I'm debating selling my 4Runner and picking up an older (circa 2000) 5-speed Outback Sport. I'd like to do a light rally-ish build with my IPF lights, rally armor mudflaps, KYB GR-2s, and primitive racing skid plates. What should I be aware of? This car will be a DD and will see dirt.
GF8? Tons of aftermarket support. WRX/STI stuff bolts in. You have pretty much unlimited options for a car like that.
I've never heard anything bad about reliability for them. Just look for rust and general "old car" things. Subaru paint is generally on the lower quality side so if it's faded and chipped more than what you would think is usual that is par for the course. You will not be able to keep it nice if it is.
keeping an eye on this also, would love a nice wagon to complement the miata
Rust and the older Outback Sports normally have the 2.2L, not the 2.5L. Some would consider that a good thing, as the 2.2is considered the anvil of the EJ family. They only push out 140Hp though.
My 1997 Impreza Outback Sport (in avatar) was the best car I ever owned. I put serious mileage on it, rallycross abuse, TSDs, autocross abuse, daily grind, heavy things. It put up with everything until it was totalled in a parking lot. I dropped an 02 Impreza transmission into it to repair a screaming input shaft bearing, but it probably could have gone for several more years without doing so.
Aim for a 98-01 if you can; they have a much better interior (with cubbies and an easier to dismantle centre stack, particularly HVAC) and sometimes they even have a waist spoiler. Depending on the year, you also end up with hydraulic clutch, a more modern shift linkage and electronic speedometer (with digital odometer). As far as I know, no year had rear discs.
1997+ EJ22s are higher compression but are interference engines. I want to get another one one day, although the stiffer chassis of the 2003 Impreza TS I'm driving now sure feels a lot better.
99+ headlights improve the looks substantially, but you do give up the nice spirit level inside the OBS headlights that's intended to adjust the car's lighting for off-road. I installed a Daniel Stern H4 wiring upgrade kit and ran 85/90W Osram H4 bulbs for TSDs, and was okay without a lightbar but would have preferred one.
First thing you want to do is the usual Subaru tests; tight circles to test for a failed centre diff (not as common as people say from mismatched tires - usually happens from morons pulling handbrake turns without putting the clutch in first), checking for coolant milkshake, and looking for leaking or damaged CV axles. Since these cars are 5x100 (tiny hub), you've got the usual wheel bearing concerns at all four corners as well. Any sign that the owner doesn't understand the unique maintenance requirements of a Subaru (such as having put mismatched tires on) is probably a warning sign. As the cars are getting older, I'm finding myself standing in the front yards of more and more people who are treating them as consumables rather than an asset. I imagine that's how DSM guys felt a decade or so ago.
Rust is the only real concern; if you get one with an intact rear quarter make sure you take some precautions to keep that area clean. The fuel filler neck has a 'springy' shield that's intended to protect it against gravel but just traps salt and grit in there (eventually eating a hole and causing an evap code) if you don't keep it clean. Also watch out for leaking tail lights; unlike the later cars, these ones use a butyl ribbon to seal the tail lights and will let water into the hatch if the ribbon has gotten old. Some 3M Windo-Weld fixes that right up.
Bad piston slap at startup and fuel contamination of the oil will probably happen on the higher mileage examples (mine had 365,000 km when it was wrecked); Rotella T6 quieted down the slap, reduced the rate of oil shearing and generally made my life more enjoyable with the car. As always with Subarus, avoid unknown parts-store oil filters; Subarus run massive oil pressure and most oil filters have very weak bypass springs. Tokyo-Roki, the Subaru blues or Napa Gold/Purolators are your best choice here.
I installed a 17mm rear sway bar from an 07 WRX wagon and it made the car a lot more enjoyable to drive around town; upgrading the front swaybar is more difficult on non-turbo Subarus as the front subframe and crossmember don't permit the use of turbo front swaybars, but you can mix and match rear swaybars. The cheap "hot ticket" for the front swaybar is a 25mm front swaybar from a Tribeca.
The seats are great; for more bolstering install the seats from a 98-01 2.5RS coupe. Installing a post-02 seat will lift you about an inch, so don't do it if you're tall.
The OBS package provides springs that give you an extra inch of lift; their rate is near-as-dammit unchanged so the additional travel is very welcome when travelling offroad at high speeds, such as rallycross. The aforementioned swaybar and dropping sidewall heights helped tune out a lot of the wobble when cornering. Ball joints if the car feels like it has memory steer or blows around too easily in crosswinds.
If the shifter falls to one side on the pre-98 models in neutral, it's just a small broken return spring. You can get a new one from the dealer for about $3 but it's very easy to convince the previous owner that it indicates something is broken in the shift linkage.
