trails open but we saw thousands of sandhill cranes. When we got a little too close they flew over to a larger pond across the trail and made a huge ruckus.

 

 

 

 

 

I tried heading east between a couple of lakes on some fairly flat and straight dirt roads but many of the roads on the map didn't exist or were private.  This part of Texas has tons of north/south east/west roads in a big grid like they are in central Illinois, but most of the roads in central Texas are dirt.

[pontoontodd]

We got to the safari park near Dallas shortly after it opened and started driving through the park. There were tons of animals and feed had just been dumped out along the roads so they were out and most would walk right up to the car. We spent about three hours driving through.  This was included in the cost of the "behind the scenes" tour we took in the afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

The guided tour was good, the driver was in way more of a hurry than we were in our car since there was a lot to see in three hours. You have to be at least seven years old to go on the behind the scenes tour so the animals don't charge the small children, tear up the fences, and make the kids pee their pants. He told us the only animal in the park humans can outrun is the tortoise. We got to see the wolves, black rhino, and cheetah cubs but not the black footed cats or coati.  This is a maned wolf, they smell like skunks.

 

 

Covered about 5700 miles according to GPS, got 14-20mpg, usually around 18. Used about two quarts of oil and added some power steering fluid once. AC stopped working, I think about the time we got stuck in the water. Cruise control would turn off occasionally the last few days of the trip, usually when I wasn't using it, but a few times when it was set.  Any thoughts on that?

 

One thing I hadn't considered is that the days are short in November so we didn't have a lot of daylight.  In the spring we'd have similar weather but much more daylight.  Gopro is full of video, over the winter I have 3-4 trips worth of video to edit and post on youtube.

[scalman]

We hiked the trail to Upper Frijoles falls, the trail beyond that to see the lower falls was closed. You could see where the stream runs into the Rio Grande (not pictured).

 

 

 

 

I tried heading east between a couple of lakes on some fairly flat and straight dirt roads but many of the roads on the map didn't exist or were private.  This part of Texas has tons of north/south east/west roads in a big grid like they are in central Illinois, but most of the roads in central Texas are dirt.

 

cool looking beast. is it still legal on roads there were you live ? how its for long trips , how passengers feels about it ? 

[pontoontodd]

cool looking beast. is it still legal on roads there were you live ? how its for long trips , how passengers feels about it ? 

 

Yes, it's road legal.  You should see the lifted pickups in Arizona, they would probably blow your mind.

 

It's good on long trips.  Cruise works so that helps, we were going 80-85mph most of the way on the highways.  It's not too loud, has a full exhaust with cats and a muffler.  The tires probably make more noise than anything else and they're not too bad.  The suspension rides a little rough over small stuff like pavement cracks, but for big bumps and dips it's great, especially if you're going over 40mph.

[scalman]

Yes, it's road legal.  You should see the lifted pickups in Arizona, they would probably blow your mind.

 

It's good on long trips.  Cruise works so that helps, we were going 80-85mph most of the way on the highways.  It's not too loud, has a full exhaust with cats and a muffler.  The tires probably make more noise than anything else and they're not too bad.  The suspension rides a little rough over small stuff like pavement cracks, but for big bumps and dips it's great, especially if you're going over 40mph.

cool . so you need to go fast and hard to go comfy. interesting. how that engine works ?

in my country for MOT car must be original. no lift no notin. if you change bulb with led you wont pass MOT lol. 

i forgot did you put wheel spacers or your wheels sits as they were. ?

Edited November 22, 2017 by scalman

[pontoontodd]

cool . so you need to go fast and hard to go comfy. interesting. how that engine works ?

in my country for MOT car must be original. no lift no notin. if you change bulb with led you wont pass MOT lol. 

i forgot did you put wheel spacers or your wheels sits as they were. ?

 

EZ30 has been running well.  Still has a bunch of trouble codes, I haven't bothered checking them in months.

Sounds like a bad country to live in if you want to modify your car.

No wheel spacers, the struts we made have more clearance than stock, especially in the rear.  These tires did fit the stock suspension but rubbed a little.

