Kelvrick's outback xt (not as cool as Flinkly's)

I'll start right out that this probably isn't going to be cool as Flinkly's or many other outbacks on here, but I'm trying hard to not get any actual work done today while at work. The 2008 Outback XT purchased in 2012 to replace my 2006 Legacy 2.5i. It is hitting 105k miles and with spring here, I have a lot of work planned. Especially since it has been neglected lately while I concentrated on a 93 impreza track car. The goal of this is a comfortable daily drive/road trip vehicle that will let me have some fun.

I'll also admit that I'm going to steal Flinkly's original post formatting because I'm that lazy. Not only not doing work work, but even trying to not work hard on my non-work stuff.

I also keep extensive fill-up records. I'll go ahead and post that when I get home later so maybe Flinkly won't fee bad.

Electronics/Tuning

Cobb V2 AP3

Dynotune @ Snail performance

Engine/Intake/Fuel

Grimmspeed Cold Air Intake

Bulletproof OEM intercooler mod

Thermal Zero turbo blanket

Transmission/Drivetrain

Tranny/Differential Fluid changed for Extra-S

Wheels/Tires

Winter: stock 17" with Continental ExtremeWinterContact 215/60/17

Summer: Grey/polished lip Volk CE28n 18x7.5 +47 with Bridgestone S-04 pole position 225/50/18

Offroad: Crosstrek 17" with Yokohama Geolander G95 225/55/17

Turbo/Exhaust

Stromung catback

Brakes/Suspension

Front/back Legacy GT calipers. Centric cryo rotors, stop tech pads

Technafit stainless lines

Whiteline KCA313 Front Roll centre/bump steer - correction kit

Whiteline KCA334 Front Control arm - lower inner rear bushing (anti-lift/caster correction)

Whiteline KSR207 Front Steering - rack & pinion mount bushing

Whiteline W0506 Front Control arm - lower inner front bushing

Whiteline KCA399 Rear Control arm - upper outer bushing (camber correction)

Perrin 22mm front/25mm rear sway bar with energy bushings with grease fitting.

AVO sway bar reinforcement bracket

Legacy GT rear control arms

Legacy GT front control arms

Koni shocks/struts paired with stock legacy wagon springs

Legacy gt control/trailing arm, bump stops

0.75" front/0.75" rear spacer

Misc Interior/Exterior

OEM Hitch

Momo subaru shift knob

Maintenance

@130k Gates timing belt kit (with oem thermostat, water pump, water pump gasket), new cam oil seals, timing cover gaskets,

Purchased but not installed:

Cosworth shortblock with b25 built heads, nitrided valves, cosworth 11mm oil pump

Rally Armor mud flaps in black/red lettering that were on the old legacy

Bayson R 08/09 legacy v-limited front bumper lip

TRS Retroquik HID kit

Infamous filtered turbo and avs lines

Planned

Plastidip chrome front grill, then potential crown vic mesh retrofit

20% tint around, 35% tint front windows. Maybe the clear uv stuff for windshield.

Open in case of catastrophic engine/turbo failure

VF52/18G

1000cc injectors

dw65c fuel pump

Grimmspeed TMIC

Grimmspeed EBCS

Brembos

Here is an old picture of the new ride next to the old ride.

http://i.imgur.com/BdZa4Kp.png

As you guys can see, I was in the purchasing mood, just not the installing.

While I'm in that mood, does anyone have any advice on what else I should install while I have it up on jacks and the suspension off?

Since I'm going to be ordering the whiteline KCA313 kit, are there a bunch of other bushings I should get while I'm in there? Maybe for the control arms, trailing arms, etc?

Ha! It is a great "build" thread format, but i can't take any credit, i borrowed it from Barmanbean (who has an even cooler wagon, but his thread is in the media section):

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203319

The best part of the first post is it helps to keep things straight, for you (and is also handy for others to look at when you tell us you have a problem, we can consult the mod list).

And don't worry, i have a new vf52 sitting in a bag in my closet that i purchased last year, or a set of bbs wheels unfinished in the garage. I'd like to think i haven't installed the turbo cause i have some car kinks to work out (fueling).

As for suspension, can't help there. I shy away from poly bushings for my obxt, since it's my daily. Glad to give up better cornering for smoother, quieter ride (not to say any or all poly bushings would ruin that).

People do replace the rear LCA bushing often, but if it ain't broke. I also picked up the groupn tranny bushings (but not installed), and others rave about the groupn engine bushings as well. And the two shifter bushings (not rear), cobb/kartboy/etc.

