What did you do to your 5th gen today?? -V4

[Falcor]

GT is fixed and back home. In line with the thread, I plugged the AP back in. [emoji16]

 

 

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[mk750]

This was last Saturday, but I finally got my center differential replaced! It had been having binding issues for awhile. Ruled out tires, etc..

 

Had all the parts (diff, bearings, etc...) got everything out OK, then ending up damaging the transfer drive gear when pressing it off the bearing. Ordered new replacement, weeks on backorder, ended up going w/ a used gear. Put everything back together... it works!

[Loya1ty]

After about 2 weeks of the car on jack stands in in garage, finally got the parts and time to replace the front calipers. Only the driver side had 1 piston seized, but figured I'd swap in fresh ones with my high miles.

Tip: really torque down on the brake line bolts lol weren't tight enough, sprayed fluid everywhere when pumping the pedal. Had to spend some extra time bleeding them. Also, if your lines are older and stiffer like mine, clamps probably won't pinch enough to stop heavy fluid loss and you'll likely need to fill and/or bleed additional fluid. Cheers!

 

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[ComplexEH]

Finally got the BC racing coilovers in, wasn't too bad to install. Rear lower bolt both sides gave me some trouble but expected doing it in my garage using just a jack lol

 

Also rebuilding my shed so all the crap is piled in the garage right now

[ComplexEH]

Had some old wheels sitting around (like 10-14 years )

[Zee199969]

Been awhile since I last posted anything, but I got the engine mounts and group n trans mount installed. Car feels great, and shifts are smoother. Haven't noticed much increased NVH from the trans mount yet, but I dont drive that much anymore.

[Humble Rumble]

Got some updates to post, and a lot of pictures, all for different things, so multiple posts incoming.

 

Firstly, after 8 months of sitting on my shelf, I finally installed my Fortune Auto 500 Coilovers weekend before last. Swift Spring upgrade, 10k/9k spring rates, +2k overvalved "Dewey-valved", setup by Dewey formerly of Six Star Motorsports.

 

 

A small aside from the car, I'm very proud of the progression of my abilities in regards to working on my own car. I've learned so much since owning this car and it's knowledge I'll keep for the rest of my life. Installed them virtually entirely by myself, only help my friend gave me was using letting me use his quickjack lift and threading the top nuts while I held the coilover from the bottom (which I in fact did myself too on the passenger rear since he had to run to the store). Installation went smoother than 90% of the other projects we've done on my car, with one small caveat.

 

 

Pre-load was set to 0.25" all around, and 6 clicks from full soft on all corners. However, when we were adjusting the height, we brought the front down roughly an 1" from where it sat on the H&R springs, a height I'm super happy with, and still had plenty of adjustment left. However, when we went to set the height in the rears, we completely bottomed out the height adjustment, and the rear was left sitting almost 1" higher than on the H&R springs. We double checked the installation, I reached out to a couple other friends, and we all came to the conclusion that they sent me the wrong length threaded bodies for the rear (possibly Outback length).

 

 

The rear did settle to a more reasonable height after driving for a bit, but still far too high for a coilover that's adjusted to max low.

 

 

So I reached out to Fortune directly to discuss the issue, and after providing them with pictures and details about my car, the coilover specs, and what I was experiencing, the guy I was speaking to said that essentially because my spring rates are so much heavier than the standard setup for this car (9k vs 6k), that the much stronger spring is not allowing the coilover to compress as much as it normally would, resulting in the higher ride height. Fortunately (hah), Fortune was super cool about it and offered to send me new, shorter threaded bodies for the rears at no extra cost. My existing rears are a 200mm threaded body with 90mm stroke, and they gave me two replacement options: a 180mm body with 90mm stroke, or the "super low" spec, which is a 185mm body with 79mm stroke. I opted for the 180mm body with 90mm stroke, as I figured it was better to keep the same stroke as I love the ride and handling characteristics. Also the other option would only gain me 6mm more low at max while sacrificing 11mm of stroke, which doesn't sound worth it for what I want from the coilovers.

