Member Profile: HyRax

[bigBADbenny]

Did you require a TSK1 snout repair kit?
I ask because my aged clutch has been squealing on cold starts for a few thousand Ks

[HyRax]

No, no extra kits were required at the time.

[Corsair]

Sorry about the clutch, but congratulations on managing to snap the '12345'.

[cooki_monsta]

Your car looks real good. Clean as fk! Unfortunately, I'm letting go of mine due to 'high' kms. I considered a GT and a 3.0 but I felt that I needed to experience a completely new chassis.

[HyRax]

Cheers.

High K's shouldn't matter if it's looked after. My previous Gen3 Liberty clocked just over 300,000K's when I traded it in for the Gen4. Dealer couldn't believe that a car with such high K's could still look in great condition.

Good luck with your new choice of ride. Hope you're still staying within the Subaru family, though.

[cooki_monsta]

Cheers.

High K's shouldn't matter if it's looked after. My previous Gen3 Liberty clocked just over 300,000K's when I traded it in for the Gen4. Dealer couldn't believe that a car with such high K's could still look in great condition.

Good luck with your new choice of ride. Hope you're still staying within the Subaru family, though.

I won't argue with that! To be honest, I was just looking for a new project. Now I have a 350Z haha ...I'm off to Japan tomorrow night for the Nismo Festival. That's not to say I've abandoned Subaru. I'm actually more comfortable in my Subaru as it drives with ease. The 350Z sure is harsher. I'll probably end up with another Subaru when I start a family.

[juicetin]

I want those steering wheel controls but can't seem to find them on that site anymore... anybody bought them recently? I know they're on japanparts... anywhere else?

[HyRax]

I want those steering wheel controls but can't seem to find them on that site anymore... anybody bought them recently? I know they're on japanparts... anywhere else?

Check out wreckers for any 3.0 or GT's. Where the airbag has gone off, the steering wheel is not usually expensive to buy, then you can just pull the controls out of it.

You can also use the controls from a similar generation Impreza, though they will be a different colour.

[Corsair]

Still bums me out that I do not have steering wheel controls and I still applaud you for making it happen.

[HyRax]

Still bums me out that I do not have steering wheel controls and I still applaud you for making it happen.

Haha! Go get some, then! They're really not that expensive!

Better get some other updates in - time flies when you're having fun! New upgrades installed since late last year:

• First up, February was time for new tyres. Was previously running Kuhmo KU31's which is a general road tyre, so decided to try out Kuhmo KU36 which is a semi-slick tyre. On paper, I was expecting to have better dry grip and slightly worse wet grip.
  
  The dry grip is definitely excellent for such a cheap tyre - you can really push through a turn fairly hard before you start to get push understeer, but what was really surprising was the wet grip. In many respects I think it's better than the KU31! The only obvious downside I found was when I deliberately hit a large puddle at speed to see what the aquaplaning factor was like, and it definitely does that more easily than the KU31's, however as soon as it's sunk in or exited the puddle, it grips again immediately, making it very controllable. I fully expect these tyres to not last quite as long as the KU31's given the softer compound, but we'll see what happens. Overall, an excellent value tyre.
  
  
  
  
• March through April finally saw me make some progress on my Android tablet install which replaced my previous Linux PC project. I've put together a couple of work-in-progress videos so far.
  
  
  
  The tablet (a Nexus 7 2013 model) does my music, movies, internet browsing, phone calls, navigation and vehicle monitoring via a USB OBD-II reader (originally a Bluetooth model, but switched to USB for more realtime reading). Audio is passed to the headunit via A2DP (Bluetooth Stereo Audio) which then amplifies it and sends it through to the car's speakers. Overall quality is excellent and there is only a slight delay on audio sync for movies (by about less than a quarter of a second), but for music and navigation this is not an issue.
  
  Later down the track I plan to add reverse camera functionality. If I could be bothered getting a SIM for the tablet (which would negate the current need to tether it to my phone), I could also easily setup tracking of the vehicle in the event it got stolen and the front side webcam of the tablet is actually in a good position to capture the faces of both the driver and passenger if I wanted to pop off some remotely-triggered happy snaps.
  
  As part of the setup, I put together a custom Subaru-themed boot screen and shutdown sequence, both of which can be downloaded from here if you are interested in using them for your own setups. Will be putting together some Liberty-themed startup animation together later.
  
  
• The month of May saw me finally decide to upgrade my suspension. I had noticed that the car was starting to dive just a little too much for my liking on heavy braking and sharp corners at speed were now pushing the outer corner too much despite the previous ALK upgrade and my swaybars being greased to the nines. Given my factory suspension was 130,000K's old, I decided to take the plunge and replace them with coilovers.
  
  I decided to go with BC BR coilovers which in my research had a more positive than negative reputation than most other cheap setups, and I didn't want to spend oodles of money either for what was mostly a daily driver with some twisty park/mountain driving fun and the occasional track day.
  
