Workin' on the Family

August looks to be the month for working on my family of Subarus.  Specifically, my car and my fiance's lil beast.  The work isn't immediately needed on either car, but with my fiance out of the country for most of August on tour in England, I figured it was a prime time to get stuff taken care of.

First up, my Impreza!  I plan to install the long-awaited Side Skirts and Rally Armor UE flaps this coming weekend with the help of a fellow owner/coworker and good friend of mine.  He's been turning wrenches for over a decade and has a great place to work.

Stock Endlinks/Sway Bar are a little... tiny

Next, I'm finally diving in with some performance tweaks.  Up until now, my car's modifications have been mostly aesthetic.  I've loved how the car handled stock from the moment I drove it off the lot, but now that my driving chops are up to par and I'm breaking the tires loose on some turns, I thought it was time to start upgrading.  Base-model Imprezas did not come with a rear sway bar, so last summer I added those stock components thanks to help from fellow owners' leftover stock parts from their own upgrades.  The rear stock sway bar (16mm) will be replaced with an STi rear sway bar (19mm) and the stock endlinks will be replaced with KartBoy endlinks.  This should make handling on the car more neutral and help with handling on tight corners.

On my fiance's '04 Outback Sedan H6, I'm replacing the front bushings with Group N WRX bushings.  This was recommended by Russ over at RG when he kindly took a look at this car before we purchased it.  The stock bushings were liquid-filled and, over time, could leak.  While they haven't started to go bad, they look like they're close anyways.  Best to do it now while the weather is nice instead of waiting for them to go bad in the winter!  I'll also be doing a few cosmetic things with it.  Window tint, de-fog the headlights, repair the passenger-side fog light, minor paint touch-up, and some minor dent removal on the doors are all in line to fix up this great find.  She's been having a ball with it and, while she's happy with how it is now, she's going to be marrying me... so I have to spoil her and make it even better!

Either way, August looks to be a fun month for car work!