 

So, advice to anyone planning to go with Fortune 500s and a stiffer than default spring rate: order shorter rear threaded bodies. Currently waiting for the new bodies to arrive. Here's how the car sits currently after a week driving on it. I'm over the moon happy with how the car looks at this height, and it'll be even better when the rear is fixed.

 

 

A final note on this setup: these coilovers drive, ride, handle, and overall perform SPECTACULARLY. I did end up backing the damper adjustment off a bit from 6 clicks to 4 clicks from full soft, as I found 6 to be a bit too bouncy on these spring rates for normal driving (though I'm thinking of bumping just the fronts up to 5 clicks now). The setup with these springs/valving is admittedly pretty stiff, still easily within the range of what I would consider manageable and comfortable, though I am used to stiffer suspension driving from the Konis, as I usually ran those 3/4 turn from full hard or harder at all times. And even at the height I'm at, I've had no issues with scraping or bottoming, and only have a very slight rub on the driver front over only the hugest Chicago highway bumps.

[Humble Rumble]

One last small thing on the suspension: since I had to take it off for the coilover installation anyways, I went ahead and replaced my existing Cusco strut brace with a fresh one, and opted for the "hybrid bar" style one instead of the oval bar style that I had before. My existing Cusco strut brace got rusty and disgusting in less than a year being on the car, so I'm going to give this one a good coat of anti-rust spray to keep it fresher longer. Also got the hybrid bar one on a stupid good deal from an auction listing.

 

Rest of the engine bay needs a good cleaning.

 

[Humble Rumble]

In other project news: I managed to get one of my Ganadors fully re-assembled and installed on the car with the Prova Convex Wide View Blue Glass. This was far and away one of the most difficult, frustrating, and stressful things I have ever done on my car, exclusively because of the springs, and the different shape motor bracket that turn signal mirrors use over standard mirrors. Re-assembling painted Ganadors is a solid #0 on my top 10 list of things I never want to do again in my life (and I still have to assemble the driver side). Even with all my pre-cautions and taping and such, there are still some spots that took some damage during the re-assembly. Thankfully, its nothing super noticeable and nothing you would ever notice unless you knew what you were looking for and were standing less than 1 foot away from the mirror. I do think, at least, that after doing one, the second will be a lot easier to do.

 

 

As for the LHD spacers, I'm not completely sold on the fitment of them, but they do definitely do what they advertise to do. With them installed, the passenger side mirror is easily adjustable to a position that is perfectly usable for a LHD driver, so functionally, they're great. I don't think they fit well enough for me to want to run them 100% of the time. Once I get the other mirror installed and am able to go driving with them, I'm going to gauge how hard it is to see without them, and possibly only run them for track days or something like that (since installing them takes literally 5 seconds).

 

 

Video of mirror adjustment:

[s2baru]

I'm saddened man, the fact that you've turned into the new testa bothers me

[Humble Rumble]

It's disappointing to hear that from someone like you, but at the end of the day, I build my car for me and no one else. Testa and I have some similar tastes, but we're very different in approach. I'm building my car for track use in the long term, so it's not just exterior cosmetics. That said, I despise the "sleeper" mentality. If I'm making my car faster, I want it to look the part. It's never going to be a time attack machine, but something closer to "highway brawler" is what I'm eventually going for. I didn't get to live my boy racer dreams when I was the typical age to do so, so now that I'm in my 30's and actually have money to, why would I waste my time and effort doing anything other than what *I* like with my car.

 

Another difference is that I vehemently document *everything* I do, and share the information. As much as I despise "sleeper" mentality, I despise "miser" mentality even more when it comes to sharing information about a car/build/mod/how-to. Both Testa and Stephen have/had Ganadors, neither documented the installation process or modifications needed to get them to work. I did. Posterity is something that's very important to me.

