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Wagonstien taking fully independent suspension to the next level


Ioku
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That does look badass but Im 99% sure the stock suspension will give you that much travel too.

 

Yeah, you can get that much travel out of a lot of things if you lower the diff far enough and have room to stuff massive shocks in there. It more comes down to how high you can keep the diff in relation to how low your CVs will let you drop, not to mention if you've got bigger tires, how far they will go before they hit a fender.

 

I've always thought that to get the most travel, you would lower your diff as far as you could, like 10 inches, then mount up some stiff shocks angled so that you get a lot of travel without raising the height too much, but keep tires pretty short so that they can stuff back into the wheel well. You wouldn't gain much clearance, per se, but you'd get enough travel to gain decent articulation and dampening ability.

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It wouldn't surprise me to get the same travel out of the stock rear suspension but with this set up I was able to keep the crossmember at stock height, a little better clearance, and not have the arms end up at almost a 90 degree angle at full droop.

 

I'm sure I could get 18 if not 24 inches of travel out of this set up if it wasn't for the limits of the axles.

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If only we could attach enormous tires that would allow us to lower the diff to the point that the axles are level when the car is sitting still, but then gearing would become a major issue. The one thing that really bugs me about Subarus is the limited choices in diff gearing and the low-range gearbox that isn't low enough

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That does look badass but Im 99% sure the stock suspension will give you that much travel too.

 

the stock suspension wont give you that much travel.The front struts limit the front to only about 5-6".The rear suspension has short links so as the suspension moves it travels in an arc.that arc uses more cv angle than just the straight down travel would suggest.his setup has longer links so the wheels

travel in a bigger arc. Meaning for the same range of vertical travel the wheel will have less side to side travel so you get more total travel.

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Exactly. By "stock suspension" I think we mean really mean the CVs, and to some extent the control arms. If you dropped the front and rear control arms and diff, you could get quite a lot of swing out of the CVs and control arms. The trick would be finding a front strut. Probably have to make it extend out of the hood a bit, or a massive amount of body lifting.

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Id say sti axles would be strongest there the biggest ones I've seen on a subaru. But I know to use the rears you need to use the R180 diff and the sti rear hubs, and the fronts you may have to use with a 6 speed but I think I saw some were someone used them with a 5 speed

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Id say sti axles would be strongest there the biggest ones I've seen on a subaru. But I know to use the rears you need to use the R180 diff and the sti rear hubs, and the fronts you may have to use with a 6 speed but I think I saw some were someone used them with a 5 speed

 

keep in mind that if you go the STI route '04 is the only year that shares the lug pattern with other 5 lug subi wheels... '05 and higher STIs have their own pattern.

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Front 6speed axles will fit in a female 5speed, and vice versa.

I have some friends who've done the swap, and their turbo axles fit in the 6speed

 

Not to say the 6mt ones aren't heavier, just that they'll interchange.

Dunno if they'll fit on the n/a boxes though...

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  • 3 weeks later...
Any updates on this beast?

 

I got a few updates,

 

Got the rear coilovers built

 

DSCF0359.jpg

 

ended up having to cut out the stock coil mounts because the new ones are so much longer

 

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and started building new mounts.

 

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I also picked up a 5000 pound Badlands winch a HF when they went on sale for $140

will be going on once I build my bumper.

DSCF0361.jpg

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Holy crap, nice welding work. Would it have been easier, though, to just body-lift the car higher?

 

I have mixed feelings about buying a cheap HF winch, cause if you're stuck to the point that you need to winch yourself out, you'd better hope you've got a good winch. Costco used to have I think a 3000lb winch for $80, which I'd probably trust a little more.

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It might have been easyer to have more body lift if I had planned for it from the start, but because of the fact that I am doing a full custom suspension and everything is built around my planed lift I would have to redesign a lot of it to do that.

 

I know what you mean about a reliable winch but I figure its better than nothing and I have heard the badlands ones aren’t bad for a cheep winch

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I've been able to get some more work done over the last couple weekends, I got the new rear shock mounts finished and boxed in.

 

DSCF0367.jpg

 

I also went to the pick and up and got the whole Ebrake set up off a Legacy and mounted that up to the wagon, so I now have a rear ebrake ready for some dirt driften.

 

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And then finished putting the rest of the rear brakes together. Its legacy Turbo vented rear rotors and wider calipers, I've had the rotors sittin around for the last 3 years got them form a friend for helping with a disk brake swap, but couldn't find any calipers for a good price. But I got lucky at the pick and pull a few months ago and found some, funny thing is they weren't even on a turbo legacy, it was just a L model first gen legacy and it still had the thinner solid rotors on it, it was odd but I'm happy to have found some for only $30.

 

DSCF0368.jpg

 

I've also started breaking down one of the EJ25's I have, I have 2, and both were non running but I got one for $20 and the other I traded a steering rack for so hope to be able to put them together to make one good engine. I'll get some pics of the damage up in a bit

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This is a truly amazing build. You are doing a phenomenal job with your fabrication. I love the idea of a legacy rear break set up, it gives me ideas for my brat in the future. I also will add I'm very jealous of your lack of rust. That car is solid.

 

Thanks, it been a lot of work but should be worth it in the end, and yeah being here in central OR with the higher elevation dry air and no salt in the winter means very little rust. I always feel bad when I hear how on the east cost an EA82 is a rare thing to see, around here I still see a few ea71's driving around.

 

Holy butts, that's some nice overbuilt bracing you've got goin on. Are you going to be running any reinforcements down the length of the vehicle?

 

I have some plans for longitudinal bracing, if I can ever afford or get access to a tubing bender I'd love to do some caging to it.

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