[scalman]

EZ30 has been running well.  Still has a bunch of trouble codes, I haven't bothered checking them in months.

Sounds like a bad country to live in if you want to modify your car.

No wheel spacers, the struts we made have more clearance than stock, especially in the rear.  These tires did fit the stock suspension but rubbed a little.

yh people modifying cars still and big jeeps too. just before MOT they put all original stuff back remove lifts and stuff just to pass it . then next day they put all back again . 

so i will modify still some after MOT , not so hardcore as you guys here sure. im more for comfy and longer trips, but then sometimes something inside me wakes up and says: you know you wanna go into that mud do you ... and i go . just need to cover most holes under car so mud dont come inside car . then i will do more offroad testing. i dont wanna do it now because everywere were its hole , water or mud or salt in winter will come there and eat car faster and faster. 

if i could ask what would you suggest me do there :

Edited November 22, 2017 by scalman

[jf1sf5]

Honestly, doing a lot of work on a severly rusted car is not ideal. I don't know on what budget you are but maybe find another Outback in a better shape and keep this one for bits and pieces.

 

Here in Switzerland, you can find many Outbacks for relatively cheap on www.autoscout24.ch www.ricardoauto.ch www.anibis.ch and also in France on www.leboncoin.fr (easier for you as you are in the European market)

[pontoontodd]

Honestly, doing a lot of work on a severly rusted car is not ideal. I don't know on what budget you are but maybe find another Outback in a better shape and keep this one for bits and pieces.

 

Here in Switzerland, you can find many Outbacks for relatively cheap on www.autoscout24.ch www.ricardoauto.ch www.anibis.ch and also in France on www.leboncoin.fr (easier for you as you are in the European market)

 

Exactly.  I've never worked on a Subaru as rusty as the pictures you've shown and I think ours are bad.  I'm shocked you haven't had to replace all the brake and fuel lines and fuel tank.  Doesn't seem like you have a lot of work into that car.  Like jf1sf5 said, save your money if you have to and buy something rust free.  There must be some countries in the EU that don't use road salt.  The 2002 H6 Outback I bought from California with 230k miles on it looks brand new underneath and cost me $1800.  I would think you could find something like that.  You will be happy you did, any modifications or repairs you do will take half the time if you don't have to deal with rusty bolts.  You can keep the one you have for parts if you have the room.

[scalman]

Honestly, doing a lot of work on a severly rusted car is not ideal. I don't know on what budget you are but maybe find another Outback in a better shape and keep this one for bits and pieces.

 

Here in Switzerland, you can find many Outbacks for relatively cheap on www.autoscout24.ch www.ricardoauto.ch www.anibis.ch and also in France on www.leboncoin.fr (easier for you as you are in the European market)

yh i will later but for now i will resurect this one for as long as it can serve me. i wont do notin for sale as no matter how . so if there is just too much rust some place i just leave it as it is really until i maybe find solution what to do there. i fixed lots of bad bad places allready , and one nasty place left is that rear part . i think i will cut rust and throw away it until i dig some place were i could at least weld. and its not that important place . bumper holding just fine itself just that bumper not cover that part its just open . 

[scalman]

Exactly.  I've never worked on a Subaru as rusty as the pictures you've shown and I think ours are bad.  I'm shocked you haven't had to replace all the brake and fuel lines and fuel tank.  Doesn't seem like you have a lot of work into that car.  Like jf1sf5 said, save your money if you have to and buy something rust free.  There must be some countries in the EU that don't use road salt.  The 2002 H6 Outback I bought from California with 230k miles on it looks brand new underneath and cost me $1800.  I would think you could find something like that.  You will be happy you did, any modifications or repairs you do will take half the time if you don't have to deal with rusty bolts.  You can keep the one you have for parts if you have the room.

fuel lines and brake lines are ok still. fuel tank have some places that started rust so i check them often . and its easy juts to buy ok car and rive it. i will do it in time but for now i wanna see what i can do with it. allready im so proud with what i did really. it was like 100 times worse . yes its not gonna stop rust or fit it for good. but new metal will hold long time there still. 

