L series coupe suspension :confused:

['87 RX/II coupe]

Hey guys, i'm trying to do some research on suspension for my L series coupe, like what parts of other L series are interchangable and weather or not anyone does an aftermarket kit for them.
I'm interested in the car being dropped not raised.
Ultimatley I'd love to use a set of coilovers, which I'd have to manafacture adaptor etcs for, but looking for a soloution in the mean time.
Any info at all would be appreaciated,
Thanks.

[discopotato03]

Are you in Australia or the US ? If in Aus treat it like an L series RX Turbo because basically they are the same suspension wise .

They really need a larger rear anti roll bar and as much positive caster as you can get on the front ie with adjustable strut tops (the urethane ones) and caster rods .

Std spring rates are ~ 158 in/lbs and I wouldn't go over 180 with a light car .

Expensive but if you want to lower it properly you'd need to find something like a Bilstein damper and have suitable height circlip grooves turned into its body . Be very wary of just using shorter length springs because they often require shorter dampers to keep the springs trapped at full suspension droop .

You will find that just lowering an L series does little for its handling , the front geometry is absolutly abismal and thats why they understeer and scrub the outsides of the front tyres so badly . As I said above increasing the front caster and rear roll stiffness is aimed at making the car more stable (less body roll means less front geometry change) and the caster stops the wheels "folding under the car" and it running mainly on the outer edges of its front tyres . Rubber off the deck can't do any thing for you - except give plow on understeer which the manufacturers think is safer for Mr/Mrs/Miss .

If you are doing this for looks I can't help you because functionality is everything to me . Low doesn't necessarily mean functional - just closer to things the undercarriage is likely to hit .

Cheers A .

['87 RX/II coupe]

Yeah I'm in Australia, thanks for that. It's a project car so the chances of it ever of being functional were slim, but thanks for your concerns, I'm pretty cluey with this sorta stuff anyways so i wouldnt do anything dodge like just shortening the springs, just trying to find out whats out there before I go down the whole cutomizing road. I'm not into the whole jacked up look or 4 wheel driving, but can appreciate it.
Anyways cheers for that.
B

[Gannon]

That car looks just like the one featured here
http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=2463

Where are you located and please tell us more about your car

['87 RX/II coupe]

Yep your right, it's the same car that featured in autospeed. I bought it just after the article was done. I'm in melbourne but the car was imported into Adelaide. I use the article photo mainly cause they were good shots, plus with all the bits and pieces I've been doing to it, it looking like bit of a bitza.

So far i've installed a front mount intercooler, pod filter, 2"1/4 exhaust, soon to be 3", just got a microtech for it... can you see were this is going lol, negotiating a wrx turbo. Few other bits n pieces. I'm planning on dropping an ej20 in there, just waiting for the perfect half cut, hopefully i'll get a twin turbo or a b4, but this is the long term plan, so for now i'm just seeing what the old ea82 can do for me.

I've got a spare ea82t jap spec that I'm debating on rebuilding with some serious power in it, but again this all takes time and moula. Was that the kinda info you were after or did i go down the wrong track?

Anyways cheers for the interest.

[Chris_Rogers]

thought I recognised it. I'm looking at importing a couple of them from NZ myself.

first mod I would make to it is a decent bonnet scoop on the top. if you are prepared to hack up a L series and vortex turbo bonnet then that works (and themes ) nicely. click here for that pic

twin turbo will slot into that engine bay. its a VERY tight fit with the fans (mine has to move back 20mm or so.) but its does fit.

there is a LOT of info on this board regarding later engine swaps - I did a thread on driveshafts a while back when I did mine ( I have a 88 GT2 wagon.).click here for the car

as for lowering it. koni make inserts - kmac will make springs for you.
shorter tyres will make it stick to the ground but WILL NOT get rid of the understeer problem. fooling with sway bars will fix it somewhat but it will be come tail happy. its the nature of this beast.

why are you lowering it?

[discopotato03]

If you want a good read do a search on "Rex on Rails" , I know someone involved with Whitlines hot shop so thats a start . As in the R on R article they got around the nervous rear end by increasing the rear roll stiffness and adding a bit of negative camber .

The L series having semi trailing arms rather than struts makes this a bit more involved but doable if your determined enough .

