i have an 02 obw, and its great in every feild. except my approach angle is lacking considerably.. ive torn the heck out of my front bumper from rocks and stuff.. any thoughts on what i can do to make it better rather than blowing 2 grand on an ausie bumper? mods of somesort?

i have an 02 obw, and its great in every feild. except my approach angle is lacking considerably.. ive torn the heck out of my front bumper from rocks and stuff.. any thoughts on what i can do to make it better rather than blowing 2 grand on an ausie bumper? mods of somesort?

 

There are bumpers made in the US by a few people for your car. You can probably find one by searching on here.

 

You can also improve your approach angle by lifting the whole car. Primitive Racing in Oregon sells King Springs, which will lift your car. The other way would be taller tires, but that would mess up your speedo readings.

 

Jacob

I have the same problem with my baja. approach, and especially the departure angles are just terrible. my bumpers are all rashed up. I've thought about just deleting them altogether. then just welding up some simple 2" tubing into bumpers

You have options!

 

1. Bigger tires - easy clearance.

 

2. King Springs - Gives a little more suspension lift.

 

3. Strut top spacers - The guys on the legacy forums have some write ups on this. I make them out of HDPE and they are working well on my Impreza. Anywhere from 1/4-1 inch is fairly simple. Not sure I'd want to got higher in plastic. Maybe if I used welded steel.

 

4. Cut/custom bumpers. The sawzall fixes many problems. zzz

 

5. Body lift. SJRlift.com has such lifts now. More involved but would give more height than the other stuff listed.

i like the cut bumper look. i think they look mean. but i still want my car to look somewhat factory, and not like i got angry and sawed the crap out of it. ive also heard lifts can kill mpgs? and i only have like an inch or two of room for bigger tires... any thoughts?

For the guy with the Baja, there is a guy who makes a skid-plate brushguard combo for Baja's. He's from illinois. I have an 02 OBW that i lifted 2" with a strut top lift. Not easy to install if you don't know what you're doing... and even then it is was a huge pain I am at some point going to have one of these brush guards made for my OBW, but right now i have a '73 Chevy Nova that needs to finished up and sold, and until i get that done i don't have money to get one, and i'd be the first guy to test fit one on a g2 ob. He even has winch mount option and such. Looks like real quality stuff, i just don't have the spare cash right now, i got ~6k of work to do on this nova.

rear departure: get a hitch, very easy to install, just have a 2nd hand to help hold it in place when you bolt it in. I believe it's 5 or 6 bolts, but it might just be 4.. i didn't install mine, i just put grade 8 bolts on.

As for bigger tires, it's almost impossible. There just isn't room with the front strut to run anything much bigger than stock without rub on the tophat of the strut.

If you ahve an 02 obw and it's NOT an h6 you can buy H6 and BAJA springs cheap, and they will give you about the same lift for WAY less than the kingsprings. Even a lift kit is cheaper than king springs, but way harder to install. Tire's that fit without trimming and figuring out how to redo the front suspension and change it to a coilover or SOMETHING to change the strut top are 215/65 R16s and 235/60 R16. AT Tires available? Uhh BFG TA Trails, in both sizes i believe (they used to have BFG KO T/A's in 215/65, can't find them anymore though), General Grabber AT2's, in 215/65; Geolander AT-S in 235/60. There are some others that aren't really worth mentioning i think too. Both sizes are like .5" more tire, so really, no noticeable boost in height or speedo issues, just more road noise and better offroad traction.

Edited May 17, 201213 yr by lesstutrey

~70 bucks of steel tubing & a few beers for a welding buddy =

my solution