its hard to find here rust free cars. it is possible thou sure. from some countries you can find them. but then cost goes up , because i will put LPG conversion in it , so pay it extra 1k euros about. 

my problem is i like car. i like one car and i don't sell cars or things so often. its like my car for everything. and plus that our country is poor one and prices are high as cosmos here. to buy car from salary its ... ummm hard thing. 

and other thing im learning to weld on car now and learning what i can do about it to fix it. i post my results in local forum and allready people ask me how i did it what i used and stuff. i mean every time i weld something i do it better and everytime i see more posibilitys what to use and how to seal some places from water or salt better . so this car is learning for me and i have lots of fun same time. i wanna make some roof rack later put more lights for bush driving. some stuff that still are legal and  not make car into some tank. 

 

about your car , i presume you dont sleep in it with all that cage and stuff that are inside yes ? 

Edited November 23, 2017 by scalman

[pontoontodd]

fuel lines and brake lines are ok still. fuel tank have some places that started rust so i check them often . and its easy juts to buy ok car and rive it. i will do it in time but for now i wanna see what i can do with it. allready im so proud with what i did really. it was like 100 times worse . yes its not gonna stop rust or fit it for good. but new metal will hold long time there still. 

its hard to find here rust free cars. it is possible thou sure. from some countries you can find them. but then cost goes up , because i will put LPG conversion in it , so pay it extra 1k euros about. 

my problem is i like car. i like one car and i don't sell cars or things so often. its like my car for everything. and plus that our country is poor one and prices are high as cosmos here. to buy car from salary its ... ummm hard thing. 

and other thing im learning to weld on car now and learning what i can do about it to fix it. i post my results in local forum and allready people ask me how i did it what i used and stuff. i mean every time i weld something i do it better and everytime i see more posibilitys what to use and how to seal some places from water or salt better . so this car is learning for me and i have lots of fun same time. i wanna make some roof rack later put more lights for bush driving. some stuff that still are legal and  not make car into some tank. 

 

about your car , i presume you dont sleep in it with all that cage and stuff that are inside yes ? 

 

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.

[scalman]

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.

ohh thats would be amazing to see what you could do with 2002 platform. because i want steal some your cool ideas maybe later . haha. 

did you allready checked and have plan with what could be done with 2nd gen outback to make it better . ? 

you mean you wanna do something like that ?

i thought about it too as first but then it kinda didint fitted my idea. and its because all that its fixed and all your stuff its just underneath allways vs. if you have all those stuff in separate bags, you can just throw it on front seats when you need to sleep and your trunk is usable just for bed. and i almost can sit inside it. and with this stuff there is so small space there to even move while you there. 

in my trip i had small fridge and about 5,6 bags with everything i would need. all tools for car too. but because i had all just in bags i could just put them all in front car when i sleep , and whats good with that you can reach them still while you in bed.no need to go outside car. so this didnt worked for me  . but it looks very cool yes and very organized. 

 

some people have even better ideas 

 

i would go for top one to put there extra stuff. but not furniture inside haha. but i bet it feels cosy inside 

Edited November 23, 2017 by scalman

[pontoontodd]

ohh thats would be amazing to see what you could do with 2002 platform. because i want steal some your cool ideas maybe later . haha. 

did you allready checked and have plan with what could be done with 2nd gen outback to make it better . ? 

you mean you wanna do something like that ?

i thought about it too as first but then it kinda didint fitted my idea. and its because all that its fixed and all your stuff its just underneath allways vs. if you have all those stuff in separate bags, you can just throw it on front seats when you need to sleep and your trunk is usable just for bed. and i almost can sit inside it. and with this stuff there is so small space there to even move while you there. 

in my trip i had small fridge and about 5,6 bags with everything i would need. all tools for car too. but because i had all just in bags i could just put them all in front car when i sleep , and whats good with that you can reach them still while you in bed.no need to go outside car. so this didnt worked for me  . but it looks very cool yes and very organized. 

 

some people have even better ideas 

 

i would go for top one to put there extra stuff. but not furniture inside haha. but i bet it feels cosy inside 

 

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.