04 sti springs on 91 turbo legacy

[slipknot51]

So from what i have been reading is that you can swap out your stock springs from a 91 turbo legacy up to 04 Sti springs with a few things needed like spring perches,both upper and lower plus top hats ext. I have been wondering I've read that the car drops about a inch all around. My confusion is people talk about the front sitting higher then the rear and I have read on one post that the fix to this is swapping over to 92-94 front struts I have the springs and new hardware on hand and I was just wondering if anyone can confirm this for me before I go and order up new struts. I know that this might be mentioned some were in another topic so links would be awesome and much appreciated.

[kimokalihi]

04 sti springs will lower the cat about an inch and the front will sit at least half inch higher than the rear. I did it with complete strut/spring swap from 04 sti and I hated it. You need 92-94 rear top hats to get it to fit but I woukdnt do it. Get h&r springs and kyb struts instead pr cpilovers.

[Apex3]

I keep hearing about different ride heights, there seems to be a lot of variation there and I'm not really sure why...I ran 04 strut/spring in the front, and 06 strut/spring with 91 tophats in the rear, and the car sat about 1/4" higher than stock and was totally even all around.

[jamal]

There's lots of variation because different models and years had the spring perches welded on the struts at different places. Plus there are a variety of different rear strut tops that have different stack heights and people are mixing and matching struts and springs. I was fine with the ride height I got out of stock 04 sti stuff all the way around but it was a touch lower in the rear. That was struts, springs, and tops though. The 04 springs wouldn't work with my 93 rear tops and perches so I had to do a bit of cutting and drilling.

Anyway, to use 04-07 impreza springs on a 90-91 legacy, all you need are the upper perches in the front. The lower perches are part of the strut and the rear uppers are part of the top hat. I have no idea what will happen to ride height but there are some old threads around about it where people have done it and posted pictures.

[Legacy777]

To answer your question regarding the 92-94 front struts. At least for KYB, the perches sit higher and would cause the front end to be jacked up more than your 91 struts.

http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17352


When I did my AWD & 5psd conversion I put 92-94 KYB AGX's on my 90. It raised the front about a 1/4". The rear also was raised about 1/4", but I would exclude that from your comparison because I went from FWD to AWD and the rear strut setup is different. Here's a little more detail about the suspension change.

http://www.surrealmirage.com/subaru/swa ... suspension

[slipknot51]

Dang thats crazy that it give you a 1/4 hight gain but I'm sure that the front and rear struts are way different then the awd struts whats makes me thing could i do 91 awd rear struts for the rear and then do a fwd strut for the front idk if there is a major difference between fwd and awd struts or are they the same for the front and the rear is the only difference

[Apex3]

Ahh, I wondered why you had to swap to earlier top hats in a 92-94

OP what do you mean with the FWD? Looks like you have a 91 ss so I'm not sure why that's relevant...As far as the ride height, it's possible that my springs were worn out, which would explain it lifting a bit, but it was still a nice even stock looking height all around. Also if you're just swapping springs and not struts from an STi you may get a different height. I'd post a pic of mine with STi but since I had struts too it wouldn't really apply here.

It's real easy to swap the suspension though, I'd just try it with what you got if it were me...

[kimokalihi]

No he's got a 90 NA FWD with AWD swap and EJ22T swap I think.

[slipknot51]

Well i was going to get new struts since mine have 127k on them and worn out I was going to upgrade to Kyb gr2's since it sounds like a normal upgrade for both 1st and 2nd gen Legacys. I was wondering for the front is there a difference between the FWD Front strut vs AWD Front struts as in dampening lower or higher perch hight's ext From what i understand is that the rear's are different for sure. I know that the springs i have are very low miles maybe 30k on them so i know that they should be good to go. I guess i will have to see what happens

[Legacy777]

There really is no difference between the front struts on the FWD & AWD cars. The factory manual shows some slight difference in damping, but if you get new KYB struts, it's the same part # between the AWD & FWD models for the fronts struts.

[slipknot51]

Sweet thanks for the conformation Josh. I guess i will just order up the struts for the car as if i were to upgrade