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I've always been a fan of being that kid who had the weirdest and stupidest things that everyone was curious about. It's haunted me since childhood. When it came to buy a first car, I couldn't go the simple route and buy something usual, I had to go full retard and buy something that didn't make any sense. I finally decided I was going to have a Subaru SVX. My computer illiterate father decided to google "Subaru SVX", and just happened to find one with 87,000 miles, in the year I wanted (92 because they didn't have a governor), the trim I wanted ("lower-end" suede seats instead of the luxury leather seats), and the classic pearl white on black color I wanted. All this for $4500, which was actually pretty high for the car. We drove a few hours and picked it up. The car was in their showroom because of how good the condition was, and I couldn't wait to test drive it. We had our fair share of problems with it, such as the entire cooling system ($1700) blowing up 3 days after owning it, but it's been a very reliable car for the past 4 years I've owned it.
The day I drove it home: October 26th, 2009:
The car was sharp and it drove fantastic. It was a BLAST in the snow, even with bald tires it got me everywhere.
Little did I know the directional wheels were on backwards...
My dad loved the car so much, that he broke his strict American-only car trend and bought a brand new Outback. He loved it and won't buy anything other than Subaru again.
...Then my girlfriend's dad's truck slid down his yard on Christmas day right into my car...
$4000 worth of damage later, I had it back again.
Some more pictures of the first couple years of owning it:
Took it to a couple SVX meets:
Made some soap (still for sale on my eBay, actually)
Built a spare tire subwoofer:
Bought a set of STi wheels with tires for $350. Ugly paint
Decided to repaint them gloss black with a red lip:
Then came winter. I had some fun.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJLC3u3EJVQ"]SVX Snow Drifting - YouTube[/ame]
Painted the stock wheels black and bought some beefy snow tires off of Craig's.
Then came spring. I was tired of the black wheel look, so I decided to try STi gold wheel paint from Grimmspeed. I was 100% satisfied.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO4HNGNfKdo"]David's Subaru SVX - YouTube[/ame]
I also redid my headliner, custom to match my big red beard:
(Not me in the picture) The wheels completely updated the look of the car, but it still wasn't perfect (read: low). In winter my strut mounts completely rusted away, lowering the rear of the car by a couple inches. Turns out my struts back there were shot, too.
I needed a new suspension. Every SVX owner who has even purchased an OEM suspension from Subaru has had it fail within a year or two due to them being on the shelves since the early 2000's, plus it's almost $2,000. Ceika and AMR were my next choices. AMR was being a douche bag and I didn't feel like supporting them, so I went with Ceika. Two months into the building period (promised to be about a month) I had to back out due to my suspension being so bad. I couldn't drive on two blown struts anymore.
*Sidenote* My wife ran into some troubles with her school and we are now moving to California to continue school out there, so I needed a suspension desperately.
So I had no suspension. Then I had remembered a couple people on subaru-svx.net talking about doing an STi suspension swap. I kind of didn't think towards it, because I didn't even know how to adjust coilovers at the time. After some research and talking to other people, I went out and bought a set of 05-07 STi coilovers from Raceland. Go on, reprimand me. Install took me about 10 hours. For this suspension to fit, two holes must be drilled into the body of the car for the front struts to fit in and one hole in the back. The front knuckle's lower hole needed to be drilled up 0.25" to fit. The back one's holes lined up perfectly, but the opening was too thin. Some heat and a pry bar made it fit like a dream.
Do you guys like my redneck garage?
The only drawback to this set up is there is no place for the front sway bar to mount to. It hardly does anything anyway though. The coilovers I bought came with 8k/5k (450 ft-lb/281ft-lb) which made me nervous at first because I **** bouncy rides, but it's smooth as can be. No body roll too, even without the sway bar up front. I'm completely satisfied. Oh, did I mention it's low?
^ I literally couldn't even pull out of my stupid driveway at this height. When I finally did, it rubbed the crap out of my fenders whenever I turned, so I raised it up a bit.
^ This is the ride height that is perfect. No rubbing at all, even when going fast on bumpy back roads. I would like to have it a little lower, and if I roll my fenders I could go much lower. it still had plenty of clearance on the inside, just not the edge. I may try it with some camber as well. I still have almost 3 inches left to go on the coilovers, and that doesn't include taking the locking nuts off. I must say I'm pretty impressed with myself, considering 2 days ago I looked up "how to adjust coilovers" on youtube.
