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Been on this forum for a little while now, dreaming and getting ideas and pointers. Time and financiers has allowed me to start putting dreams to reality

Gen 2 liberty heritage 22

Have had a lot of heating problems ever since I got this car, but a couple of secondhand engines later and a blasted and cleared out heater core, I seem to be back in business.

Have been running around on 18" low profiles that I got cheap but as I see a lot of rough road and 2 cracks has finally turned my hand to get rid of them, so might as well lift it at the same time.

So the current upgrades are std ob struts and spring on forester 205/70r15
Much quieter on the road except I think the strain on the lift highlighted stuffed sway bar linkage bushes. At any rate they will soon be replaced hopefully getting rid of the knocking I'm feeling up front, as everything else seems tight and in order.

Future plans are for lifted springs and body lift. Haven't decided how much or the best way to go about it as such but I'm thinking springs at least in the rear to even it out a little as I'm often loaded.

A big thanks goes to Ben at Cardiff automotive who has helped me no end in parts and service. Would highly recommend him and his team for parts and service.

Pictures soon to follow

first picture as it is now. the 2 with the 18" mags shows before and after the lift.

if you look closely at the workshop photo there are 4 engines, at some stage that have all been in the car, moral to the story, moral to the story, fix the heater issue before throwing another engine in because you have one. and don't trust a wrecked cars engine. on the positive though i can change an engine by my self split the old engine off the gearbox and install a new clutch in 4.5 hours from tools out to washing hands.

and the beach was just an experiment, low range wasn't working at the time so she didn't have much power especially trying to push though 225/40 r18 through the soft sand. but i had fun giving it a go. will be interesting to see how it handles it with the lift and thiner tyres

photos

Looks so much better with the Foz rims (in my opinion )

I didn't see the photo on the beach though, I don't think it has uploaded?

Looks good with the little bit of lift the Outback Struts has given you.

yeah i think it does as well. i was actually a little surprised how good it does look with them. Even though i liked the 18, i was comparing them to the stocks i had on before and the 18's were hands down better then that.

yeah I'm having problems with loading photos, for some reason the after lift photo inset loading but the beach one is now, I'm not sure whats going on there.

but thanks i do like it, but i was looking at it today and the back needs something done to it as it sags heaps with the toolbox and gear in the back, so thats will be next on the list.
would be interested to know if there is a way to fix the sag through a body lift, as I'm thinking of just putting raised kings in the back and std kings in the front. thinking that might be a good way round as it should help with the camber and scrubbing problems that seem to arise out of a big spring lift. any pointers or thoughts would be appreciated.

beach

I have raised King Springs in the front and rear of my SF Forester and had heaps of sag in the rear so I invested in some 1" saggy butt spacers for the rear which brought it up a little bit but I still feel it has a slight sag in the rear - we don't travel very lightly when going camping etc so I am looking for a little more lift in the rear. There is a guy on Facebook (Subie Lift Oz) that makes lift blocks for almost all models of Subarus and is located in Victoria, it might be worth having a chat to him about what you are looking for.

for anyone that was interested i finally got the comparison photo to load of when it still had the 18's on, its loaded up in the second post.

Thanks Tigger, they look like good kits. ill have to hit him up.

I love your sticker on the back window too

Wow, understandable you changed wheel/tyre combo if you see a lot of rough tracks. You would have felt every single lump and bump with the 18's, how's your back? lol
I love the dramatic beach scene, but it somehow doesn't quite look right with 18 inch low profile tyres.
Reminds me a bit of a mate, waaayy back in 1988 with a genuine chrome yellow Bathurst L34 Torana on a beach on the southern tip of Tasmania doing doughy's, twin giant rooster tails flowing from the rear from the LSD. What a site

yeah i got some great looks and double takes from people on the beach.

only one of my mates that i hit the beach with realised i actually planned on taking it on the beach. so they were all somewhat surprised to hear 4 cars on the radio instead of the expected 3.

Admittedly she didn't go very far. I'm from up mid north coast way and when i hear beach driving I'm thinking long straight beaches where i can get down on the harder sand. but this beach was blackheath (or black..something) beach just north of newcastle, and its more of a dune beach and the dry sand and pushing those big wheels through the ruts was a bit much for the poor girl without low range. so i parked her on hard spot and jumped in with my mate. i must admit i was al little disappointed to admit defeat. Admittedly if it was a beach back home i would have been fine, and i had no low range...at least thats my story and I'm sticking to it.

the 18 mags made it look really spectacular coming onto the beach as its a hard left turn coming off the ramp. my mate said all she could see of me were the 4 beautiful rooster tails of sand being scooped up by the rim spokes. and from a drivers point of view it was a lot of fun.

Keen to give it a go with the new tyres, lift and lower range though, see if i do any better.

So i took her up the Watagans last Saturday.

Admittedly i bit off more then i should have, pictures attached give you a little bit of an idea, real slippery gravely stuff on a steep slope. she did alright but the required revs was to much for that sort of terrain. and also had heaps of problems with not having enough suspension travel and therefore was lifting a tyre (or two in one case) and therefore losing the driving power, need some sort of locking set up and a greater reduction in the low range would be great.

recovery was a little hairy as i had to let her down backwards on the brakes. ill try and post videos later.

in short, i don't think ill be doing that sort of terrain on a solo trip again anytime soon.

reverted to a little tamer adventures afterwards and found some nice spots. if theres anyone local or passing through and want to go for a drive, love to meet up explore some more of the area.

Nice ride mate!

Look up subi lift Oz on Facebook for a lift kit, he'll sort you out with a good kit

As for the pics you can embed them in your posts with a bit of forum coding:



Which looks like this after you remove the * in the last set of brackets:

[img]http://www.ausubaru.com.au/attachment.p ... 1451954645[/*img]

Simply copy the image address after you've uploaded it and use the img codes and you'll be apples

Have you sourced a dual range gearbox yet? I'd suggest a 2L SF forester gearbox as it will be geared for the tyres you'll want to run in the end!

Cheers

Bennie

hahahah thanks mate, you will have to run that photo embedding past me in a lot more detail

yeah already had a chat to him and I'm getting the set he has on his for when he up sizes later in the year. 3.5"rear and 2.5" front i think.

yeah i ended up getting an identical wreck so just threw that gearbox in. but if i ever have to replace it the fos sf gearbox is what I'm going to get.

don't think ill i go much bigger in the wheels, probably 115/75r15...thats a fair bit of rubber.

leeton1203 wrote:hahahah thanks mate, you will have to run that photo embedding past me in a lot more detail

I should've added more detail, I'm so used to doing it I find it very easy, hopefully this will help you out:

You use the forum code for images: [img] and [/*img] but without the *

You need the web address of your image - if attaching to the forum you need to open your attachments in another window and copy the address of the image.

Then use the above image code like so:

[img]image address[/*img] again, remove the * to make the code work (I've put the * in so you can see the code, otherwise it will try to show the image from what I've put between the two sets of code, in this case it would be a "broken image" displayed as there is no address to an image.

The same can be done for hyperlinks using other forum code. This is written up in the FAQs somewhere

Cheers

Bennie

Love a lifted gen2 ...wagon as well!!

El_Freddo wrote:Nice ride mate!

Look up subi lift Oz on Facebook for a lift kit, he'll sort you out with a good kit

Cheers

Bennie

Is Subi Lift Oz, Subi Wan Kenobi?

No, it's Nachaluva, based in Melbs

Cheers

Bennie

Ah ok, nice.

Thanking you Bennie!