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I have just bought a body damaged gen3 outback, LHS headgasket is leaking oil, but it drives well (at the moment, gen 3 and its faults:-)) ).
I am going to use it on the farm and I need to lift it.
How high can i make spacers for the struts?
I was told 50mm front and 65mm rear.
Anybody done this ?

I have a touch over 75mm all around in strut lift in my 03 Outback. (50mm strut lift blocks and ~30mm raised springs). So effectively the same as 75-80mm lift blocks.

Only problem was that my front cv boots both tore within a few weeks of the lift installed. You will need to get new heavy duty cv boots (go to a cv specialist not an average joe mechanic, and ask for boots that will handle a lot of lift with increased cv angle).

4" could POSSIBLY be fitted (100mm) but then your cvs wont last that long and it would be a bastard to install (for a mechanic or DIY or anyone). Although 4" would be AWESOME!

I believe the Outback will be a BRILLIANT farm vehicle.

Put some 60mm blocks on top of the rear struts.
Lifted it a lot, but now have heaps of tow out even with the adjusters set to max.
I will now put some 25mm spacers under the front of the trailing arms to bring it all back. Hopefully 25mm will be enough, otherwise things start coming down lower than I want them

tambox wrote:Put some 60mm blocks on top of the rear struts.
Lifted it a lot, but now have heaps of tow out even with the adjusters set to max.
I will now put some 25mm spacers under the front of the trailing arms to bring it all back. Hopefully 25mm will be enough, otherwise things start coming down lower than I want them

Got any pics mate? You can also get camber correction bolts to help too mate if the trailing arms don't sort it out completely.

30mm spacers under the rear arms brought the wheels back into alignment.
Put an ej20 forester box in it to get better low range.
Decided to take the EJ25 out and sell it, as it is to good for the farm.
Got a good used EJ22 to go into it.
Started playing with that tonight, theres a few differences, anybody done this swap?

Opps forgot, I will do some photos of the stripped lifted, budget Outback, when its finished.

The budget outback paddock bomb has been tested and works well.

Summary:
60mm strut top lifts front and rear
30mm rear trailing arm spacers
ej20 forester bx fitted (for low range)
ej25 out, ej22 in (for reliability)
Custom aly sumpguard (made from offcut balistic aly)
Custom rear towbar/bumper (made from offcut steel)
All plastic removed or modified (the words plastic and farm should not be used in the same sentance)
$29.99 headlights

Anybody know of/have any off road tyres that will fit straight on, no mods?

Photos, if they work, (never tried before on this site)
1. Made it to the back paddock
2. Family shot (1/2 the familly)
3. 4 wheel water cooled disks added for farm use
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looks great the main choice for offroad tire is the yoko at-s. but i would go to a tire shop and see if they have any second hand tires, dont have to the esact same size as stock as its not going on road.

dont think there is a mud terrian that will

The looks sick mate!

Go for 215/70R16 tyres. Will give you an extra inch (25mm) of clearance, will fit with slight rubbing on full lock.

Since it is a paddock basher I would be getting 2nd hand mud or all terrain tyres. Something with about 50% tread..

Got anymore pics?

taza wrote:The looks sick mate!

Go for 215/70R16 tyres. Will give you an extra inch (25mm) of clearance, will fit with slight rubbing on full lock.

Since it is a paddock basher I would be getting 2nd hand mud or all terrain tyres. Something with about 50% tread..

Got anymore pics?

do they make muddies in a size thats close?

Ok Taza, more photos:
It was clean and shiny when it arrived
Rear shot
Sump guard

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That looks really sick mate!

Did you just remove the rear bumper? Anything else to the rear? Has it made much difference with the approach and departure angle at the rear?

Magnificent job tambox !
love the headlights tucked safely away
set of muddies would go good, just make sure they are all the same rolling diameter
looks awesome!

Like I said, these were budget basic mods.

Bumper off, a lot of engineering calculations to work out the correct towball height after lifting it, appoach and departure angles were then added to these calculations, to get the ultimate setup.

Ok I lied, the first pieces of steel near the top of the offcut pile fitted well and were the right length after some angle grinder adjustments.

What i ended up with suits me, 1. CHEAP 2. Easy to do 3. functions as required (paddock bomb rules)

If your looking for budget tyres maybe try and get some rally tyres.
The guys that use then only run them a few times and when the corners are worn they give it away or its like $10-20each. they have plenty of life left on them. They have very hard side walls, Might be worth a try and see how they go being so cheap.

Nice job on the outback. Could you post pics of the trailing arm blocks?
How hard was it to get the ej22 in? manifold swap only? Was the ej25 single or twin cam? Just a few questions to clarify and maybe be guidelines for future use. If it was easily swapped, maybe those who have ej22 converted L series, brumby's can swap to a ej25:)

Keep up the good work and pics of the mods etc you plan to do...

Sorry photo time has finished, the car is at the farm I am back in town.
The lift blocks, like everything else, what I had at the time, an offcut of 30mm nylon sheet. 2 squares and two rectangles were cut out and drilled = lift blocks.
Early ej22 manifolds do not fit 2000 ej25 single cam and vise versa. The ports on the ej25 are much bigger.
Adapted the ej22 manifold to take the ej25 throttle body and sensors, a bit of creative aly welding and, guess what, some offcuts from 10mm aly plate.

tambox wrote:Sorry photo time has finished, the car is at the farm I am back in town.
The lift blocks, like everything else, what I had at the time, an offcut of 30mm nylon sheet. 2 squares and two rectangles were cut out and drilled = lift blocks.
Early ej22 manifolds do not fit 2000 ej25 single cam and vise versa. The ports on the ej25 are much bigger.
Adapted the ej22 manifold to take the ej25 throttle body and sensors, a bit of creative aly welding and, guess what, some offcuts from 10mm aly plate.

any pictures of this process? might help some people in the future

guyph_01 wrote:If your looking for budget tyres maybe try and get some rally tyres.
The guys that use then only run them a few times and when the corners are worn they give it away or its like $10-20each. they have plenty of life left on them. They have very hard side walls, Might be worth a try and see how they go being so cheap.

are most rally tyres for 15 inch rims?

No, sorry it was a late Friday night, "make it up as you go along" job.
The brain was too busy working out how to quickly put this jigsaw together, didn"t think about photos.
I had a week of evenings and weekend to get it all done, hence the used what was available strategy.

tambox wrote:No, sorry it was a late Friday night, "make it up as you go along" job.
The brain was too busy working out how to quickly put this jigsaw together, didn"t think about photos.
I had a week of evenings and weekend to get it all done, hence the used what was available strategy.

Great job use what you got.
reminds me of the time I was miles from anywhere on a mountain and blew a waterpump impeller in the old Perkins diesel, lucky I found a piece of wood a bit of dilligent carving with my sheath knife and made an impeller of sorts to get going again.
hylton:evil::twisted: