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Ari's POS Lifted Outback Daily

45K views 504 replies 16 participants last post by  jkp 
#1 · (Edited)
I didn't think I would ever feel like a journal for this car would be justifiable or needed, but seeing as it has been taking over my other journal this is probably a good idea.

Actually, this isn't a good idea... Now I kinda miss the way the car was before I messed it up lol


Anyway, I bought this thing back in 2009 or something. It is a 1996 Impreza Outback 2.2l manual, had about 200k miles on it at the time and probably has atleast 60k more now. It was bone stock and unmolested, pretty clean for what it was. I was only 15 yo at the time and wouldn't get my license for two more years, but I got it for cheap since it didn't run to well and the previous owner kinda gave up on it. But after replacing the MAF sensor the car was all good. Tbh, I didn't know anything about Subarus, I even disliked the Imprezas alot because "everybody has them and they all look the same" or something along those lines. Little did I know how much they would grow on me. But after replacing the MAF sensor the car was all good.

This is what it looked like when I got it, excuse the pic quality... I only had a 2mp cellphone camera and some childish photoshop edits




A while after I got the car the headgaskets blew. After fixing them the car started having overheating issues shortly after, me and my dad thought we might have messed up during the gasket install or something and decided that the car wasnt worth putting more work/money into so I drove it like that for a year or two after getting my license. Ended up finally completely ruining the engine by letting it overheat to much/to often, only to realise the issue was a bad radiator... By then I liked the car way to much to let it go, and despite having to add coolant to it regularly all that time it had served me well. So, I bought a cheap ej22 replacement engine and got it running again. Since then it has been doing good.

And now for the visual part. Shortly before I got my license I bought a wrecked 99 Impreza turbo (basicly a wrecked shell with no driveline), orginally intended to use parts from it to make the Outback cooler but then that thing turned into a project car... To get that done I had to buy a parts car for teardown. So, the Outback got facelift headlights, grille and hood. I felt like that helped the look a little.






Very soon I swapped out the crappy oem seats for some really comfy 1st gen Legacy ones, made such a difference to the whole car! After that followed some dumbass teenager mods such as cut springs and diy front spats out of a wrecked bumper. To be fair though, it looked alright. Looking through these pics makes my kinda miss that look... And it was pretty clean at that time too





Then came the matte black hood, I was so happy with the car like that



And here is a random pic with the 17" wheels that were to go on my GC which was done by then



One winter I messed up the pre facelift bumper by parking on a hill of snow, it was 3 wheelin and all lol.





I replaced it with a facelift L bumper of one of my parts cars





Even being lowered, this thing was awesome in snow! Obviously, I did get it stuck every now and then but I always had a shovel in the car and managed to get it loose by myself most of the time







After some times getting into trouble for it being to low I ended up doing the right thing and install un cutted springs again





At this point, the car was way to multicoloured for my opinion so I decided I wanted to change the colour. I guess I could say it wasnt really a good decision but I decided to paint it with a paint roller... Somewhere around this time I put stock springs back in so it would be usable during winter. I also happened to get free trunk wings from a buddy of mine, those really did do some good










Now, this looked good at first but since the paint didn't have a clearcoat, and I didn't put one on obviously since I used paintrollers, this shiny clean look didn't last long. And by now the whole thing is peeling pretty badly and so on.

Having fun in the snow




Next mod was a custom bash bar/light bar. Really enjoyed making this















Then I mounted these xenon fogs my dad had laying around the shop
















I've had so much fun with this thing over the years... Managed to get stuck once (more often actually but you know) and almost slid into a ditch full of knee deep muddy water lol




Aaaand, now we´re catching up. This brings us to this fall. I started wanting to lift the car, took the 15´s off and borrowed some WRX wheels from my blobeye to start with. Also threw on a spare v6 grille I had since a fat goose broke the other one... These two pics show how shitty the paint is, looks good wet, not so much when its dry...






Also here are a few pics from this winter before the lift





As for tires for the car, I had my mind pretty set on the Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs, mostly for the aggresive thread and the fact that they were pretty cheap'ish too. Ahead of me was some fab work and more waiting on parts than I assumed...




I borrowed these old worn out tires to test fit and try to realise what needed to be done to fit them






And then the new ones showed up.














I decided to run them studless to have the option of using them during the summer too. Instead I had them "micro cutted", which are alot of really fine cuts across the thread to give better grip and cooling to the tire, supposedly it also makes them quieter and what not.










Then the fabrication started. I made my own 3" tophat spacers with camber adjustability







































Welded both front tubes shut and threaded the holes. I know the welds arent 10/10 but they definetaly should do. The worse one is the first one...










Grinded to be flat




And then test fitted on the bottom plate in the car to see which way the holes need to face




And tacked together for now





Next up, bolted top and bottom plates together and aligned them properly by measuring at each bolt. Then I drilled the top plate through the tube to have the adjustment holes at the right place
























I realise the welds could be better but I'm pretty sure they'll hold just fine














Test fitting to see wich way the adjustment needs to face




Final steps




And "all" done!















