pontoontodd

I really think you want some kind of square tube lifting part that goes on the hi lift, square tube receivers in the frame, and maybe even a locking pin that goes through them. Like a trailer hitch. I would just use those, you could always mount a winch or something to them later. The square tubing will keep the jack from tipping over and the pin will keep it from sliding out. If you put one near each bumper frame mount that would probably suffice. You could put them on the sides of the car too, if you do I'd get them as close to the suspension mounts as you can and notch the pinch welds so they don't hang down.

Thanks. I think you're right about the Subaru being the jack of all trades and master of none. Several of my friends have commented they don't know of anything else that can cruise comfortably on the highway, drive off pavement all day fairly well, and drive back home with (usually) no major problems. It is definitely a compromise between road comfort, high speed off road capability, and low speed rock crawling. Even deciding how wide a rig you want is a compromise between being able to do narrow trails or go in between big rocks and having more suspension travel and being more stable. At the moment I've decided to stick with what I have. Where we live we have to drive 300-2000 miles to get where we want to ride off road, so it has to be good on the highway. I'm not excited by rock crawling or mud bogging so I don't need giant tires and a lot of clearance. It would be cool to go faster over rough terrain but the current suspension is good enough to be fun, and I think we can improve it more. One of the biggest improvements we could make to the cars would be the 6MT/R180 with a lower first and second. You really can't beat on the 5MT and R160 with the H6 and big aggressive tires or they will break.

Makes sense on the T100. Yes, better dampers and better tuning make a huge difference. Ours are built around Fox shocks with reservoirs, which are considered some of the best in off road. I think they're tuned pretty well right now, no comparison to stock in terms of ride quality and durability. I didn't notice much difference in ride between the a-arm setup we made and the struts we have now. There is probably still room for improvement in tuning. And I have some ideas we're going to try soon to improve them further. If you haven't seen what the top Dakar racers can do with 12" or less of suspension travel, you should, they are amazing, but the 2WDs at least have larger tires than we do, which helps. All that said, something with well tuned shocks and 12" of travel will never be able to keep up with something with 18-24" of well tuned travel over rough terrain.

So I charged the Impreza battery this morning but it still wouldn't crank. Put in the battery out of the donor Outback and it fired right up. Drove it for at least an hour around town, with a half dozen stops but none of them long. Never overheated or puked out coolant. When I first got home it was bubbling into the overflow, maybe a bubble every five seconds. Used the magical test fluid and that never changed color, but after it sat and idled for a bit it stopped bubbling too. So I'm guessing the head gasket(s) are starting to go but aren't too bad at the moment. Might do the head gaskets this weekend. While I was driving around some guy pulled up and asked if I was looking for another Subaru. His daughter was driving a 99 Outback and rear ended someone. They had supposedly just done the head gaskets, exhaust, timing belt, rotors, tires, and heater core, it has 118k on it, 4 cylinder auto. I checked it out, it would need the lower radiator support pulled forward and a new radiator, but I have a couple of those in my basement. It has a good set of snow tires and alloy wheels. Clean cloth interior, smells like they smoked in it. It's about as rusty as most Subarus that age around here, body doesn't look too bad but probably half the bolts would break off the first time you tried to turn them. All the CV boots look good. He wants $600. I'm tempted to buy that and scrap/sell the Impreza. I really need to get another rust free H6 Outback. Still would like feedback on cruise control and AC issues with the 99 Outback.

That's why I'm considering something different.

How about just a T100 with the 3.4, then you wouldn't have to swap engines or axles? Not that the 3.4 made a ton of power either.

Hahhahahaha. You're obviously not American or you'd know more and bigger is always better! Seriously though, there are times when we have to slow down because the trail is too rough for our current suspension. Not anywhere near as bad as the stock suspension. In something with say 20" of travel and 33-37" tires you could go much faster over rough ground than we do. As an extreme example the winner of the Vegas to Reno runs it at twice our average speed. There are street legal prerunners that are basically a trophy truck with air conditioning, so that's not just race cars. The bigger reason would probably be to get a real low range/lockers, bigger tires, and more interior room. It would be nice to have a large enough area behind the front seats to sleep comfortably.

The cruise control is mostly not working now. For months it has shut off every hour or so. Now it's every minute or so, sometimes the light doesn't even come on when you push the main cruise button. I have the button from the 2002 donor, going to try that first. Then try to find the relay. Hoping it's not a wiring or signal issue. Anybody have this problem before? Also still wondering what would cause the AC pressure to be same on high and low side other than compressor not compressing, any advice on that would be good too.

