Back with a New Ride!

[mthoodsub]

Well after spending a few years in the Toyota world, and having my truck stolen this year. I decided I would finally make the switch back to Subaru's

 

I picked up a '97 Outback Sport, with a 5-speed and 211k, earlier this year.

 

 

So I started stripping my old Legacy for..everything pretty much

 

 

 

Got my Primitive Skidplates from the Legacy onto the OBS, right away

 

 

And proceeded to build the Legacy's rear disc hubs, with new bearings, parking brake kits, lug studs, pads and rotors, oh and I turned my calipers into Brembo's 

 

 

Recently did this, for the traction control mod originally, but has turned out to be a lot of fun in the rain  . Being able to lock up the inside tire, and spin the outside tire lets the car break traction very quick.

 

 

 

And last weekend went from this

 

 

To this

 

 

Much more to come soon, I hope. Here is a teaser as to what will be coming.

 

 

Couple things I would like some feedback on.

 

1. When I did the disc conversion, I also installed the Legacy master cylinder which was 1-1/16" versus the OBS's 1". The pedal seems very firm now, and it does not seem to be sending much braking power to the rear. I'm still getting some good nose dive on hard braking. Should I also swap over the Legacy proportioning valve?

 

2. To anyone that has done the dual parking brake mod on an EJ-disc brake car, have you had good luck with it? While the OBS still had the drums it seemed to work very well, being that the disc-hub parking brake drums are considerably smaller, I'm second guessing whether it will prove functional. Im having a hard time getting them to lock up well.

[NorthCoast]

Swap the proportioning valve if you're looking for more even braking.  I left mine stock since other than coming to a complete stop, I usually only use the brakes for weight transfer.  

[mthoodsub]

Good point about the weight transfer, I may need it once I get the King springs on.

 

I went ahead and pulled the valve and the hill holder off the legacy before scrapping it yesterday.

 

I will get the King's on first and see how it does with the larger tires I plan to run, it may not 'feel' so bad.

 

How has your pad consumption been, between front and rear?

[NorthCoast]

Fronts get eaten up faster than the rears but my driving in both my Imprezas is "extreme" compared to most.  

 

What are your plans, if any, do you have for your transmission?

[mthoodsub]

For now I'm going to use the 3.9 until its toast, I have the transmission and rear diff from my legacy with 4.11 that I will use after that.

 

I wheel mainly snow and sand, since we don't have many trails down here. But also do a lot of rallying on forest roads.

 

I would love to do the dual range swap and had everything to do it on the legacy, but sold it off after it was totaled.

[NorthCoast]

For now I'm going to use the 3.9 until its toast, I have the transmission and rear diff from my legacy with 4.11 that I will use after that.

 

I wheel mainly snow and sand, since we don't have many trails down here. But also do a lot of rallying on forest roads.

 

The 4.11 will be a huge improvement.  For forest service roads, FS 17 is a fun one.

[mthoodsub]

Ok, so, made some progress this weekend. The Impreza sits a littler higher now.

 

Before rolling into the garage for comparison

 

 

Rear Before

 

 

 

Front Before

 

 

 

Tore into the front first, knowing it would go quicker than the rear.

 

 

Here is a comparison pic of the stock OBS struts(left) and the 97-99 Legacy Outback Struts with King Springs Raised Springs for a 98-02? Forester with 98' Forester Top Hats. These are the Fronts.

 

 

And as a refresher from above, here is a comparison shot of the rears, same setup as the fronts

 

 

Fronts Installed

 

 

The fronts went really smooth, I ended up removing the swaybar. As from previous experience there is really no need for a stock size swaybar with the stiffness of the King Springs

 

[mthoodsub]

Then moved onto the rears. I didn't get a before pic of the rear stock set up.

 

When I had this set up on my Legacy I was still sitting a bit lower in the rear compared to the front and I did not want that to happen this time. So I went ahead and made some spacers for the rear out of some 1/2" HDPE.

