I feel like a total *** because I must be doing something very wrong here. I would appreciate your help in resolving this issue.

Okay, so here's the deal. I'm trying to get these WRX (sedan) specific AGX to work on my wagon woth stock springs (until I can have something custom made to better suit my tastes) and Cusco adjustable front strut tops to work on my wagon. I tried once and as you can see, it came out very poorly and I had to take them out immediately as they jacked the front end of the car up to the point where there was a 6 inch gap between the tire and the fender.

In order to get the Cusco AFSTs to work with the AGX, I had to get a different nut from Cusco because the one that came with them was too small for the threads on the AGX. Then, I had to have a pair of spacers made because even with the nut tightened all the way to the end of the threads on the AGX, there was still about .75" for the stock upper spring perch to "float" around. The preload on the stock spring was holding the perch against the strut top, but it still had room to move if it wanted to so I made the spacers to fit over the intermediate part of the AGX (between the threads and the piston) so that the nut on the strut top would securely hold the upper spring perch in place.

Once I did that, I put everything together in this order: strut, rubber thing (held on by racer tape ), stock spring, pretty thick rubber thing, stock upper spring perch, custom spacer, nut and strut top. What I don't understand is why the strut is so much ridiculously longer than the Type Wagons that were on there before. So I compared the front AGX to the front stock struts and they're the same length. Am I using the wrong upper spring perches? Do the Cusco AFSTs really set the top of the strut that much lower than the stock FSTs? It must be a combination of all these because five inches is a huge difference between what I had and where it should be. Does anybody have any thoughts as to what I'm doing wrong?

For reference, I checked the part numbers and they match up. I was under the impression that the sedan and wagon used the same front struts but that the wagon's rear struts were about half an inch shorter (thus explaining the added positive camber in the rear when installing the AGX made for the sedan on the wagon) and also valved differently to compensate for the added rear weight of the wagon. I know that the front track width on the sedan is about an inch wider but I really thought they used the same front spring and strut as the front weight should be nearly identical.

Check out the pics on my site here.

 

If the box in pic 013 is one of the boxes of the strut you are trying to use...ie. P/N 734036, then that is a REAR strut...not a front strut.

734034=RF
734035=LF
734036=RR
734037=LR

EDIT: On closer examination, the struts in pix 007, 013, 018, 019, 020, and 024 appear to be front struts. At least the lower strut body does.

I apologize to Steppin Razor, as it would seem to me that he received struts which were improperly assembled during manufacture.