slammo

Ceramic coating the headers would have the biggest benefit of reducing heat in the engine compartment No comment on the color choice I picked up an aftermarket rear plate light for my impreza, will let you know how that goes

Good video, that was a fun trip.

Love seeing this come along, as K said everything looks improved compared to the previous cars. The trans crossmember and front skid plate integration in particular looks great and should really add some beef to the front end. Can't wait to get mine together and go wheeling again!

One of the subtle changes Subaru made from the first through third gen Imprezas was tying in the strut towers to the cowl/firewall. First gen Impreza: 2nd gen Impreza: Couldn't find a good pic of a 3rd gen Impreza engine bay, so here's a bad pic instead: It may be worth welding in some sheet metal as a brace there so you add support to both sides of the strut towers. Would be worth doing while the engine is out; just have to avoid the fuel and brake lines that run through there.

Wonder if the R160 difference correlates to the one-bolt versus five-bolt design? (photos from Torq Locker's website) Knuckle mockup looks great, super excited for that! Hopefully the trailing arm dog leg doesn't cause any issues, that's not a lot of clearance to the wheel lol.

Making the knuckles out of aluminum would be justifiable especially given that so many modern production cars have aluminum knuckles, but better safe than sorry for now. These are overbuilt for the application and that's fine with me. FWIW keyboard experts have argued about unblocking hood vents for years. I think you'll be fine to remove them since a little rain coming in through the hood won't be out of the ordinary for what you'll be doing with this car.

Billet knuckle looks great. It's come a long way!

I understand why it is where it is, but that would look a lot better with the whole horizontal beam moved up so it only sits a quarter inch below the fenders, lights, and grille. Attach the beam to the top of the frame inserts, rather than the front? 😉

Just my opinion, I think you should do the 6MT/R180 swap first and drive the car with the 2.2 and low range for a while before tearing it apart for the 3.6. Can you share a pic of the new bumper with the hood down and the grille in place?

Hood scoop and vents - IMO gold would look tacky; I'd stick to the OEM green for sure. On the bumper I think black would look better than gold for the style of bumper you're building where it doesn't really blend into the stock lines or imitate the OEM shape. /$.02 Fuel tank skid looking mighty fine! Might be worth your time to slap some POR-15 on those rusty brake cable and heat shield brackets.

Did you do anything with the pitch stop mount for the subframe drop?

🅱️illet knuckles looking great 👌 My understanding FWIW, some of the appeal of the all-aluminum radiators is that the plastic end tanks on oem-type radiators can be prone to cracking. Where'd you find the Golpher for $300? I saw it on Aliexpress but with $150 shipping, and it looked out of stock on eBay but maybe I just didn't find the same listing.

Sounds like these guys have developed and maybe produced some; kinda pricey though. https://www.kobemotorsport.shop/post/r-d-subaru-liberty-outback-gen-iv-h6-3-0l-ez30-aluminium-radiator https://www.kobemotorsport.shop/product-page/pre-order-subaru-liberty-outback-gen-4-03-09-h6-ez30-alloy-performance-radiator

Looking great man, can't wait to see this thing yeet. Have you considered something like the holley hydramat for the fuel pickup? Would drastically increase the filter surface area and is supposed to help get every last drop out of the tank when it's close to empty. I understand they are kinda pricey though. Front subframe makes sense to be solid mounted because it has to carry the engine and provide strength between the frame rails in the engine compartment, since there's a big hole where the engine goes. Soft mounting the whole front subframe would mean those bushings would react loads from the steering rack, engine, and control arms all at once - not great for steering compliance, chassis feel, drivetrain alignment, etc. Solid mounting the front subframe lets the steering rack, control arms, and engine each be mounted with their own bushings that can be tuned for each component. Rear, the chassis is more whole above the rear subframe so there's less need for added strength/stiffness. The engineers would want some cushion/compliance for lateral loads for ride comfort, but they would want to prevent toe compliance so your rear wheels don't steer all over the place. If they had solid mounted the rear subframe and used softer bushings for the lateral links, then compliance in the lateral link bushings would cause the rear toe to vary with lateral load. Using stiffer bushings for the lateral links and (relatively) softer bushings for the subframe lets the system be comfortable but still keep toe in check since the subframe bushings can react moments across a wider distance. Rear subframe mount, my concern is that the bolts without bushings will induce more stress in the chassis at those points. If you have two solid mounts and four rubber mounts, the solid mounts will be doing almost all of the work. The rubber grommets sandwiching the subframe might help but probably won't do much for the lateral loads which would be the most impactful. IMO your best move would be to add an OEM-style rubber bushing to those middle bolts, but if you don't want to go through that trouble I'd say get rid of the rest of the rubber subframe bushings and hard mount the whole thing. That way lateral force can be shared by all six bolts instead of just two. I don't think any decrease in ride quality is much of a concern in this context haha, and it might make it easier to mount the gas tank skid plate.

