Behold! The mighty Subrute!

General talk about the Subaru Baja.

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Lune
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Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

Here is my son's original post (from Facebook) on our project:

Behold, the mighty Subrute! 2003 Subaru Baja with some 06 parts and plenty of aftermarket.
Mods include:
Ebay replacement exhaust from the headers back (I bought it in Pennsylvania and the muffler fell off on the way home, lol)
Tailgate and adjacent bed molding, trim, bed rails, sport bars, and folding plate holder were stolen from an 06 because the original was busted
All new brakes (pads, rotors, calipers)
All new suspension from an 06 Sport (Shocks, springs, bellows, etc)
+2 inch lift-kit
New Toyo AT3 215/70/R16 tires (biggest I could fit without serious modification on those wheels)
+1 inch wheel spacers (to fit the fat AT tires)
1 new CV axle, 1 new wheel bearing assembly, 1 new upper ball-joint
New modular metal front bumper from https://affordableoffroad.com intended for a 1998-2011 Ranger
AC-DK 4500lbs winch on the bumper (has a remote too!)
Replaced bulbs in headlights with superbrightleds (high and low beams)
2 sets of racesport LED fog lights
Sanded and Raptor lined the entire car (the previous owner rattle-canned the thing)
Added a rubber strip near the tailgate for QoL
New battery and terminals

I think that is the whole build. I must say, some of it was a metric pain in the ass, but it was all worth it. Trevor (for the scoobytruck audience thats me, his proud father) helped me all along the way, and now it is (for the most part) complete. The triple entendre plate is the cherry on top for the long journey from Pennsylvania to Lansing. The first 3 hours of the trip were white-knuckle driving through torrential rain in the mountains: it was absolutely horrendous. I guess we can add that to the "discipline builds character" pile.

I've heard a decent amount of people give me crap for spending money on a car that "isn't so good" to begin with. The way I see it, it is a lot like gambling. If you aren't willing to lose 100% of what you put into it, then you shouldn't do it. I bought the thing for $2450 and put in probably another ~$6k. If it is something that truly makes you happy, then who cares how much money is in it? I could be just as happy in a Hellcat as I could be in my ute, yet you don't see me putting a price tag on happiness.

This car has 200k miles on it, and I will bet it lasts me 200k more. Every mile in this thing will bring me joy, and it has plenty of room for others to join in on the fun. One day, I hope to bring the SUBRUTE back to some muddy mountains and show them who's boss.

"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for his is both the marble and the sculptor. In order to uncover his true visage he must shatter his own substance with heavy blows of his hammer"
- Alexis Carrel, French surgeon and pioneer of organ transplantation

I'll include some before pictures here. Some important items to note:
We bought the car from a Subaru mechanic that lives in Pennsylvania. He used the car on a tree farm as a work vehicle but despite that it was mechanically sound and the body was mostly in good shape. ...mostly. At some point he collected a long scrape down the passenger side of the vehicle. Apparently in Pennsylvania they have a law that no rust can be showing on the vehicle at all or the owner is subject to steep fines. This law is apparently fervently enforced in his area. The scratch took off all the paint along the length of the car but didn't otherwise injure the vehicle. His solution? Rattle can the entire car. Yeah. Everything.

The car used to be two tone black on grey. To be honest it didn't look that bad from the curb. But up close it was a bit of an eyesore. There were other problems like the liquid nails around the sport bars, completely wrecked front bumper, mismatched brake bits, broken brake rotor, squishy suspension, tires that were way too small, etc. But we had plans that made all of that irrelevant. Including the paint.

More pictures and adventure to come!
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Before1.jpg
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Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

Here is the final "before" picture as well as one showing some plans we had for the front bumper.
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Front Bumper.jpg
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Before4.jpg
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Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

Here are some pictures showing the Subrute after the 2" lift and tire upgrade.
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Lift and tires3.jpg
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Lift and tires2.jpg
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Lift and tires1.jpg
Lift and tires1.jpg (3.66 MiB) Viewed 11432 times
Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

...more of the same.
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Lift and tires5.jpg
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Lift and tires4.jpg
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Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

We added a new roof rack! Man, it really fits the look we were going for.
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Roof Rack.jpg
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Roof Rack Side.jpg
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Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

And we wanted to start doing some overlanding. Truck tents seem fun but there are of course none that fit the dimensions of the Subrute. Time to do some more mods! We designed this rigging that would make it fit the Subrute and can be easily removed from the sport bars with these nice tube clamps.
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Truck tent rigging.jpg
Truck tent rigging.jpg (4.17 MiB) Viewed 11432 times
Truck tent mounted.jpg
Truck tent mounted.jpg (5.42 MiB) Viewed 11432 times
Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

