After 2+years of testing i guess ill reveal my $30 Lift

Fuze911

Forum Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2010
Messages
214
Location
Owings Mills, MD, USA
Car Year
2007
Car Model
Impreza Wagon 2.5L
Transmission
4EAT
So after 2+ years of testing i guess ill reveal my $30 DIY Lift.

Please read this first: I know people are going to look at this with criticism and concern. And thats fine because i am not responsible for anything that could go wrong if you try to do this to your Subaru. This was all done for pure FUN and it just so happened to work and work very well on and off road.

This car was my daily driver for two years with plenty of city and highway driving, hitting potholes, flying over speed-bumps, drifting in the snow, countless mountain bike trips with the car loaded and a couple camping and offroading trips with the car packed to the absolute brim. But most important offroad trips.

So you can try this to your car if you like, or you can just look at this and say what you will. Either way, its been awesome and i love it.


Ok so to start i did a TON of research and what caught my eye was the older model Subarus that people lifted with 2" metal blocks cut from a steel tube. I even spotted a new subaru lifted with this method online. So i started to think...

When i had an Astro van i wanted to do a 2" body lift on it and remembered that you can get really cheap body lift blocks made out of a super hard plastic here: https://zoneoffroad.com/

I went with 12 2" blocks that look like this:
2296.jpg


Went to tractor supply and got some grade 8, 3" long hardware. Total for lift blocks and hardware was around $32.00.

Then i went to work. Since the blocks are wide i had to trim them a little in a couple spots to fit them over the strut tops.

5045955078_0728cf457d_b.jpg


10 had to be cut like this:
5045954602_052d75c507_b.jpg


and 2 like this: (these are for the rear struts, one on each side.)
5045333797_fe8e210a49_b.jpg


Knocked out the old studs:
5045337103_4d0f203df5_b.jpg


Should look like this when they are placed ontop the strut with the new hardware in.
5045334731_681c8ef548_b.jpg


Here they are all tightened up with locking washers:
5045958252_74ed173fef_b.jpg


5045958500_f2c5255e18_b.jpg


Then, I got 4 heavy duty camber bolts like the pair on the right:
(dont mind those numbers, that pic isnt mine)
CamberBolts-vi.jpg


Here are some before and afters.
Back:
5045954376_41c2137777_b.jpg

5045960148_d11566e095_b.jpg


Front:
5045332479_0c83cb4057_b.jpg

5045959908_910e87e106_b.jpg


Side view:
5054468611_e7275ebcbb_b.jpg

!
 
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Then to finish up, i made some strut top cover plates to keep water and mud from coming into the engine bay:
5221088213_19fa3e4357_b.jpg


Heres some shots of the car "in testing"
5199074886_e06a480559_b.jpg


5114623473_9c6d12412f_b.jpg


5633559608_c500d855b6_b.jpg


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You get the idea...

Basicly, everything aligned perfect and worked perfect for the past 2 years untill i sold the car to get something bigger. Always wanted to share, but wanted to make sure it was safe to drive on the street. Enjoy




Forgot to mention each block can hold over 1500lbs. And there are three per strut
 
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Well done! Thanks for the reveal.

I'm not sure that setup would suit our heavily corrugated roads in outback Australia (would be like having 3 little hammers in each strut tower), but for general offroading I can see that it would and does work well.
 
nice job! How did you keep the rear tire from moving forward in the wheelwell when you lifted it? I have the subtle 1" lift blocks on my 2010 and they alone set the rear wheel forward a good bit.
what size were the ats' you were running?
 
Yea it's been great for what I did with it. Drove it all over the place, didn't go easy on it.

The rear wheel did move forward some but not enough to cause issues.

I was running 215/70/16 geolander at's.

After the forester I got one of these:
6709285071_d87e48ddb2_b_d.jpg


Got some sliders, bigger tires, spacers and most importantly a lift goin on this weekend :)
6685503527_4e82fef367_b_d.jpg
 
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Forgot to mention each block can hold over 1500lbs. And there are three per strut
 
A mate of mine recently raised his XT 2" using cut steel tube. Seemed to go ok but it's still early days
 
Well done Fuze911 :)
With 2+ years of testing & a lot of hard yakka, she still going strong.
Thats fantastic :ebiggrin:

Regards
Mr Turbo
 
Sweet!!! Ingenious even, alignment came out OK? I must admit, I don't think I would do it, I would worry too much about the blocks cracking or the nuts loosening up, but since you did it, and it held up for two years, cool.:cool:

Well, you'll have fun with the Taco, reminds me of one of my buddies...

1307201718264.jpg
 
^ ive seen that Tacoma before.

But yes, everything aligned perfect once i got the camber bolts and it drove like it did stock. I had a problem with the camber bolts slipping once but i had the cheap ones in and after i got the ones in the pictures i included the subi was a mini tank. I beat on it like crazy on and off road and i too was worried about the blocks cracking or the bolts loosening. I always checked them at oil changes and to my own surprise they were always fine.

One winter i was doing some drifting and hit a HUGE pothole and bent my rear strut. The lift was transfered to two new rear struts and it lived again for another season of beatings. Only reason why i chose to post this for others to see. :)
 
^ ive seen that Tacoma before.


One winter i was doing some drifting and hit a HUGE pothole and bent my rear strut. The lift was transfered to two new rear struts and it lived again for another season of beatings. Only reason why i chose to post this for others to see. :)

Well that is quite the testament to the $30 lift.:ebiggrin: Abuse approved. Did you sell the car with the lift? Be curious to hear if it just keeps on working.

The Tacoma belongs to a guy named Larry (Lurry:iconwink:) G. who lives in Asheboro NC. Great guy, fun to go wheelin' with. "Just follow me, you'll be fine." is our favorite Larry quote. His mod list is quite extensive, and he's not scared of much. He took us here.
 
^ that looks like a lot of fun. Sick tacoma, I've seen it on the Tacoma world forums.

I did sell it with the lift on the car but I doubt the new owner will ever go offroad. He just liked the look. When I showed him it was in a calendar and showed him some offroad pictures, he couldn't believe it and said "man I hope you didn't beat her up too much" at wich point I stopped cause I wanted to sell the car! Lol
 
I did sell it with the lift on the car but I doubt the new owner will ever go offroad. He just liked the look. When I showed him it was in a calendar and showed him some offroad pictures, he couldn't believe it and said "man I hope you didn't beat her up too much" at wich point I stopped cause I wanted to sell the car! Lol
I think I would have gone all quiet at that point too :lol:

Regards
Mr Turbo
 
^ that looks like a lot of fun. Sick tacoma, I've seen it on the Tacoma world forums.

Yup, that's probably Larry. "Crawl" box just went in recently, purdy sweet.:lildevil:

I did sell it with the lift on the car but I doubt the new owner will ever go offroad. He just liked the look. When I showed him it was in a calendar and showed him some offroad pictures, he couldn't believe it and said "man I hope you didn't beat her up too much" at wich point I stopped cause I wanted to sell the car! Lol

Too bad he won't be taking it off road, but cool that he kept the lift.:cool:
 
Why do you need heavy duty camber bolts?

-Lance

I had some cheap ones in before and they seem to give out and bend. Im sure its because of a combination of hard driving + body of the forester being much higher and adding more pressure on those areas under off camber situations. Once i got the heavy duty ones like in that picture, all problems with it going out of alignment were gone. :cool:
 
Thank you Fuze911 for sharing this with us! :D This is awesome seeing that a very inexpensive way to lift a subie is also extremely reliable and effective. I'm considering giving this a try on my subie. I Can't imagine the process would be all that different on an outback model as oppose to the forester; any thoughts?
 
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