soccer05

Here is the picture that will probably help out the community the most with functional maximum wheel fitment concerning my thread. I searched and searched, but was unable to find a satisfactory image of wheel and tire clearance to the strut. I am running a minimal amount of rear camber due to the wrx viscous limited and center diffs and open front diffs in an effort to help the car rotate, but if I was going to do this over again I would use a 18x10.5 inch wheel with a small spacer to move the tire away from the coilover and run a 285 series tire, and gain quite a bit of extra mechanical grip. If I was going to go for bolt on fitment, I would go with a275 series tire on a 18x10 inch rim, as I feel that could fit without the spacers. Obviously, you would need adjustable links and camber plates in the rear suspension to be able to do all this and have proper suspension geometry (which is more beneficial to handling than squeezing one size larger tire in the wheelwell). I thought with my measuring I would be able to fit a 10 inch wide tire on the car, but since this was my first time measuring everything out I didn't want to make a mistake and have to buy a new set of tires. Either way, this will be fine at my current power level, but definitely could go a half inch wider without the use of spacers, which would have the tire fit more squarely on the rim and provide a slightly wider contact patch. Hope this helps those that are interested in squeezing the maximum rubber under your car with proper suspension geometry and scrub radius...


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soccer05

They are the H&R coilovers purchased through Perrin Performance, I believe they are the streets. They use a bilstein damper though, and are quite good for what they are, a street entry level coilover system. They are lacking in a multitude of areas, non adjustable strut body in relation to spring perch, non dampening adjustable, etc. They use relatively soft spring rates (I will have to check my notes but I believe it is 450 lb/in in front and 287 lb/in in the rear). I know the rears are ludicriously soft, the only reason I can think of is due to the extremely long stroke of the rear suspension. They are a good entry level street coilover, but as my earlier posts have said, they are the weak link to my current suspension setup as they were never designed to handle this type of grip. I have put a band aid on the situation through the use of large sway bars (27mm rear and 24mm front), but in the near future I will be upgrading to a quality set of dampers when I do my 05+ sti tranny swap. I didn't want to purchase coilovers now, as I knew the swap was in the future and wanted to take advantage of the 05+ beefier wheel bearings.

So ... they will be replaced in the near future...

soccer05

Rebuilding the Stoptech caliper and making sure all seals are new. While my brakes looked to be in excellent condition, I don't trust such a critical component without taking it apart and refreshening it. I disconnected the brake line and stuck a piece of wood between the pistons. I then put my compressed air hose into where the brake line attaches to the caliper and shot a burst of compressed air in the caliper, which popped out all 4 of the pistons. After calling Stoptech I found out their WRX brake kit does not have any internal seals because of the crossover pipe, so you could split the caliper without needing a seperate set of seals. This greatly simplified working on the caliper. Then it is just a matter of removing the dust boots and the internal seal for each piston.


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soccer05

After splitting the caliper and removing the piston, the next step is replacing the seal inside the cylinder. When you buy the caliper rebuild kit, they come with dust boots and the inner seal. Costs about $25 for each size piston, so about $50 per caliper. Using a set of precision screwdrivers, you remove the inner seal from the culinder, about 3/4 of the way down the cylinder. You then lube up the new seal with brake fluid, and fit in the cylinder. Here is a picture of the groove, its hard to get a clear picture, as my camera kept focusing on either the caliper or the background, but here is my best shot.



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Picture of Stoptech piston ready to be installed in the caliper. I removed the pistons to make sure their was no surface rust or seizing issues, as I got this brake setup used. In retrospect, I wish I had saved for a new setup, as the brake setup was still expensive, plus with all the extra parts to refurbish them, I am probably in the ballpark of a new setup, especially since I do not have the slotted 355mm rotors. Oh well, this will do fine for my current setup though. Pistons seemed in good shape, so I just lubed them lightly with my brake fluid (motul rbf600) and slid them into place. I placed the dustboots on prior to installing the pistons, so I could just press fit them into place and the caliper would be complete for reassembly. You must be extremely carefull with the stoptech dust boots, as they are an extremely supple/thin leather, and tear on the inner metal ring quite easily. At 25 dollars for a pair of two dustboots and seals, they aren't ridiculously expensive, but can definitely add up if you tear a few.


