KNaph's 1999 Outback -4/6/17 - Lightweight flywheel and maintenance

[KNaph]

As the car currently sits:

IMG_0253 by Kyle Phan, on Flickr


Probably about time I start an MR1.

I got my car 9-16-13 from an older lady up in Shoreline Washington.
Got it for around $4300, 104k miles, full maintenance records, 2 previous owners before me, Yakima ski rack, and a dog treat wedged between the drivers seat and the console!

The paint is kinda rough on the hood and above the windshield, few dents here and there but overall a pretty clean car, and pretty low mileage too.

Onto the pictures...

The first week that I got it:


Some of my favorite pictures of it stock.



My first few mods:
Hardrace front endlinks and Audi front endlinks on the rear: These made the car handle significantly better, less of a slushy imprecise steering input.


BC Racing coilovers:

IMG_1249 by Tangy Philms, on Flickr

Mod list:

Exterior:
Legacy GT wing
Hella Supertones painted white
Desmond Regamasters
Origin Labo. Canards

Interior:
Super ultra jdm sik air fresheners!
Recaro SRD
Lowered steering column bracket
TiC/Kartboy short shifter kit

Engine:
ACT StreetLight Flywheel

Suspension, brakes, & handling:
BC Racing BR coilovers: 8k front 6k rear
Hardrace front endlinks
Uro parts Audi A4 turbo front endlinks on the rear (required modification of endlinks or buy a new bolt to fit)
StopTech Street Performance pads
DIY subframe lockdown bolts
Tribeca 25mm FSB
CUSCO 21mm RSB
Whiteline Steering Rack Bushings (30mm)
TiC Trans Crossmember Bushings
TiC Klunk Killer kit (Comfort)


Future mods: Long list that'll probably take like 10 years...

Exterior:
Honda Pilot/Odyssey rear wiper arm

Interior:
Nardi deep corn or Leather OMP Corsica

Engine:
EJ22e + EJ205 heads booooooost

Suspension, brakes, & handling:
Brakes - Z32 brakes probably
Remove subframe spacers and steering column spacers - properly lowering car

[KNaph]

This is my car on the BC's last night: I'll get more pictures in throughout this week

Post Coils by Tangy Philms, on Flickr

Here are some of my photoshopped pictures to give you guys an idea of my goal:
With new wheels of course.

Mt Rainier lowered by Tangy Philms, on Flickr

Probably not this low:
Regas by Tangy Philms, on Flickr

[meepers]

Looking good!

[Specv118]

Nice start!

Where did you get the front and rear links from?

[LeggyxPower]

more updates?!?!

[KNaph]

Sorry, not many updates yet. College student and I work part time at Sears so money doesn't flow in very quickly haha.

I'm just trying to decide on my next mod. My friend just got an EJ22e that he'll sell me for pretty cheap. We've been talking about something different like a high compression EJ22 with ITBs, but that's gonna take a lot of custom fab work which he can help me with. Might try the OBX ITBs too but remove the common plenum and run velocity stacks. AFAIK this setup is mostly done with EJ25s and they're a headache to get done. Not shooting for power goals really. But this setup will probably take a long time to iron out.

Other option is just to turbo the EJ22 cause I can get it cheap and get decent power.
If I don't buy that motor then I will do an HID retrofit and probably a tutorial/writeup on it if I don't mess up.

Also, I'm not entirely confident in how well the CV joints hold up past a certain angle, my car isn't very low and I'm planning on going lower but not sure how much I can push the CV before I get issues. And I still have to get a proper alignment, I've been driving around with just a tape measure/eyeball alignment.


Front endlinks are: http://www.buyhardrace.com/product/hard ... gd_83.html
Rear endlinks are: http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,carco ... ttype,7580
The rear endlinks are the Uro Parts Part # 8E0411317 and # 8E0411318
One end is threaded and requires you to drill out/file out the threads which is what I did. Or you could do it the more proper way and just buy a new bolt that threads in, not sure on the bolt spec though.

[meepers]

itb's with velocity stacks suck suck suck. I did that setup on my B16 the throttle response is off the hook, but it killed the low end and it is not only a bitch to get to idle, it is a serious pain in the ass to tune and super touchy to pedal input. I ran CBR ITB's that we fabbed up to work for about 3 months with an AEM EMS, and finally gave up. It looks killer, it sounds beast, it should rock in theory, but in real world applications, it really is just way too much effort for very little gain.

