vel0mac

I didn't measure ground clearance, but it does not seem to affect it. Side by side comparisons of the bars indicate that the bends are the same, just diametrical difference. IF the clearance is affected, it is only a fraction of an inch (if that).

I've not tried this combination, but I did have a chance to drive Boulderguy's car this past weekend. He has both the MR Coilovers and F&R COBBs (with the rear set to the stiffest) as well as the Superpro offset bushings for the control arms. Previously, he had Tokico struts and Perrin bars and it felt like my car would outcorner his with mine having the stock struts and COBB bars. Now with the additional things he has done, his car is far better than mine, while still being 'civilized' and good for daily driving. The setup he has is a very, very nice combination! I suppose I should not have driven his car, now I have a new wish list that I cannot seem to get out of my head... HA!

Hi, The spacers that I made were made from 3/4" (19mm) diameter stainless. They have a 10.5mm hole and are 5mm long. McMaster-Carr has fixturing washers that are almost identical, and had I known this beforehand I would have just bought them. Here is the McMaster p/n: 94768A106 Good luck

You are welcome. I do not know about any changes between '05 and '07, I don't follow it that closely. It may be worth a call to the dealer to check OEM p/n.

Sorry for the VERY late reply! I have been in Europe for several months, then immediately into a new job, so I have not been logging in to this site much lately. Yes, the bars are still on the car, and yes all is still working very well. If I had it to do all over again I would do the exact same thing. I'm very happy with it. Good luck.

At one point, before I bought the COBB's and did my modifications, I called the local Subaru dealer and asked them if the LGT and OBXT bars were the same p/n. The answer I got was, "It depends on the exact date of manufacture." So, I ASSumed (yes, I know what happends when one assumes) that there could be a difference between the sub-frames of the two cars based on when they were built, etc... Also, right about the time that I had my one and only end-link failure, I sent Trey Cobb the previously posted write-up and he told me that the LGT they had in their shop did not look like my OBXT in terms of the extra space near the outer bends. Again, this points to a slightly different sub-frame (and it may be a manufacturing date issue as well). If there are differences based on mfg dates, then it is not reasonable to expect COBB to cover all possible scenarios when the issue may be a dimensional change to the sub-frame. While I agree it is best if their bars fit all models and dates, the fix that I found is really inexpensive and it works great. I have had no problems since I wrote this initial post. And no, I do NOT work for or represent COBB in any way. However, I did have great customer service from COBB (Trey and I corresponded quite a bit over my findings), which for me goes a long way especially compared to most other companies out there. And I'm willing to give them some 'slack' because I know how difficult it is to make aftermarket parts/fitments when you don't have all the manufacturer's specifications and you are trying to reverse engineer from one or two data points -- all of which are based on a poorly documented target platform.

Thanks for the tip, Han'sGT, I appreciate it. I will look into other tires, but for now I have a lot of tread left and it does not make sense for me to pitch them yet. I guess I'm a bit of a cheapskate

I have been in contact with Trey Cobb (he emailed me several hours after I posted this thread initially) and from what I can tell he is working on making the bars fit the OB and the Legacy. He found the info that I sent them very helpful and, in addition to some measurements that I will take for him in the next day or so, my understanding is that they plan on using this info to rectify the fit problems. It sure seems like they are planning on making the front bar fit the XT better. I like mine a lot, the car is a lot more fun to drive and the retrofit is not that difficult. And so far after doing the retrofit I have had ZERO problems. No noise, no rubbing, etc... and NO BROKEN LINKS. By the way, in lieu of the machined spacers that I used, one can most likely also use fixturing washers from McMaster-Carr (p/n: 94768A106)

I just received a very nice note from COBB and they admitted that there was some miscommunication on their end. I am positively impressed with their customer service, and to me that is worth a lot. They are clearly better than many other vendors. At this point in time, they are not suggesting/offering their bars to be used with OBXT cars. They also sent me a photo of their front bar as mounted to a Legacy, and the fit is clearly different than the fit on my OBXT. I am confident that they will get any fitment issues with these bars corrected very soon. Be patient, I think it will be worth it.

This sounds like it may be a cop-out (or should I say COBB-out?) to me. I just called the local Subaru dealer and they told me that the p/n between the Legacy and the OB are the same ... sometimes. The p/n variance depends on production date and equipment, but there is definitely overlap between the two models within the same model year. And it obviously follows that if the p/n is the same, then fitment should be the same. Also, when I talked to COBB on this BEFORE I ordered them, they told me that they would work for an XT, so I ordered them. Then after my order had been placed, and independently, sebberry emailed them asking about his OB and they told him that they had not yet tested them on an OBXT. So, I called them back ... They back-pedaled by telling me that they would really like to advertise and sell them as working for the OBXT, but in fact they actually hadn't tested them on that car yet. I offered to drive to SLC from Denver to have them mounted on my car so they could be tested on an XT. As a compromise, and to avoid a 15 hour round trip drive for me, they offered a full refund if I was unhappy if I would give them feedback -- which is why I wrote this thing up the way I did. So, it seems like their right hand may not be speaking with their left hand. And, it seems like we, on this forum, may have a more consistent 'collective memory' of any events and communication. I am not annoyed with them over the fitment issues. I think that there is a certain amount of experimenting that will need to take place. They are a small outfit and they cannot afford to test their stuff on all possible combinations -- that would be very expensive. I work for a big multi-national tech company and we even have a hard time affording all the testing required for our stuff. So I believe that there is some amount of risk that the buyer may need to assume when doing something different (like I did). However, I do wish that they had their story straight in the beginning, and they should be able to keep it straight given that they are a small outfit... Just my $0.02, and probably worth that much.