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Another view of the piston ready for assembly.


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soccer05

One of the last major products to complete before I can finish reinstalling my interior and getting this car on the road is flocking the dash and a pillars. Here is the dash completely removed but intact except for the passenger air bag and center dash clock. Both of these have been removed to be flocked seperately, as this will help get those crisp lines and give a professional appearance. For those that are building all out track cars, deleting the air bags is a very wise and substantial weight reduction, my passenger air bag alone must weigh 25 pounds. Here is the last time we will see the dash looking this oem. First step is disassembly, I need to remove all the vents and trims that I do not want covered in the flocking fibers.


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soccer05

First step to flocking the dash is removing everything that you do not wish to have covered in glue and flocking fibers. This will help ensure crisp lines and a professional finished result. First I removed all the dash ducting from the backside of the dash.


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Air vent trim is removed. These are just popped in by hand and can be removed with a small flat bladed screwdriver. Just take your time as you don't want to break them.


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Next step is to sand the dash with 80 grit sandpaper. This is just a light sanding, and is to break the smooth surface of the dash to promote better glue adhesion for the flocking process. I was worried about the ability for the glue to bond to the dash, as when I went to mask off certain areas the tape kept sliding right off. Technically, this alone would do quite a bit at reducing glare off the dash, but if you have come this far then you might as well do a little more work for a nicer finished result.


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Minor update, Stoptech front brakes completely rebuilt, refreshed, and flushed of old brake fluid. Completely installed with Stoptech street/track pads front and rear. Should provide a significant increase in all areas of braking performance, pedal feel, fade resistance, etc. Very impressed with the overall fitment and build quality of Stoptechs product. Can not wait to finish up the couple little remaining projects and take this car for a spin and find out where the cars new limits are at now. I will be updating this thread with pictures of how to completely rebuild stop tech calipers. Additionally, dash is in a little homemade booth and will be flocked my next day off work. Progress has been slow lately with lots of loose, little projects, but a lot is starting to come together.

Pics to come soon...

soccer05

Dash completely stripped, all vents and trim pieces removed, ready to have glue spread on and flocked. Slowly getting all the prep work done to ensure a quality finished product. Entire dash was lightly sanded with 80 grit sandpaper to promote proper adhesion of the flocking fibers to the dash.


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soccer05

Dash has been completely flocked and I must say I am very pleased with the end product. Dash looks amazing exactly how I wanted it to look. I took a pic off my iPhone but can figure out how to upload it, so I will post pics from the digital camera up tonight. Definitely impressed with the end result. I was a little nervous about doing this because if I messed it up it was going to be a costly fix, but the product I used was excellent. Dash is currently drying and can be installed for 72 hours, but so far very happy, hopefully the end result looks as good as it does right now ... Pics to come later.

Glad to be well on the way to finishing off my interior and getting one big step closer to getting this thing out of the garage and back on the road where she belongs.

soccer05

Stoptech dust boots successfully pressed into the caliper. This part was an absolute bear, as I had to purchase an extra set of both size seals because I kept on tearing my dustboots. The dustboots are made out of a rather supple rubber, and have a large wire around the circumference to retain the boot once installed. You must have the exact size press of the outer circumference of the caliper to press in the dust boots, anything else will end up tearing the boots. I can't tell you how frustrating this part was, as it is really not that hard to rebuild calipers, and if it is time consuming you expect to be spending time removing a seized piston, not struggling with the dust boots. I ended up using a small amount of cut pvc pipe to successfully install the dust boots.


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reassembly of the caliper after pressing in the dustboots proceeded rapidly. I reconnected the two halves of the caliper by bolting on the 4 bolts that go through the two caliper halves. After consulting with Stoptech these were torqued to 40 ft/lbs. You don't want to overtorque any of these through caliper bolts as it would be tragic if you stripped the caliper body. Then you reinstall the crosspipe that allows fluid transfer between the two caliper halves. I was really impressed with the overall design of the Stoptech calipers, they do not use any internal seals for fluid transfer to the two halves, all the equalization of pressure is done with the cross tube. This greatly simplifies rebuilding as well as reducing the chances of little leaks.


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