The AUSubaru.com.au Forums

Hello.
I hope I'm posting in the right section. I truly am the ultimate noob in all things car and computer.

I have a liberty wagon 2008 2.5ltr. I love it. It was perfect for my needs in the city. Luckily I'm no longer a city dweller and now find it limiting in the country. I live on a dirt road and often have to venture into paddocks or even super market car parks that in the country contain massive speed humps.

Rather than buy someone else's problems and get an outback or forster in this crazy used car market I thought it might be possible to lift my liberty to give it a bit more clearance and perhaps room for slightly larger tyres to help soften out these rough country roads.

I found this viewtopic.php?f=100&t=38105 but the facebook page mentioned in the post leads to a dead link... it was an old post so I chose not to necromance it.

There seems to be 2 ways to lift it.

Spacers: I have seen people use "spacers" when using image search I came across https://awdadventure.com/collections/le ... nk-spacers (hope this doesn't class as spaming links, just trying to demonstrate a product)
I contacted the bloke and he said it will give more clreance at the front but gain nothing at the back. but will maintain ride feel.

Springs: Does any one know about doing the lift with springs and shocks? I cant find a turn key solution for a newbie like myself.
I found things about gen3's and using outback springs but it was vague and might have involved cutting new holes for different strut top head pattern in the rear.... Sounds dodge also couldn't find info on if that works for gen4.

All help appreciated.

I'll dig up some photos of my original subie that started my love affair 22 years ago. I was so skinny.

Thanks,
SN

Gday Subienoobie,

You could swap outback struts from the same year/model run as your Liberty as they run the same floor pan setup. If the strut top bolt pattern is different, swap the tops over. You’ll need spring compressors to do this.

If you’re wanting strut lift, contact Nachaluva at Suby Lift Oz (SLO). He’s on Facebook and I believe he has a website too. Worth looking into as he’s an Aussie and builds a quality product too.

Other way to do it is swap everything from the Outback into your Liberty - meaning all the factory lift blocks with the struts etc. Then go a strut lift on this for some extra clearance and larger tyres.

Gearing will be your next issue if you go larger tyre diametre, your Speedo will be out.

Alternatively you could reduce the rim size back to stock if you’ve got aftermarket rims that are larger. What this achieves is a larger tyre side wall while maintaining the same rolling diametre. A larger side wall allows bumps in the road to be absorbed by the tyre rather than the suspension and the body of the vehicle.

Just changing springs to stock ride height or a lifted spring could also give you what you need. Check out the king springs catalogue for options with your vehicle. This method (and strut lift blocks on stock springs) won’t over stress your CV joints. You might expect to chew out a boot or two as the CVS work on a new angle that they’re not used to - maybe, but it’s something to be aware of.

Stick with genuine Subaru CV driveshafts, can’t go wrong with them!

Cheers

Bennie

Thanks Bennie,
I still think I’m outta my depth. But I have some direction to search in now.

Hey subienoobie,
Did you get any further with this?
I'm pretty much in the same boat as you - same car, same reasons for looking in to getting some extra ground clearance.
I've been trawling through the various forums for info so I'm gradually getting my head around things, but it'd be awesome to hear from someone who has (hopefully) done this recently.

If you can tolerate the personalities on MightyCarMods (youtube) they did a lifted Liberty sedan a couple of years ago and showed how to do it. They used the front and rear sub-frames from an outback and also added a Subie lift oz lift kit.

There's a few videos to the series, you can skip through them to find the important parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us4TreI ... v7UqUhbfRp