Wait, are you lowering past legacy height? Cause i think the KCA313 is only for lowered cars. If you use legacy parts, you wouldn't need it for an outback lowered to legacy height (unless you lowered past legacy height). But i also feign ignorance with lowering too.

Sent from my XT1028

also, I hope you aren't still rockin a Honda dealership license plate surround...

It is indeed gone. I don't work any surrounds. Just a bit of foam on the back side to keep it from scratching the paint.

Ha! It is a great "build" thread format, but i can't take any credit, i borrowed it from Barmanbean (who has an even cooler wagon, but his thread is in the media section):

 

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203319

 

The best part of the first post is it helps to keep things straight, for you (and is also handy for others to look at when you tell us you have a problem, we can consult the mod list).

 

And don't worry, i have a new vf52 sitting in a bag in my closet that i purchased last year, or a set of bbs wheels unfinished in the garage. I'd like to think i haven't installed the turbo cause i have some car kinks to work out (fueling).

 

As for suspension, can't help there. I shy away from poly bushings for my obxt, since it's my daily. Glad to give up better cornering for smoother, quieter ride (not to say any or all poly bushings would ruin that).

 

People do replace the rear LCA bushing often, but if it ain't broke. I also picked up the groupn tranny bushings (but not installed), and others rave about the groupn engine bushings as well. And the two shifter bushings (not rear), cobb/kartboy/etc.

 

Wait, are you lowering past legacy height? Cause i think the KCA313 is only for lowered cars. If you use legacy parts, you wouldn't need it for an outback lowered to legacy height (unless you lowered past legacy height). But i also feign ignorance with lowering too.

 

Sent from my XT1028

I will be getting the KCA339 for the control arm bushing, so I guess that covers that. Also, other lowered outbacks got the KCA313, so while I'm down there, what the heck. I mean, it is designed for lowered cars, right? And technically, our outbacks are going "lower." Relative to stock anyway. I plan on staying just slightly higher than legacy height with a 1" spacer in the back and a 0.5" in front.

I will be getting the KCA339 for the control arm bushing, so I guess that covers that. Also, other lowered outbacks got the KCA313, so while I'm down there, what the heck. I plan on staying just slightly higher than legacy height with a 1" spacer in the back and a 0.5" in front.

That's the set-up I have. .75 spacer in the front 1.5 in the back.

Lately been debating removing them though...

That's the set-up I have. .75 spacer in the front 1.5 in the back.

 

Lately been debating removing them though...

I remember asking you some questions a long time ago. I'm finally going to be going through with it.

Do you think your spacers are just bringing you too high and you want to get down to regular legacy height, or just a little lower?

From your latest picture in the lowered outback thread, your suspension seems to have settled in a bit more and is lower than when you initially posted height pictures. That looks to be about as low as I need to go, so maybe I need to increase my spacers to .75 and 1.5.

http://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5107993&postcount=1983

Depending on the ground / my position my car looks lower. That's one of those pictures.

This one shows the height well

http://i.imgur.com/GyBoHEh.jpg

I have had the spacers in for 3.5 years, just kid of want a change. Even without them I'll be higher than a legacy due to the larger wheels. Just have to figure out if I will scrape my hitch all over the place if I remove them.

To update this thread on my woes and time consuming part installations.

Cliffs: I shoulda paid someone to do what I tackled myself.

I took last week off to generally unwind after spending way too much time at work and catch up on personal life and car/home projects. First things were to get tires installed on my new Volk CE28n's. Bridgestone S-04 Pole Positions in 225/50/18 to try to match the stock diameter. You gotta love wagons. This process was very nice. Order tires, show up at installer, leave with things ready to go. Paid $501 for tires, $60 install, with a bridgestone $70 rebate. Under 500 installed isn't too shabby.

http://i.imgur.com/mNkLDvP.jpg?2

Moving on that week, a donor set of LGT struts were taken apart, prepped for konis, and then rebuilt with konis. Big thanks to the original epic/koni walkthrough thread located here:

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/koni-shock-strut-epic-engineering-spring-install-145744.html

My konis were purchased from emnotek. The boxes were missing the rubber boot, so I used some black RTV material to create a quick seal. I used a pipe cutter and a few minutes with a file, so the cut was clean and smooth.

http://i.imgur.com/MEQntgn.jpg?2

The process of building up wasn't that smooth, mainly because the spring compressors I was using didn't play nice with the limited number of coils on the factory front springs and it was hard to compress it enough to get the spring rest and top hat on.