Thank you all very much for the compliments. More than once I've been accused of being overly analytical...

One way to possibly tell is to measure the original Legacy bar as I have done and compare it to the measurements in my table. Or, check part numbers between the two OEM bars. I do not have access to stock Subaru part numbers. If the bar is the same between the two cars, then I'd imagine that the fitment would be the same.

I sent them the original *.pdf over a week ago. I think (I hope!) they are taking all this into account when they look at redesigning the rear bar (for the numerous clunk issues that many of you have had) and the front bar for fitment. Also, one person mentioned that his front mounts had bent and he had told COBB about it. All these issues together are probably why they have delayed any shipments for 6-8 weeks. Most likely they are back at the bend layout phase.

Problems & Solutions: But, alas, not all is perfect. On day 2 of having the COBB bars installed I snapped one of the front end-links. And it happened in a very innocuous low speed situation, fortunately. I pulled off to the side of the road to fiddle with something under the dash. The asphalt dropped off a couple of inches and the washboard clay shoulder slanted down away from the road. When I stepped the car back up on to the asphalt the car was heavily diagonally loaded. Just as the front left wheel came up on to the pavement the right front wheel’s end link popped out of its socket, rendering it completely separated and useless. I drove home pretty slowly and pretty wobbly. When I got home I looked under the car, made sure all was installed correctly (it’s hard to screw this up) and looked more closely at the photos of the two bars. And then I reviewed the measurements that I took. Looking at the annotated photo below, you can see that the COBB bar is shorter than the USDM stock bar by 22mm (1086mm versus 1064mm), and the distance between the outermost bends is greater (unfortunately, I didn’t measure this parameter before installing, I do not have a specific value for this dimension, but it seems to be an inch or more). This combination will allow misalignment of the end links -- any end links -- not just the stock Subaru end links, especially if the bar ‘walks’ off center. Misaligned end links will greatly increase the stress on the links. And that is exactly what happened. The COBB bar ‘walked’ side to side over to the left side of the car about an inch, which caused a severe misalignment of the right end link and it popped out of its socket. I replaced the end link and repositioned the bar to its centered position and made sure the bar was parallel to the axle since it is mounted with slotted u-brackets (I measured from the bar to specific points on control arms and sub-frame parts to ensure parallel mounting). After driving for a couple of miles, the bar had walked off center again and the end links were again at their extreme angular misalignment position. This time, I caught it before anything broke. All spherical joints have an acceptable angular misalignment. If the angular misalignment is too great, there is an abrupt increase in axial loading of the joint. Most spherical joints are not designed for very much axial (thrust) loading. If the front bar walks off center an inch, which is roughly the distance it moved in my case, this will cause a misalignment of 23 degrees on the front 60mm link. Most commercial spherical rod ends only have a full range of less than 65 degrees (plus/minus 32.5 degrees), so a misalignment of 23 degrees is quite severe. In fact, a 23 degree off axis position of the stock Subaru end link stud is the very extreme that it will move before it hits its socket lip. No wonder the link blew its head off! As a means of correction to this problem, I machined 4 spacers for the end links. Each spacer is 5mm long, so that the total amount of correction is 20 of the 22 mm. This will move each of the links 5mm closer to the center of the car and, effectively, widen the sway bar’s width by 10mm. Spacer length of 5mm was limited by the amount of available stud length. Washers would probably work here also. But, I had access to some machined stainless spacers... In addition, I also added some stainless steel shaft collars (McMaster-Carr p/n 6436K38) to the bar so that it cannot walk off center. These collars are ½ inch wide each, so this would suggest that the bends are at least an inch too far apart (total) as the stock bushings fit right against these bends. After making these modifications, the bars have worked perfectly. No noise, no clunking, no rubbing, nobroken links. And I even went back to the scene of the crime and did the same thing that broke the link in the first place (dynamic diagonal loading of the wheels) and there were no problems afterwards. It has now been three weeks since I made the 'corrections' to the initial install and still no problems. Summary: The handling of the car is greatly improved with the COBB bars and at this point in time, after the modifications I have performed, I am happy with the COBB bars -- although it is unfortunate that the front does not fit better out of the box. After communicating with Trey Cobb, it appears that the fitment between the XT and a LGT is in fact different. From looking at the photo that Trey sent me, the LGT that COBB has does not exhibit the front bar fitment problems that I experienced. However, the required additions to make the COBB front bar fit an XT are relatively minor, and I think they are worth the effort. The rear fitment is fine -- no problems at all, no noise. I do not have the clunking that others have talked about with their lowered Legacy cars. The COBB bars are probably not the best solution if you are going to drive the Outback on rough dirt roads. If this is the type of driving that you do, I think the JDM rear bar would be a better way to go. But, if you stay primarily on asphalt or smooth dirt roads, and you want a far more lively and stable feel, then use the stiffer COBB setup, it really transforms the car nicely. It is a LOT more fun to drive now! Now all I need to find are better dampers for this car and it will be all set! (Koni, are you listening??)

