Jamal's 1993 Legacy

[jamal]

I suppose it's my turn to make one of these. I got my car in high school at the beginning of 2000. Back that I didn't know a lot about cars and just put in a cd player, some new speakers, and drove it around stock. Come to think of it, the a/c even worked, and the body and paint were still in good shape.



That was probably taken at the beginning of 2001.

Then I went of to college and didn't have my car for a year. In the meantime my sister got to drive it and promptly rear ended some guy when she wasn't supposed to be driving. The bumper, fender, and radiator support got slightly tweaked.

Then the WRX came out in the US, I went to college, and eventually found the Subaru online community.

[jamal]

It didn't take long for me to realize that my car was hopelessly slow and there wasn't really anything I could do short of a driveline swap. Then I learned there was a lot of other stuff I could do. The first thing I bought were some WRX wheels and tires, and I was absolutely amazed by the difference they made. Coming from generic 14" all-seasons to somewhat high performance 16s (even RE92s), added a ton of grip and steering feel.



By the time the STi came out, I knew enough about working on cars to attempt some suspension work and picked up a set of low-mileage STi take-offs. That was the beginning of 05.



Next up was a turbo rear swaybar because my car didn't even come with one.



I also put in some steering rack bushings along the way and it all completely transformed the way the car handled. For awhile I was pretty happy.

[jamal]

After that I continued to read about suspension, and realized the -0.7 degrees of front camber I had weren't enough. Camber plates are expensive and I wasn't entirely confident it would be a good idea to use the small camber bolts up front. Thankfully I had a machine shop at work so I milled out the bottom holes to use two OEM camber bolts:



That got me a bit more camber and helped out with grip. Unfortunately it's not as much as I want (-1.3), so now I don't really have any options other than camber plates.

I'd also decided a bit more roll stiffness would be good. I picked up a 20mm 2.5GT front swaybar, Kartboy endlinks, and some urethane swaybar bushings.



On the non-performance side, I've also put in hella supertones, hella FF1000 driving lights, and a wrx cd-changer.

[jamal]

It's nice that even the base Legacys have 4-wheel discs, which work pretty well. As I got more into road rallying, though, I ran into a lack of heat capacity. There aren't a lot of pad options out there, plus the caliper seals and stuff were pretty worn out anyway. So I looked around for some other Subaru brakes. I found a set of WRX front calipers for a pretty reasonable price, and then realized it would throw the brake balance out of wack if I just put them on alone. That meant a rear upgrade too, and the Legacy "H6" brakes fit the bill nicely. I found some used rear calipers, along with a set of SS lines and some axxis ultmate pads, and ordered the rotor and bracket kit from Subiegal.

That's a pretty big difference in rotor size:



And they sure filled out the WRX wheels nicely:



So now I'm not too concerned about the heat capacity for anything short of a track day. Even then I probably don't have the power to get these things overheated.

I am a little unhappy with the poor pedal feel and added travel that came from the added piston area, even with SS lines and fresh Motul fluid.

[jamal]

Somewhere in the middle there I also put in some WRX front seats, which are comfortable and have great bolstering but sit too high. It works out to be a fairly even trade off over the stock seats which ended up in a dumpster immediately after I installed the new ones. They really need to be lower though.

Anyway, the most recent things I've done are pick up some straight body panels off a turbo and my car needs some paint. I also bought some new wheels and swore off RE92s forever:



They came with RE750s in 225/50-16, which resulted in slight rubbing on the rear fenders. After a little ghetto rolling they were fine, and then I picked up some Falken all-seasons in the same size when they wore out/ got flat spotted.

I've also installed a Whiteline ALK, which was very well worth the money. I tried to install suframe lock bolts but stripped the threads. I also put in some subframe outrigger bushings but they didn't make a difference.

Next up I want to try installing lock bolts again, replace the lateral link bushings, and possibly pick up a roll center adjuster.

[jamal]

Links to threads I've made for more details about stuff:

Sti suspension (images broken)
Rear swaybar
Modified front struts
20mm front swaybar
ALK install
New Brakes
New Wheels
WRX radio
WRX seats
some worthless wiring upgrade
Hella Supertones
Driving lights part 1 (images broken)
Driving lights part 2

[93legacylsleeper]

Sweet Legacy i have the exact same car without as much work done. Did the calipers mount in the stock location or did you have to fab up a bracket?

[jamal]

they bolt right on. There's good info about using other brakes in that section on here too.

Here's a picture I just found of my car.





I miss that car.

Well, driving it I mean. It's parked out behind our shop in pieces.

[94SS_Canada]

Dont know if anyone mentioned this, But there is a Outback in teh back of your first picture, thoughd id let ya know!