98legwag's 2009 3.0R Limited

I bought this car back in September 2013. My previous car, which I still have, is a 1998 Legacy L wagon. It got me hooked.

 

 

Interior:

LEDs in map/dome/trunk/door lights

All weather floor mats

45% tint on sides and rear winshield

Liberal Albero carbon fiber shift knob

10 inch Polk Audio sub in a Wicked CAS Magic box to replace blown factory Harmon Kardon sub

IAG floor mat bracket

 

Exterior:

LED tag lights

Hella Sharp Tones

DDM Tuning Plus HID kit 35 watt 4500K

Osram Night Breaker Unlimited fog lights

Narva Range Power +50 high beams

RREV LED reverse lights

Silver/chrome coated amber rear turn signal bulbs

Vinyl overlays on front and rear emblems

Bayson R lip

 

Engine, exhaust & Trans:

AEM Dryflow drop in panel filter

HKS ES Premium axle back

Subaru OEM Battery Cover

Subaru OEM Power Steering Cover

 

Suspension, chassis, brakes, & Handling:

Grimmspeed Brake Master Cylinder Brace

Matte black painted calipers

Hawk HPS brake pads

Tribeca 25mm front sway bar with Energy Suspension bushings

JDM 20mm rear sway bar with AVO polyurethane rsb bushings

AVO reinforced rsb mounts

Perrin front and rear endlinks

Cusco front strut tower brace

Cusco rear strut tower brace

Mevotech aluminium LCAs

 

Wheels & tires:

BBS RV723 (04 STI) 17x7.5 +53 wrapped in 235/45/17 General G-Max AS-05

Stock wheels 18x7 et55 currently wrapped in 215/45/18 Pirelli P Zero Nero M+S

Got vinyl overlays for the front and rear emblems. They are a pearl white background with WRB stars. I got them from http://www.jdmfanaticvinyls.com. I am impressed with the fitment.

I would have loved to have found that exact car when I was shopping for my project vehicle. It's my favorite model in my favorite car color. I will be following this to see what you will do to it. Congrats on a wonderful find.

Thanks. When I found this there were two more 3.0Rs locally. Both were the deep bronze metallic. I made the right choice.

Yes you did as when I was looking there were also only those colors. I knew that I could always have it wrapped white, but to me it wasn't the same.

Really like the white emblem

So how are you enjoying the car thus far ? Anything else you've found that you may want to change out, modify ?

Its good. I bought it about a year ago. Next on my list is take the door cards off and put something on them to stop the rattling. Other than it will probably stay how it is for a while. It does have a slightly warped rotor on the right front from the previous owner. I will put new rotors on the front when it needs pads.

Oh, and the stock horns are awful. It sucks I would have to take the bumper off to get the grill off to put Hella horns in there. I hate that about the 08-09s.

Pulling the bumper isn't that hard at all. I can do it in about 15 min.

Oh, and the stock horns are awful. It sucks I would have to take the bumper off to get the grill off to put Hella horns in there. I hate that about the 08-09s.

 

I don't know where in MD you are but I would be willing to help out another 3.0R

I don't know where in MD you are but I would be willing to help out another 3.0R

 

Thanks. I am in Gaithersburg. Right now I am dealing with a blown factory HK sub. I am trying to decide if I want to take my friend's 10in sub and box and run the wiring from the stock sub to that in the trunk or put something were the stock sub is.

Your LED's look really REALLY white in the pics. Where did you get them? And in person do they have a bluish hue?

Your LED's look really REALLY white in the pics. Where did you get them? And in person do they have a bluish hue?

 

I got them from superbrightleds.com. They are the "cool white" color. I think they look really white in person as well as in the pictures.

Thank you! I'm going to order a set and hope they are as white as I like

For those who don't know, the factory HK sub in my car blew a few weeks ago. I got a 10 inch sub and box from a friend on Friday. The box was originally a box for 2 10inch subs that she cut in half and put the other one in her CRX.

 

Oh, and I also ordered my next performance mod. Nothing too crazy, but it should be here Wednesday.

So today a big box arrived....If you guess it contains a Tribeca front sway bar then you would be correct.

So today a big box arrived....

http://i1098.photobucket.com/albums/g378/98legwag/2009%20%20Legacy%20R/20141119_170340_zps8xtpq1oj.jpg

 

If you guess it contains a Tribeca front sway bar then you would be correct.

http://i1098.photobucket.com/albums/g378/98legwag/2009%20%20Legacy%20R/20141119_173847_zpsmcmhpi5l.jpg

 

That's one weird mod. How is it different to the stock one?

That's one weird mod. How is it different to the stock one?

 

Its 4mm bigger. Its 25mm while the stock 3.0R fsb is 21mm. But I have read that due to its shape and the fact it curves over the tie rods, not under like the factory and aftermarket Legacy bars, it will essentially feel like a 23mm bar. Plus there aren't many available NA Legacy aftermarket front sway bars out there. And this is much cheaper than those that are available.

Well, the Tribeca front sway bar is installed with the help of a friend. Went a little differently than I thought. After putting the car on ramps to disconnect the end links and unbolt the stock sway bar we jacked the car up and put it on jack stands to remove the stock sway bar. Then we noticed the headers on the H6 are thicker than the headers on the NA 4 cyl cars. This meant the headers had to be unbolted from the heads to get the stock sway bar out and get the Tribeca bar in.

 

The bushings where slightly loose so we wrapped plastic around the bar then put the bushings on that. The bushings I used are part # 9.5161R. Here are pics of the Tribeca bar resting "in place" while the Energy Suspension bushings are being put on as well as some of the bushings and ES brackets.

 

The next thing we noticed was after taking the car off the jack stands and putting it back on the ramps was that the new sway bar was lining up directly over the end links. We solved this problem by spacing the end links in slightly from the control arms. We did this with a nut slightly bigger than the end link bolts. I should add the hardware supplied with my Perrin end links is shouldered bolts so the nut used a spacer had to fit over that shoulder. Here a couple pictures showing that.

 

The next thing we noticed was the bolt hole in the sway bar itself is larger than that on the stock sway bar, end links, and bolt itself. I did not want any clunking. We used brass "specialty washers" from Loews Hardware to fix the problem. We cut one in half and put a half on each bolt holding the sway bar to the end links. The brass washer was slightly larger than the sway bar hole, but is compressed down. My friend had used the Dremel to taper one end of the brass washer/sleeve. Here are pictures of what we used and the process of bolting the sway bar to end link and crushing down the brass sleeve.

 

In this one you can see the brass sleeve on the bolt just next to the head of the bolt outside of the sway bar. The second picture shows it a little crushed/tightened down.

Very cool and thanks for documenting with the pictures and story!

Total impulse buy, but I like it.

Nothing major to report. I swapped by Nokya yellow fog light bulbs for Osram Night Break Unlimiteds. I am also waiting on a part from Grimmspeed.

The Grimmspeed BMC brace arrived today. I plan to install it after work one day this week.

I just finished up installing the brace. It was much easier than the one on the wagon. Only hard part tonight was threading in the bottom bolt on this. On the 3.0R that hole in the strut wall was not used so it had a rubber tape over it that needed to be pierced.