Baja Impreza

I've been meaning to post on this forum for like the past two years, so here's my lifted Impreza build to date. I bought this car (2000 Impreza Outback Sport wagon) like two years ago after pretty much designing the whole car. It's actually pretty close to the original design still, but I have a good bit of work left.

 First, I stripped everything but the dash and some of the drivetrain. I sanded and resprayed the entire car, covering the interior floor and part of the exterior with truck bedliner, which is decently thick and pretty grippy. Looking back, Line-x may have been a better decision, but that costs actual money and who here has that? 

Next, I installed mostly 03-05 Forester suspension, including struts, which are 3" longer than stock Impreza, and Forester front control arms, which increase track width and allow non-positive camber. I also installed King Springs, which are stiffer and about an inch taller than stock Forester springs, contributing to a total lift of around 4". I swapped rear hubs for disc brakes, which was super easy, out of a Legacy Outback (I think ~'98) as well as trailing arms, which are longer. I also installed Whiteline rear lateral links to solve the positive camber issue in the rear. The entire drivetrain was dropped 1.125", which helps keep axle angles to a minimum. The subframes were dropped via spacers from the Legacy Outback and everything else (transverse link on front control arm, driveshaft center support bearing, trailing arm front mounts) was lifted with aluminum spacers I made.

The last few pictures were from my first big trip in the Subaru. The goal was to make it to Asheville from Atlanta, but after a day or two there we decided to see how far we could get. We made it all the way to Louisville and then came back to Atlanta. An entire trip with no broken parts or catastrophes!

A few months later and after breaking my first axle, we took Suba on another road trip in the winter around North Carolina. I drove the Subaru in snow for the first time and made it home again in one piece.

 At some point, I also took the Subaru on an offroading trip with MtnRoo Southeast, which is an offroad Subaru club. They started out West and there are different ones all over the country. We went to Tray Mountain near Helen, Georgia.

As of today, I've driven about 20k miles and the suspension is fine. I had to grind front and rear fenders to fit the tyres, which are 29" BFG All-Terrains (225/75R15). The tyres are fantastic. They have great grip on the road and even better offroad. Highly reccomend. Apart from that, I've built engine and diff skids as well as a front bumper that's definitely going to be rebuilt soon. I also installed Hella halogen fog lights on the front bumper as well as a 20" light bar on the front and two little LED pods in the rear bumper. I highly recommend cheap Amazon light bars as long as you pop them open and add a little silicon or something to waterproof them.

Yes, that is a semi-sketchy fuse/relay box tied to the trans tunnel:

After all this work, we took the Suba on a spring break roadtrip. The goal was to get to Colorado or something to the left of Atlanta. Day 1 brought us to the middle of nowhere, Tennessee, where an axle popped out of the inner CV. Definitely not ideal.

Day 2 brought us into Kansas, where a wheel bearing busted and started making noise, forcing us to drive through the West half of Kansas at a rate of about 45 mph. If you've ever driven through Kansas, you know how hellish this is. We made it to Denver early in the morning and SubaPerformance helped us swap in a new wheel bearing I got from the junkyard and got us on our way. They're super nice people. Highly recommend.

After a day or two driving through mountains in Colorado, we decided to take Suba out to Moab, Utah, where we attempted the White Rim Trail. Suba did pretty well. While I like the stiffer suspension because it's really hard to bottom out on anything, it isn't exactly comfortable on washboard-type terrain. Nevertheless, it did really well until a brake line snapped. Semi non-ideal. We drive back ~55 miles in first gear with a mostly non-existant e-brake and replaced the brake line at an O'Reilly's.

We departed Moab and drove South into New Mexico, where we were greeted by a blizzard. We drove East all the way back to Atlanta over the next few days with no complications apart from a semi-wiggly CV joint.

After this trip, I realized my main axle problem, apart from the angle, was the fact that my exhaust runs right below the front right inner CV joint. On long trips with lots of throttle, heat builds up and makes the rubber cv boot brittle, which eventually ruptures and spills out all its grease. After the remainder of grease burns up, the CV joint seizes up, and, in the case of what happened in Tennessee, spits an axle.

Here's my flickr album, which is way more detailed.

Pictures aren't working for me, but I'm very interested in lifted Subies!

In reply to maschinenbau:

Ya sorry about pics I'm not sure why they don't work but check out the flickr album for more in depth build pics.

