RX Turbo and Lib front shaft lengths ?

discopotato03 · Post by **discopotato03** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 6:38 pm

Hi all , when Ellie was last on the hoist to measure up for its new exhaust I asked my rally people about extending the lower control arms to reduce the L series built in positive camber . They said its not really practical because it would alter the plunge depth of the front drive shaft joints .

It occured to me yesterday that if Libs use longer drive shafts and have the same inner and outer spline forms then it shoud be possible to extend the control arms by the same amount as the difference in shaft length .
The other thing is tie rod length but again it should be possible to use the same parts as the donor Lib had .

I have spoken briefly to Gareth about it and he thinks there are a few Lib length variations and mentioned something about one also having three rings at one end .
Ultimate strength is not a concern for me because my L is AWD so the drive loads are shared by four shafts not two .

Can anyone tell me accurately which front shafts are effectively the same as L RX Turbo but longer and by how much .

Half to three quarters of a degree of static positive camber makes L's a lead tipped arrow , if I can get quarter or half a degree negative or even neutral it would make a big difference plus a bit wider track would help too .

Cheers and thanks , Adrian .

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:53 pm

I can't give accurate figures on lengths, I'm sure somebody can, but just a different suggestion - have you considered buying a pair of camber adjustable strut tops? They are readily available off the shelf for L series and give you great camber adjustment.

discopotato03 · Post by **discopotato03** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 10:06 am

I actually have a pair of those but I'm trying to kill several birds with the one stone .
The wider track is usually a bonus provided you don't change the hub or wheel offset to achieve it , the longer arms also decrease the roll camber change which is ok if the spring and bar rates are set up for this .

It gets me away from the turbo L shafts into more common ones and I think off the shelf ones would be available for those who use the Lib/Impreza front struts/hubs/CV joints .

Gareth mentioned that the inner joints have lots of plunge depth and he's seen longer Lib shafts used in a 5 stud converted L and over the full front suspension travel didn't bottom out towards the gearboxes stub axles .

Actually , thinking about it if we modify control arms for length we could probably change their offset and increase positive caster as well .

Anyhow if we have a Subaru front shaft expert I'd like to know of longer shafts with the same size/splines as RX turbo .

Thanks all , cheers A .

mattl200 · Post by **mattl200** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:27 am

last i was looking around you couldnt get the lseries outer joints to fit liberty shafts
thay were made for lseries front wheel drive and cv manufactures stopped making them
the shop i dropped in on had just binned them thay just use the 4wd fronts now

if u know a cv specialest thay can tell you lenghts and spline types

or find a shaft from another car thats too long to be shortend

i found n13 or 14 pulsar long side shafts and had them shortend to lseries lehgth to fit 5stud liberty hub to liberty gearbox in a brumby

discopotato03 · Post by **discopotato03** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:30 am

Well Gareth tells me that people use Lib CV joints on L turbo (RX-T) shafts so there must be a way .
I don't seem to remember there being a problem getting CVs for RX's .

Cheers A .

discopotato03 · Post by **discopotato03** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 8:38 am

Latest info is that RX Turbo (5MT) and some early Lib front axle shafts have 25 splines at either end so should be able to use the same DOJ's and CV joints .

I was told that there are at least two 25 spline Lib shafts and the way to ID them is :

First type : three rings on the shaft similar to RX/Vortex 5MT turbo .
Second : thicker shaft that tapers down to where the boots fit , has one
ID ring approx in the middle of the shaft .

If anyone here has either of these shafts in their cars I'd like to know if they are both for manuals or one man and one auto .

Lastly from a friends parts CD there was mention of 90 96 Legacy front shaft being 26 7/8 in" long .

Will be back at the wreckers soon , cheers A .

discopotato03 · Post by **discopotato03** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 4:46 pm

As I posted in another thred FrWD Lib DOJ bells are ~ 5mm longer than RX L ones so changing them over gets 5mm .

A .

Late edit , we think turning the cage and iner race aroud is possibly good for another 5mm so maybe an easy 10 with Lib DOJ's ?