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Two years ago I got a heartbreaking call that my brother in law had suddenly died from Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS). He was a strong, healthy, fit man. They found him slumped over the table at work...apparently he was dead before he even hit the table, so at least he didn’t suffer at all.

My sister offered me his car, so I bought it. It was their 3rd Subie but my 1st.

I soon got tired of the poor lights so set out on my 1st mod...a headlight wiring upgrade & upgraded H4 bulbs. I soon ran into problems which is how I came upon AuSubaru while researching the wiring.

After much work & lots of help, esp from Gannon, my 1st mod was finished:
Headlights Wiring Upgrade - AUSubaru

My 1st trip offroad was soon after to picturesque & historic Walhalla:



I discovered my suspension was completely shot, springs sagging & strut bouncing. With help from the forum I decided on raised King springs & new KYB struts. Very happy with the much improved handling & increased clearance, but I wish so much I had got the gen2 rear struts (SG) L


A SubaXtreme sumpguard was next. I guess it did its job of protecting the sump but I found it very brittle & was soon falling apart L


A ********* guard soon replaced it!

Yes that's the only trouble with Subaextreme bash plates if your doing a lot of rough off-roading you will break it. Mine is the same broken in two places.
If you have a steel one you can bend it back into shape that's what i will be doing when mine dose break in two

Jan

Looking good mate! Keen to get out there again with you, especially since you've got some lift!

It's about time you started a build thread!!

Cheers

Bennie

Some great trips followed such as Mt.Cole


Bunyip:


Wombat:


Iridium plugs soon found their way into the engine. The next mod was hard wiring the rear accessories socket & an extra twin socket in the front:
Accessory plug consant 12V power - incl a walkthru

I was sick of the heavy & ugly steelies & hated how the mud built up on them making them very unbalanced. I found a set at a wrecker, a little scratched but not bad. Steelie front, alloy rear:


Soon after I started on my 2" body lift kit. I wanted to strengthen it as well as sealing the ends to prevent rust, also tie the front control arm blocks together & also the rear trailing arm/moustache bar blocks. This would make it more stable & stop metal fatigue. Thread here:
Matt's Body Lift Kit

Before:


After:


It took a while but was well worth it

The rear wheels were now sitting too far forward, so I modified the rear trailing arms:


Before:


After:


They are now sitting where they're meant to be

Thread here:
Rear Trailing Arms

Next was the exhaust, it was sitting way too low after the lift, plus needed to be replaced anyway.

Old:


New:



I made up a slider for it so it wouldnt catch on rocks & twist like it had done previously, also protect it from dents:
My exhaust slider

Then I had the muffler lifted:


The middle section still hangs low but I cant do anything about it as the resonator hits on the driveshaft centre bearing.

Next on the list was the woeful open rear diff

I found a JDM WRX STi V2 2-way plated diff centre & brought it to Rick (who did Venom’s & El Freddo’s gearboxes) & got him to check it out & assemble it. He said the plates were like new!






Assembled:



Then I had to source some matching axles for it. The LSD centre uses different stubs than the open centre, so I brought the whole diff to Brian at SubaBits who identified ’97 WRX axles as the correct ones & even test fitted them for me. They fit!



SF Foz axle stubs:



WRX LSD axle stubs:



He regreased the inner CVs & put on new boots & gave me a nice deal.

Then came time to install it. Not looking forward to this as I’d heard horror stories of how difficult it was to remove the 32mm castellated nuts & even worse removing the axles from the hubs. Thanks to a 5’ pipe extension, the nuts came off easily. By using a hammer on a block of wood against the axle stubs, they came out easily too...relief!

Putting the pLSD diff in with the breather hose was a little more difficult as the plug kept coming out, but we got it done. Then the axles went in nice & easy & everything was bolted back together.



The breather tube was routed through the top of the diff carrier then along & over the fuel filler pipe, through a very handy hole in the chassis rail, up behind the plastic guard in the wheel arch & through an also very handy grommet in the top of the Strut tower. A small fuel filter will be added here to hopefully prevent diff fumes from entering the cabin.

Breather hose coming out of the top of the diff carrier:


Through the chassis rail next to the fuel filler breather hose:


Up through the top of the strut tower:


Into the cabin, high away from any possible water no matter how deep I go!


A fuel filter to keep the fumes out of the cabin:

Awesome!

Thanks again to Venom

I've driven it a few times now & its very smooth. The next test will be its manners in the wet but the big challenge will be how effective it is with a wheel lifted offroad....

cool, Looks very good... Keep the mods coming:) I've got one question, how did you fit the breather hose on the back of the diff?

guyph_01 wrote:I've got one question, how did you fit the breather hose on the back of the diff?

I took out the factory breather, took the outer cap off, drilled out the plug & forced 6mm PVC hose (fuel safe) down the middle. Its a very tight fit so the hose will seal well & won't come out, the hard part was the plug kept coming out as we pushed the diff into place

Well, the mods havent stopped

It took a while but I eventually found a set of 4 plus set of 5 Audi forged 15" alloys with +38 offset (steelies are +48 offset). Also 4 centre caps.


I then had to get hubcentric rings to locate the wheel properly on the hub centre:


The Audis use a ball seat wheel nut (Subie uses cone) but a different thread, so I got custom nuts from the States:


Got my Kuhmo Venturer 215/75/15 muddies fitted:



I had my Geolanders AT-s fitted to the other set of Audi rims, removed the Audi logo from the centre caps & applied carbon vinyl wrap in a silver colour.

The Kuhmos wouldn't fit on the rear due to low spring perches & horrible SF Foz offset, so I got some bolt on wheel spacers:


Before Front:


After Front:


Before Rear:


After rear:


They also help dramatically with the handling

Some creature comforts next...

Dash mat to reduce glare of the vinyl dash. Sheepskin seat covers. It feels great, its cool in summer & warm in winter, plus adds a little to the height of the seat so now I feel higher lol

I got tired of the skinny little 11mm OEM rear swaybar, so fitted a 20mm one from a GC8 WRX:



Also flipped the rear lateral arms over so the end links connect on top not under the arms, lifting them by 2”. Now the endlinks reach lol



Then I finally pulled out my finger & did my snorkel:




Installation thread here:
DIY Snorkel Installation


It has a nice throaty growl now under full throttle over ~3500rpm & noticeably more power across the whole range

The rims look great and almost like they should be on there from factory. Nice work

Do I spot quick release pins in the swaybar links?

RSR 555 wrote:The rims look great and almost like they should be on there from factory. Nice work

Do I spot quick release pins in the swaybar links?

The rims are soooo light but still strong. About 5 1/2kg compared to OEM steelie 9 1/2kg!. Being forged they should bend not crack if they cop a big hit.

Yep quick release pins...a must for offroad lol

NachaLuva wrote:The rims are soooo light but still strong. About 5 1/2kg compared to OEM steelie 9 1/2kg!. Being forged they should bend not crack if they cop a big hit.

Very nice Love to see it in SA next year

NachaLuva wrote:Yep quick release pins...a must for offroad lol

Yes there are and especially when running 20mm sway bar as it does stop a lot of articulation if you don't remove them

Very, Very cool build! great work

The 'Saudiru' rims look great!
The picture of the 5 against the fence shows all the holes (of the rims pattern) partially covered up. Are they wearing dress rims, or is it a difference between the 2 sets you got?

Thanks

The set with the muddies up against the fence are "as is". I have another set (identical) on the car with the Geolanders that have the centre caps. I removed the Audi logo & put silver carbon vinyl wrap on it to dress it up a bit...pretty happy with the result

Saudiru...I like it lol