 

I like 00's Japanese tuner style. Wangan/Shutokou/Kanjou/Mid Night/Initial D/Touge/etc have been a huge defining part of my life for more 2/3's of it. Adding Ganadors to my car does not make me "the new testa". It's a quintessential piece of a car modified in that era's style. It gets my car closer to my ultimate vision for it. If you don't like it, that's a shame, but at the end of the day, tough.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Humble Rumble

[NVAKeith]

My youngest graduated to booster seats yesterday as she was less than an inch from the max height for the convertible car seats. Reminded me that one of the reasons I went from a WRX to the LGT was for the rear seat room for kid seats.

 

 

 

When my daughter saw the gray seat from my car next to the tan one from my wife’s car she said “wow I didn’t realize how clean my seat from your car was”. I asked her why she thinks one is cleaner and she responded “because you don’t let me eat in the car”. [emoji38]

 

Edited May 26, 2022 by NVAKeith
Pic

[Loya1ty]

I didn't realize Recaro made kids seats lol Those for sale?? My kiddo has recently bumped up from the rear facing carrier systems to the 3 in 1 gracos. Still rear facing for another couple of pounds though.

[NVAKeith]

Recaro pulled out of the US child seat market a few years back (~2017), last I checked they are still available oversees. We’ve been very happy with the seats and had at least five of them over the years. I’ve had people ask me in traffic where I got them (they have a recaro logo on the side). These are both now expired. One expired last week (build date May 16, 2016) and other expired about 11 months ago. You are welcome to have the newer one, tan one I think, although I’m pretty sure I have second cover for it that is gray or black.

[Falcor]

It's disappointing to hear that from someone like you, but at the end of the day, I build my car for me and no one else. Testa and I have some similar tastes, but we're very different in approach. I'm building my car for track use in the long term, so it's not just exterior cosmetics. That said, I despise the "sleeper" mentality. If I'm making my car faster, I want it to look the part. It's never going to be a time attack machine, but something closer to "highway brawler" is what I'm eventually going for. I didn't get to live my boy racer dreams when I was the typical age to do so, so now that I'm in my 30's and actually have money to, why would I waste my time and effort doing anything other than what *I* like with my car.

 

Another difference is that I vehemently document *everything* I do, and share the information. As much as I despise "sleeper" mentality, I despise "miser" mentality even more when it comes to sharing information about a car/build/mod/how-to. Both Testa and Stephen have/had Ganadors, neither documented the installation process or modifications needed to get them to work. I did. Posterity is something that's very important to me.

 

I like 00's Japanese tuner style. Wangan/Shutokou/Kanjou/Mid Night/Initial D/Touge/etc have been a huge defining part of my life for more 2/3's of it. Adding Ganadors to my car does not make me "the new testa". It's a quintessential piece of a car modified in that era's style. It gets my car closer to my ultimate vision for it. If you don't like it, that's a shame, but at the end of the day, tough.

 

 

I’ve been on here for awhile, but I don’t remember who Testa was.

 

That being said, I have always liked your build. Not how I would go personally, but I love the fact you are willing to go outside the box in these 5th gens.

 

 

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[s2baru]

You should know by know I always make back handed references about Testa. So maybe me teasing come across a bit too much so apologies there.

 

Continue sharing and doing your thing, definitely have shared a lot over the years.

[Boise2.5i]

Technically this was completed Friday, but finally got my Legacy back on the road. Over the last month or so, I've been doing quite a bit of work to it. First noticed a coolant leak, which ended up being a cracked radiator. Got a new radiator swapped in, and replaced my battery at the same time (the battery in the car was working fine, but was 7 years old and kept getting massive corrosion build up on the terminals). Then, I had started noticing a squeal on cold starts, and a squeak at certain rpms while driving. Thought it was a bad serpentine belt pulley, but after replacing all of them as well as the tensioner, the noise persisted. Someone in a local Subaru group mentioned it could be something timing belt related, so since I was planning on doing a timing belt replacement later this year anyway I went ahead and ordered the stuff to do it. Couldn't afford a shop, so parked the car on jackstands in the garage, found some great videos on YouTube by MrSubaru1387, and went to work slowly replacing everything myself. Worked on it as I could between work, family stuff, and drag racing season starting up, but finally got it finished. I had also ordered new spark plugs since I haven't ever replaced them and I've put 70k on them since I bought the car so no telling how many miles they actually had. Went to take the plugs out and realized that all my spark plug seals were toast. So, ordered new valve cover gaskets and spark plug seals, and went about getting those replaced as well. Car is finally all back together with no more noises and should be good for quite a while I hope . I'm glad I was able to do all of this work myself even though it did take a while, I like learning new things.

