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  #61  
Old 04-15-2010, 02:16 AM
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icingdeath88 icingdeath88 is offline
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

Yea that looks damn nice.
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  #62  
Old 04-15-2010, 05:20 AM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

Wow wonderful job! If you haven't already done so, I'm sure every one would love to see a write up with pictures, parts instructions to this mod posted in the how-to's seaction. Just curous as to what your final cost of this project turned out to be. Estimated man hours? What's the difference in ride? Thanks for the post.
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  #63  
Old 04-15-2010, 10:57 AM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon770 View Post
Wow wonderful job! If you haven't already done so, I'm sure every one would love to see a write up with pictures, parts instructions to this mod posted in the how-to's seaction. Just curous as to what your final cost of this project turned out to be. Estimated man hours? What's the difference in ride? Thanks for the post.
I'm still doing some "shakedown" of the car, and I've got the ABS issue and a rub to clear up. Plus, I want to test fit my STI wheels on the car as well to make sure everything clears without the wheel spacers... this would be a silly mod if you *have* to run low offset wheels that poke out the fenders... I should only have to do it because of my brake clearance issue.

Once all the odds and ends are sorted, I'll be putting together a write up. I'm hoping it won't be a "how-to" but instead will be an installation manual for a conversion kit. My friend that runs KStech (another shameless plug: http://www.kstech.biz) said he'd be interested in running a one-time group by on a few kits. If we can get a few people here interested in the conversion, we'll run off a batch of the adapters at the water-jet place. The only problem is he's going to need a monetary committment from people up front because he just signed a lease on a new shop and his cash is tied up in buying stuff like lifts and alignment racks.

As far as cost, here's a quick breakdown off the top of my head:

STi Kunckles and Unit Hubs (new from dealer): ~$500
STi axles (used from PDXTuning, thanks again Pegdrgr!), misc seals/clips: ~$400
STi ball joints (I alread had a pair): $0
Materials and tools for building the BJ adapters and ABS standoffs: ~$200
StopTech 328x28 BBK (used from NASIOC): $750
Wheel Spacers (new fron IchibaUSA): ~$100
Shop labor for machine work I couldn't handle at home: ~$100

So, it looks like the conversion cost a bit over $2000. But the purchase of everything was spread out over the last 2 months, so it actually didn't feel like so much.

As far as my time... I probably spent 20-30 hours on designs and revisions (lots of time pulling apart the SVX and my WRX to compare parts before I even decided to attempt this). Probably another 10-20 in the garage actually wrenching. But I didn't really watch my time. It was mostly an hour or two here and there after work or on the weekends.

Geting back to the kit... I'm not quite sure what would be included. Certainly the ball-joint adapters and ABS sensor stand-offs. Perhaps the STi knuckles pre-machined for the SVX suspension and tie-rods. Probably not the axles, hubs, or ball-joints. My guess is the best kit would be one that has all the custom stuff done, but none of the OEM available stuff, the idea being to make the kit as cheap as possible while still making the job 100% bolt-on. But the big problem is going to be the end-links, unless the kit includes pre-bent links or custom short links, you'll have to figure out a way to bend your own links.

What do you guys think about the interest in kitting this mod up? Is there anyone intersted in paying to have all the fabrication done? If there's no interest I can simply do just a how-to write up with all the designs and part numbers instead and you guys are on your own for getting stuff made.
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  #64  
Old 04-15-2010, 03:55 PM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

Nice work man... you'd fit in well with the Fiero crowd. They are always coming up with cool stuff like this for their cars.
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  #65  
Old 04-15-2010, 04:31 PM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

Very well done! I think I may go the do it yourself route with this, but it could not have been done without you. If you happen to replace your master cylinder and it makes a noticeable difference in firmness of the brake pedal, I would love to know. Keep up the good work.
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  #66  
Old 04-15-2010, 06:01 PM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

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Originally Posted by Bonestock View Post
Nice work man... you'd fit in well with the Fiero crowd. They are always coming up with cool stuff like this for their cars.
I've always lusted after the '88 GT. But owning one today would be more work than this SVX! So much easier just to get a Solstice turbo... but certainly not as cool as a mint condition GT would be.
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  #67  
Old 04-15-2010, 06:12 PM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

BTW: I'm going to have a bunch of decent condition stock parts to unload.

The brakes that came off the car are only about 10,000 miles old. I replaced the calipers w/ reman'd ones because I thought my issue was due to frozen sliders... turns out the noise I was hearing was from shot wheel bearings. So the old brakes are in great shape.

I've also got the stock spindles/hub and axles. The spindles of course will need bearings, but they're in otherwise decent shape. The axles are new since I did my 4.44 tranny swap, which was like 2 years ago(?).

I'm also thinking about trying the WRX 2-pot rear swap outlined here: http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/showthread.php?t=50861 That way my SVX will use the same exact pads front and rear as my WRX. I'd really like to try to do a similar hub swap, but then I'm going to need an R180 rear-end, or hybrid axles, or some sort of conversion ring to allow the OEM SVX hub to fit in the larger STi bearings.

Hrm... actually, that might be possible! My bank account is trembling.
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  #68  
Old 04-15-2010, 09:26 PM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

Quote:
Originally Posted by sperry View Post
BTW: I'm going to have a bunch of decent condition stock parts to unload.

The brakes that came off the car are only about 10,000 miles old. I replaced the calipers w/ reman'd ones because I thought my issue was due to frozen sliders... turns out the noise I was hearing was from shot wheel bearings. So the old brakes are in great shape.

I've also got the stock spindles/hub and axles. The spindles of course will need bearings, but they're in otherwise decent shape. The axles are new since I did my 4.44 tranny swap, which was like 2 years ago(?).