 

I used that upper strut mount cover that  came in the legacy as my template

 

 

In this picture you can see what I used as my template. Also that 2lb. fire extinguisher ended up being the perfect size for my center hole. I centered the fire extinguisher 1/2" from each hole.

 

 

I used my dremel to cut them out, this is the bit I used. I used high speed and in order to make clean cuts, I had to move pretty quickly and firmly. You can see how well that turned out 

 

 

Rears are installed

 

 

I also didn't take any pictures of how/where I drilled the new holes for the Forester top hats, since I don't like how it turned out, and don't want to lead anyone to do it that way. Even with the spacers being 1/2", I got thread engagement of the entire nut so I feel safe about that.

 

I also took off the rear sway bar, and also installed Ingalls Camber bolts in place of the top strut bolt on the rear. I had to do this in the Legacy as well.

 

And this is how it rolled out of the garage 

 

 

These are just immediate results, I know the springs need to settle down a bit.

 

Front After

 

 

 

Rear After

 

 

 

 

Need to find 2 more 215/75R15, and make spacers, or find some Outback trailing arm brackets, and get an alignment.

 

Thanks for looking guys.

 

[92loyale59]

yes king springs for the win. i love my king springs

[NorthCoast]

Now you just need the OB trailing arm bracket to center those rear wheels.

[mthoodsub]

Yes I will either go look for the OB bracket or make my own spacers.

 

After looking at the Impreza the last few days makes me wonder how it would look with the 4" AA kit that I have laying around, that I never put on the Legacy. But I think I will save that for when/if I decide to do a dual range swap

 

I will post an update soon I hope.

[mthoodsub]

Oh and I went ahead and swapped the proportioning valve from the Legacy at the same time I installed the lift.

 

Brakes seem fairly more responsive, so I'm happy with that.

[Subruise]

Very nice work there, I like big OBS's

Edited November 4, 2014 by Subruise

[mthoodsub]

It' been a few weeks and the suspension has more than settled in now. So I figured I would post my final numbers.

 

Here are the final front measurements

 

 

 

Here are the rear measurements

 

 

 

Which calculates to a mean(average) lift of 3.78" of lift. 

 

[mthoodsub]

With the lift pushing the rear tires forward, and the want for bigger tires. The obvious answer is to correct the Trailing Arm bracket.

 

I was at first going to just use the standard Legacy OB bracket, but having heard of only gaining about 1/4" of clearance, I wanted to go another route.

 

Since I have not seen a build with my exact set up, I figured I would try something.

 

I met another member, local to me who has started to build lift kits, and got him to build me a set of 2" drop spacers for the trailing arm bracket. I was hoping that by doubling the drop of the LOB bracket, that I would achieve close to double the clearance gained.

 

Here are the spacers, 2"x 3/16", turned out very well.

 

 

 

 

And here is the clearance measurement before the spacers went in. My current tire size is 205/60R15, and I am planning to go up to a 215/75R15, so anything gained here is worth it IMO.

 

 

Here they are installed. And yes, I know I'm not using Grade 8(10.9) bolts.

 

 

 

Drove around the block a few times and came up with this measurement. I don't think it will gain much more than this from anymore settling.

 

 

So it looks like I've gained about 3/8" maybe 7/16", not ideal but I can work with that.

 

[subimonster]

where are you located on mount hood? i also live on hood and have had a lifted 95 legacy for years and have been entertaining ideas of what to do with it as i am getting board with its current set up i did 6 years ago. I would like to look at your subi to get some ideas and see how thing are working for you.

[mthoodsub]

where are you located on mount hood? i also live on hood and have had a lifted 95 legacy for years and have been entertaining ideas of what to do with it as i am getting board with its current set up i did 6 years ago. I would like to look at your subi to get some ideas and see how thing are working for you.

 

PM sent.

[mthoodsub]

In anticipation of finding tires soon, I decided to make a little room for them over the holiday weekend.