Oh yeah, you might have noticed. We decided to Raptor line the entire vehicle. Even got much of the bottom side to prevent rust as well. My son did a great job with sanding the entire car down himself. He even tackled the underside with the wire grinder. Wanna preserve this beast, ya know! We did the Raptor lining ourselves. I bought an nice air compressor because I needed one since moving into our new house anyway. The sanding was honestly the hardest part. That and I guess the taping. We had to do some prep work on the front bumper with some sanding and primer coat as well. But man, it came out nice.
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Complete FL.jpg
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Complete F.jpg
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Complete F Lights.jpg
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Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

...more complete pictures.
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Complete RR.jpg
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Complete R.jpg
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Complete L.jpg
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Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

Since we had it all setup for some overlanding here are some pictures from our camping trip that we did near Lake Ann, MI.
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Camping1.jpg
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Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

A couple of notes because I know you all are going to have some questions.
First of all you probably noticed the negative camber on those front tires in some of the pictures. Yeah, that was an issue. So, the lift kit that we used is just a spacer lift. It didn't include supporting spacers for the rest of the suspensions bits or engine lowering. It was a cheap kit (I believe it was around $150) as we were working on my son's budget. If we had it to do over again we would have went for the kits that you can find for around $500. It would have saved us money in the long run and would have been a better product.

As is we had to have the lower camber bolt holes hogged out to allow the camber to be adjusted correctly. That wasn't too bad but we were lucky to find a shop to help us with that kind of sketchy mod. It works fine now ... but that was after we found out that the CVs were a bit too short. Found that out the hard way when they popped out going down the road. We were happy that it wasn't a much larger problem as I was concerned about it being the transmission. We had to have a few shops work together to lengthen our CVs. We bought they "heavy duty" option that Autozone sold when doing this as we didn't want to have to replace them again. They were lengthened about 1/4". Yeah, it was a little bit but it made all of the difference. Still the more expensive lift kit would have been the better option.

Also since these pictures we have done a few more things. He bought a winch cover and new winch hook as the other one was too small. He also bought some marine grade black silicon that we used around some of the trim.

Bit of a story here. On that overlanding trip we had an opportunity to do a bit of offroading which was great fun! It handled it very well. However, the wheel base proved a bit too long for a steep peak on a hill and caught on his rocket panel and pealed it right off. We clipped it back up and secured it permanently with the silicon. I'll try to get some pictures up of that. We would also like to explore some new mud flap options as the hard ones that came with the vehicle came damaged and took a bit more from our offroading.

Also the paint on those fog lights hasn't held up well. Bit of a disappointment there. We are going to need to repaint those.

He is also interested in the possibility of adding a snorkel or maybe a different air intake. We had to remove the resonator box as it wouldn't fit where it lived under the original front bumper with our mods. I basically cut up the tube that was there and sealed up the holes so it is just straight to the stock air intake currently. With it bypassed like that I think it would be better with even just a conical air filter at this point.

He also needs to replace his headers as they are rusting through. And of course he has a slow head gasket leak. Who doesn't?! Its slow enough to not be a problem at all but it is leaking right onto his exhaust so it does smell a bit when stopped.

We are interested in some small performance gains but do not want to go with a turbo. This vehicle is for the long hall and we do not want the added stress and decreased reliability that the turbo brings. Not sure how much can be done but we are thinking of perhaps just an exhaust upgrade with some supporting reliability mods (killer bee oil pickup, etc.), better injectors, an air intake and a tune. Maybe get it just short of 200hp? Maybe we are high on hopium with that goal.

I think the dream upgrade would be the dual range transmission that you can get on some of the JDM and Australian cars. Not sure how we could find one of those. Or maybe a torq locker. We will have to see how it performs without it with some offroading on Silver Lake Sand Dunes when we get around to it.

Anyway... what do you all think?!
Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

Oh, I should also mention that he has an appointment to get it into the shop early next month to have all of the bushings in the rear replaced. It is a bit pricey of work but it needs to be done because it is squeeking up a storm currently. Its like a pack of rabid squirrels is living in his bed. :P While they are at it they are going to put on the bellows for the rear drivers side strut. So the story there goes that we couldn't find the struts built. We had to purchase all the bits separately and build them. Also they didn't come with the bellows which we had to order separately as well but didn't find that out until after we got everything else. The dealer and local parts stores could only come up with a single bellow. Well that was too late in our work and we just wanted to finish. So we put that strut on without a bellow. No big deal, we always planned on putting it back on when we got it.