The STI axles aren't much longer, less than an inch if I remember right. Just making longer axle bars isn't too expensive, the real problem is to fit longer axles in most IFS trucks or FWD cars you have to widen the suspension too, so the thing winds up seven feet wide to get a decent amount of travel. Probably not a big deal out west, maybe even desirable, but a lot of the trails east of the Mississippi are tight. I've thought about those Toyotas. They are generally reliable, and as you say you could get the sort of transfer case and lockers you'd want. You can obviously fit bigger tires. And you're right about the shocks being much cheaper/simpler than struts. We are already making 12" of wheel travel though. The Toyotas don't have much power stock, even with the six cylinder, and according to Wikipedia the 4Runner is a foot shorter than the Outback. Overall it would probably be cheaper than what we've done with better crawling ability but a worse power/weight ratio. I would like to get a ride in one of those. What 4.3 do you have in yours, GM?

Front and rear it would be easy to have receivers that wouldn't hang down. On the sides you could put them right where you're lifting the car in the pictures, the stamped "frame rail" hangs down a few inches there. You would have to notch the pinch weld.

I assume you will make a larger platform to attach to the bottom. One thought I had if I got one was to put specific lifting points for it on both sides and front/rear of the car. Since I already have 1.25" square receivers in front and rear, I would attach a 1.25" tube to the lifting arm of the jack. That way the jack is less likely to tip over.

The CV axles aren't limiting us in the Subarus. It's more of an issue of tire-body (structural body, not just fenders) clearance at full bump. At full droop, it's a bunch of things. Tie rods are binding. Springs can only be so long to fit above the tire when fully compressed, so they can only extend so far. CVs are close to binding too. Subarus have much longer CV axles than most other cars or even IFS trucks. The only thing I can think of that would be similar are VW/Audi. Thought about going Mitsubishi, like an Outlander, they basically have an EVO drivetrain and can supposedly take 400hp. Biggest problem is the front CV axles are short. Perhaps with rzeppa joints on both ends and a ball spline you could get good travel, I doubt that would be cheap though.

I've been talking to a bunch of people about other cars/SUVs that would be better for what we're doing. Without going wide I don't think we're going to find anything that rides better than the Subarus with more interior space for similar money. We mocked up wider control arms in the front on one side of my 99 Outback to see what that would do for us. Right now bump travel is limited by the tire hitting the part of the body that supports the fender and strut tower. Since this is the part of the body we started to rip off at the V2R it is obviously important structurally. Maybe we could cut it out and replace it with tubing and get a couple inches more up travel. We would have to go about 7" wider per side to get the tire entirely outside that part of the body, and it still wouldn't clear when steered at full bump. With a control arm about 3" wider than what we have now, we would have another inch or two of droop travel for a similar CV axle angle. The other advantage of widening the arms is that the strut would be at more of an angle so the spring could probably go alongside the tire rather than having to be above the tire. That would make more suspension travel and spring selection easier. Not really worth making longer axles and modifying the struts for another inch or two of travel though. In the rear there are similar issues, so for now I'm going to leave it at the current width. I do have some ideas for improving the shocks that I'm going to try to get parts for this week. It really is already a huge improvement from stock, and it's not too often we have to slow down because roads are too rough. I put a different AC compressor on the 99 Outback, added some R134a, and it's still reading the same pressure (50-60psi) on the low and high side with the compressor running. Is there a chance the orifice is blown out or something? What else would cause this aside from the compressor not compressing?

I'm glad you got it home with minimal damage. If you keep going solo you should figure out some better recovery method(s). The electric jacks and recovery ramps/sand ladders have worked well for me. Or get a winch and build mounts and wiring to put it on the front or rear of the car. Slow but effective if you're near trees.

I'm still not sure how you're going to lift your car with a high lift, but if you have one it would certainly be easier than a bottle jack. You should be able to get a 12 ton bottle jack for $20 or so. Yes, you will probably have to stack stuff under the car and prop up the jack and do it in stages. There are telescoping hydraulic bottle jacks too, you get more lift but they're more expensive and the second stage can't lift as much. By far the easiest solution would be to find someone with a tractor or big 4WD and beg or pay them to drive over there and pull your car out. If you do that or try the winch again I would pull on both tow hooks, especially considering your car is rusty.

What kind of jack do you have? With a good hydraulic floor jack or bottle jack if you dig out a spot for it you should be able to lift the car. If you can't lift it enough in one shot, stack blocks of wood or something under the car, lower the jack, stack some blocks under the jack, and do it again. Even if you had a hi-lift you probably have nowhere on the car to lift with it. Were you using the pulley with the come along like in those pictures? Do you have a decent chain or something that won't break?

