Official Suspension FAQ - Swaybars - Struts/Springs - Coilovers - Alignment

OK I'm new here but anyway, I'm trying to lift my 96 legacy. I've already put front struts off of a 01ob, what would I use for the rear as the 01ob struts mount differently, or do I need to wait till I get some 5 lug rims and change the hubs as well? And then just change the top hats on the ob rear struts?

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You need to use 96-99 Outback struts and its also a good idea to use the body lift spacers and trailing arm brackets off the Outback.

Got it thanks will post picks when I get them on, any advice on rim and tire size, I like off roading but everywhere around me has big trenches from trucks hence the reason for the lift, I thought 15 inch steelies would be best do you agree?

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Hi all, new to the forum but not to Subarus. I have been searching but couldn't find anything to answer my question directly.

Everything that I can find is this - my car is a 1995 Legacy Wagon Brighton. Spring rate for the car is 132 front, 190 rear.

I have a set of take-offs from my 07 Impreza Outback Sport. Front spring rates for this car should be about 158.

What I am thinking of doing is this:

Take the front strut assembly, spring, top hats etc. from the Impreza and put them on my Legacy. Then just refresh the rear struts/top hats resulting in a 158 front and 190 rear spring rate combo.

The problem is that I don't know how much rake this will give the car or if there will be any negative side effects in general to goes this route.

The other option would be just to throw the front and rear from the Impreza in but from what I am reading this just give your the "saggy butt" problem and requires spacers in the rear. Plus the rear rate will only be at 144.

Anyone else play with a similar setup?

So I searched this thread for any comment about the OP's recommended toe settings (i.e. "0.000" across the board) and didn't find any objections or recommendations against this which made me very curious.

I was raised and taught that ideal set-ups for both DD's and track cars should run varying degrees of toe-in to compensate for operational forces that naturally tend to force the wheel assembly backwards toward a toe-out position (which is bad m'kay).

The logic provided always seemed sound; there are a multitude of forces while driving/racing that will try to rotate our wheel assemblies into toe-out positions (i.e. rolling resistance, bearing drag, and the big one; brake load) so I had a hard time swallowing the pill in this thread that said toe set to 0 worked for the OP.

Setting toe to 0 would suggest to me that the minute we put our cars to work on the roads/tracks, the wheels are pushed into a less than ideal toe-out position and would only serve to destroy tires and causing relatively poor handling?

I'm a qualified Mech. Eng. but that does nothing more than confirm I had a partial frontal lobe lobotomy during college, so I'm asking this question with sincerity to a forum of experienced Suby owners in the hope of receiving a collectively qualified answer;

Is setting toe to 0 a widely accepted recommendation or bollocks?

My reason for asking; I'm about to significantly increase my rim offset and tire size and was going to request my alignment center to increase toe-in ~5% over the factory spec to compensate... this thread caused me some doubt. I'm very interested to know what you Auto-X and track guys have to say on this - I'd be extremely surprised to learn if any of you do actually set toe at 0.

I remember seeing the last time I had mine aligned by 'pros' that they set toe to 0.00 for a daily. Seemed weird to me at the time, but if they were accurate then it drives fine with 0.00. Anyway, it drives fine.

Also, my (1995 Legacy) FSM lists front and rear toe spec of +- 3mm. It doesn't explicitly say the target is 0, but based on other alignment specs they give, if it wasn't the intended target they would have said something like +3 to -2.

Yeah, I only wish I knew who the"pros" were in my area - most everyone I've seen here in Western NY aren't interested in doing the job properly... get it on the rack and bump the wheel until "it's in the green".

That said, I had a brain fart - I've only ever had RWD vehicles with live axles so toe-in to compensate for drag and braking on the front makes sense... I was overlooking FWD and AWD adding an acceleration force through the front tires that would tend to cause toe-in so when you consider you have forces both ways on FWD and AWD, it makes sense to make toe 0.00.

Glad I got that figured out before I asked the shop to do something different. Still be interest to know how AWD track cars are setup... braking forces are generally a lot higher than acceleration forces on any vehicle so a slight toe-in setting might still be called for... guess I then comes down to how long you spend on throttle vs. brake (and coasting if you're a bit on the tame side).

Sure feels like there is less flex in my Subaru factory rubber bushings than in my 1976 Plymouth Volare rebuilt with hard poly bushings in it. As if maybe the car guys learned something between 1937 when the Volare suspension was designed and 1990 when the modern independent strut reached a reasonable level of deployment. Even with everything better than factory original in the Volare if I have to stab the brakes I make sure I've got a solid hold on the wheel because it is going to be a little bit random. The Subaru I can do the same hands off and feel confident that it will keep going where I pointed it.

It would be neat if it could be possible to mag mount some dial indicators somehow and measure this flex on both generations of car and see if it is improved.

Based on the first information on the first page installing 04 struts on our cars, is that front only or backs as well because I want to install ST coils and I’m thinking purchasing the 04 sti once then

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I couldn't really find any info that would help me in my specific situation, anyone know if a '01 Outback sway bar is thicker than a '99 Legacy Brighton's? Also would they swap over.

I also want to swap all front and rear brakes from the Outback to the Legacy, anyone know if I would run into any issues there?