You can make some money trading the vented/scooped hood to an unscooped Impreza owner so they can get some street cred pretending to be a WRX. I bought these from the junkyard whenever I could, but be aware they don't fit inside the car.
As with all pre-03ish Imprezas, the ABS is bad at best and life-threatening at worst if you don't have any experience with how it operates. You should not blindly rely on it; forcibly engage it on ice or loose dirt to get used to the unusual way in which the early Subaru system kicks the brake pedal back upward toward you, reducing the amount of requested brake pressure. I disabled it on dirt during competition altogether by pulling the fuse.
For ground clearance a lot of the Outback Sport exhaust stuff (including the header) is specialized from a regular Impreza; just get a decent muffler shop to weld things up if you get leaks (the cat housing has probably ruptured its welds by now). Exhaust gaskets are normal Subaru stuff and should be replaced if you drop the exhaust or you'll get nasty leaks, especially at the header on the single-port EJ22s.
As a result of the ground clearance, Paul at Primitive has an Outback Sport-specific skidplate that you need to order instead of the usual 93-01 Impreza one. Otherwise it won't clear the unique headers.
The JDM Subarus getting imported into Canada are all of the same general chassis, so parts are widely available and often quite cheap if you're like me and buy a Rubbermaid container full of parts off the local forums whenever one of them wrecks.
KYB GR2s are the OEM part. The struts are identical to other Imprezas; the (taller, as mentioned) spring is the only big difference.
Wheels: Take-off OEM alloys are really cheap and really good (usually Enkei depending on what car you're taking it from). I've gotten entire sets for free or a mild trade, and 15" tires are cheap if you don't care too much about speedometer accuracy.
I should really start copying these essays and putting them somewhere. You guys will buy my book, right?
Dang ssswitch, killer answer! Thanks!
I have an 03 obs that was my wife's ride until our 3rd kid came along and we got a minivan. It has been dead reliable from 60k to 145k miles. All I've done besides oil changes and new tires was to replace a leaky radiator. A 1" lift and 27" all terrains make it a little more entertaining. We took it adventuring for 10 days in baja last year and it did great in deep sand and on some nasty rocky roads. Honestly if you're going to do any serious offroading the auto trans is better. With the tall tires the gearing sucks for going slow. I've had to abuse the clutch a few times to clear some steep technical obstacles.
Dang indeed. I have owned a 1997 Impreza L wagon since new and swapped in a JDM drivetrain, but I have nothing of signifigance to add to that post. Maybe just on rust, as mentioned the rear quarters rust and if the strut mount is rusty walk away.
If the GR-2s are a stock replacement, is there a better option? I remember reading a few years ago that said using the v5(?) STi struts and OBS springs was the hot ticket but all the recent threads I've seen say to use GR-2s. I want this to be an affordable, low-key build otherwise I'd go with 50mm DMS struts and make a monster 
KYB agx's were a step up I think. Lots of autocrossers prefer to use Koni inserts. You can also swap in forester suspension to get a little extra ground clearance. I think the gr2 have a warranty, which might come in handy for a rallycross build. If you want to a little more hardcore, there are more dedicated rally setups, but those require more work to maintain, as they will require rebuilds.
In reply to sachilles:
I'm trying to avoid high-end stuff with this build. My 4Runner now is running 2.5" DR (basically Icon) coilovers and 2.5" Radflo rear shocks now. Those require almost yearly rebuilds to the tune of at least $400.
Oh boy! My second favorite subject, after Subarus. Subaru suspension interchange!!! Tears open Christmas gifts
The Forester struts moved the clevis tab downwards on the housing which provides (if memory serves) an additional inch of height over the OBS. The Forester is the highest-riding car prior to the current generation of Subarus, higher even than the Outback (which is close to the contemporary Outback Sport). A lot of early Forester stuff is shared with the GC/GF (due to Subaru's usual laziness), so there are some surprising interchanges out there including front control arms which offer more caster than the Impreza. If you are doing $2015 planning, this is about the time you head out to the junkyards to reap the joyous bounty of the thousands of early DOHC Foresters that are hitting the yards due to head gaskets and poor maintenance.
You can get used HotBits rally suspension but this is probably not a great idea on a budget beater. Also avoid sedan suspension, especially inverted-tube 04 STI struts, as these do unfortunate things to front geometry (GC/GF track is narrower than GD - it's the same as the GG) and will eventually break from the strain.
Chassis code primer, since you probably just asked "WTF is a GG?":
GC - Some people say 'GC8' but this is incorrect and refers to only a specific trim of GC. This encapsulates both the coupe and sedan models of 93-01 Impreza and V1 through V6 of JDM turbo Subarus.
