October 27, 200619 yr Has anyone done it yet? I havn't found any mention of it yet. Me and my GF are building one right now. The plan is to have it rolling on 33"s and use a Sammy T-case with some 4.44 gears. Is this gonna be a ground braker or has someone beat us to it allready?
October 28, 200619 yr I've never seen one, or heard of anyone doing it before. Sounds like a great idea, and you don't have to worry about no low range then. One thing though.. Are you going to weld the center diff? Or how are you going to stop it from just turning the front diff? Or is your car an auto with the clutch switch mod?
October 28, 200619 yr I've never seen one, or heard of anyone doing it before. Sounds like a great idea, and you don't have to worry about no low range then. One thing though.. Are you going to weld the center diff? Or how are you going to stop it from just turning the front diff? Or is your car an auto with the clutch switch mod? this is a very good point, and the duty C bypass switch (for Autos) is not enough to turn a tcase. Mudrat tried that on his Beast-a-con, and couldn't get over a curb. so the tranny had to be pulled apart, and modified. Unfortunately, I've never heard of anyone else doing it, and he never was one to share his ideas, and now will be virtually impossible to get ahold of. Either way, if you use an EJ tranny, you'll have to pull it apart, and modifiy it to get all the power out of the rear output. or go even more custom, and swap in an EA82 D/R tranny (then you'd have 2 lo ranges! might be nice for 33s. 1.6:1 2WD) don't take that as criticism, though. I think it would be awesome. Just listing off a couple of the biggest issues with doing it.
October 28, 200619 yr Author Yeah the center diff is welded solid so no problem there. It would be nice to have two low ranges but either way there are alot of options for the Sammy t-case in that area so it should work out fine.
October 28, 200619 yr Author Yeah, sweet. I just found a site with t-case gears that lower the high range to make 33"s turn like stock and eaither 6:1 or 8:1 low range! Perfect!
October 29, 200619 yr Even with a stock sammy t-case there is some reduction in high range. Worked great in my old 84 wagon.
November 2, 200619 yr I really want to see pictures of this when it's completed... So are you going to run solid axles? With 33s, those little IS shefts are going to be pretty strained...unless you drop the t-case WAAAAAY down there... tcase stays up high with the engine and tranny. diffs get dropped down along with crossmembers and subframes. no CV axle problems. and normal driveshafts meant for a solid axle vehicle can handle the angles to compensate, and getting higher angle U-joints is pretty easy too. there's a little more torque and strain, sure. but as long as you're not dumping the clutch, and are easy on the happy pedal, there shouldn't be any problems.
November 2, 200619 yr Im in the process of putting legacy running gear under a ea82 turbo , on the front to extend the strut I have unbolted the 2 bottom strut bolts and and extending it in that area will add a extendo peice and 2 more bolts , all steel , this will give plenty of room with the 31" tires ,will share pics as it comes along
November 5, 200619 yr Author Yeah what he said. No CV problems. The stubs will be a bit loaded and I'm curious to see how well the wheel bearings hold out but I'm hoping it's all a bit stronger that the Loyal peices, seems like I was putting a new wheel bearing in that thing every two months and that was with only 30"s. The only tricky part is gonna be finding wheels with enough offset to clear the 33"s against the struts, but I'm sure I can come up with something to make that work. Oh and pics will come.
November 5, 200619 yr Yeah what he said. No CV problems. The stubs will be a bit loaded and I'm curious to see how well the wheel bearings hold out but I'm hoping it's all a bit stronger that the Loyal peices, seems like I was putting a new wheel bearing in that thing every two months and that was with only 30"s. The only tricky part is gonna be finding wheels with enough offset to clear the 33"s against the struts, but I'm sure I can come up with something to make that work. Oh and pics will come. as long as you're not using wheel spacers or wheels with crazy offset, there's no reason why you'd burn through bearings. and it appears that scott's got a way around the hub-to-strut clearance problem
November 26, 200619 yr Author what front diff and axles setup? 4:11 legacy diff, and probly a hybrid Loyal/legacy axle. So far we got the front diff and front suspension mounted and just about finnished. It's got a total of 6 1/2" subframe drop to fit it all.
November 26, 200619 yr Heres a idea heres a 31" x 10.5 tire on a stock 15 soobie rim, you could move the strut up to the second hole take some metal with 3 holes in itand bolt it up , I did this on a offroad Metro I put together, it also gives you part of your lift, I would stay away from deep dish offset wheel as Its harder to turn and hard on the bearings , and offroad it tends to jerk the wheel out of your hands
November 27, 200619 yr Yeah, sweet. I just found a site with t-case gears that lower the high range to make 33"s turn like stock and eaither 6:1 or 8:1 low range! Perfect! hmmm 6:1 sounds almost too low....my buddies dad's jeep has 42's on it w/ 5:1 atlas t- case and he says its a little too low!!!!! and hes a rock crawler!
November 27, 200619 yr Author Well we ended up cutting the bottom off another set of struts and welding them to the bottom of the the outback struts. It's about 6 3/4" extension, and it will clear 33" no problem. In the future it will probly get some strut inserts and coil-overs anyway, but for now it works great. Also the Legacy/Loyal axle thing worked great. Just removed the inner cup from the Legacy alxe and put the Loyal cup in it's place..Perfect!!! Will try to get some pics of the current progress soon.
November 28, 200619 yr just curious, but why swap axle parts around? whats the gained advantage?? the EJ inner axle cups have 25 splines, where the rear diff (now being mounted in the front) only has 23. so you have to use either FWD impreza cups, or EA cups, in order for them to fit on the diff.
November 30, 200619 yr Did you make it so the front wheels sit that much further forwards, or is something not bolted on in those pics? Looks fun
November 30, 200619 yr Okay, maybe not...but here's an idea - big ol' fatty 33s! THESE come in 33x13.5! Can you get 10" rims in the subie 5 stud??
November 30, 200619 yr widened steelies, custom steelies, maybe $100 a pop from stockton wheel or something like that. 33x13.5 you could still run a 8" wheel too, harder to unseat the bead.
November 30, 200619 yr Author Yeah we moved the whole subframe forward to make more room for the tires to turn. Kinda hard to remove the door frame. We did the same with the rear. Sticking to some 33 9.50 BFG at's for now becouse it's gonna be her daily driver this winter.
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