...well to be honest building struts without the proper equipment is no fun. And honestly pretty scary. I almost seriously injured myself working with the spring compressors we borrowed from Autozone. I've pretty much lost all interest in doing that again at all. I'll let the pros do it with proper equipment. I'm happy to let them accept that risk.

Also bit of a question here. With the mods done on his car it will scoot right along on the highway at 75mph. That is the speed limit on some highways here in Michigan. However, if he goes much over that it likes to downshift to 3rd for ... well about anything. Small hill, brisk wind, etc. I'm not sure if it is a weight thing, or perhaps air flow from his roof rack, etc. Or maybe it is just getting a bit tired? I wondered if this was typical behavior. I can tell you my old 97 Legacy didn't do that. But then it didn't have these mods or weigh as much. *shrug*
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Knotwright
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Knotwright »

I'm interested in how you modified the Ranger bumper to fit. Can you elaborate. Pictures would be great too. Thanks!!
dease42
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by dease42 »

Fantastic work, a build after my own heart for sure!

First off, I'll second the question on the bumper modification - working on something similar and really interested how difficult it was - especially the winch - it's connected securely to the frame? Have you tried it yet?

Also, the spacers for the rear multi-link are SUPER SIMPLE.. basically just 2" square tubing cut to size and a few holes drilled. Based on what I'm seeing here, shouldn't be any issue for you to mock out. The spacers on the struts, the better kits have some shaping to them, might be good to spend the $$ on that part. Looks like you've already tackled the hard part, stretching axles and all!

As for the "real offroading", there's a mod you can do to the center differential that will "lock" it into a 50/50 split (there's more to it than that, but in the basics). Let's you "push-on" or lock the center diff while offroading, then unlock (or back to the system doing it) when driving. Here's the link I found for it: https://www.rs25.com/threads/4eat-diff- ... ite.99075/

There is also a rear locker for the rear end - it's not an air/hydraulic, but a mechanical one. The reviews seem REALLY good for what it is though, and I'm super excited to try it down the road. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa5ZaCCtZXQ

Happy to answer any questions, love what you're doing!

Great project, you and your son should be really proud!! Can't wait to see what's next!
CNaylor
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by CNaylor »

Love to see a full thread on the bumper modification/install as well.

Welcome to the "club"
Lune
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Re: Behold! The mighty Subrute!

Post by Lune »

Well for the bumper we took it to a metal fabricator that we know. Our requirement was that the bumper be able to be removed so we wanted it to be connected with large bolts. Basically he welded on some brackets to the subframe for the bumper to attach to. He said it was a fairly minor job. Welding is a bit beyond our comfort zone so we were happy to have a guy for this.

I'll see if we can get some pictures of where it attaches to so at least it could be used for reference if anyone else wants to do this. I would imagine if you are comfortable with small welding projects that this wouldn't be a very big project. I don't think that the Baja has proper frame rails like a Jeep would or something but the subframe seemed ample enough to work.

As for if it is securely connected? Yes. I would say it is very secure. We have tested it. We did some winter tent camping and ended up getting a bit stuck in some sand hiding under the snow in a pit we didn't know was there. Luckily there was a boulder not far away. We attached the winch to it and it pulled us right out. Lifesaver too because we were kinda out in the middle of nowhere on a trail that would have been hard to locate and harder to get to for any kind of tow rig.

My son has also used it a few times to pull other vehicles out of ditches. We live in Michigan and he was pretty stoked to use it for the first time. He didn't have to wait long. One of the times I was with him and he rescued a pair of damsels in distress. I told him he should have asked them out but a dad can't really play wingman so I couldn't do much during the save.

I have heard about both of the other mods you linked. The torq locker might be on the menu in the future. So far he hasn't challenged it much so we don't know what it's capabilities are offroad. It handled going through a foot of snow on pretty rough trails and driving through a couple of sand pits with no trouble at all. Unfortunately the combination of sand + snow + pit was too much. I think if it hadn't bottomed out he probably still could have got out of it. But then, thats what the winch is for, right? Purchase justified, achievement unlocked. :D

As for whats next... not sure. We kinda take the approach of upgrade what breaks. However, I will say that just using a truck tent for winter camping wasn't really sufficient for comfort. I have been looking into building a rooftop tent using extruded aluminum and 1" foam insulation. I have ideas on making hard folding sides for it as well using continuous aluminum hinges. If we do end up doing that we will be sure to post it up.
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