GF - This is a 93-01 Impreza wagon, including the Outback Sport.
GD - 02-07 sedan. The front track here is wider than a GC/GF. Additionally, some models of cars (STI) will have a wider clevis tab on the strut housing which will cause binding and other misery in the front end if used on a narrower wagon/GC/GF track. The "V7" generation of STIs starts here (although in Japan, the model years are different - MY01 is the first V7).
GG - 02-07 wagon. The front track here is the same as a GC/GF.
Your rear tophat primer:
In order to run 04+ springs in the rear, you need compatible spring perches in the top hats. This means you can use any 04+ tophat in the rear.
Note that to use any 02-07 tophat in the rear you must drill additional holes in the top of the strut tower as the stud pattern changes. You can use 93-01 rear tophats with 02-03 springs.
Use of sedan springs usually requires what is colloquially known as a "saggy butt spacer" for reasons which are probably obvious.
I think the GC OBS is one of the funner cars to drive. Even more so than the 2.5RS. The 2.5RS has more power on paper but the 2.2 seems to be a more flexible engine. At least, while rallycrossing them, the 2.2 seemed to enjoy being run out to the rev limiter while the 2.5 seemed to work best if you shifted no later than 5000-5500.
The only downside is that they rust like Subarus, only they have no collector value like 2.5RSs so they generally are treated like cars and not enthusiast vehicles. You can at least find clean 2.5RSs fairly easy but it seems like all OBSs are rotted out to the max.
What I am getting at is, it's somewhat of a shame that they didn't make a 2.5RS wagon because then you'd get the wagonness along with the collectabilityness.
Tagging this thread because I just bought a 2000 Outback Sport, and am about to start the gentle improvements to make it more enjoyable to drive fast, rather than trying to make it faster.
I have a '98 OBS 2.2, 5mt with 220,000+ miles and a '97 Impreza Coupe 2.2, 5mt with 175,000+ miles. Oddly the OBS seems to be of slightly higher build quality, though it may just be my perception.
Also it has a slightly taller final drive and gets better fuel economy, I've been averaging low 30's combined mpg with a lower grille block and old fart driving tactics.
Sadly rust will soon take my OBS, the right rear control arm mount looks as if it will soon tear away from the floor.
thatsnowinnebago wrote: In reply to sachilles: I'm trying to avoid high-end stuff with this build. My 4Runner now is running 2.5" DR (basically Icon) coilovers and 2.5" Radflo rear shocks now. Those require almost yearly rebuilds to the tune of at least $400.
Quick sidetrack, I'm running 2.5" Icons all around with secondary jounce shocks up front on my 96 4Runner. They have absolutely spoiled me. It's amazing what a properly tuned set of fat dampers can do. Stock my 4Runner was a fat, wallowing pig that scraped its door mirrors on corners and bottomed constantly. Now, it only lightly brushes it's door mirrors but laughs off downright abusive driving. I keep threatening to replace it with a new Tacoma, but thanks to Icon I'm going to have to spend another 3k on the suspension before I'm happy with the ride.
Fupdiggity wrote:thatsnowinnebago wrote: In reply to sachilles: I'm trying to avoid high-end stuff with this build. My 4Runner now is running 2.5" DR (basically Icon) coilovers and 2.5" Radflo rear shocks now. Those require almost yearly rebuilds to the tune of at least $400.Quick sidetrack, I'm running 2.5" Icons all around with secondary jounce shocks up front on my 96 4Runner. They have absolutely spoiled me. It's amazing what a properly tuned set of fat dampers can do. Stock my 4Runner was a fat, wallowing pig that scraped its door mirrors on corners and bottomed constantly. Now, it only lightly brushes it's door mirrors but laughs off downright abusive driving. I keep threatening to replace it with a new Tacoma, but thanks to Icon I'm going to have to spend another 3k on the suspension before I'm happy with the ride.
Right?! I'm so spoiled with bombing out of driveways and generally not giving a E36 M3 about potholes/speed bumps/whatever's in the road. Also, didn't end up selling the truck and getting an OBS. Oops.
On a scale from 1-10, what's the "Lego factor" with these? Seems like a 9.5 to me.
Maybe I should look into them.
Yes, it's a 9.5 lego factor. Mostly just wiring differences depending on what you are swapping. There are a few wagon specific items.
Had one with the 2.2, upgraded shocks, mean snow tires, exhaust and whiteline sways front and rear.
Don't do rally armor. That's such a cliche flat brimmed hat wearing DC shoe buying ken block fellating mouth breather trope.
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