After some browsing, I ended up deciding on 0.75" spacers in front, a 1.5" spacers in back. This would have cost me ~$150 from paranoid fabrications, so I decided to do it myself. I decided on a 0.75" thick King Starboard HDPE found here:

http://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/cut_to_size_plastic/king_starboard/526

A 12"x24" piece cost me about $50. It probably took me a total of 5-6 hours to make 2 for the front and 4 for the back (double stacked for 1.5" worth). I basically did it with a jig saw, so the cuts weren't that pretty, but it worked.

http://i.imgur.com/D59vJhM.jpg?2

I ended up ordering grade 10.9 flanged bolts from Amazon. The fronts were M8x1.25-50mm. The rears were M10x1.25-70mm. I ended up grinding up a corner of each of the rear bolts so they wouldn't bind up on the spring rest as much since they were much taller than the stock bolt heads.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DD3R20W/ref=biss_dp_sa1]Class 10.9 Steel Cap Screw, Zinc Plated Finish, Flange Hex Head, External Hex Drive, Meets JIS B1190, Flanged, Non-Serrated, Right Hand Threads, Metric: Cap Screws And Hex Bolts: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific[/ame]

Here is everything in the trunk of my car before I headed to a friend's shop with a lift for install. A bunch of whiteline bushings, too.

http://i.imgur.com/4jR6Kdt.jpg?2

I had some time, so I guess its time to add some DEI titanium wrap to my new (used) cobb downpipe. I started running out of wrap at the end, so I decided to leave the cat unwrapped. Instead of using steel ties, I used safety wire.

http://i.imgur.com/hPplYh4.jpg?2

Friday 5/8 was install day. He had a spare set of control arms, so we tackled replacing the stock bushings with my assortment of whiteline bushings. The day mostly went smoothly until we got to the last pair of bushings. The front control arm - lower inner front bushing. The control arm didn't fit into the press very well, so we went with the dual socket method. One larger socket to brace against the control arm around the bushing with a smaller one on the other side that would "push" the bushing out and into the inside of the larger bushing. One control arm decided to cooperate, but the other didn't. It bent the first bolt, and then subsequent bolts that I had to go to the hardware store for.

http://i.imgur.com/xuDla5F.jpg?2

So, we decided to rig up some kind of brackets to hold the control arm in the press. First, we had a few 2x4's as a base for the socket but all that happened was that the socket imprinted into the wood and eventually started cracking the wood. So, we decided to throw a piece of metal on the wood to keep it from bending. The bushing held its own until the shop press started "pressing" the steel into the wood. You can make out the imprint below.

http://i.imgur.com/l0pXXrH.jpg?2

After that, we decided to bust out the acetylene torch. As the bushing gods were against us, it wouldn't start. So, a trip to harbor freight for a mini butane torch, some sandwiches for dinner, and half an hour of butane burning later, we were finally able to press the bushing out. This one didn't melt out as we were expecting, dried materials just smoked and intermittently flamed up. About 8 hours after we started, we decided to call it a night.

Saturday 5/9, we were going to install the new arms, shocks, and exhaust system.

The rears went easy enough. Look, it is in!

http://i.imgur.com/ZjNiUf3.jpg?2

Here it is with spacers next to the stock ones.

http://i.imgur.com/4uvgUt4.jpg?2

The front didn't go as smoothly. At one point, the axle disconnected from the joint in the hub and we couldn't get it to go in. So, we decided to remove the hub. Except... The only socket we had in that size broke.

http://i.imgur.com/5jUjDTu.jpg?2

So, we had to disconnect the hub from the control arm, pop the axle out at the transmission and try to fit it back into the knuckle. About 15 minutes later, we succeeded. Time to put everything back together. The other side was slightly more cooperative. About 4 hours behind schedule and late for a party, the car was brought down and we called it. The front seemed too low, and the front driver side seemed even lower (about a fingers worth) than the front passenger side. Well, I decided to wait a few days to let things settle before I posted height pictures or run my new wheels/tires.

Here are a few pictures from kneeling and standing height of both sides of the car.

http://i.imgur.com/ZlhkRhJ.jpg?5

http://i.imgur.com/7kc6fvh.jpg?3

http://i.imgur.com/ou5oW6w.jpg?3

http://i.imgur.com/791ULj5.jpg?3

Some "finger distance measurements."

Rear passenger with just barely 4 fingers of space.

http://i.imgur.com/cU6rejZ.jpg?4

Rear driver with just barely 4 fingers of space.

http://i.imgur.com/6jpA2Qe.jpg?3

Front passenger with ALMOST 3 fingers of space.

http://i.imgur.com/oRnhsgf.jpg?4

Front driver with probably 2.5 fingers of space.

http://i.imgur.com/qNw0dXZ.jpg?3

Current thoughts. I'm happy the fronts settled in more evenly, I was getting worried that I messed up the front driver side somehow. The difference now could be alignment related because it is TOTALLY out of whack. Tire squeel all over the place. I think the rear is a bit too high for me. I think I want to get rid of about 0.25" of spacer in the rear, so I might replace one of the 0.75" spacers and replace it with a 3/8 or 1/2 spacer. Will probably do that this weekend, then drive it around a few more days before going in for an alignment. I don't care about my current tires.

