Hey all. SO some of you may know that I had been building a pretty sick time attack/ autocross Forester over the last year and a half. Due to some changes in my life I can no longer really store a race car that I would only be able to use a handful of times a year. So I decided to change the direction of the build and go for a more practical offroad type Forester. Of course being me I can't just do anything a little but and since the chassis is already stitch welded I might as well go big. So I sold the suspension parts off the Foz to help pay for all the new goodies. I bought an 01 Forester to get the interior, un gutted doors, hood, and harness for the new and improved Foz so once my new foz is just aboue done I'll be rolling in the 01 to strip it of the parts I need and then have a yard sale.
Heres a pic of what she used to look like...
Okay so at least to start this isn’t much of an update. I have 3 cars in my shop because I am no longer allowed to have them stored outside so I am getting one of them finished this weekend and maybe even the other if all the planets align so the shop will just be Foz time by next week…
Here she is all stripped out of all her go fast road course goodies…
And yes thats supercharger is part of this project...
In a side room I have consolidated all of the parts I am going to re-use from the racecar project and a few new ones…
Got me the parts for all the joints for fabricating the suspension components…
In the back are ¾” Hyme joints with non tapered spacers for the upper and lower control arms. Next are 1” Uniball joints with non tapered spacers for the rear trailing arms. Going to use a 1”x5” bolt for these suckers they are major overkill but why not.. Next are 1” Uniball joints with ¾ tapered high misalignment spacers. These will be going in the knuckles. In front of them are 5/8” hyme joints with ½” tapered high misalignment spacers for the steering tie rods. I will be pulling the stock inner rod and replacing it with a bracket that will bolt onto the end of the rack so I can use a solid 3-piece link. And finally at the front are some little baby ½” Hyme joints with 3/8” tapered high misalignment joints to be used as the end links for a rear sway bar if I need to install one..
Next are the po-go sticks…
I’m pretty proud of these. FOA 2.5” Dual Rate Coilovers w/ remote reservoir, heat treated viton seals 10” of travel for the fronts 16” of travel for the rears.. The fronts are 28.5” extended and 18.5” compressed. Rears are 40.5” extended and 24.5” compressed. I won’t be ordering the springs till they are installed and I can get all the measurements down to get the correct rates.
So before I can really do anything I took a bunch of measurements before the Foz got boxed in and got all the dimensions of my new suspension parts. I will be doing a 7” extension of the front knuckle (sleaving/ pining the CV axle) so I can get a full range motion of travel of about 21” in the front and rear. I am building the parts in CAD so I can have the pieces cut from a plasma router so I don’t have to go through a bunch of time and cut off wheels doing it myself and I can verify all my measurements for the cycle of the suspension with no issues down the road.
This is what I finished last night…
I got the knuckle and the upper and lower control arm pretty much finished. I got to make a few minor changes but ones the rest of the components are done I can lay all the components out on a flat surface and just hand the file to the metal shop to cut them out.
Here is the last part of my efforts last night..
This shows the cycle of the suspension to verify that it will work. It will give me the location to mount the top of my Coilover (which will probably be poking out of the hood…). To save weight and the need for a longer Coilover I am mounting it to the upper arm. I have seen it done many times before and this should work nicely. It also keeps the Coilover high in the wheel well so it won’t get battered by rocks and mud and crap so hopefully it will last longer between rebuilds.
Tonight I should have these arms finished and have the rear trailing arms done as well. The sooner I can finish everything the sooner I can get them cut and assemble them. This weekend I should be able to actually start on some of the work for the fox trimming the front chassis for the new parts and extending the crossmembers so I can get the full motion of the axles w/o hitting or needing to notch the frame rail. It will also give me a good 4” lift so I can fit the 33x12.5x15 I'm putting on here.
That’s all for now..
Johann
Heres a pic of what she used to look like...
Okay so at least to start this isn’t much of an update. I have 3 cars in my shop because I am no longer allowed to have them stored outside so I am getting one of them finished this weekend and maybe even the other if all the planets align so the shop will just be Foz time by next week…
Here she is all stripped out of all her go fast road course goodies…
And yes thats supercharger is part of this project...
In a side room I have consolidated all of the parts I am going to re-use from the racecar project and a few new ones…
Got me the parts for all the joints for fabricating the suspension components…
In the back are ¾” Hyme joints with non tapered spacers for the upper and lower control arms. Next are 1” Uniball joints with non tapered spacers for the rear trailing arms. Going to use a 1”x5” bolt for these suckers they are major overkill but why not.. Next are 1” Uniball joints with ¾ tapered high misalignment spacers. These will be going in the knuckles. In front of them are 5/8” hyme joints with ½” tapered high misalignment spacers for the steering tie rods. I will be pulling the stock inner rod and replacing it with a bracket that will bolt onto the end of the rack so I can use a solid 3-piece link. And finally at the front are some little baby ½” Hyme joints with 3/8” tapered high misalignment joints to be used as the end links for a rear sway bar if I need to install one..
Next are the po-go sticks…
I’m pretty proud of these. FOA 2.5” Dual Rate Coilovers w/ remote reservoir, heat treated viton seals 10” of travel for the fronts 16” of travel for the rears.. The fronts are 28.5” extended and 18.5” compressed. Rears are 40.5” extended and 24.5” compressed. I won’t be ordering the springs till they are installed and I can get all the measurements down to get the correct rates.
So before I can really do anything I took a bunch of measurements before the Foz got boxed in and got all the dimensions of my new suspension parts. I will be doing a 7” extension of the front knuckle (sleaving/ pining the CV axle) so I can get a full range motion of travel of about 21” in the front and rear. I am building the parts in CAD so I can have the pieces cut from a plasma router so I don’t have to go through a bunch of time and cut off wheels doing it myself and I can verify all my measurements for the cycle of the suspension with no issues down the road.
This is what I finished last night…
I got the knuckle and the upper and lower control arm pretty much finished. I got to make a few minor changes but ones the rest of the components are done I can lay all the components out on a flat surface and just hand the file to the metal shop to cut them out.
Here is the last part of my efforts last night..
This shows the cycle of the suspension to verify that it will work. It will give me the location to mount the top of my Coilover (which will probably be poking out of the hood…). To save weight and the need for a longer Coilover I am mounting it to the upper arm. I have seen it done many times before and this should work nicely. It also keeps the Coilover high in the wheel well so it won’t get battered by rocks and mud and crap so hopefully it will last longer between rebuilds.
Tonight I should have these arms finished and have the rear trailing arms done as well. The sooner I can finish everything the sooner I can get them cut and assemble them. This weekend I should be able to actually start on some of the work for the fox trimming the front chassis for the new parts and extending the crossmembers so I can get the full motion of the axles w/o hitting or needing to notch the frame rail. It will also give me a good 4” lift so I can fit the 33x12.5x15 I'm putting on here.
That’s all for now..
Johann