  The package came with the expected set of four coilovers and tools, and unexpectedly a set of damper adjustment extenders for the rears which was a bonus!
  
  
  
  Learning from the experience of others, I decided to immediately invest in some anti-seize lube to make sure that I could adjust my coilovers in future as required. This stuff is simply painted on and you screw everything back together, ensuring that while it still remains tight when you need it, it can also be easily unscrewed again later after months of exposure to rain and dirt.
  
  
  
  Installation was far simpler than I had imagined (though it also helps when you have the right tools, and it is perfectly doable by one person too) - after prepping the coilovers with anti-seize, I completed the install in about 3 hours plus another 90 minutes adjusting the height and torquing everything to official Subaru-spec. Initially I made the coilovers the same length as the factory setup and was going to adjust from there, but I forgot that the factory suspension was quite saggy once loaded up, so my initial setup actually RAISED the car almost to Outback height! Doh! Jacking the car up again and re-adjusting it all finally settled me back down to a height that is 2cm lower than the factory setup and has a nice even gap around all the wheels for my liking, and allows me to still tackle some larger bumps and some offroad without compromising anything.
  
  Some pics of the old vs new:
  
  
  
  The extenders for the rears make adjustment of the damper a doddle. I just cut a small hole in the plastic carpet and push the extender through. I can now just reach into the boot and adjust as required - you can still feel the clicks all the way through it.
  
  
  
  
  And here's how the car looks now:
  
  
  
  A quick four-wheel alignment from Jax Tyres later (great service and price from Jax Thornleigh) and a proper drive test saw me observe the following improvements:
  
  
  • Straight-line balance has improved markedly. I don't know what was up with my factory suspension, but every alignment I ever had previously would still have the steering slowly push left. Now you can let go of the wheel and (save for any bumps) the steering wheel stays straight and the car moves straight as an arrow.
  • The car oddly feels a lot lighter. It's difficult to explain, but imagine it being the difference between walking through a layer of loose sand on a pathway vs walking on a clean concrete pathway. There is a distinct difference in rolling resistance where the car feels like it is moving far more freely despite no changes made to the tyres or the pressure. This I did not expect.
  • There is significantly more feedback from the road, making the steering feel much more precise.
  • There is minimal dive under heavy braking now.
  • Taking turns at speed has seen a significant increase in grip. Easily a 10kph increase around longer turns (such as exit/entry ramps) before understeer starts to show on tighter turns.
  • It's very quick to adjust the 30-position damper settings on a whim without effort - pull over, adjust all four corners, drive away.
  
  And here are the cons:
  
  
  • Even at the softest damper setting, the ride is noticeably firmer (not stiffer) than the factory setup, however it did remind me of how the factory suspension on my old MY06 WRX STi felt when I first got it new. It's still a pleasant ride despite another large chunk of the "luxury" factor of the ride now removed however, but despite this it's probably too soft for daily-plus-fun driving. I'd certainly set it to full soft if I was driving on gravel. Those with lower back problems might not find the ride comfortable.
  • For shits and giggles I did a day with the dampers set to full hard. While I can appreciate this on a track day, for day to day driving it's impossible. You quite literally feel every imperfection in the road and the entire car was vibrating even at sombre road speeds. Elements such as cats eyes and carpark speed bumps were awfully harsh when you drove over them - even slowly.
  • Adjusting the height again later is a bit physically involved since the rears are difficult to get the supplied tools into.
  
  I'm still playing with it, but for the moment I'm sitting about 7 clicks from full soft on the front and 10 clicks from full soft on the rear.
  
  
• In June I decided to do a track day at Wakefield Park (a normal Speed Off the Streets day) to really give the coilovers a good workout. Managed to pull a respectable 1:18 laptime, though I reckon I could shave a second or two off that had I bothered to remove the back seat and perhaps change to fourth gear just before the kink near turn one as I'm just hitting the rev limiter in third there. Max speed attained on the main straight was 150kph. Average cornering speed was 85kph. Found that staying in third gear for the whole lap worked pretty well. The video below is of my last session of the day.
  
  
  
  Amusingly there was also a Commodore V8 there modified with some big-arse turbo strapped on it. I managed to keep pace with him all the way around the track until the straight, where he of course ripped me up, but the driver simply couldn't get the car around corners properly and at one point I eventually managed to pass him when he gave way because I was sitting on his arse the whole time. By his own admission, it was his first time at Wakefield Park and had no concept of the right lines to take. His overall laptimes were only 2 seconds quicker than mine, and he overheated his steering pump several times throughout the day.
  
  Also discovered that while my Rota wheels handled the track with ease, the wheel caps did not - the heat of the wheels/brakes must have caused the cap's teeth to soften and one of the caps simply fell out while the other one is now sitting slightly loose with the teeth lightly bent inwards. Will have to find some replacements and remember to remove them for the next track day. The rears held up fine.
  