Completely finished at this point




Then came the actual install. Had some near misses with the rears, had to trim the bolts a little bit




Both sway bars are out, didn't bother to do some fabricating to get them to fit so I run the car without them. Doesnt feel half bad at all. I wouldn't even choose to have them in if I could honestly






Looked like shit, rear camber is way off, front is good surprisingly, rear tires are way front in the wheelwell and its quite alot higher in the rear... I couldn't mount the tires at that time cause I only had 25mm spacers which I thougth would do, but the rear needed way more for the tires not to hit the spring perch.

So to sum up the lift, 3" camber adjustable custom tophat spacers ontop of alloy 3/4" spacers without a subframe drop. 3 3/4" in total.











Shortly after I made trailing arm spacers and mounted them, got the wheel about half an inch back in the wheel well














I then remembered I had a tire pressure monitor system that I got for my birthday a few months back. I always kinda wanted to use it with the new setup. There was one sorta "flaw" about it and that is that the sensors mount on the outside and use a nut to secure them. That means I couldn't really add or let out air without having to grab tools and spend some time on it. So, I bought some extra valves that have threads on them. I drilled and tapped for two extra valves in each wheel. One to permanently mount the sensors on and another that is only closed off with a cap to make letting air out easier.














Aaaaaand now finally, actually mounting the tires! I used two 25mm spacers in the rear and two 15mm in the front. Orginally only bought a set of 25mm and thought it would do. When I realised it didn´t I ordered a set of 15mm and planned on running a total of 40mm all around. That didn't work in the rear so I needed all 25mm to be used in the rear...






At this point stuff finally got interesting!






















Some cutting/hammering/welding needed...
































But the outcome was well worth it. As of now, the fenderwork still isnt done yet but the car is driveable and in 90% everyday scenarios rub free










I then swapped in a dual range tranny from a partscar I had. It's got the same 3.90 ratio I had already. Didn't take many pics during the job tho...

Removing from the parts car



New clutch installed



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And then that dual range goodness!






Also, after removing the fender liners I had water issues....



And fixed with the intake piping from the white donor






Making more room in the front



Before



After




And first proper test with the dual range, which happens to bring us up to date










I also have some stuff in the mail. Gonna be mounting two work lights on the roof on each side and one under the top wing for reverse light.






The lateral links are already here and will hopefully be installed soon so I can finish my wheel alignment which currently consists of alot of positive rear camber...

 

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#82 ·
Yes. Its been wet the whole week cause for some reason each time we get proper amount of snow the temp goes up to +8°c... My car is completely covered in nasty sand now -.-

And there we have one of many good reasons why my GC is staying inside until summer

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#93 ·
Alright so, swapped out the rattling lat links for stock ones. Not the same that were on the car cause they were bent ALOT.




Gonna sneak in a couple pics to show how nasty the car looked after driving on the wet streets for a week...






But the ebay lateral links were sooo bad, the rear ones were both done for, but the fronts weren't that bad I think. Obviously they should have been lubed and covered up for this kind of use, lesson learned.










So after changin out the links I did an alignment. And even managed to get it on all green for factory specs.








Now, that might sound weird since I said the camber plates were maxed out, hence the adjustable lat links. Well, if I tell you this can't make too much fun of me, cause I should definetaly keep this to myself...[emoji28]

When I made the camber plates I made them so that one side had more adjustability. I then maxed that out and installed them already maxed out. So basicly, I mixed up which way to adjust for negative/positive camber when I had the tophats on the table and maxed them out in positive camber. Never realised until a couple days ago lol. So now I've done a proper alignment and still have plenty of adjust left on the tophats






Only one issue so far, now I adjusted the camber so far that the struts/springs actually rub against the inside of the wheel well pretty badly. Gonna see if its possible to bring out a hammer for a little more room





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#96 ·
Honestly it rides really good, not *much* different than stock, even with the sways out. Body roll isn't bad at all, its very stable. Main difference is that its more difficult to get the rear end out so it tends to understeer sometimes instead

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#101 ·
Got the other pair of led lights. Tried messing around with placement of them but I realised I don't think I like how they look at all lol. Atleast I have no idea how I'd like to mount them... I wouldn't have done it any time soon anyway since I'm gonna try to focus on making progress on my WRX for a while. The Outback completely stopped that project as soon as I started thinking about lifting it haha

Here are a few pics with ideas of the led setup, don't like any of them honestly...








And here is what I'm gonna try to spend my free time on now. Not gonna let the blobeye steal this thread the way the wagon stole th GC's thread tho, don't worry haha







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#107 ·
Some good ideas in there, thanks. I do have 6 18w smaller ones on the way which I intended for all around lightening/work lights. I'll just have to get a bit creative with the square ones if I wanna use them

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