Driving Impressions: The driving conditions that we have here are a nice mix of high mountain passes, tight twisty canyons and wide-open freeways. There are also many forest service roads. Most of the secondary roads are chip-sealed, and in the neighborhoods there are many drainage dips. The freeways are a combination of asphalt and concrete (both new grooved concrete and old cracked and rutted concrete). The freeway speed limit is 75 MPH, which means that often the actual speed required to keep up to traffic is 85+ MPH. We do get snow here, but given that I just installed the different bars, I have not yet driven them in the snow. In all cases, there were three drivers that tested the car: myself (the gear head), my wife (who is not a gear head) and my son who has only been driving for a year (the newbie). Stock conditions: Well, this is a well-known condition to all (or at least most) of us reading this. The stock XT has great power, but the suspension cannot handle it effectively. The car wobbles side to side and drifts erratically in high crosswinds, especially at highway speeds. Cornering is OK, but not the greatest. And, the dreaded pogo-stick ride is nearly nauseating – but that is a different problem. JDM Rear Bar: Adding the JDM rear bar definitely improved the handling of the car. The understeer was noticeably reduced, and overall the car felt a lot more stable under all conditions. Steering was more precise and confidence inspiring. In fact, the first comment that my wife made after driving the car was that she felt far more confident in corners, and she could ‘go faster than before but feel more in control’. The ride did not change as much as the handling did. The ride was slightly firmer when hitting unevenness in the road, but it was barely different than the stock bar. Overall, I think the JDM bar is the minimum these cars should have. They clearly should have been shipped off the showroom with them. There were no fitment or noise problems with the JDM bar. The setup was as quiet as the stock car, even though it was mounted using the stiffer AVO urethane bushings. COBB Front and Rear: The best way I can describe the feel of the COBB setup is that the F&R combination made at least twice the difference that the JDM bar made. That is, if the incremental change between stock and JDM was worth one ‘unit’ then the difference between stock and COBB is three ‘units’ of handling improvement. No additional road noise or clunking was noticed. The car is very, very flat through corners. Steering is far more precise. My wife described it by saying, "the car goes exactly where you tell it to go now." Cornering corrections due to suspension settling are almost gone. Tire squeal happens at considerably higher cornering rates. The little skipping over bumps and manhole covers is nearly gone. The high-speed stability and tracking are much improved – especially in strong crosswinds (this is a huge bonus around here). The overall feel is far more ‘lively’ and fun. It is really, really fun to ‘stick’ the car on the exit of a hard corner with full throttle 2nd gear accelerations! As would be expected, the independence of the suspension is reduced and the ride is stiffer when traveling over undulating terrain. If the dips/bumps hit both wheels on a given axle at the same time, there is no difference over stock. It still bobbles up and down. However, if the dips/bumps hit one wheel on a given axle first, I think the ride is better and less bouncy -- even though it is a stiffer ride. The under-damped pogo-stick characteristic of the car has been slightly reduced, but much of the wobbly-bobble-head-doll cornering has been reduced. Yes, the car still needs new dampers – badly – but it is better than before, especially when cornering or going over bumps even on a slightly diagonal bias. On a side note, I got new rear shocks installed at the dealer under warrantee. The new shocks seem to be slightly better than the old shocks (only 12,000 miles on the ‘old’ shocks!), and the car feels like both axles are now equally under-damped rather than the rear being more under-damped than the front. The car still needs better dampers on both front and rear, that’s for sure. If you drive your Outback on rough dirt roads, the COBB matched set may not be the best solution. The smoother ride of the highly independent suspension will be gone, that is for sure. Plus, I’d imagine that a lot of pounding on rough dirt roads would put its strain on component parts like end links now. But, I seriously doubt that these bars are designed as off-road accessories… Nonetheless, I did drive down some dirt roads that were not too rutted or rocky, they had some harsh washboard, and the ride was not that bad. It was notably stiffer than before, but still tolerable. And, there seems to be a slight increase in road noise, possibly due to the urethane bushings. There is also an increase in the steering gear ‘rattle’ that is well-known to exist in Subaru cars. This rattle is only noticed on full-lock turns over rough terrain at parking lot speeds (broken pavement, dirt lots, etc…). The car made this noise a bit before I mounted the stiffer COBB front bar, however the noise has increased notably. I do not think this is a function of the COBB bar, per se, my guess is that any bar this stiff would cause more steering gear rattle. Certainly, on smoother and more ‘quiet’ roads and parking lots there is no noticeable increase in noise due to any binding or interfering parts.