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

m4pl3syrup said:
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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I think it should be very simular. Since i never owned one i cant be too sure. All i know is that the most important part besides the "pucks" would be to get the right hardware and to make sure thats the part you dont cheap out on. My local "Tractor Supply" store luckily carries grade 8 hardware. All of the hardware was something like 3 dollars and change there! If i was to do it again, i would put locking washers on the top and bottom of the bolts. Mainly to prevent it from slipping when locking it down for the first time.

Good Luck. You can post your progress in here to keep it all in one place.
 
What i also forgot to mention is that with this lift, i had more clearance under the car then a 05 jeep Grand Cherokee with a 2.25 lift, a 05 TRD offroad Tacoma and a 08 Xterra Offroad.

Only limitation is that the cars above have low range and .....lockers...
 
Fuze911 said:
I think it should be very simular. Since i never owned one i cant be too sure. All i know is that the most important part besides the "pucks" would be to get the right hardware and to make sure thats the part you dont cheap out on. My local "Tractor Supply" store luckily carries grade 8 hardware. All of the hardware was something like 3 dollars and change there! If i was to do it again, i would put locking washers on the top and bottom of the bolts. Mainly to prevent it from slipping when locking it down for the first time.

Good Luck. You can post your progress in here to keep it all in one place.
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Perhaps also Nylok nuts?
 
Fuze911 said:
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:
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Did you have to modify the knuckle for the larger camber bolts to fit? They look like the factory bolts that are in the front...
 
Nachaluva said:
Did you have to modify the knuckle for the larger camber bolts to fit? They look like the factory bolts that are in the front...
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No, i didnt have to. When you look for em, make sure they fit a subaru and you should be good. If you scroll to the picture i posted of the bolts, the style on the left is the one that bent on both sides. The on the right is the one that solved that issue.

I think i ended up finding mine at my local Advance Auto parts store. The first set that failed was from Amazon.com.
 
You know, I'm wondering if the same approach couldn't be applied to using these for trailing arm spacers. Looking at Zone Offroad's product page for these things, the 2" diameter blocks come in heights from 1.25" to 3", which would cover most of the usual lift heights out there - and with a bit of trimming, I think they might just fit in there.

I've got to put the SF up on jackstands later this afternoon anyway, so I'll take a few measurements while I'm under there just to make sure everything will fit - but on the face of it it seems workable.
 
The 2" diameter spacers will fit :lildevil:

Might need a little trimming at the top on the inside rear bolt, but it looks as though these plus some longer bolts could make for easy low-buck DIY trailing arm spacers; I'll start tracking down bolt suppliers Monday. If I've done the maths correctly, using the 1.25" body lift spacers with 35mm lift springs will leave approximately 3.3mm of uncorrected lift in the rear suspension. That's near enough to dammit as doesn't matter.

Out of curiosity, does anyone happen to know the type, pitch, and dimensions of the existing bolts? I should've thought to check this while I was under there, but as it's now off the jackstands and I'm on the beer I'm not getting back under there in a hurry :biggrin:
 
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This may be a stupid question, but here it goes anyway.

How did you get the original bolts out of the struts? did you just pound them out with hammer?

-Lance
 
LanceDa said:
This may be a stupid question, but here it goes anyway.

How did you get the original bolts out of the struts? did you just pound them out with hammer?

-Lance
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PB Blaster + Hammer time :)


Maximus_846 said:
Did you do anything to the camber or??

I have a 1985 Subaru L Series and am wanting to give your idea a crack :)
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Adding camber bolts to the bottom of the strut was enough to fix the camber. Anything over 2" would cause issues.
 
casm said:
I'm wondering if the same approach couldn't be applied to using these for trailing arm spacers.
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Yep, they should. Although for just the 2" strut top and the bigger rubber, there was still enough clearance with out the need for a spacer or trimming. At least on my car.
 
Fuze911 said:
I think it should be very simular. Since i never owned one i cant be too sure. All i know is that the most important part besides the "pucks" would be to get the right hardware and to make sure thats the part you dont cheap out on. My local "Tractor Supply" store luckily carries grade 8 hardware. All of the hardware was something like 3 dollars and change there! If i was to do it again, i would put locking washers on the top and bottom of the bolts. Mainly to prevent it from slipping when locking it down for the first time.

Good Luck. You can post your progress in here to keep it all in one place.
Click to expand...

This may sound like a stupid question (this is my first time trying something like this) but in order to get the strut back in place, with the 2
' blocks, did you have to disconnect the control arm assembly in order to get everything to lower enough to reconnect the lower end of the strut to the knuckle or did you just compress the strut?
 
m4pl3syrup said:
This may sound like a stupid question (this is my first time trying something like this) but in order to get the strut back in place, with the 2
' blocks, did you have to disconnect the control arm assembly in order to get everything to lower enough to reconnect the lower end of the strut to the knuckle or did you just compress the strut?
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Neither. I believe i stepped on the whole thing with my foot and just pushed it down far enough to get the strut back in.
 
LanceDa said:
This may be a stupid question, but here it goes anyway.

How did you get the original bolts out of the struts? did you just pound them out with hammer?

-Lance
Click to expand...
When we took them out of my fronts a couple of weeks ago we had to take the struts out of the car and place the top against a vice......... when we tried getting them out while they were in the car the top plate just kept flexing when we hit it.

On another note all I've got as an extension/lift on my gear box, tail shaft and outer mustache is a small piece of 1" alloy tube & longer bolts, holds up great.
 
LanceDa said:
This may be a stupid question, but here it goes anyway.

How did you get the original bolts out of the struts? did you just pound them out with hammer?

-Lance
Click to expand...

I didn't have any luck pounding the original bolts out with liquid wrench and a hammer but i did try a palm nailer and that got them out in a few seconds.


Fuze911 said:
Neither. I believe i stepped on the whole thing with my foot and just pushed it down far enough to get the strut back in.
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That is a much simpler solution haha, thanks!
 
Lift blocks are ordered :biggrin: Went with 12 of the 1.25" ones for the struts, plus 6 of the 2" ones for the trailing arms. On top of the 35mm lift springs (which settled out at a little over 30mm), I should net somewhere in the region of about 2.25".

Should be here in a week or so, and it'll probably take me another couple of weeks to put them in. Looking forward to seeing how this works out :lildevil:
 
casm said:
Should be here in a week or so, and it'll probably take me another couple of weeks to put them in. Looking forward to seeing how this works out :lildevil:
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Will be great to see how it looks & performs once the lift is done :)

Some before & after pics would be great to see too if thats possible :)

Regards
Mr Turbo
 
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