Didn't know that car started out life red.

In reply to mck1117:

That's why I kept the rear bumper!

Wow, good stuff. I went through your flicker account and was going to try hotlinking some of your pics but I failed.

Is it wrong that I was thinking you had converted an impreza into a subaru baja type truck?

I came here expecting some sort of Ute as well, awesome battle wagon!

Adam

Sounds like an awesome build (pics aren't working for me). I had a lifted impreza that I took on a 2 week trip in Baja. It had no problem with the Rocky/Sandy conditions and fit camping stuff for 2 perfectly.

My current DD is an outback lifted with 28" tires.

right click open image in new tab makes the pics come up. A similar build to this is also relevant to my interests. Did you know there are some really gnarly UTV tires for 15" and 16" wheels?

So it's been a year and I'm in the same spot, trying to get this car ready to go on spring break across the country. Since last year, I've swapped the motor, trans, and diff, gotten custom axles built, and a few other things. The motor is an EG33, which is out of the Subaru SVX, a funky little 90's luxury/sportscar that wasn't super popular but has a good heart. It's a 3.3L and is basically an EJ22 with 2 extra cylinders and a few other fancy bits. It sounds great. The trans and diff are out of an 02-05 WRX and should be a bit stronger. I finally got axles custom built by the Driveshaft Shop in North Carolina.

I'm going to California with some of my friends in a week and a half in this car (ideally). It's almost ready, but hasn't moved under its own power in about 10 months. I got the motor running a few days ago and it actually runs on 6 cylinders instead of the initial 2, which I didn't even know was possible for a 6 cylinder.

After a LOT of cleaning, the EG looked like this:

The flywheel bolts right up, as does the trans. SVX's only came with autos.

The engine and trans went in pretty easily together. Using the EJ22 engine mounts, it bolts right in. No grinding is necessary. I may have cut out the lower radiator support because I neglected to measure twice, but it's really just extra weight, right?

I attempted to reuse the EJ22 wiring harness on the EG. It worked in Excel, but not so well in real life, as I couldn't get the thing to fire and was running out of time. 

I was lucky enough to find an unstripped SVX in a junkyard near me, so I grabbed the engine/body harnesses. They ended up being the later OBDII version, so things didn't exactly match up, but it worked well enough.

I also got this little Honda Del Sol radiator, which I've been told will work with an EG without overheating. It's pretty small, but it is a dual core and will get pretty good airflow because it'll be in the very front of the car. We'll find out how well that works. I waterjetted a rock guard for it.

Here's you can see the new lower radiator support:

And the radiator mount:

I also experimented with some casting and casted rear differential bushings, which was entirely unnecessary, as I realized when I tried to extract the old bushings. They burn for d.a.y.s......

I made them in two pieces instead of one so they would go in easier. I 3d printed the molds as thin as I could and broke them off the bushings after they cured. It took a lot of tries, so here are some tips: Make sure you keep the liquid at the temperature it says. If it's too cold, even by like 5 degrees, it'll get kind of lumpy and your cast parts will be kind of spongy and not strong at all. Also make sure you dose them out by weight because if you attempt to eyeball volume, they'll be greasy and not very strong. TLDR follow instructions and it'll go well.

As you can see, there are a few bubbles. It's still incredibly hard and I don't think they'll be an issue at all. I tried using both high pressure and vacuum while curing, but neither one really worked as well for me as just pouring really slowly so that you don't allow bubbles to form in the first place. Adding pressure/vacuum kind of stirs things up, which resulted in more bubbles for me. This may also be partly because the cure time is so short (I think it starts to set in 4 mins or so).

I also rebuilt and shortened the shifter on the WRX trans because it had an insane amount of play. Where the giant bolts are there used to be studs, but they were a good 2 or 3mm smaller in diameter than the gap they were in, allowing for a lot of unwanted movement. These bolts are 1/2" I think and tighten up the gap well. I added some plastic spacers too.

Shortening the shifter is also pretty easy. You just cut about a centimeter from right below the threads and weld it in below the little pivot point. It's not too hard to eyeball straight. The only thing to worry about is getting the ball on the bottom too hot, so keep a little cup of water handy if you try this. This is about as much as I'd ever want to shorten this shifter. Any more and it would be too hard to tell which gear you're in and it might be a little hard to shift.