You are past the problem area for the outback CV's as well. Get a set of wrx wagon axles for the front or standard brighton or L model axles. They are shorter and the boots wont rub themselves into oblivion. Look at my build page and I have the axles I pulled with just STOCK wrx suspension. That was after about 4k miles.

[meepers]

oh yeah. No plenum = no vac source for your brake booster. Just something to keep in mind. you wont be able to pull enough vac off a single runner post throttle body.

[Muse]

Yeah, those ITBs kinda look goofy with the common plenum, but after reading what Meepers says about them, I'd avoid them.

[KNaph]

Yeah there's a lot of things bouncing around in my head about whether or not to go ITBs. I've been discussing with him because he's built and driven quite a few 4AGE Corollas running ITBs but there's quite a bit more aftermarket and OEM products that make it easier to convert to for those things.

And I'll have to get underneath my car to look at the axles again, they didn't seem to be rubbing on the coils when we first installed them but I never got a chance to look at the car under it's own weight.

I've come across so much info that says I should say no and just go turbo, but for some reason I just can't get the idea out of my head haha.
I'll have to do some more research and pick his brain a little bit more, but that'll have to wait til next weekend after my finals.

[peugoby]

Always good to have more Legacy's in the area - your Outback looks good.

[KNaph]

Good news is that my CVs are perfectly fine, I could go lower but not really willing to upset the suspension geometry that badly, also I need to remove the front fender liners and get the fenders rolled. I need to remove the Outback spacers either during spring break or in the summer time. I like the front rake that I have now but I just need it to be lower in the back.

In other good news, my friend ended up giving me a phase I EJ22e for Christmas! Heads need some work, but I think I'll be going for a turbo build, just not entirely sure what exactly I'll be doing. So far I'm thinking EJ22 with EJ205 heads, not sure on con-rods and pistons etc, but the more I think about it the bigger the money pit becomes and the more complicated it gets. Originally I was planning on just building a cheaper turbo motor for some fun but I've been thinking more that since it's gonna be a bit before I come up with the money to build it then I could go for a more comprehensive build with a bit more power. Thoughts anyone?

[Specv118]

Over build for reliability was always how I did things.

[BDAlex95]

Save up how much you think you will spend on the build, then save up the same amount again and that should be your budget. I started a turbo build thinking it would only be around 1k for it, so far I'm 2000 into it and still need another 1500 to finish it the way I want to. Trust me you're better off saving as much as possible and dumping it all at once into the car, it nickel and dimes you to death if you don't have the budget.

[Muse]

Save up how much you think you will spend on the build, then save up the same amount again and that should be your budget. I started a turbo build thinking it would only be around 1k for it, so far I'm 2000 into it and still need another 1500 to finish it the way I want to. Trust me you're better off saving as much as possible and dumping it all at once into the car, it nickel and dimes you to death if you don't have the budget.

This is solid advice for so many things in life.

[KNaph]

Thanks guys, I've been leaning towards the over building side since my EJ25D is still pretty solid and I'm probably only going to be working on the motor when I have a break from school.

But new news for my car!
Potentially gonna get some GD WRX front seats for my car cause my driver side is absolutely horrible. I'm gonna attempt to transplant my seat warmers into them since that's a function that I'd rather not lose.

My sister got me a Buffalo Wild Wing for Christmas! :smt043 The paint matches too!


And lastly my speedo is acting up. It was super late one night and my cousin made me drop him off, super super foggy, my headlights/fogs are improperly aimed and my front rake doesn't help much, and an unfamiliar road, I drove straight into one of the most aggressive potholes ever while cresting the hill at about 30 mph. I think that pothole jarred the car badly enough to loosen the connector to my gauge cluster.

Looked down after getting off the highway and saw this


So now when I hit relatively large bumps my speedo dies and then I have to drive over another bump to get it to come back, not my ideal solution but I also downloaded a GPS speedometer app on my phone just incase it dies and there's no traffic around.

I've found a few fixes for the speedo issue, apparently it's pretty common on 2nd gens, but now my parents are lecturing me about how installing the coilovers was the root of this problem, not gonna argue that one though, more NVH probably only made it worse.

[CaleDeRoo]

Keep updating on the coils please! Looking to get some for my car this spring, and the BC and D2 are likely what I'll be getting. Also any reasoning you chose the endlinks you chose? I broke a front one and will probably just replace all four.