I'm just going to hack away with the angry grinder until it all fits 😉 Although I'm going to do a better job at re-sealing the body than I did last time. Ditto on loving the aluminum spacers; I guess you're making those separate from the trailing arm spacers since you plan to remove the trailing arm spacers when you lengthen the trailing arms?

I would skip the center bolt for the rear subframe unless you plan on adding a bushing there. Several companies (Whiteline, Kartboy, Torque Solutions) sell what they call "lockdown bolts" that go here, with the premise of improving handling. I don't think it's a good idea for off road - I'd want to retain some cushion for hard impacts. Great idea, when can you make the first set 😉 I'd at least weld the inner perimeter of that opening

I've heard that you can flip the driveshaft carrier bearing upside down to compensate but I haven't tried it. Are you going to sleeve the chassis where the subframe bolts go, in addition to sleeving the spacers? Any other preventive tactics to address the infamous captive nut issues?

Nice progress! That trip was a blast, thanks for having me along. Reinforcing the strut tower tops and converting the GC to GD size is relatively common: https://rally.build/products/subaru-impreza-gc-weld-on-strut-top-reinforcement I like the principal of these being cut to shape and welded to the adjacent sheet metal, should help strengthen a little more. IIRC the center hole has to be opened up for normal GD struts too.

I'd guess most of that heat was from brake drag owing to the loose bearing, not the bearing itself. Might not be a bad idea to flush the brake system, or at least bleed it. I stopped getting update emails for this thread a while ago so I haven't been checking in as often.

Trip looks like a blast, wish I could have gone. You could get rear knuckles from a 5x100 sti and use stock 04 sti rear axles, but those are fitment for rear brembo or 2-pot brakes, neither of which would fit inside those 5-spoke OEM 15" wheels. I suppose it might be worth swapping the brake backing plate. At the end of the day, the stock sti rear axles aren't all that strong either, but they might get you by until the billet knuckles and diff stubs are ready.

Yeah this was a really fun trip, not too much carnage to repair afterward. The other guys were hesitant to come down to Big Bend but I'm glad I convinced them to check it out at least once. The Flexus definitely did some things well; the low range and articulation being its key advantages. Only the center diff locks; the front and rear are open so the traction control works pretty hard whenever a corner gets light. Without the brake-based traction control it'd be a real pig lol. Pontoontodd is right that the higher center of gravity is definitely its biggest limitation for most of the stuff we were doing.

What hose was this? One going to the oil cooler?

The HiPer strut design accounts for some steering geometry correction, but it will do nothing to address the strut bending issue that is arguably the biggest problem with adding track width. I for one am glad you did inverted struts; maybe a thick shaft would be "good enough" but I wouldn't trust it for heavy use. I think there's good reason that any rally suspension uses an inverted design, as well as the other manufacturers that have entered the long travel Subaru market (Flatout, Gorilla, etc). I'm really looking forward to having this setup on my car.

Sano switch panel. Yes, starting with a rust free body and reinforcing it before it starts breaking seems like a great strategy. Do you think you'll put the electric jacks in the new build? Seems like a lot of weight for little gain.

10.75 V still sounds pretty low. I had a similar issue in an 03 Outback where a starter worked on the bench but not in-car; it turned out to be several inches of wire in the leads to the starter were corroded. Replaced the leads and it worked great.