The Rot Wagon: Lifted 99 Subaru Impreza

[Overland_Mitsu]

Maybe I need to stop pondering on ideas for unique mud-flaps & just make some already! First snow melt turns the dirt roads to slurry & a few days later it looks like I was stuck in a bog

That’s funny. That’s how my car looks now too after playing on some slushy snowy roads [emoji12]

 

[Plasmajab]

I love this thread, this rig is awesome.

 

[Tinker]

That’s funny. That’s how my car looks now too after playing on some slushy snowy roads [emoji12]

We don't have nearly the beautiful views that you do out there (awesome pics by the way!)... but if you know where to look, or don't mind wandering a bit, you can find roads in the lower peninsula that are good fun.

So far it's doing well in the snow, especially with the center-diff locking switch I patched in. Although I still need to do more tweaking on the alignment adjustments, because on icy roads it's nearly as sketchy as it is on the motorcycle

 

[Tinker]

I recently had a comical failure of both of my headlight's low-beam filaments within a very short time of one another, which forced me to run on my high-beams (the aim adjusted way down to save innocent retinas) while I waited for new LED headlights to experiment with:

It took a little fiddling around for me to get the aim corrected for the slightly different light pattern, but that's something I've always run into with LED's since they often have more emitters mounted at different angles than a halogen's usual pair of filaments. The light output is glorious! I was surprised to find hardly a sign of any "hot spots" like the halogens often have in these old scatter reflector housings. Even with the increased power they are just as tamed from blinding oncoming drivers when compared to the halogens. Especially compared to the terrible idea of putting any HID's in non-projector housings like these. Here they are with brights engaged on a relatively dark road:

Sadly my gorilla tape CV-boot experiment has encountered a failure after a solid 4 month run:

I've been taking full advantage of the wagon space & dragging around all manner of things between lumber, firewood, Land Rover parts, & engine cranes:

The snow keeps melting away so fast here in the lower peninsula! Hardly have a chance to hoon around in it before it evaporates into a thick mist:

But then again... big weather changes sure can result in nice things to see from time to time:

 

[Plasmajab]

Gorilla tape on a CV boot lasting 4 months.

Welp. Thats something Im addding to my 'crashbag'.

 

[Tinker]

Gorilla tape on a CV boot lasting 4 months.

Welp. Thats something Im addding to my 'crashbag'.

It was holding up so well I kept forgetting it was even on there until the occasional under-hood checks when I'd peer down there & have a good chuckle at the wad of grimey black tape still clinging on like that corny "hang in there" poster cat.

 

[Tinker]

Finally some snow to play in!

Had a brilliant display of "Sun Dogs" today while I was smashing thru drifts on back roads:

Something I rarely see this far south. The 30mph winds making it "feel like" -30F are helping them show so vibrantly, but still well worth standing around in to get a shot:

 

[Tinker]

Lately I've been trying to keep an eye out for unique engine swap options for the wagon. Not that the single-port 2.2 is all that bad, plenty reliable & a bit low on grunt for sure, just can't help craving more power & the better 4.44 gearing to turn these 29" tires. I missed a great opportunity to score a deal on a JDM Forester STI powertrain that would've been perfect... wasted too much time researching the swap process :(

Found myself having to smack the snorkel head pretty hard, more than a few times, in order to free the ice build-up we've been dealing with in my area. Thankfully hasn't fully plugged the screen on there, but to prevent it before it becomes a problem I picked up an "outer wear" type prefilter to protect the intake head on rough weather days:

I want to start taking vehicle communications more seriously, partly out of curiosity & partly out of fear of letting the ametuer radio training rust away. So I picked up a pile of hardware to test out in the wagon before building a combo multi-band setup for my Rover project. Started with a simple CB transceiver (Uniden Pro520XL) to finally mate up with the giant 1/4-wave 102" whip antenna I mounted a while back. And then a 2-meter "HAM" radio transceiver (Icom IC-2300H) with a nice dual-band antenna (Comet CA-2X4SR) to grow into. Also another handheld radio (Baofeng UV5RE+) for handing to spotters or friends without their own vehicle mounted radios:

The wagon's been surprisingly reliable so far... but last night the radiator had enough of the banging around I put it thru & the weathered looking plastic on the upper end-tank cracked & started spitting coolant all over. I ordered an aluminum replacement that should work well for a future engine swap & still uses the powerful original fans:

Want to get ahead on my list of ideas for the project, but at the same time not take it out of service for any longer then necessary so I have it ready for some upcoming trips!