I have bugeye WRX seats in mine (also have rears but I'm unsure whether I actually want to put them in) You won't be disappointed.

[KNaph]

Been about two months now on the BC's and they're still great. There's a lot of fine tuning to be done with the damping, previously I was running the front at 27/30 hard and 18/30 hard on the rear. It was a bit harsh with the damping so high the impact force was fine with me but made my passengers a bit uncomfortable so I turned down the damping to about 22/30 front and 12/30 rear.

I really haven't messed with them much other than adjusting damping every few trips to and from work to see what settings I liked best.

I'm planning on keeping the fronts at the current height, I think it sits perfectly in the front but I still need to find the time to lower the rear and get it properly aligned, I've been procrastinating on that for a while. Also gotta do something about the solid mudflaps since they scrape over speedbumps, not really a fan of rally armors though. Maybe spats but that's not too high on the priorities list.

Kinda want the Whiteline RCA cause the bumpsteer is a bit crazy over bigger bumps.

Anyways, still nothing really to update, just been enjoying the car as is, went on a hike on Sunday.
IMG_2919 by Tangy Philms, on Flickr

Wasn't able to mess around in the snow cause there were cops everywhere, and there were too many potholes in the ice/snow and I didn't wanna rip a mudflap off.

[Alphius]

On the '99s especially, the speedometer is a common problem. If you take the cluster out and disassemble it, you will eventually get down to the driver board. Reflow all the solder points on that board and put it back together, that should fix it. I've fixed two '99s and one '98 that way so far.

[meepers]

If you are going to keep her that low, I seriously suggest pulling out the body spacers and swapping in an L model steering column. You will need to change out quite a few bits to get it right including the trans xmember and the rear trailing arm mounts. If you dont pull the body spacers, at the very least get a set of L/LS axles. you are going to destroy your boots pretty fast as they will rub themselves into oblivion due to them being too long for your ride height. Loving the ride height though

[KNaph]

I'm planning on doing the spacer removal over the summer, but there's a few things I wanna do before I get to that point, mainly save my money lol. The great thing about living with my parents is that I get to save all my money for buying stuff, but I'm really trying to buckle down but being tempted by car parts makes that kinda difficult.

But yeah, I think next up is to get some '11 WRX wheels, I think those would look really good, and they're pretty affordable/cheap. Then remove the spacers when it gets warmer, the spacer removal isn't all that expensive but it's pretty time consuming and I work weekends so maybe summer or spring break...

And if I get those wheels then I gotta do some work to fit them, definitely roll the fenders and maybe remove the fender liner since I rub the liner already.


Anyways, sorry for my constantly long posts, I'll get to the bulk of it.

Couple weeks ago I lowered the rear even more to give the same kind of fender gap front and back, I also installed the wing that my sister bought me today!

Wasn't nearly as nerve racking as I thought it'd be kinda just threw some tape on, put the wing up and eyeballed it twice and then drilled the holes, measured afterwards and it's perfectly symmetrical, so I guess I'm more of an eyeball twice cut once guy...

IMG_0570 by Tangy Philms, on Flickr

IMG_0568 by Tangy Philms, on Flickr

IMG_0566 by Tangy Philms, on Flickr

The front of the wing could probably sit down lower, but I'm happy with it as is. I cut the two front pegs off and just used some double sided tape since I didn't have the little caps. Sealed the rear holes with some 3M liquid-ish butyl sealant and primed the holes I drilled so there hopefully won't be any rust spreading on the hatch.

Kinda wanna figure out how to angle the rear of the wing up a lot higher too, kinda like the Civic Type R wing, but they have brackets that actually allow adjustment, obviously I don't want it to look like an airbrake like this thing though. Time to break out the CAD software!


Gotta get some skirts and a front lip, and figure out some kind of lip for the rear bumper...

[98legwag]

Isn't amazing how something as simple as the factory spoiler makes such a nice improvement? I friend of mine and I were thinking about getting a spare wagon spoiler and doing some fiberglass work to it in order to make it longer and have a little angled lip. That idea never got out of the planning phase.

[KNaph]

Yeah I've been thinking about extending the wing and making it look a little more aggressive but that'll probably never happen with this car at least.

But yeah I had always loved the look of my car from the front, but the side and rear profile didn't have a very aggressive look. But the wing helps out a lot with that!

[CaleDeRoo]

Jeez that's such a good idea about the spoiler. Now I want to do that with mine. My friend has a 3D printer so maybe I'll just print some "spacers" for under the spoiler so it sits at an angle.