  The data from Torque Pro on Android was fascinating to look at afterwards, especially the GPS plotting on the map. I used RaceChrono for the lap timing, and it's pretty accurate utilising the GPS of your device. Obviously formal timing gear will be millisecond accurate, but as a stand-in, RaceChrono is excellent.
  
  Wakefield Park is of course a right-turn heavy track, and the left wheel rubbed the guard a lot at the top of the hill coming back down. Shaved a small amount of rubber off the wheel and also slightly bent part of the outer guard (easily fixed with some light application of a rubber mallet - good as new). Had to pull/cut out some of the inner plastic guard that had worn away into shavings that ended up brushing the tyre lightly causing noise too, so as a result of this I went back to Jax to have 1.75 degrees of camber added to the front wheels to clear the guards better and I have also raised the front 1cm again (still 1cm lower than stock). There is now full clearance from rubbing, but if I want to go lower, then I really need to move to 8" wide wheels - 8.5" is just too wide on a Liberty for lowering and hard-driving, and I'm also not a fan of huge amounts of camber either - as it is, the 2 degrees I now have on the front mean there is more weight on the larger tread blocks of the tyres and this has increased the tyre noise considerably. As the tyre wears, the noise will reduce, but it also means I'm wearing out the insides of the tyre faster too. On the plus side, cornering has improved a bit more as you may expect from adding negative camber. Still need to do another track day to quantify the difference properly.
  
  
• In late June, while I was re-greasing the swaybars for the first time since the track day, I noticed that my drivers-side swaybar mount had bent forward (towards the front of the car) slightly - clearly even an N/A Liberty can generate enough force to do that, so it was time to upgrade those to reinforced mounts. I got a set of reinforced AVO mounts in quick smart. There's no physical difference in the feel of the drive post-install, but it will bend back that bent mount for me over time (was fun gripping it to pull it back enough to get the bolt holes to line up - not!). I also managed to thread the original mount bolts in the process, so I dumped those and replace them with some high-tensile bolts that weren't so soft instead.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Now onto July. I used to have one in my old WRX but never considered one for the Liberty because they were too expensive today for what they were - a short-shifter. While looking for other stuff, I came across Cairns Customs on FleaBay who were selling a Subaru short-shifter that suits WRX and Liberty for $70 including shipping - roughly half the price of many other places, so I figured why not. Got fast delivery and aside from a quick trip to Bunnings to buy a pair of interior snap-ring (circlip) pliers to remove the snap ring that secures the socket in place, got it installed in the car in about 30 minutes.
  
  Factory shifter with rubber and foam sound deadening removed, and then the full removal of the old shifter - looks messy but was easily contained:
  
  
  
  Comparison of the factory shifter and the short-shifter and installed in place of the old one with new grease:
  
  
  
  Rubber boot and foam sound deadening re-installed, and the final product:
  
  
  
  In practice, the overall throw of the gear changes is indeed reduced by a good margin. The gear positions are also noticeably stiffer and notchier. I couldn't say that it's any easier or harder to change gears, it's simply shorter to do so. Personally I'm not a fan of the overall shortening of the shaft length - it's only a few centimetres, but enough that I can feel myself reach over just a little bit further to fully grip the gear stick. In my old WRX, the short-shifter was simply a modification of the existing factory shifter by chopping the ball off and adding about a centimetre or two of metal to it to lengthen it, changing the pivot point and thus shortening the throw distance - this left the shaft length unchanged and is something I prefer. From a cosmetic factor, I'm not a huge fan of the "stocky" look of the gear stick, but not enough of an annoyance that I would go back to the factory shaft. The leather boot also looks too big for it now, but again I'll get used to it.

Whew - big post. That brings me up to date.

[satogixxer]

Nice updates! Love the Wakefield video, looks like you had fun (and tested the Liberty's off-road ability too lol). Very nice lap time for a NA well done.

Why not use RaceChrono with the OBD2 reader enabled for logging data instead of Torque Pro?

[HyRax]

Nice updates! Love the Wakefield video, looks like you had fun (and tested the Liberty's off-road ability too lol). Very nice lap time for a NA well done.

Thanks - Yeah, I was trying to brake later and later at the hook turn and I think I finally found the limit.

Why not use RaceChrono with the OBD2 reader enabled for logging data instead of Torque Pro?

I can. RaceChrono was a last minute thing on the day so I chose not to change anything and just get GPS lap times. Next track day I want to have a USB webcam setup for video plus overlaid telemetry.

[Jordan.k]

Still using the STS? Nice find on one so cheap! Considering getting one as well.

[HyRax]

Still using the STS? Nice find on one so cheap! Considering getting one as well.

Yes, I've decided to keep using the short-throw shifter. I'll get used to the stockiness of the height, but it does make the gear-changing that much nicer to do. The gears slot in nicely and it feels like you'd be less likely to make a shift error in fast changing.

[Brunsy3.0]

Quite a big update. Nice work looks like you've been busy. Came up sweet mate top job