club.liberty.asn.au

So I have been meaning to post on here for a while, and I thought this would be a nice place to keep a track of the progress of my car. Albeit a slow progress

I bought my first car back in Feb 2016, a 2003 BH Liberty wagon with the 2.0l engine and 5sp manual transmission. Despite being what I assume as the base model, it has leather interior which has been well loved by [potentially multiple] families and animals the like. Additionally one of the previous owners had installed an aftermarket sunroof, which leaves a nice puddle in the back seats every time its parked outside in the rain, also the controls work intermittently. Its not quite the track demon, and it will barely keep up with a mazda 3 from the lights, but hey it can do under 7l/100km (freeway driving)

Here's what it looked like when I bought it




Not long after driving it around like this I painted the stock wheels matte black which contrasted the silver paint nicely


Slowly progress had been made, I purchased a set of wheels that are soon to be installed. They're not a set, its 2 Impul Hoshino RS and 2 Rays Mazdaspeed MS-01 which were a steal on gumtree. I thought they look so similar that you couldn't tell the difference unless pointed out. The specs are; Both 17x8. Impul Offset +35, MS-01 Offset +30. The impuls on the front should fit nicely as they have 5x100 stud pattern. Unfortunately the rears have a larger offset and 5x114.3 stud pattern, so will be running a 15mm adapter in the rears. Its either going to have aggressive fitment in the rear or it will look terrible. I'm thinking of wrapping them in 215/45/r17 tyres, but I am unsure if I will need a bit more stretch to squeeze the tyres under the guards in the rear

In the back of the Liberty. Love overnight parts from Japan


See, can barely tell them apart. Looks like staggered wheels


Having enough of getting sea sick every time I took a corner, I decided it was time to do something about the suspension to get rid of the boat-like body roll. I had been tossing up between Bilsteins with lowered springs, or BC coilovers for a very long time until not too long ago a set of used Tein Super Street coilovers appeared on ebay, I decided to bite the bullet and get them and I do not regret it. They haven't died yet. The Teins offer a nice drop with stiff springs and adjustable dampning, only other thing more i could ask for is adjustable camber plates

Fully wound down in the front and about an inch from the bottom in the rear to rectify the saggybutt (must be BE coilovers)




I have many plans coming for this car, and I'm excited to document the progress here. Looking forward to sharing info and receiving advice concerning all thing subie

Part II - JDM Grill

I have always liked the uniqueness of JDM grills and the model specific badges that they have. It creates a sense of mystery and curiosity, however JDM bh5 grills are super expensive, in excess of $150 and its even more difficult to find a Rev-D or a mesh type grill.

So I decide to make one myself using the existing grill for my car.

I purchased a red L7 badge off of steezeBay which i was happy with, however understandably it has a bit of wear



Here are some photos of the progression for viewing pleasure




For the centre I used putty with some plastic off-cuts to make the shape of the sheild






Beginning of the messiness. Used an initial layer of glass reinforced putty with the idea that it will help with some structural rigidity (trust me i'm an engineer)




Not bad

I smoothed out the border because I don't like it




Time for paint in my spraybooth, trust me it's to code. I used VHT rollbar and chassis paint because I'm painting a grill, the obvious choice.




Fresh paint straight out of the salon bish





I wasn't too impressed with the final result so I'm going to wait for the paint to dry so I can sand it back and apply a filler primer like I should have done in the first place.
Stay tuned for final result, I'm satisfied with the way its tracking

Finished product

im not normally a fan of third gens but this is looking really nice! good work mate. also i have a legacy rear garnish if you are interested in getting one? message me if you're keen

Nice stuff man, it's really coming along good. Great job on the grill.

applegeek897 wrote:Nice stuff man, it's really coming along good. Great job on the grill.

Yeah I agree, that grille came out very nice. Top job.

You should consider repainting the badge I reckon.

Been a while and not much has really been happening

Got the new wheels on and its looking tight





Unfortunately I had to put the stock wheels back on because I split a tyre. I am in no rush to get it sorted, which may mean the wheels will get refurbished. I want to polish the lips and painting/plastidipping the centres white


And here is a nice recent picture in the rain as it looks today.

Lots of time between posts, but lots has happened in the meanwhile so I feel a small update is long overdue.

I was reversed into and smashed the front end of my car as well as damaging my custom grill but luckily third party insurance took care of it and got an new bonnet and a front respray







Happy day when the car cam back looking phresh. I will have to fix my custom grill, but may paint it silver instead of black, this will happen at a later date.



Also picked up some foglights from the wreckers for like $60 for the pair. Not a bad deal.



I have always been interested in starting a large project with this car. For about 12 months I have been researching EZ30 manual conversions and been on the lookout for a H6 engine from a gen 2 outback, but I also had been considering a EJ205 conversion. After alot of deliberation I decided to pull the trigger on doing an EZ30 swap. The reasons being being on p-plates I would like to keep it N/A (despite an engine swap already violating p plate rules) and also the electronics seemed more straight forward as i can just swap the looms instead of splicing the looms from the turbo engine. Furthermore, with the H6 I can use alot of the factory parts as the gen 2 outback and gen 3 liberty are the same chassis and I can still use the factory H6 ECU (with some wiring tricks).

Around August 2017 I began this venture of mechanical enlightenment.

H6 related progress is all here;
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=35394