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Old 01-21-2012, 10:49 PM   #1
lodown1
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Default 98 forester STI (Phase 1-SUSPENSION)-(Phase 2 EZ30R)

Hello,

This can be my introduction to the forum. I picked up a 98 forester s back in september with the intent to do some serious suspension and power upgrades.
I started with a full suspension/brake swap from the 05-07 STI, here are some pics of that 3 week project that i will call phase 1.

This is what it looked like before


Sway bar goodies


Rear STI oem suspension pieces, svx axle


Front STI aluminum control arms


Here is the rear sway bar mounted, along with the rear aluminum control arms.


In order to fit all the STI suspension pieces, I swapped in the STI crossmember, and steering rack but cant seem to find the pics of that.


For the most part everything bolted in no issues. But I will try to show the issues I ran into next.

The stock forester front axles are the correct spline but the diameter was to small to fit the sti abs tone rings.


So I made some aluminum spacers to correctly locate the tone rings on the axle.






That took care of the front axle/hub mating issues.
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Last edited by lodown1; 02-12-2012 at 11:59 AM. Reason: edit title
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Old 01-21-2012, 10:53 PM   #2
lodown1
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Now i could bolt in the STI hubs and brakes in the front. Also added some braided brake lines


A good shot under the front suspension


And the Brembo calipers/rotors


The calipers I got where in decent shape but i still wanted to refinish them due to some gouges. So I stripped them down to their anodized finish.


And repainted with two different gold paints, one was called stove bright high heat copper. I put this on first to add some heat protection. I then painted with the honda inca pearl, it is a close match to the brembo gold but doesnt have nearly as much pearl in it. Still turned out nice.


I sourced my red brembo decals from a ebay uk seller, they were much better quality than the ones I got from xenonmods. I sealed them in and put a high heat clear coat on.
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Old 01-21-2012, 11:16 PM   #3
lodown1
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Now for the rear end issues. How to fit the sti hubs with the standard r160 rear differential. Well subaru makes one axle that does the job. The SVX came with the r160 rear diff, and has the large STI spline, they are about 20mm longer as well. Since my forester is the s model I thought it came with the LSD standard.

Come to find out the 98 did not have LSD, and i ended up getting a SVX rear axle as well. Which was the only diff that would actually fit the axles as they have an inner spline that engaged the LSD, again I seemed to misplace the pics I took of it. But here are some from the web that show the issue





Of course fitting the SVX rear LSD required opening up the diff case and swapping the ring gears from my forester diff to the SVx in order to keep my 4.11 gearing.


Removing the bearings from the diff was a pain. And then the forester case needs to be enlarged inside to get the LSD in it. shinny parts of the photo are where I ground off material.


The diff issues added 2 weeks of time to the swap mostly searching and waiting for the right diff. With that done i could complete the rear end suspension.
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Old 01-21-2012, 11:37 PM   #4
lodown1
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For wheels i picked up a set of the STI 17x8 BBS wheels, and powder coated them with a harbor freight powder coat gun. for my first powder coat job they turned out pretty good.




With all that done I thought i was ready to go get the car aligned, however when i started my car it was really loud, which was because i forgot to put my exhaust back on, and i mean the whole thing, headers to tailpipe. It was easier to remove the whole thing since all the bolts were rusted.

When I tried to bolt the headers back up they kept hitting something, which turned out to be the nice new sti crossmember, since i still have my stock forester engine the headers go under the crossmember instead of over it.

The quickest/easiest solution was to lengthen my header tubes by about 2"






Now the exhaust clears the subframe and sway bar, and I can go get an alignment


And here are the results








This ones shows where the offset of the wheels/sti control arms puts the wheels in relation to the body
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Old 01-22-2012, 11:30 PM   #5
Slow Steve
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Looks x12131443558048345 times better. You're making me want to get a Forester the same. How's it handle?
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Old 01-23-2012, 06:16 PM   #6
lodown1
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well it handles so much better, ride quality is up big time and the engine even seems stronger which might be due to the addition of the limited slip rear diff. My friend has an 07 sti and when he rode in it he thought the suspension seemed a bit tighter than his stock setup. I do have the thicker perrin swaybars 22mm i believe.
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Old 01-24-2012, 07:54 PM   #7
92SVXMAN
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Great write up, could use a few more pictures.
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Old 01-24-2012, 09:39 PM   #8
lodown1
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thanks, also if you click on any of the smaller pics it will take you to my flickr site where I have all my photos for the project, you will get a look at the photos for the phase 2 part of the project, that will be getting a write up shortly.
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Old 01-27-2012, 11:34 PM   #9
lodown1
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Thought I would add a nice teaser pic of the exhaust work I finished up today.

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Old 01-28-2012, 01:46 PM   #10
Slow Steve
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VEEEERY NICE! I'm digging this project. Keep the updates coming
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Old 01-31-2012, 07:17 PM   #11
lemonhead
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WOW!!! Looks amazing!!! Cant wait for phase 2
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Old 01-31-2012, 08:08 PM   #12
Storm
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Whoa.......NICE work man!!! Keep it up!


Jay
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Old 02-12-2012, 12:09 PM   #13
lodown1
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Default Phase 2 Ez30r Engine Swap

Okay time for updates, ive been a little busy since christmas working on swapping the EZ30R engine into my forester, here is some pics to show the work.

EZ30R engine


Legacy bulkhead harness.


empty forester engine bay


test fitting the engine


not much radiator clearance


clutch mounted


subaru decided to use the torx bit head bolts on the flexplate of the ez30 two stripped, the easy solution weld a bolt on to the stripped head and your can get them out with a standard socket.



