subaru impreza drivers, anyone with longer legs?

[bryn]

just bought a 97 wagon 5spd yesterday

anyone know how tall a tire can fit before i have to start messing with the body work?

any other mods that have worked well for you? i haven't done any real research yet. i am hoping to learn what works, before i start experimenting.

i have a ign kill switch for eoc but that is all i have done so far.
thanks for any ideas.

[stevet47]

What does your question have to do with the title? I am confused....

[wagonman76]

longer legs = taller tires

I opened this thread thinking I should mention my friend who drives one and is 6 ft.

[evolutionmovement]

Depends on the width. Taller tires tend to get wider as well. Keeping stock suspension, you'll hit either the spring perch on the strut or the inner wheel well in the rear, depending on wheel offset and tire variations. With the Legacy (same platform, most of the same parts) 205 width are the safe limit on the stock rolling diameter (bigger can fit if you roll the wheel wells in the back, but you have to pick your wheel offset carefully). The bigger the tire diameter, the less the width you can fit. A cheap way around is to get Outback suspension, which will allow you some decent clearance with the strut on the inside (still have to consider the wheel well depending on the wheel offset you use), but will also jack the car up some. One of the great thing about Subarus is that they are like Legos in that so much is interchangeable (1990-1999 Legacy, Impreza, Forester, and much from the model years beyond that as well).

And don't be intimidated by rolling the wheel wells, if you need to, as it's easily done by rolling a bat between the tire and wheel arch.

[Allch Chcar]

There are "millions" of posts from people on the internets asking how big of tires can fit in their car. That's a question for a more vehicle specific forum. They make bigger tires wider just like evomovo said. It won't save you any fuel.

What you want is either a higher final drive and/or low rolling resistance tires. What you think?

[evolutionmovement]

The tallest FD you can get with an AWD 5-speed without tearing apart the transmission to change the front differential or converting to fwd (or rwd, I suppose. Would be fun), is 3.900, which you should have. Going to rwd, you could go to the 3.545 rear end from an SVX or WRX, which is also available in LSD. Going to fwd, you could swap in the 3.7 transmission from the fwd 5-speed Legacy. 3.7 rear ends are from older models and could swap in as well, but they're pretty rare now. Either way, 3.9 vs. 3.7 isn't really enough of a change to bother IMO. You could also check out Nissan rear ends (they're the same, but only the R160 will drop in without driveshaft changes) if you convert to rwd as you wouldn't need the front to match. I don't know their ratios well, but I know some of the old Datsun guys use newer Subaru rear ends for the different ratios available. Sticking with AWD, you're pretty much stuck with 3.9 (unless you wanted to go lower, there are 4.11 and 4.44's). AWD is always going to be a bit of a penalty, though the tall top gear in the Subaru makes up for much of it, they'll never be best in class for mileage. IMO, the tank-like build, quality engineering, and ease of maintenance/interchangeability, practicality, all-weather capability, and fun to drive factor make it an easy sacrifice. Best bet is to get gains from aeromodding. I was tossing up an Impreza and a Miata as drastic modding candidates and only chose the Mazda because I don't think I can make the Impreza look good with a half-canopy.

[bryn]

ok , wow good to know

right now 55mph is around 2400 rpm, not great. with my olds 2400 was over 80mph. i do a lot of highway driving these days so aero mods may be the way to go.
this car just doesn't like to coast. i'm not sure if it is the awd, the aero, or some combo of both. i guess it is time to go do some testing

[evolutionmovement]

That's really high. My Legacy with the 3.7 pulls 2k at 55. That's closer to 4th in my car. What do you have for tires? Mine are +2's (Forester 16" wheels) so they should theoretically be pretty close to stock (and the speedometer is actually more accurate with the +2s than the original 14" steels going by radar signs, so the gearing didn't change), but without doing the calculations, that seems like you have something taller than a 3.9. I wonder if they also came with 4.11's, then, unless they changed the transmission gearing... That's the same 5th gear speed my 1983 GL had and I thought that was too low even then, with 73 HP. It's not a 1.8 is it? I thought those were dead in '96, but '97 may have been the last year.

[bryn]

no its a 2.2 i believe

[bryn]

tires are origional size