iggybdawg

This weekend, there's an SCCA Northwest Region autocross practice and event #1, Saturday and Sunday in Packwood, WA. I'll be there and working as the Novice chair in the AM session.

http://nwr-scca.org/solo/nextevent.htm

Then again, a 944 has nothing on a 3rd gear romp thru traffic at 6000rpm.

And have fun carrying a dog in a 944.

We often go camping nearby the Packwood autocross site. Wife, 2 toddlers, tent, gear all fit in our sedan. Then I go beat up the street tire class.

When I went shopping for ours in 2006, I wanted a wagon, but settled for a sedan. Excited to see your wagon Sunday.

The car has been more stable, but that could be the anti-lift properties you mention or just having the poly bushings, or that I have camber bolts now as well. I haven't gotten an alignment, yet, because I have been gathering other suspension parts to install.

Another follow up: because I drove the car while the axle was popped out, I had to get a new axle seal to stop a slow transmission oil leak.

Works now!

Anyhow, mad props to you sir for trying this. Somebody had to try it. I had a similar thought awhile back and chickened out.

It was more being dumb than being brave..

I still would like to finish some day, but not till I have the rest of my wishlist done. Or if I need a new front axle, I'll go ahead and buy 2011 wrx ones.

I did leave the STI studs that gave more caster in the car.

Still 'page not found' for me.

OK, set to public now.

You might have to change privacy settings on those, Brian.

Try it now. I set it to "only those with the link". I thought it defaulted to that, but it was "private to you".

OK, so I have the steel arms back on the car, but with the poly bushings and new ball joints moved over. The transmission was only down 1qt and the axle wasn't broken. I'm not ready to continue this experiment right now since it's getting costly really fast. There are other things I was trying to save for like coilovers, wheels, etc. I think I might throw these arms into the garage closet and try again after I get the rest of my to-do mod list done.

Let me fix the privacy on that album.

It depends on how much wider your track now is. If it's more than, say, 10mm, then you are going to find out the hard way that the axles can't take it. That happened to a few people I've known who did the WRX wagon -> sedan front end swap and trying to keep their wagon axles (which were now 10mm too short). They blew out joints, because the roll pin held the joint to the trans.

So was the fix simply new sedan axles?

Suspension does not worry me, things bolt-up etc, and it you take it easy for a while - you just ruin tires if something isn't right. But what about front axles with track now being wider? Never done front axes on this car, but I don't think there's a pin that holds those in the transmission. Could the pop out? Or damage the oil seal?

You have seen the future. I think I'll have to take it back and get the steel arms back on till I can figure out all the parts I need. They gave it to me saying the axles looked ok, but they couldn't get 0 toe because the steering rack and tie rod ends were too short. They said they would start scouring junkyards for totaled sti's.

Here's a cellphone pic, one side looks a lil popped out and it's seeping transmission fluid. boo.

I gave them my camera and the took many pics, I'll post them all in a minute.

The bolts were the ones that go into the body for the rear mount. Not just the bolts were different, the spacers on the bolts were too.

I'm always welcome to less understeer. Autocrossing it stock for 5 years has taught me to do wacky stuff to get the car to rotate. The first time I drove someone else's car - a cobalt SS, I spun it 180 degrees on the first 3 runs.

Oh well, looks like I'll be shopping for an sti swaybar soon and selling my bar here.

NM, I called back to the shop, they had a stock sti swaybar laying around from a customer that had recently upgraded to something bigger.

a quick look at the perrin website. the 05-09 legacy front swaybar and the 08+ sti, 09+ wrx all bars are different.

Oh well, looks like I'll be shopping for an sti swaybar soon and selling my bar here.

^ Thanks. Looks like it is a bit longer.

Any machine shop (or a respected car performance place) in the area should be able to press the bushings.

Yes, I kept thinking they were the same size and not lining up because of the rotation. The shop I left the car at this morning just called and said they are indeed wider. They said the bolts that came with the arms are longer and would increase caster, so they used those instead of the ones on my car. Also, I'm having them install camber bolts to get the camber right with the wider track.