So the engine bolts in perfectly stock h6 engine mounts work, just need a little more radiator clearance and its good to go.
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Old 02-12-2012, 12:23 PM   #14
lodown1
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Forester dash and everything else removed, I will need to put in the legacy bulkhead harness


here is the engine bolted in with the clutch connected. I removed the radiator and a/c condensor to ease the install plus i am modifying them to fit with the h6 engine.


In order to fit the stock radiator/fans I did a couple things, notched the front crossover


also modified the fan brackets by grinding off material from the outer edges. and modified the radiator mount to bring the radiator forward by about .5"


Its close but everything fits back in with about .5" to spare, oh and the only other thing that allowed me to get the fans to fit was flipping them upside down.


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Old 02-12-2012, 12:25 PM   #15
lodown1
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MOre to come, Interior/wiring
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Old 02-12-2012, 02:10 PM   #16
michaelwfox
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awesome project! I subbed
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Old 02-12-2012, 05:06 PM   #17
Patrick Olsen
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lodown1 View Post
Thought I would add a nice teaser pic of the exhaust work I finished up today.

Very nice! What are the specs on the headers (primary & secondary diameters and lengths), and how did you come up with them?

The engine should sound fantastic with a proper set of headers on there!

I take it the Legacy harness is from an '05+ EZ30R car? Are you going to run the engine with the stock ECU? That has been attempted, but never successfully.
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Old 02-12-2012, 05:38 PM   #18
lodown1
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the primaries are 1.5" od and 30" length. merge into 2.5" od pipe. I used some exhaust header calculator i found online, I have a legacy factory service manual that has all the specs for the cams. the exhaust could probably use some fine tuning but for my first headers they are pretty close. And yes 05 up ez30r with oem ECU,

I will add some more pics shortly, trying to fit this build up thread in between doing homework and building a FSAE racecar
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Old 02-12-2012, 06:43 PM   #19
Pacobeagle
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Holy cow, this is nice. A 6 in a Forester! Love the headers, suspension and well......just about everything. Sweet ride and build for sure. Can't wait for the finished videos.
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Old 02-12-2012, 07:36 PM   #20
lodown1
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okay I have a few minutes to spare, So an explanation of my intentions to get this thing running on the OEM ECU.

The immobilizer on the legacy is integral to the body integrated unit that powers all sorts of things like, doors, lights, security pretty much everything. I figured it might be easier to make my forester think it is a Legacy by swapping over the bulkhead wiring harness, which among other things would give me a nice updated interior and modern controls of the a/c-heat radio etc. So grabbed some legacy interior parts to check if it even fits close enough to be usable. On to the pics


The legacy dash fits suprisingly well a couple small issues but good enough for me for now


Heater box fits as well, just need to cut new holes for the heater core pipes and the ac lines


new holes cut




and the wiring fits pretty good too


the wiring was quite a project in itself, I merged all my rear wiring with legacy bulkhead, just alot of staring at diagrams, staring at wiring, wondering why i thought this would be easy. lol
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Old 02-12-2012, 10:43 PM   #21
Patrick Olsen
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You're a braver man than I!

Where are you located? Might have to have you make me some headers for my EZ30R when the time comes.
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Old 02-13-2012, 02:44 AM   #22
lodown1
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I am out in Lawrence KS, the header were quite a chore but I did enjoy making them, made a mess everyday doing it too. Here are the pics from the exhaust fabrication

I started with 1/8" wire that was very easy to bend, cut 3 pieces to 30" and did a quick basic mock up


then knowing that i would be using 1.5" od tubbing with a centerline bend radius of 2.5" i set out to make a full scale prototype to verify fitment.


this mock up header was made from a .75" mdf header flange, 1.5" od vacuum tubbing, and 1/8" chipboard cut to hold the radius shape in place. the nice thing was that i did not have to make both side as they are exact mirror copies.



here is the mock up on the car



fitment was good, now to make them from steel
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Old 02-13-2012, 02:57 AM   #23
lodown1
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I wanted to try making my own 3-1 merge collectors, I have to say once you have a good jig they are very easy.

I welded up a piece of angle iron into a 90 degree square, welded another tube to that with a nut welded to hold the 13 degree elbow used for the merge collectors


all that i had to do once the jig was set up was to rotate the tube 30 degrees one way and then 30 degrees the other way for a total 60 degree cut.




3 pipes finished ready to weld


tack welded collector


and finished with a small transition on the end it expanded from 2" to 2.5"


so i made one more of those and was ready to move on to the actual headers
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Old 02-13-2012, 03:13 AM   #24
lodown1
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made a quick jig to tack up the headers.


the rest was a bit like a puzzle, all about fitting the right size piece, the 1/8" chipboard i used for the mock up header worked well for templates that i used to get my cuts really close, with just minor grinding needed for a near perfect fit.






after i got all the primaries tacked up I just needed to connect my merge collector, I wanted to do a slip fit but could not find anyone to expand the pipe accurate enough for my liking. so i would just end up welding them on.



the collector end got a little tricky but worked out well for welding as i had just enough room everywhere


Completed header ready to weld up fully




and here is some pics of both of them


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Old 02-13-2012, 03:22 AM   #25
lodown1
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more exhaust work! here are the headers fully welded with o2 bungs and v-band flanges



and connected to the y-pipe


A raceland usa exhaust cutout for those times you just want to be a menace


and a magnaflow muffler 2.5" inlet dual 2.5" outlet


I have another muffler to add as I want to do a dual muffler setup. I was just In a rush to get the car more or less finished up.
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