 

[Tinker]

Old terrible plastic tank radiator is out! ...and with it out of the way is the perfect time to perform upgrades with the help of a friend knowledgeable in Subaru's witchcraft:

First upgrade being the radiator itself, in this case a much improved high-capacity all aluminum unit from Mishimoto:

Being ever hopeful I made the assumption that avoiding Chinesium eBay radiators & aiming for the name brands would get me a simple plug-n-play experience... nope! I found out, with a friend's help + a bit of trial & error, that Subaru radiator fans changed ever so slightly in the middle of these 1st gen Impreza bodies. Early 95-98 are different enough from the later 99-01 to cause compatibility issue in their fitment. Got lucky to find a set of earlier fans from our other resident Subaru expert friend & get them in there with no fuss. It's tight with the new radiator's near triple thickness over the stock rad, & maybe due in part to the engine sitting so differently after the big lift kit... no idea, but it fits!

The new radiator doesn't have the ports for a built-in transmission fluid cooler like the stock unit. I'm not much of a fan of the built-in cooler designs anyway: small surface area for cooling, a pain to work around during maintenance, & most importantly any failure results in huge contamination. So as it often goes... a "problem" becomes an opportunity to improve! We installed a big transmission cooler we found in a salvage yard some time back by hanging it (the orange stuff's a special silicone foam to buffer any possible rubbing) from the upper core support & running longer hoses around to reach:

Job done! Plenty of cooling capacity to grow into with future engine swaps + turbos that I'm sure are in it's future

 

[Tinker]

Finally some knobby tires for the wagon!

These new mud-terrains are labeled the same as the old all-terrain's at 235/75R15, but as far as I tell they're roughly 1" taller & 1/2" narrower (a good thing in this case, narrow = less drag & rub). I plan to adopt a tire rotation schedule at every oil change, as well as tweaking my alignment, because the previous tires did not appreciate typical rotation recommendations. I should hardly be surprised given the way the suspension cycles more like a dune buggy than any street setup Subaru.

Not exactly a high-end brand, but then nothing "high-end" belongs anywhere near this build. It's all about low-budget & repurposing old parts! They're called Forceum M/T & hardly break the bank at a mere ~$70 per. No more noisy than I expected, & as usual I forgot about the classic cobblestone feel when at low speeds... that was good for a laugh

They look FAR too clean at the moment... going to need to remedy that!

 

[Overland_Mitsu]

Nice man! I’m in need of new tires soon too. I’m currently running 235/75-15’s and thinking about going 30x9.5’s. I see those tires pop up on eBay a ton and am very interested in their wear pattern! [emoji1598]

 

[Tinker]

Nice man! I’m in need of new tires soon too. I’m currently running 235/75-15’s and thinking about going 30x9.5’s. I see those tires pop up on eBay a ton and am very interested in their wear pattern! [emoji1598]

I'm hopeful if I do my part they'll last a decent while. Going to do a driveway alignment & keep up my rotations with the spare 5th tire at every oil change... or maybe more often if they wear quick.

With the weather giving me a break I can start to prep the Subaru for upcoming off-road trips, in my spare time between work on the Rover, CRX, 650GS, etc. First course of action was attacking some of the leaks that rear their ugly heads after a quarter million miles rack up. Namely the water pump & a few coolant hoses, which also gave me a chance to check all the front side seals & timing:

Next on the docket would be this literally shattered exhaust... the terrible dirt roads around me have pretty much annihilated an already rotten set of pipes. Now strung together with various lashings of mechanics wire to get me by until I decide what to do with a redesign. It's always been a bit "off" since the lift put it at funny angles, that & I'm just about fed up with the terrible non-Subaru sounds coming out of the equal-length manifolds on this little single-port 2.2L engine. I plan to cut the manifold flanges flush & build the whole system myself with my own unequal length headers (tucked up higher than usual & for that classic Subaru rumble), a couple of v-band connections (quick seal-less connectors), a flex joint & glasspack somewhere in the middle, a unique muffler out back that I hope sounds okay, & cap it off with a vintage style tip.