They said the swaybar mounts on the control arms are now wider out, such that I may need an STI specific swaybar. They were going to try to see if mine bolted up fine when putting it back on the car, otherwise, I may have mine up in the for sale forums soon. (25mm perrin front bar)

So, I want to get RCE Tarmac coilovers whenever I can afford them. Would I want to go back to the stock strut mounting bolts since I would get camber plates that have a ton of camber adjustment already?

UPS delivered my package to a neighbor... and then UPS was less than helpful when I called to complain. I was able to figure out which neighbor and go get the box on my own, though.

There's no way I could press in the big bushings in my garage, and I didn't get around to finding a shop that would do just the pressing. The shop I normally go to said they'd charge me the hourly rate for the whole job when I called them explaining the situation. I'm gonna leave the car with them tomorrow. I'll ask them to take a pic of the arms side by side for me, but I can try to get a pic with a real camera from under the car tonight. I placed the aluminum arms over the steel ones to see they are the same size 2 weeks ago, but gave up trying to take a pic with my crappy cellphone.

So did you ever them on ? I got my set sitting in the garage. One of them came with a ball joint that looked like it was gonna fall apart, hah.

UPS says my box from Fred Beans should come today. I sent them subaru bucks via ups ground and got the stuff shipped UPS ground, and I live a good week one-way, and Thanksgiving was in the middle. I'll do the work this weekend.

still waiting on my subarubucks to make it to FredBeans. Does anyone have a pair of 2011 sti control arms?

I measured the hole in my used arms for the rear bushing, it's the same size as my steel arms on the car. I would imagine 2011 control arms are the same as 2008-2010, the only difference being the pillowball instead of full rubber bushing.

Dirtfish is actually where I was getting the arms from as well, did you get these put on? They haven't shipped mine yet so I was wondering if there were any issues with using this arm as opposed to one from a spec B..keep us posted!

It's taking forever because I'm buying bushings from Fred Beans with subaru bucks. My subaru bucks are on the slow truck cross country.

I'm probably going to have a shop press the bushings in, then swap the arms myself. Still haven't decided if I want offset bushings for caster..

these arent them?

those seem to be the bolts that go through the rear bushings, but I could be wrong. Right now, I'm thinking of just reusing my existing ball joints. The car only has 42K miles.

the cones are not plastic, they are metal. the part # is 20216FA000 and they are $11 each at FBP if you just type that part# in the website here- http://www.trademotion.com/partlocator/index.cfm?action=searchCatalogOEM&siteid=216335

 

also if you look at the pic in post #12 of this thread it looks like the cones are there on the studs in the box.

Awesome. Thanks! I wonder if the guy at my local subie dealer quoted $22 for the pair. Anyway, shipping on such a large order will be less than WA state salestax.

I'm still waiting on Fred Beans' subarubucks handshake. I put a request in Friday night and they haven't sent me the UPS shipping label yet.

So, this will definitely take me out of the "stock" class. Do you have a list of your mods somewhere? I plan to mod one piece at a time, and don't mind if it takes me a year or two to get competitive again, whether it's STU or ESP.

They may not fit, but they have different part #. I'd speculate they are wider than LGT's or even non-STI Impreza in order to give STI the wider track it has.

 

You may get interesting front suspension geometry with it. Widening the track in front in theory should increase front grip and reduce understeer. I think it may net you ability to dial more negative camber.

 

By the way, why is the rally school place selling these? Beat up so they replace them or because they run something different?

I crawled under the car and placed these sti arms over the steel ones. They seem to be the same size, but I'll measure and take pics when I'm swapping over.

I asked my friend who's an instructor why they're selling these, but I didn't hear back. I've signed up for their class (they're having a half off sale that ends tonight at midnight!) and they have an option to purchase insurance saying you're liable for damages if you wreck their car. It was only $25 extra, so I bought it just in case. So maybe these arms are parted out off of wrecked cars.

If these fit the 4th gen Legacy. Wouldn't they fit 2nd gens?

No, they changed the arms from 3rd to 4th gen. Do a google image search for "subaru legacy control arm"