On to Sunday 5/10. It was mother's day, so we stayed out of the shop, but I decided to get the outback up for an oil change and do some interior work. I replaced the cabin air filter and decided to take the weight out of the glovebox door.

http://i.imgur.com/FtqGzWY.jpg?2

I must have gained like 0.1 seconds on my 0-60 now. I'm so happy.

My AVO rear sway bar brackets will be here tomorrow, so I will be installing a perrin 22mm front/25mm rear bar this weekend as well.

Lot's of fun. Why so much rake?

I'm not really sure. It is more rake than I was expecting or want. The rear shocks SEEM to be assembled correctly, so its not like the spring perch is upside down.

Hopefully the rake will be lessoned when one of the 3/4 spacers is replaced with either a 1/2, 3/8, or 1/4 spacer. Leaning towards 3/8 right now.

So since I ended up getting sweet talked into the Grimmspeed intake, I had the perfect opportunity to get the dyno tune that I've been wanting a while. Not doing so would have been like throwing money (grimmspeed intake) down the drain!

So after getting a temporary map from Travis at Snail Performance in Rocklin, I installed the intake. It took about half an hour, most of it watching the youtube video.

http://i.imgur.com/8KqPvt3.png

Then I decided to install the bulletproof mod that I've had for like the last year. Things went pretty smoothly until I dropped the last bolt for the BPV. Then I had to take the tmic back off and nose around and delayed getting everything back together for an hour. In the end, everything ended up getting installed and off to bed before going to Snail in the morning. Cutting to the chase, I got 2 maps from Travis. 1 valet map and 1 map with 3 different levels of boost for the SI drive.

I-mode with 10lbs of boost

S-mode with 15-16lbs of boost

S# mode with 17-18 lbs of boost.

No before dyno, but here is the graph for the S and S# modes.

http://i.imgur.com/jigWOpn.png

Any updates on this build?

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

holy cow, been over a year. where you at, Kelvrick?

Wife got pregnant, then she had a kid. Now I mostly drive around in my track beater miata since I didn't have the time or energy to get the outback smogged, so it just sat. Until now! When dadhood has made me tire of track suspension and minimal interior comforts and it is time to get the outback ready as my daily again.

I almost bought his built Cosworth block: http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/sacramento-ca-cosworth-short-block-b25-heads-257125.html?t=257125&highlight=Cosworth

don't have the budget to do everything I want, so the block would go to waste with me. I'm willing to take a big hit on it for a good owner rather than trying to get back more cash.

I'll probably go with something like a 16g with my stock block and put factory outback mufflers back on.

Wife got pregnant, then she had a kid. Now I mostly drive around in my track beater miata since I didn't have the time or energy to get the outback smogged, so it just sat. Until now! When dadhood has made me tire of track suspension and minimal interior comforts and it is time to get the outback ready as my daily again.

 

I'll probably go with something like a 16g with my stock block and put factory outback mufflers back on.

i hear you on fatherhood. only gets worse as you add more to the fold. i've pretty much done nothing since maybe 2016. nothing but buy more parts and talk about what i hope to eventually do.

just keep the momentum going, no matter how slow the progress.

I feel you on the kid thing. The first year of life seemed a lot easier than the second year. I just bought a minivan and my Outback had been sitting more lately.

Turns out a minivan is a better wagon than my wagon . Loaded the minivan with 800 pounds of retaining wall blocks an s it handled it like a champ (thanks airlift suspension I installed)

Sitting in traffic is pretty nice with a higher seating position and an automatic too.

Maybe it's time for #racecar

Really I just need to wash m clean the inside of my Outback and then I will be happy to drive it. It smells like dirt right now.

Haha.. Gets better guys!! First year for me was brutal.. no sleep, no time.. Second year was tough, but the kid slept through 90% of the nights so baby monitor in the garage 5 nights a week meant a lot of MR2 restoration was done. Now 6 and I could go work in the garage for hours and she either wants to help, plays with the neighborhood kids, or entertains herself indoors.

I don't know how some people get clear of the baby stage then start all over again!

As for the post topic....... still Outback-less. test drove a few cars and I seem to have something to complain about them all. Driving the avalanche is getting old too.