I'm also thinking about trying the WRX 2-pot rear swap outlined here: http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/showthread.php?t=50861 That way my SVX will use the same exact pads front and rear as my WRX. I'd really like to try to do a similar hub swap, but then I'm going to need an R180 rear-end, or hybrid axles, or some sort of conversion ring to allow the OEM SVX hub to fit in the larger STi bearings.

Hrm... actually, that might be possible! My bank account is trembling.
IF you have a lower ball joint I do need one.
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  #69  
Old 04-15-2010, 11:26 PM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

I've got two. But they have 230,000 miles on 'em. Want them anyway?
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  #70  
Old 04-16-2010, 08:09 PM
Pegdrgr Pegdrgr is offline
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

If you decide to take on the rears let me know, I can save you from needing "new" parts. I have axles and the R180 already.

Great job on this! truly better work than most shops would do. If you do up another batch of the lower adapters let me know, I would probably jump in on that. The rest of the stuff I would just source myself. Worst case I would be happy to either donate or offer you a nice(r) price on the parts to do the rear.

Jarrad
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  #71  
Old 04-16-2010, 08:46 PM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pegdrgr View Post
If you decide to take on the rears let me know, I can save you from needing "new" parts. I have axles and the R180 already.

Great job on this! truly better work than most shops would do. If you do up another batch of the lower adapters let me know, I would probably jump in on that. The rest of the stuff I would just source myself. Worst case I would be happy to either donate or offer you a nice(r) price on the parts to do the rear.

Jarrad
You don't have an R180 w/ 4.44 gears through, do you? I wasn't planning on a 6MT swap anytime soon... and I'm running a 4.44 4EAT right now. Slapping an R180 in there would be awesome to go with a full STi rear brake setup, but I don't know that it'd be worth it since I don't think a 4.44 diff is easily found... not to mention the cost for something with no benefit over the R160 LSD at stock SVX power levels.

I think I need to do some research/comparison of the rear knuckles/hubs. Forgive me while I brainstorm:

Just like the front, I'd like to use STi rear knuckles/hubs/bearings since I believe they're all stouter. Then slap the 2-pot FHI calipers and ventilated rally brakes (P/N RST-2632 here: http://www.rallispec.com/prod_brake.htm). Those are the rear brakes I'm running on my WRX.

But those 5x114.3 rotors are for the larger hubs that mate to the R180... which means the larger e-brake. So, perhaps an option is using everything from the STi (knuckle, bearing, e-brake drum, rotors, backing plate, calipers) except use the OEM SVX hub that mates to the R160 axles, and use a machined adapter that presses over the SVX hub to make it fit inside the STi bearings.

But once again the ABS becomes an issue, since I'm assuming the rear SVX hubs have the tone wheel on them instead of the axles.

So then it looks like you can do the above, but ditch the tone wheel on the hub and switch to WRX (non-STi) rear axles... but who knows if they'll mate to the back of the STi knuckles and line up with the ABS sensors. (Which could be a problem w/ the SVX axles as well, BTW.)

So now we're back to full STi rear knuckles/bearings/hubs/e-brake/rotors/calipers, etc. and building hybrid rear axles with the R180 style outter splines and the R160 style inner splines to mate to the OEM R160 diff. Ugh.

I think in this situation, the path of least resistance is just pressing the STi backing plates on there and using the SVX knuckles/hubs/bearings/rotors under the 2-pot calipers. But that means no ventilated rotors (unless you can get the R160 sized rotors in 5x114.3 which have no reason to exist), and no upgraded wheel bearings, which makes this a mostly cosmetic upgrade since it's not like the sliding calipers are that terrible... it's really just getting some beefier rotors and bearings back there that will really improve performance.
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  #72  
Old 04-16-2010, 08:53 PM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

In other news... I had a bolt on one of the ball joint adapters fail on my way home from work at lunch today. I've been driving the car conservatively and only short distances just in case something fails. I was going around a decently fast left hand turn and heard a clunk from the right front.

Since I was just a few blocks from home, I just finished the drive at low speed and put the car up on the jack to have a look in the garage. The back bolt (far left on the diagrams) on the adapter was plain old missing. My guess is that you're not supposed to re-use those bolts when swapping ball-joints, since they're lock nuts. I either had it work loose and fall off, or just plain popped the threads on it since those bolts were all kinda old and cruddy.

So, I'm going to have to do some legwork this weekend to get some bolts. Ever since the Ace Hardware closed down, it's impossible to find a local source for high-grade metric hardware. Or I'm going to have to order them from the dealer and wait for shipping. I tried grade-8 1/2" bolts as a stop-gap, but they're just a touch too big to fit through the 12mm holes in the LCA, and I'm not going to drill out the LCA just to fit some incorrect SAE hardware.

The good news is that the wheel didn't fly off!
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  #73  
Old 04-17-2010, 03:31 PM
Johnybeas Johnybeas is offline
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

When you get all the kinks out I'd be interested in getting the CAD drawing off your hands for the BJ Adapter this would be the perfect addition to my project SVX. If I'm going to be running the power levels I'd like I'll need big brakes to stop it.
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  #74  
Old 04-17-2010, 04:09 PM
Cam Cam is offline
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

Locknuts should always be replaced as they offer very little support once the nuts locking feature has been distorted by being torqued
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  #75  
Old 04-17-2010, 09:45 PM
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Re: STi brakes, the brute force way!

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Locknuts should always be replaced as they offer very little support once the nuts locking feature has been distorted by being torqued
Especially when you don't torque the bolts all the way. Apparently the 85 ftlbs I guessed that it was is a bit under the actual 101 required.

But nothing was damaged and I've got some home depot bolts in there for now until I can order up some new OEM ones.

I also grinded down the ABS standoffs to 20mm and now the ABS is working properly. I guess the standoffs were just to tall for consistent readings.
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