It doesn't look hopelessly buried. I think you could get it out by jacking up one corner at a time and putting branches under the tires. It will take a while and some digging. I haven't done much with my 2002 but I think the radiator support on those is fairly strong, just watch if you jack up on that so it doesn't bend. Yes, I've used one of those winches, I think it was rated at 4 tons. You will probably want to use them like they are shown in those pictures so you have more pulling force. If you unhook that other hook and don't use the pulley you will get more length but half the pulling force. If you can get one with solid toothed wheels rather than the stamped and riveted wheels, they hold up better. If the winching goes slowly but doesn't require a lot of force you could try putting branches right in front of the tires and try to winch it up on them. You could try tire chains but if you can get them on you can probably just put branches under the tires and drive out without them. Take plenty of boards, shovels, heavy ropes, chains, or cables.

Is your car still stuck? You should be able to jack it up and put branches under the tires, sounds like you were doing that. Might have to jack it up on a big piece of wood so the jack doesn't sink into the mud. If you can't afford an electric winch (which you would have to mount and wire), you should get one of these: https://images.homedepot-static.com/productImages/bbf497dc-de27-4e06-a1e8-6bd6a7d4faf6/svn/big-red-engine-hoists-stands-tr8041-64_1000.jpg They are called winches, hoists, or come-a-longs, not sure what they call them in Lithuania. The dual toothed wheels like these have are better than the old ones with a toothed wheel on one side. If you look around you might be able to find one with solid toothed wheels, those are the best. Most are made up of a few stampings riveted together. It will take you a while but we used one of these to get my Outback out of a ditch a few years ago. The cable isn't very long, you will want to bring chain or heavy rope too. I have also heard of some wheel mounted winching systems but that is another topic.

I was talking about one of those swing out spare tire carriers like you've pictured. I think putting something as heavy as a spare tire on the roof and bouncing around off road might damage the roof but maybe not as slow as you drive...

You should really carry a spare tire! You can probably fit a 215 65 16 tire in the spare tire well, it might not sit down all the way and it's a tight fit going in and out, but better than not having a spare. Probably wouldn't take too much work to open up the spare tire well, it will only hit in a few spots and you could cut those out and rebuild them, you know how to do sheet metal work and it doesn't have to look good. If oversized, you could make a bracket to stand one up in the back. A few guys on here have made swing out tire carriers on the back of their cars too. At least take a compressor and tire plugs or at a minimum a can of fix a flat. I think just a wheel and tire assembly on your roof on rough roads could damage your car.

Welding nuts should certainly keep people from stealing your lights! Do you have to worry about theft where you live? Magnetic could be convenient, you would have to be careful if you don't want to scratch your paint, from the mag base and the wiring rubbing around. I have seen a few people reinforce their roofs by adding something like a roll cage that attaches to the roof rack mounting area. It's a lot of work and takes up interior space. Aluminum isn't really lighter than steel for the same strength. I would avoid using a roof rack if you can, it raises the CG, might damage your car, gets in the way of tree branches, and your cargo is more likely to get wet or stolen.

It's much better at low speeds with the dual range. On relatively smooth climbs it's great, you can go up long climbs at half throttle that I would have probably stalled out on at full throttle without the low range. On really uneven ground when you start lifting tires the limitations of open diffs and low speeds (no momentum) become obvious. Mine has a 1.6:1 ratio, which is the most reduction made for them that I know. Keep in mind that means you not only have 60% more torque into the trans, the engine RPM is 60% higher at the same wheel speed, so you're making more torque too. Even NA Subaru engines don't seem to make a lot of low end torque, certainly not the EZ30. I think something with more reduction could fit. Also I have the 4.11 ring and pinions, you could swap 4.44s in the trans and diff but it's a lot of work for 8% more reduction.

I would just get HID conversions for your high beams. Why bother upgrading the low beams? You'll just aggravate oncoming drivers. I think with those and your LED fog lights you'll have enough light in the woods. Putting them on the roof risks getting them knocked off by a tree branch or stolen, and the wiring is more difficult. Cleanest way I've seen to do that is to run the wiring under the base of the hood by the wipers, then up the A pillar at the edge of the windshield. Don't have to drill any holes and still looks decent. That said, we put a pair of KC 6" daylighters with pencil beam lenses and HID conversions from our buggy on the roof bar of the 99 Outback and they put out a ton of light.

Looks like a great improvement. LEDs are great for flood, from what I've read only the expensive ones are any good for long distance. One thing you should consider is buying HID conversions. I don't know if they sell in Lithuania, but for instance DDM tuning sells them for about $40 per pair with ballasts and bulbs, plugs right into your stock wiring, one year warranty. On your car the high beams are separate bulbs so you could keep the halogen low beams. Already got them for my 2002 Outback just haven't swapped them in yet. I've been looking into HID/LED projectors too, they are probably better for distance than putting the HID bulbs in the stock housings, but more work and money. There's just so many options now.

It's a five speed manual, so first gear. I don't know if that's true about the automatics but I think you can easily wire a toggle switch to manually lock the center diff.