Yikes... yeah I know

 

[Tinker]

So with an offroad trip coming up quick I had a mad dash to gather a pile of exhaust parts for the new custom header & system I planned to build:

Most all parts comprise of mild steel that I cut to fit as tight as I could manage, & welded with a mig welder:

I started with cutting the flanges off the old manifold, then built the 1.75" primaries to snake safely around the water-pump outlet, oil pan, oil filter, & the engine crossmember. I've had an "unequal length" header in mind since I started the project, entirely for the purposes of the classic Subaru rumble sound, but at the same time wanting it tucked up as high away from trail damage as possible to fit under a skid plate. The big lump where the 2 pipes come together is a high-flow catalytic converter, obviously not necessary, just to cut out a bunch of undesirable raspy sounds (which it very much did) & make the pair of O2 sensors happy. My new header terminates with a 2.5" pipe v-band flange connection, which was another planned feature to make servicing a dream:

The middle section starts with a triple-wall flex section immediately after the v-band flange, then a series of bends to negotiate the transmission crossmember where the forward most hanger bolts directly to the factory mounting tab. A straight pipe section runs up as high & near to the driveshaft as I could manage before arriving at the rear differential where I've welded in a simple glasspack resonator, then a rubber hanger holding up the next straight section that ends in another v-band. Under the rear crossmember a few more bends make their way up to the muffler that's just clear of the floor & hitch.

Works great & is thankfully tucked up as high as I hoped, so much so that with the black VHT paint on it's hard to spot most of it when knelt down looking underneath. Sounds great through most of the rev range too! Just one raspy spot around 3500-4000 that I think I can eliminate fairly easily with another small resonator patched into the straight section up near the transmission output. Capped it all off with a air-cooled VW style chrome flared tip:

 

[adventure_is_necessary]

So with an offroad trip coming up quick I had a mad dash to gather a pile of exhaust parts for the new custom header & system I planned to build:

Most all parts comprise of mild steel that I cut to fit as tight as I could manage, & welded with a mig welder:

I started with cutting the flanges off the old manifold, then built the 1.75" primaries to snake safely around the water-pump outlet, oil pan, oil filter, & the engine crossmember. I've had an "unequal length" header in mind since I started the project, entirely for the purposes of the classic Subaru rumble sound, but at the same time wanting it tucked up as high away from trail damage as possible to fit under a skid plate. The big lump where the 2 pipes come together is a high-flow catalytic converter, obviously not necessary, just to cut out a bunch of undesirable raspy sounds (which it very much did) & make the pair of O2 sensors happy. My new header terminates with a 2.5" pipe v-band flange connection, which was another planned feature to make servicing a dream:

The middle section starts with a triple-wall flex section immediately after the v-band flange, then a series of bends to negotiate the transmission crossmember where the forward most hanger bolts directly to the factory mounting tab. A straight pipe section runs up as high & near to the driveshaft as I could manage before arriving at the rear differential where I've welded in a simple glasspack resonator, then a rubber hanger holding up the next straight section that ends in another v-band. Under the rear crossmember a few more bends make their way up to the muffler that's just clear of the floor & hitch.

Works great & is thankfully tucked up as high as I hoped, so much so that with the black VHT paint on it's hard to spot most of it when knelt down looking underneath. Sounds great through most of the rev range too! Just one raspy spot around 3500-4000 that I think I can eliminate fairly easily with another small resonator patched into the straight section up near the transmission output. Capped it all off with a air-cooled VW style chrome flared tip:

If you do proceed with another resonator, you should post a clip of the exhaust sound through the RPM range.

 

[Tinker]

If you do proceed with another resonator, you should post a clip of the exhaust sound through the RPM range.

That's a good idea! I tried to record the process of building it from scratch, but I was in such a hurry prepping for a trip that I didn't check the cameras & totally messed up most of the footage :(

 

[Overland_Mitsu]

Looks good man! How are the MT’s working out?

 

[Tinker]

Looks good man! How are the MT’s working out?

Great so far! Didn't get noticeably louder with break-in & were plenty grippy when I was out running sandy + hard-pack trails. Going to continue to keep an eye on the wear as I rotate them with each oil change.