The big question people have to ask themselves when contemplating generational updates to cars is the cost of the conversions vs just buying the later car with most of the goodies standard . Factory engineering is generally cheapest and with early Imprezas getting cheaper year by year its a big question . I guess its a matter of personal taste but the main differences between an early Rex and what you have is ~ 180 Kg/different 4WD system/more sophisticated rear suspension .
IMO if the L AWD system could be grafted into an Impreza I don't think there's much the L series could do that the Impreza couldn't do better - but at a price .

Another one for personal preference , I wouldn't touch a sequentially turbo'd B4 type EJ20 with a barge pole . The later twin scroll turbo systems give a better overall result with 10% of the complexity , Subaru flicked them for a reason .
Mores law sells but two turbos don't give twice the power of a single .

Cheers A .

['87 RX/II coupe]

Hey Chris,
Yeah I've found that NZ is alot easier for finding parts and so on than getting a Japanese importer(lucky mines a mate) to find what you need.

I'm not to keen on having a bonnet scoop, I'm running a front mount now with the ea and will definatly be running it, maybe even a larger one, with an ej.

I've read a fairbit on ej conversions and spoken to a few blokes who have done them or similar.

I'm lowering the car purely for esthetical reasons and hopefully getting some better handling, a fair bit of work I know but it is a project car and will eventually just live in the garage. I'm looking for a more street look rather than the jacked up 4wd look, even thou I must admit your wagon does look pretty sweet sitting higher.

['87 RX/II coupe]

disco
If I bought a later model car I'd just look like every other bloke with a done up liberty or wrx. I bought the rxII for this very reason, apart from those educated nobody has a fricken clue what it is. It's a project car not my daily driver, and I'm not shy on spending time and effort on it, if it takes me 5 years to finish it then so be it. Plus whats wrong with a lilttle individualism?

Thanks for the warning about the b4, and yeah I'm well aware of the effect of mores law. I'd prefer to go single but if I do it would have to be an Sti half cut, I was looking at an early model Sti half cut the other day and was very close to buying it, but wasn't 100% sold on it so I passed it in. But when quoting up the half cuts the tt are a fair bit cheaper, I believe there easier to install than say a wrx ej aswell.

[Gannon]

disco
If I bought a later model car I'd just look like every other bloke with a done up liberty or wrx.

I agree

I believe there easier to install than say a wrx ej aswell.

How so? All EJ20 turbo engines are essentially the same, the only real differences being vaccum and emissions pipes, and the obvious extra pipework for the twin turbos.

Go an earlier WRX motor. There is less wiring (as later ones had imobiliser, variable valve timing and more sensors)

If you do go EJ, you may as well put in an EJ gearbox too, you will gain a VLSD in the centre.

(and sell me your FT4WD gearbox because of all the good advice i have given you)

[stamp_licker]

Have a look at this http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/sho ... hp?t=79257 and this http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/sho ... hp?t=78684
Good info on lowering L series.
NIce looking coupe you've got.

[Chris_Rogers]

Hey Chris,
Yeah I've found that NZ is alot easier for finding parts and so on than getting a Japanese importer(lucky mines a mate) to find what you need.

I'm not to keen on having a bonnet scoop, I'm running a front mount now with the ea and will definatly be running it, maybe even a larger one, with an ej.

I've read a fairbit on ej conversions and spoken to a few blokes who have done them or similar.

I'm lowering the car purely for esthetical reasons and hopefully getting some better handling, a fair bit of work I know but it is a project car and will eventually just live in the garage. I'm looking for a more street look rather than the jacked up 4wd look, even thou I must admit your wagon does look pretty sweet sitting higher.

it gets tight when you start doing EJ's (in my case anyway.) in that shell.
mine is std height and I intend to drop it 1" or so. it sits too high for my liking and isn't as stable as my last sedan. I'm out of room in the front of mine.

would like to see what you did to get a front mount in there. do you still have A/C?

as for suspension:

follow disco on that one. mine is legacy GT up front and std L series in the rear. the front is a byproduct of the hub swap.

was looking at an early model Sti half cut the other day and was very close to buying it, but wasn't 100% sold on it so I passed it in. But when quoting up the half cuts the tt are a fair bit cheaper, I believe there easier to install than say a wrx ej aswell.

I disagree there. if you pulled a TT harness down it a LOT more difficult to get right. mine is a 09/95 underneath and it was a bitch to get it working properly (I'm still having headaches!) they are the same core engine underneath but the topside is a LOT more complicated than a single.