 

Aside from cutting out about 1/2" from the front of the rear wheel wells, I took off the mud flaps and did some minor re-shaping of the area I rubbed on the Legacy.

 

Using my old 27x8.5R14 AT2 spare I had from the Legacy, I found I was only rubbing on full droop at full lock. 

 

The "frame rail" in front of the control arm mount is double walled, so I cut out one of the walls.

 

 

Then, since I don't have my torch running, I used my welder to apply heat and then gently beat the second wall back until I had no more rubbing.

 

 

Ground the welds "smooth" and gave it a shot of paint.

 

 

I know the 215/75R15's I am going to be running are larger than the AT2 I was using, so I expect there to still be some rubbing in this spot, but any room gained is a plus, to me.

 

[NorthCoast]

Careful in that area.  Those captive nuts inside are some of the first to go.  You may want to open it up from the inside and zap them with the welder since they are just tacked into place.

[mthoodsub]

Careful in that area.  Those captive nuts inside are some of the first to go.  You may want to open it up from the inside and zap them with the welder since they are just tacked into place.

 

 

Ok great, thanks for the tip!

 

And I've got new tires scheduled for this week so more to come.

[mthoodsub]

Got my 215/75R15's on last night, which are about 3" bigger than the 205/60R15's I had previously. So I'm hoping for 1.25"-1.75" gain from just the tires.

 

I will post up my measurements soon, but here is a crappy angle pic to start.

 

[mthoodsub]

Here are some numbers and pictures, now that I have the 215/75R15's on, they are just studless snow tires for now. Will go with either Grabber AT2's or Dynapro MT's when I can afford it.

 

Between the 2" spacers and the little cutting I did, I think they fit pretty well

 

 

Right around 5/8" clearance.

 

 

This is how the Impreza sits now, Im happy with how level it turned out, the 1/2" spacers in the rear turned out to be just right.

 

 

Here is the measurement at the front.

 

 

And at the rear

 

 

Using just the measurements at the bottom edge of the doors, between the very beginning and after the tires, I have gained 5.75" in the rear and 5.25" in the front. 

 

Here are my ground clearance measurements

 

12.25" at my rear skid plate

 

 

And its hard to tell in the pics, but I measured 11" at the lowest point of my Y-pipe.

 

 

Also did some light wheeling over the weekend while looking for a christmas tree, 3-4" of snow covered in ice, the Impreza performed very well, but I am definitely interested to see how it does when I install the 4.11's

 

 

 

 

[mthoodsub]

Here's a peek at what will be coming up, also installed a CB over the holidays.

 

 

 

 

 

[mthoodsub]

Got to work on my Roof Basket this weekend, pretty happy with the progress I made.

 

Started out with a basic layout using an old bed frame and some expanded steel.

 

 

Finally got some shielding gas for my welder 

 

Made some uprights for the corners and kept everything as square as possible using the strap

 

 

 

Corner Posts done

 

 

 

Then I started tacking in the top rim of my basket, all the flat bar I used was 1/8".

 

 

Then added some side supports

 

 

Made a quick test fit

 

 

Took some measurements and added some support for the expanded across the bottom

 

 

And welded the expanded to the cross bars

 

 

Added mounts for some light thing I got.

 

 

And then test fit the light onto the basket

 

 

30" Combo Beam LED Bar, 3w each, 180w total draw

 

 

Need to gather up some more expanded for the sides and figure out some hold down loops or locks for my tire and Hi-lift

[mthoodsub]

Got some more work done on the basket, added a bar across the rear for some future lights, worked up my spare tire hold down, and added some conduit down the length of the basket for the wiring of said future lights.

 

 

This bar in the rear also covered up the ugliness of the fact I used an old bed frame, and hides those assembly slots I kept for tie down holes

 

 

Nut welded into a piece of 1" square tube, then welded to one of the cross supports

 

 

 

 

 

First time trying to weld conduit, i used my oxy/acetylene to burn off the galvanization  and hit it with the wire wheel. Seemed to get a decent weld on it.