 

[Tinker]

Here's a video of the work on the tire swap & some testing up north:

 

[Tinker]

My trip report on the "Shake Off The Dust" run with Michigan Overland:

The trip was a much needed getaway, & from the vibes I got from most everyone (my passenger included) I would say I was not alone. Even if the planned routes didn’t go as well as we imagined, it was still a win to get out there & give it a go. We ran into plenty of the usual things: trees down (mostly passable though), unmapped private property, narrowed overgrown tracks, etc. The more we can work on establishing & improving reliable lower peninsula routes throughout the year, the more we'll be prepared to do the same upstate! Despite the turn arounds & backtracking we did run through some trail sections worth making note of. A few tree tunnels in a valley, and this mini ravine hill-hugging road with river access at the end:

Next time I need to do better on prioritizing my vehicle preparations & not miss the first day of a multi-day trip! I'm contemplating next trip to go up a day earlier to maybe recon the proposed routes, & report back issues or things to see. Depends on my schedule of course, but I’d imagine that 1-2 vehicles running recce can easily cover the same area in a day that 10+ vehicles enjoying the view would in 2-3 days. Being that we missed out on the first night meant that we had some catching up to do. We put the hammer down when we received word that the previous night's group was breaking morning camp & preparing to start Saturday's leg of the route. The trails were nothing short of a rally stage as I did my best to keep the tires away from trees... good warm up & fun way to start the morning. We linked up with the other 11 vehicles in the convoy well before our planned rendezvous point at a gas station further down the trail route. Not long after we pulled off on a power line track that crossed the ORV trail, just to regroup after a few times the group split up slightly due to various things. It was great to meet so many new faces, especially when there's enough to make it hard to remember!

I've noticed that communications seem to get more & more important as the group size increases, which I think puts more stress on the convoy leader than necessary. I need to crunch the numbers yet… but I wonder if it would be worth building a dozen / half-dozen kits of inexpensive Baofeng handhelds, magnetic roof antennas, stretch cords, & suction-cup mounts. Program them all the same (for FRS, GMRS, & 2-meter), so they can just be handed out to anyone short on comms. They may only be 5-10 watts, but they blow away anything that’s comparably priced or as easily plug-n-play... as far as I know. After a few reroutes the decision was made to make a break for a campsite before the sun set on us as we scratched our heads staring at GPS tracks. Thankfully the clearing we chose is surrounded by a maze of trails, so we unloaded a handful of vehicles, picked a direction, & just started wandering (after finding a friend that had become separated from the group earlier).

The Subaru did as well as I’d hoped on the trip, no problems or past issues rearing their ugly heads. I heard a clicking that I'd assumed was from a salvage-yard CV axle I was running up front, but later I learned it was actually a wheel bearing on it's way out. While it performed to my expectations, it did however shift around the priority of several things on the project’s to-do list. Raising it’s computer up from the floor (and away from intruding water!), finishing the 2-meter radio install (comms could've been so much better), further trimming the front wheel well, adding another exhaust resonator (wasn't sure I should use both I had, but there's a rasp I need to be rid of), & building a skid-plate are up at the top now. Here we found a little hill climb along a sandy powerline track which was super sketchy on the other side, & later we found a real mess of meth-head garbage scattered out in the sand... yikes.

That night was just what I hoped for too. Good people, cooking over a campfire, drinks, tunes, & of course some great stories. When the morning broke, everyone gathered over coffee & cooking before deciding the plan to disperse in our different directions home. Some had already left early, so the smaller group of remaining vehicles wandered a few more trails before saying our goodbyes. A few of us split to pick up a handful of delicious meats from the local Dublin Jerky store, pretty much mandatory when in that area!

My passenger & I took the “scenic route” on the way home towards Grand Rapids, via the Lincoln Hills ORV trails which thankfully weren’t too crowded. We had a great hour or so of ripping thru the loamy sand that lined the twisty high-banked trails like it was a rally stage… or at least as much as you can while avoiding a full clip around blind corners & crests. Turned out it was lucky that a spontaneous decision to run trails slowed down our way south away from the group. Because we got a message just as we pulled off the trail to take a breather from barely clearing several mud trenches & putting the snorkel to work on a few sketchy water crossings.