If I bought a later model car I'd just look like every other bloke with a done up liberty or wrx.

fully agree. thats why mine is totally retro.

['87 RX/II coupe]

Superoo,
I dunno where i got the info from, probably from someone trying to sell me one lol.
Not really fussed on which ej model i get, as long as it fits my citeria, I have a LT12s Microtech for it, which is complete overkill I know but shouldn't have any problem running any later model additions. I'm attempting to do everything right the first time even if they seem over kill at the so i don't have to come back when i wanna do something crazy (which is quite possible knowing me) and redo a bunch of things later down the track. Theoritically the newer the engine the better i suspose?
As for the gearbox I'm planning doing the full converion, dont trust the ea box with the amount of power I'm eventually gonna be kicking around in (actually I wonder how strong the ej box is?) plus the gearing in wrx's etc seem alot better in my opinion, even now the ea ratio's seem a bit short.
As for selling the box, I've turned into a bit of a horder so I'll probably keep it for now. Dont know where I'd keep it seeming there would be to full ea82t's and the box pluss all the running gear... sigh... lol

"Quote:
Originally Posted by '87 RX/II coupe
disco
If I bought a later model car I'd just look like every other bloke with doneup liberty or wrx.

I agree"

Thanks for the supprt lol

['87 RX/II coupe]

Chris,
I've cut out into a spare bumber I picked off a wrecked wagon for the intercooler, so it's a lil bit drift style, it sits outside the main body of the vehicle so doesn't bugger to much up. I've mounted up into the bumber using an erray of aluminium bracket, ahhh the wonders of nutserts etc. The only problem I've come accross is plumping it up, aircon was in the way hardcore and I've had moved the battery into the rear to comensate, which is cool as I was planning on doing this anyways. On the other side I also had to move the catch can looking thing, I always foget what there really called, out of the way so I could run the intake plumbing to suit a pod and run the intercooler piping neatly. The hardest thing really was choosing spots to cut out for the pipeing coming into the engine bay. Had to choose carefull so it would suit an ej, dont particullary want to cut and shut too much.

As for the tt install, like I mentioned in my last post i have no idea where I got the info from. But I do love the idea of when people ask "what are you running?" and turning around to say "ej20tt". lol

I've got some pics(not great) from when I was dummying the cooler up, I'll post them and when I get a chance take some of the finished item and post them.

['87 RX/II coupe]

Here are the pics of the dummy set up, I'll get onto the finshed one's soon.
It looks alot better with the spoiler etc back on, but these will do as an idea.

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[ATTACH]500[/ATTACH]

['87 RX/II coupe]

Thanks stamp licker, thats given me something to definatly ponder on!

[El_Freddo]

*Drools*

Same as Chris, I'd love one of these in my shed, but i'd probabily keep it original for "old time's sake"...

Very nice vehicle you've got there. Look after it!

And you should sell you're AWD L gearbox to me, not suparoo

Sorry, did i say "sell"? Silly me, i meant "give"

Cheers

Bennie

['87 RX/II coupe]

Hey Ben, well originally I was going to keep it as original as possible, but when it got to me it had already had too resprays one red and one blue, original alloys had been changed and a few other things that were niggling at me. So i decided to go down the crazy road.
I'd love to find a mint stock as a rock one and proceed on keeping at is original as possible, but I think one project is enough for me for the moment, but a boy can dream cant he? lol

[El_Freddo]

I think one project is enough for me for the moment, but a boy can dream cant he? lol

Yeah, i've got a few too many projects going at the moment and not enough money or time... Some of them arn't even mine!

Fair enough on the crazy road if its been done over a few times.

Cheers

Bennie

[Chris_Rogers]

Hey Ben, well originally I was going to keep it as original as possible, but when it got to me it had already had too resprays one red and one blue, original alloys had been changed and a few other things that were niggling at me. So i decided to go down the crazy road.
I'd love to find a mint stock as a rock one and proceed on keeping at is original as possible, but I think one project is enough for me for the moment, but a boy can dream cant he? lol

http://www.trademe.co.nz . key word is subaru omega . they pop up there weekly. there was a blue 87 2 owner one there that I have the VIN # to but have not had the time to extract the build date on it.

As for the tt install, like I mentioned in my last post i have no idea where I got the info from. But I do love the idea of when people ask "what are you running?" and turning around to say "ej20tt". lol

I can say that its a VERY complex bit of gear as I found out. (but FK it moves!!)