Mine isn't on yet, as I'm scurred to do it myself. Mine is also black :/ I'm hoping since the d-pillar is black it'll look alright. I can't wait to see how you do a lip for the OB front bumper. Hope you don't mind me essentially copying everything you do to your car...

[meepers]

The 11 rex wheels will look excellent, the darker grey should really set off the color. The silver on my 06 wheels was far too light for the Slate gray. Car is coming along nice.

[foohfooh]

also curious about OB lip. Havent really seen to many.

your man to check out about that is Revenge. His cars always have nice aero stuff.

If you can pick up skirts off a GT and then you can rock JDM splash guards for xtra Boxy Japanese goodness!

[foohfooh]

and regarding the wheels, theres a dude on here with your same car rocking them nicely. I forgot his screen name but his avatar is a picture of carl sagan with his head exploding lol. somebody help me out?

[KNaph]

Jeez that's such a good idea about the spoiler. Now I want to do that with mine. My friend has a 3D printer so maybe I'll just print some "spacers" for under the spoiler so it sits at an angle.

Mine isn't on yet, as I'm scurred to do it myself. Mine is also black :/ I'm hoping since the d-pillar is black it'll look alright. I can't wait to see how you do a lip for the OB front bumper. Hope you don't mind me essentially copying everything you do to your car...

I really want to buy a 3D printer, just can't justify it with all the stupid things I would make though haha.

And the tough thing about a spacer for the wing is that you would have to make it a hinge typed bracket to pivot on the lower mounting bolts. If you just made it a spacer you'd basically just be pushing the wing up further from the body, or you'd have to make a spacer that sticks out from the regular bolt holes, bends upwards maybe 15 degrees and then the wing can be bolted onto the spacer. Not sure if that made sense, it did in my head

And also, mounting the wing really isn't too difficult, grab some masking tape and lay 3 patches down on the top of the hatch and throw the wing up to where it looks like it's about right, then press down on the masking tape where the bolts are and it'll leave an impression, then measure off the little impressions and see if it's even or not, once it is even then grab a punch whack a little dent and then start drilling pilot holes! The first hole is the hardest, after I did the first one I was already too committed to stop.

As for the lip, I'm still very wishy washy about what to do, I really like the look of @rocketlegacy using the GD front lip, I know chromehorn did it but I'll have to see how it fits after some cutting of the lip, cause I know it's gonna look goofy without modification.

I can't take much credit for any inspiration about my car, there's tons of guys on here that are inspiring my build, rocketlegacy, revenge's legacies, dead's legacies, reuben, battlewagon, meepers, there's too many to list. I've read almost every 2nd gen build thread on here and taken some sort of idea from them haha.

And finally for wheels, I really want the white Regamasters, but that's just too much money right now, don't think the WRX wheels would look good in white, but I like the darker colors too. Here's a few photoshops of the car and some wheels.


One of the best ones I've come up with yet in my opinion. JDM tails, cleared corners and brembos.

[CaleDeRoo]

I was talking to my friend and he brought up a good point about 3D printed "spacers" not being strong enough. I do have another idea for an actual adjustable mounting system, but not making it look ghetto will be tough.

Here's a super cheesy MS paint picture of how I kinda sorta want my car.

http://i.imgur.com/zZKqgeT.jpg?1

I've got everything but the lips around the bottom of the car, brembos, and the window visors.

This was my idea for the front and back bumper. Have the lip curve around the corner but cut it back up in when it gets to the center, as the center is in my mind, the most confusing part.

http://i.imgur.com/xUbnN7P.jpg

[meepers]

I was talking to my friend and he brought up a good point about 3D printed "spacers" not being strong enough. I do have another idea for an actual adjustable mounting system, but not making it look ghetto will be tough.

Here's a super cheesy MS paint picture of how I kinda sorta want my car.

http://i.imgur.com/zZKqgeT.jpg?1

I've got everything but the lips around the bottom of the car, brembos, and the window visors.

This was my idea for the front and back bumper. Have the lip curve around the corner but cut it back up in when it gets to the center, as the center is in my mind, the most confusing part.

http://i.imgur.com/xUbnN7P.jpg

Definitely love the kick up on the spoiler, makes it look much more agressive. Out of all the pics I really dig the 11 Rex wheels, just the right amount of performance and class. When I paint my car I am going to color match my wheels to the slate gray lower of my car.