[Niko0422]

Changed the mesh on the cmod grill for an abs plastic one and made a lower grill as well. Need to change the trim on the lower grill and figure out how to install it

 

 

 

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[Humble Rumble]

You should know by know I always make back handed references about Testa. So maybe me teasing come across a bit too much so apologies there.

 

Continue sharing and doing your thing, definitely have shared a lot over the years.

 

Tone is absolutely difficult to discern over the internet sometimes. Appreciate the response and follow-up, plenty more to share and soon too. Been checking off a lot of big projects/mods lately that I accumulated in the time my car was down.

[Humble Rumble]

More updates to post (I really need to start transplanting some of these posts into my build thread lmao).

 

Both side Ganadors fully completed and installed. Fully motorized functionality, still need to wire the turn signals soon. The driver's side is currently USELESS, though the Prova glass makes it manageable. The passenger side spacer absolutely works as advertised and makes that side perfectly functional, I've been running the spacer regularly. I actually had a thought of something to try and make myself (and possibly market and sell in the future) as an alternative to both the LHD spacer and LHD glass that some companies make: a small wedge that attaches in between the glass and the glass base, that angles both sides to a more usable LHD position internally without an ugly spacer. I'd obviously have to do some testing and then find someone to 3d print it, but I think it could work.

 

Either way, was losing how my car was looking, so I went to one of my favorite spots and took some glamour shots, taking full advantage of the crazy sky we had that day.

 

[Humble Rumble]

After a very long search, I finally found the last piece of the puzzle, for the 3.6R plug & play aluminum radiator upgrade setup I’ve been working on for the last few months. The only things left to do are re-wire the fan plugs, mount the control module in a better spot, and install the whole thing. The company that makes this radiator is Golpher, and it’s a 40mm dual core (they also offer a 26mm aluminum version, which is still an upgrade over stock), which should offer substantial increase in cooling efficiency, and should also have a marked affect on ATF temps, as both the factory rad and this one have integrated trans coolers as well.

 

The radiator is actually a 4th Gen 3.0R radiator, but fitment is nearly identical to 3.6R. The top and bottom stay mounts are identical, the upper and lower coolant hose ports are identical, and the rad cap location is identical. The only real difference between the two is the trans cooler ports: 3.0R uses 2 straight fittings, while 3.6R uses 1 straight and 1 90-degree elbow. That elbow was the part holding this project up the most, as Golpher used an uncommon thread pitch fitting, and the male end is welded into the radiator so it’s unable to be changed easily. It turned out to be 9/16x24 thread (very near a very common sizing AN-6 fitting, but that’s 9/16x18 so will not work). The adapter I found with the correct female end thread had another, but different, uncommon thread for its male end: 5/8x18. I finally ended up finding a 90-degree elbow fitting with that thread pitch that would work. Once I am done with this installation, I’m going to work with the company to see if they could make a version with 90-degree elbows instead and offer it directly for 3.6R to hopefully eliminate the need for the adapter shenanigans.

 

There’s multiple ways you can go about this setup. There’s a minimum list of parts you need to get it up and running, and there’s a handful of non-essential bonus parts that are nice to have if you want a “premium” installation.

