pamike

your tire to strut clearance will be fine. use a full set of 96-99 outback struts with your stock springs and top hats. i was running 205/75-15 tires on this setup. 215/65-16 tires also fit. my old legacy as a reference

get snow tires, makes a big difference. i run the general altimax arctic's on my wrx. also a small lift for more clearance helps

don't worry it will be worth it when your done

have any info on this recall? i have a 96 and would like to know more

i wouldn't worry about it. i've ran my lifted legacy's for years without modifying the speedometer. at highway speeds just go about 5 mph under the speed limit and call it good.

theirs really not much in a caliper. i work for a company that rebuilds them. i had a set that i personlly assembled on my subaru for years before i sold it and they are still doing good. somtimes the piston or bore gets rusty and they hang up but i have pulled them apart and cleaned them up with my dremel tool and reassembled and they work fine after. but that happens to all calipers not just the new ones

i guess we'll see.. so far no dead battery

well i've just been driving it and waiting to see what the car is going to do. so far i havn't got a dead battery so thats good. but i would still like to know if their is supposed to be a delay in the relay turning off. i was thinking of doing some testing on my brothers car and see if his has the delay. i thought i checked it before but i can't remember, it's been a while. his is the same year so everything should work the same.

i don't believe the rear springs are different. i think it's just the top hats that are different because of the different bolt parrern but i'm not 100% sure on that. but anyway i currently have a 96 legacy with the outback struts also and i've had no issues with it either. it's the wifes daily driver. both are in the pic i posted yesterday. i do know that the same setup on a first gen legacy seems to lift a bit more than the second gen cars.

not sure about the spring rates but sedan vs wagon are probably different rates. height of the spring is the same though. but i had my 90 lifted for probably 4-5 years and it seen alot of offroading and i never had any issues. struts were still working as they should when i sold it.

if you look back at the original question it was about outback struts. i only brought up the forester struts because of your comment above. he was not asking about forester struts therefore that information was of no use to him anyway. i was directing that info tward you. you were wrong about the springs and i was just clarifying that he did not need to use outback springs because of the fact that the stock legacy springs are just about(if not) identical. i know this from my own experience and research. i just assumed you thought the springs were different because you have a forester, and impreza springs are shorter than forester springs and you probably thought the same was true about legacy vs outback.

yup i know, just didn't feel the need to add that info in there

i agree 100%. i had a 90 legacy lifted with outback struts with stock legacy springs and top hats. no problems. i ran it for quite a few years. i also currently have a 96 legacy lifted the same way with stock springs and hats. springs are pretty much the same betweent the legacy and outback. foresters struts i believe give the lift from the taller springs. this is why the outback struts have more tire to spring perch clearance than the forester struts. here's a pic of my 2 legacy's. the outback struts seem to lift the first gen legacys a bit more than the second gen's

black/blue, white/blue, black/pink, and the 2 yel/blue wires have in the 11.5-12v range. and i just found out that if i let the relay stay powered up for a while, somtimes it will turn off after a few minutes. and i just wanted to ask you if their was any possability that the relay was supposed to stay on for a brief time after turning the key off? i can't see any reason it would though. but i turned the key on and back off about 4 different times and after about 3 minutes everytime the relay turned off by itself.

do you have a wiring diagram of the ecu pins you could post up? how would i remove the wire from the connector? i know somtimes they can be a pain. but i just checked some wires at the ecu with the main relay on and alot of the wires have some power to them rangeing from .13v up to 11.5v.

ok i will check that. i just wanted to add(if i havn't already) that i managed to connect the relay to just the power and ground(light green and black wires) without touching the other 4 pins of the connector, and i then cycled the key on and off while listening to the relay. it turned on and off as it should.

the voltage between the light green wire and ground was 11.22 as i said. the yel/blue and yel/red had the normal 12v as did the 2 wires from the underhood fuse(which are hot at all times). and i think i said before about when i unplug the engine harness connector at the bellhousing it breaks the circuit and the draw goes away. wouldn't that mean their is a connection being made in the engine harness? this is the connector with the yel/red and yel/blue wires.

just wanted to add that as i said before this problem doesn't always happen. for an example, i just reconnected the relay and ecu and i started the car. after running for a few minutes i turned it off and the relay was off.:confused:

ok with ecu disconnected i get nothing when checking resistance. but with ecu connected and the black wire from my meter touching the light green relay power wire i got approx. 9.06 K ohms at the yellow/blue and yellow/red wires. i however don't get any reading with my meter wires reversed. i don't know if this means anything or not. i'm also getting resistance readings between the black ground wire and the yellow/blue, yellow/red wires with ecu connected and disconnected if that matters. all of this checked at the main relay connector with relay dissconnected. so is it possable that the problem is occuring after the ecu and backfeeding through the ecu to the relay? or is this not possable because of the fact that the ecu cuts power to the light green wire when key is turned off? i also got a voltage reading with the relay energized when the problem is occuring and i got 11.22 v between power and ground while the switched contact side had the normal 12v. so thier is a reduced amount of voltage powering the relay

i see no problems at the socket. i however did confirm that somthing from that circuit has to be bridged to the relay power wire. i managed to plug the relay into just the power and ground without the other wires touching and the relay turns on and off with the key as it should. so you are correct about what the problem probably is but i think the problem is somwhere else. i see nothing wrong with the connection to the relay. edit- do you happen to know where the ground is for the main relay?

the only extra wiring thats on there is the wiring for my hella lights. but this problem has been going on way before those lights were ever on the car. and i've replaced the alt before with no change to this problem. i've checked the wiring to the radio also and found a mis-placed wire that was causing my backfeeding problem to my parking lights but i've fixed that. i'm also just gonna unplug the radio completely when i get a chance and see if that does anything. however i dont think this is the problem because i remember looking at that wiring and i'm sure that it's all correct now.

checked and cleaned all grounds i could find. still no progress on this. i'm about ready to just cut the power wire to the main relay and put in a toggle switch. the car runs fine otherwise so i don't see a problem with doing this.

i just re-read this whole post and i think somone said it could be a bad ignition switch. does this sound possable? if so how hard to change? i'm running out of ideas and this is the next thing to try.

i will check fuses again. but i found somthing very wierd. theirs 3 connectors on the right side behind the motor bolted to the bellhousing on a bracket. these plug the engine harness into the car harness. if i unplug the top connector nothing happens. i unplug the second connector and the power draw goes away, same thing as pulling the 30A fuse in the underhood box. now the bottom connector when unpluged turns on the left cooling fan and it continues to run until i plug it back in. then after doing this the draw also goes away. also noticed after doing this my temp gauge points way past hot. it just shoots right up as soon as i unplug it along with the fan coming on. somthing just doesnt seem right about this. edit- found fuse #15 in the inside box (main fan) had .3v if that matters

well i'm still having this problem. i did find the radio wired in wrong and was some how backfeeding into my parking lights keeping them on. i fixed that. the problem is not the main relay or ecu. i know its not the iac.. i just unpluged the injectors and a bunch of engine sensors and didn't change the problem. now what i'd like to know is if it's even possable for a sensor or somthing in the circuit to somehow tell the ecu to keep the relay energized? this way i know where i should and shouldn't be looking