The message was relaying a mayday from one of our group that ran into some similarly arduous crossings while running trails on his way back. Since we were by far the nearest at that point, we peeled off back up northward & received coordinates to his bogged location, which as we were getting more info seemed to be a flooded creek. We were already having some hilarious issues navigating since my passenger was completely new to doing so with little to no cell service. So unsurprisingly it wasn’t the easiest thing to track him down while both driving & guiding my codriver. The whole time imagining his vehicle shorting out electrics up to his dashboard in scummy creek water. When I was getting frustrated I tried to remember the Land Rover motto to just drive “As slow as possible, as fast as necessary”. After longer than I’d like we did finally narrow down which branch of a mess of little 2-tracks (that looked like a plant’s sprawling roots) he was caught in & find he was right up to his seats in water. He was so calm about it... he was all but camped out along the bank of the creek his vehicles exhaust was bubbling in. I think the relaxed demeanor took the edge off what I was hyping up in my mind. Because of course on the way there I was imagining the worst since neither of us had a winch or all that much torque on tap to extract a badly high centered vehicle.

I would’ve much preferred to pull him forward, since he was so close to pulling up & out of the other side of the bank. His vehicle was only a few feet from exiting, caught up along the center, with all 4 tires hanging freely in deep ruts. I’m sure I could’ve made the crossing with my Subaru's clearance, but there was no chance of me getting around him & across to his front without doing a bunch of unnecessary trail damage. So after a bit of swimming we had a recovery strap properly connected, just long enough for me to keep my car’s nose out of the water & on relatively stable ground. We quickly found the weakness of larger tires without regearing… I just did not have the power to static pull him back... a bit frustrating. While not ideal, we had to resort to slacking the strap & tugging with a decent reversing speed. A dozen or so pulls & it wasn’t looking good. I’m sure my transmission wasn’t happy either. My custom center diff switch was locking things together & the oversized fluid cooler I installed was doing it’s best to keep the torque converter from going nuclear. We didn’t want to give up though, so we just kept pulling & eventually it started to budge ever so slightly. An inch at a time we pulled it back off the rise that was holding up the center. Once his vehicle dropped off it enough to get traction we both throttled as hard as we could & out it came! A half hour of bailing out the water from his footwells & cleaning up as best we could & we were out of there!

The Rot Wagon was messy & we might not have covered as much ground as everyone hoped... but it was a damn good time for such a short outing!

 

[Tinker]

I'm surprised it's made it this long, what with the age + mods, but the Rot Wagon has finally munched up a front wheel bearing... and munched it proper!

I've recognized a bit of drag in the front end for a few weeks prior, but I think the trip up north finally finished it off. I was pushing it hard on the trails when we weren't in the midst of the group, probably in the neighborhood of 90% what I'm capable of with this setup. From what I can tell the failure began with a crack in the outboard inner race, leading to a runaway brinelling as each roller was damaged when passing over the fracture:

I recognized the issue had gone from minor to major on my way home from work, which unfortunately was well past 1AM. So I had to make the decision to park it & call for a tow, or attempt to limp it 20+ miles home. I chose the latter. I made it, despite a few near complete lockups of the bearing, and here you can see the very badly damaged hub that resulted from this:

I chose a set of mostly OEM parts, since there isn't anything offered for more durable options when it comes to wheel bearings. Well... aside from converting to STI knuckles with the larger bolt pattern & bearing, or full custom fabrication. There used to be an option to use a Nissan wheel bearing with a ~10% better load rating due to better materials, sadly that option was merged with the weaker Subaru bearing. My only option was to remove the standard grease & repack with a higher grade grease that's well suited for the application. I did have an option for heavy duty ball joints & steering rods, so I thought I'd give these "TTX" options a shot:

I did my best to treat the job like a surgery clean room as I installed the new parts, not to mention following the OEM torque specifications to the pound. Plenty of quality grease, anti seize, thread locker, etc. While I had the knuckle out I removed some unnecessary bits for the brake dust shield, abs trigger wheel, & abs sensor. I was very glad to have a slide hammer & bearing press kit to make the job easy to do without taking it to a shop for their press. Could've even performed the job right on the car!

Thankfully the brakes were not damaged by all the movement in the bearing, so they just got a cleanup & reinstall with my forged aluminum wheel spacers that convert from 5x100 to 5x4.5 inches. After a test drive it was clear the issue was fixed!

Here you can see how bad it was when I started, with inches of deflection at the tire!