 

—Bare Minimum Parts (Basic)—

 

-Golpher 03-09 EZ30 H6 Aluminum Radiator 40mm Dual Core (or 26mm version) - $503 (26mm is $440)

-Mishimoto 08+ STI Aluminum Fan Shroud w/ Slim Fans (MMFS-STI-08P) *might not be necessary with 26mm rad, needed for 40mm) - $277

-BrassCraft 3/8" Female Fine Thread Flare (9/16x24) x 3/8" Male Flare Adapter - $10

-Parker Elbow Fitting 90-Degree Swivel 3/8" x 5/8-18 Thread (37982-6-6) - $13

-Various 10mm & 13mm hardware (M6 & M8) and brackets/mending plates (I opted for stainless everything)

Total: $803 ($740 for 26mm, possible as low as $463 if stock fan shroud can fit)

 

—Non-Essential Bonus Parts (Premium)—

 

-SPAL 12" Medium Profile Curved Blade Puller Fan (30101522) x2 *need to drill new holes in fan shroud* - $206 (can be found cheap by googling part number)

-Mishimoto 08+ STI Aluminum Coolant Overflow Tank (MMRT-STI-08) - $202

-Samco H6 3.6 L Non-Turbo Coolant Kit (TCS700/C) - $211

-Samco Clamp Kit (CK700/C) - $30

Additional Total: $649

---

Grand Total (40mm Basic): $803

Grand Total (26mm Basic): $740 (possibly $463)

Grand Total (40mm Premium): $1452

 

Credit for the original discovery of Golpher goes to former group member Patrick (ThreeSixMafia). He went about his setup using Golpher’s 3rd Gen BE/BH H6 version rad, to which later I dug up that they also offer a 4th Gen BL/BP version too. He made his work with the Mishimoto fan shroud and fans, but did not do the elbow fitting, instead going with an extra length of hose and a junction fitting between it and the stock line. He also had to fabricate some altered upper mounts, and modified the upper hoses, as they’re in slightly different locations on the 3rd Gen version. The rad cap is also in between the two upper ports instead of off to the overflow tank side. Link to his work is here, we had a lot of DM back and forth between us trying to figure this whole project out: https://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6054712&postcount=33

 

[Humble Rumble]

And finally, here’s the completed Golpher H6 40mm dual core radiator install! Everything fit exactly as I hoped it would and it looks *fantastic* in the bay. Fabbed up a little bracket assembly to mount the fan control module on. Wiring was pretty straight forward, my buddy helped me with it since I’ve never soldered before, but essentially we just chopped the plugs off the SPAL fans and soldered the extra set of fan control plugs I had on. We also swapped out the large fan control plug as well, since I had a burn/flare issue that damaged the original plug and fan control unit (which I’m pretty sure is the lynchpin that killed my first engine). Fitment is perfect, the entire assembly rad/shroud/fan is EXACTLY same thickness as the OEM assembly, 5” thick, so absolutely no clearance issues with the block. Did have to trim about 3/4” off the three coolant hoses, and did need to get a different hose clamp for the radiator side of the lower hose, as the radiator nipple is just slightly too large for the OEM clamp. The Mishimoto overflow tank also fit perfectly, with the only caveat being that you have to rest the tank on the shroud bracket but NOT insert the bottom tab into the hole. This is the only way it will fit; using the tab hole makes the bottle contact the engine and not clear. The top two screws hold the bottoms more than firm enough. Very happy with the upgrade, going to log numbers over the next week and see how my temps do.

 

Also took the opportunity to clean the engine bay a bit, badly needed it.

 

[creep_nu]

looks great in there! lots of work, but looks like it's perfect, and the extra cooling will be a god send for the tranny. have you thought about adding some rubber or some sort of isolator to the overflow bottle? would hate to see it pop a hole due to metal on metal vibrations

[Humble Rumble]

Don’t think that’s necessary tbh. The bottle is meant to sit on the metal normally, just with the tab in the hole. The upper screws are in the same spot, so I think it’s a non-issue.

[DeltaSniper]

I am thinking about selling my car since I barely drive it anymore... its tough to think about it but at the same time I think it belongs to someone who would drive it, as it should be driven.

 

 

https://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/toronto-2012-subaru-legacy-gt-testing-waters-288126.html