April 13, 201312 yr Author Now that the car is up and running i can start on the first phase of suspension upgrades. I have bigger plans for the suspension in the future but right now I'm going to focus on dampening upgrades and a slight increase in wheel travel. I'm going to start with the rear because it has sagged since day one and pretty much bottoms out going into driveways. For the rear i am going to start with a 10" stroke Fox emulsion coilover. Keeping my budget in mind i got these used First i remove the factory top shock eye and replace with a machined Jackson Rally piece Screw in and weld to seal up the shock can To be continued.
April 13, 201312 yr Reading through this thread makes me feel...stupid! This is simply AMAZING! Cannot wait to see whats next and the finished "glamour shots". Makes me want to hotrod the old wagon. Dangit!
April 14, 201312 yr Author @ Kanurys, fuel guage update. All seems to be working well, starting to figure out exactly where empty is after a couple of tanks. It seems to favor full for a bit then under half tank it drops off quick. First tank I refueled when guage was at 1/8 and put in 13gal. Second tank I was just under a quarter drove for about 10 more minutes and it dropped to E quickly, I fueled up at 13.8gal. If Im not mistaken the tank capacity is 15.9? I keep forgetting to reset the trip on the GPS but the trip on the odo wad at 225 miles (reality is its more because of how far off the numbers are with the 30" tires) I would live to get 250/275 miles to 13 gallons.
April 14, 201312 yr Nice. With my 2.2 I get 275 to 325 miles on about 13 gal. if I drive it nice, which isn't very often. I bet there were some minor changes to the taper of the potentiometer between the old and new setups. Also, it's probably acting like that because of age.
April 14, 201312 yr throw a few bottles of chevron techron at it for a few tanks of gas and see if it gets any better.
April 16, 201312 yr Wow, can I quit my job and become your welding apprentice? I'll provide a lifetime supply of dr pepper in trade. Seriously tho, nice work on the rear suspension.
April 19, 201312 yr Author I got a wild hair and decided to tackle some new front struts. Lets just call this a before photo
April 20, 201312 yr Author Rears are on. I need to mess with them a little and get new springs. I slapped it together the other night and did not take any pics. I've been thrashing on the fronts, going on day three tomorrow.
April 20, 201312 yr Very obvious. You might be giving me ideas... I should add: very intelligent way to adapt the hubs. Edited April 20, 201312 yr by kanurys
April 20, 201312 yr Author Ahh that was too easy. Couldn't really just bolt up EJ strut because it is just too tight. So i had to make new tabs. Struts are rear 04 STI inverted struts. Still have some gusseting to do.
April 20, 201312 yr Author I could have used the STI front strut and that would have made it a little easier but it does not have as much travel. Gonna be interesting to see how the valving on the front. I can revalve if i need to
April 21, 201312 yr why didnt you just make an adapter to go to an eyelet and use a coilover like the back?
April 21, 201312 yr Author why didnt you just make an adapter to go to an eyelet and use a coilover like the back? The front is a McPherson strut. The strut is part of the defining movement of the suspension. The front requires that the strut is fixed to the knuckle and cannot have an eyelet top and bottom. Also a coilover like the rear does not have the correct sealhead to handle the side, braking and acceleration loads.
April 21, 201312 yr Author Here are some shots of the rear. I'm changing from the blue eyelet to the black to get the compression whete i want it. Im also modifying the upper bracket (tomorrow).
April 22, 201312 yr Author As stated earlier the rear needed some work still. It no longer drops out like the photo above. I moved the upper mount up and shortened the lower shock eye to move the range of movement. Axles back in and no binding.
April 22, 201312 yr Author I forgot to take a reference picture of the factory upper mount, but here it is modified to mount the shock up higher.
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