Where she sits today:
Still running great too. In almost 4 years of ownership, I've never once been stranded. I've never got stuck in snow or anything, and actually taken it off road a few times. Shh. I love the SVX. I don't know what plans I have in the future, but I assume it will involve making it a little lower once I get out to sunny California. Plus, I'll be much closer to Stance Works headquarters out there.
The day I drove it home: October 26th, 2009:
The car was sharp and it drove fantastic. It was a BLAST in the snow, even with bald tires it got me everywhere.
Little did I know the directional wheels were on backwards...
My dad loved the car so much, that he broke his strict American-only car trend and bought a brand new Outback. He loved it and won't buy anything other than Subaru again.
...Then my girlfriend's dad's truck slid down his yard on Christmas day right into my car...
$4000 worth of damage later, I had it back again.
Some more pictures of the first couple years of owning it:
Took it to a couple SVX meets:
Made some soap (still for sale on my eBay, actually)
Built a spare tire subwoofer:
Bought a set of STi wheels with tires for $350. Ugly paint
Decided to repaint them gloss black with a red lip:
Then came winter. I had some fun.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJLC3u3EJVQ"]SVX Snow Drifting - YouTube[/ame]
Painted the stock wheels black and bought some beefy snow tires off of Craig's.
Then came spring. I was tired of the black wheel look, so I decided to try STi gold wheel paint from Grimmspeed. I was 100% satisfied.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO4HNGNfKdo"]David's Subaru SVX - YouTube[/ame]
I also redid my headliner, custom to match my big red beard:
(Not me in the picture) The wheels completely updated the look of the car, but it still wasn't perfect (read: low). In winter my strut mounts completely rusted away, lowering the rear of the car by a couple inches. Turns out my struts back there were shot, too.
I needed a new suspension. Every SVX owner who has even purchased an OEM suspension from Subaru has had it fail within a year or two due to them being on the shelves since the early 2000's, plus it's almost $2,000. Ceika and AMR were my next choices. AMR was being a douche bag and I didn't feel like supporting them, so I went with Ceika. Two months into the building period (promised to be about a month) I had to back out due to my suspension being so bad. I couldn't drive on two blown struts anymore.
*Sidenote* My wife ran into some troubles with her school and we are now moving to California to continue school out there, so I needed a suspension desperately.
So I had no suspension. Then I had remembered a couple people on subaru-svx.net talking about doing an STi suspension swap. I kind of didn't think towards it, because I didn't even know how to adjust coilovers at the time. After some research and talking to other people, I went out and bought a set of 05-07 STi coilovers from Raceland. Go on, reprimand me. Install took me about 10 hours. For this suspension to fit, two holes must be drilled into the body of the car for the front struts to fit in and one hole in the back. The front knuckle's lower hole needed to be drilled up 0.25" to fit. The back one's holes lined up perfectly, but the opening was too thin. Some heat and a pry bar made it fit like a dream.
Do you guys like my redneck garage?
The only drawback to this set up is there is no place for the front sway bar to mount to. It hardly does anything anyway though. The coilovers I bought came with 8k/5k (450 ft-lb/281ft-lb) which made me nervous at first because I **** bouncy rides, but it's smooth as can be. No body roll too, even without the sway bar up front. I'm completely satisfied. Oh, did I mention it's low?
^ I literally couldn't even pull out of my stupid driveway at this height. When I finally did, it rubbed the crap out of my fenders whenever I turned, so I raised it up a bit.
^ This is the ride height that is perfect. No rubbing at all, even when going fast on bumpy back roads. I would like to have it a little lower, and if I roll my fenders I could go much lower. it still had plenty of clearance on the inside, just not the edge. I may try it with some camber as well. I still have almost 3 inches left to go on the coilovers, and that doesn't include taking the locking nuts off. I must say I'm pretty impressed with myself, considering 2 days ago I looked up "how to adjust coilovers" on youtube.
Where she sits today:
Still running great too. In almost 4 years of ownership, I've never once been stranded. I've never got stuck in snow or anything, and actually taken it off road a few times. Shh. I love the SVX. I don't know what plans I have in the future, but I assume it will involve making it a little lower once I get out to sunny California. Plus, I'll be much closer to Stance Works headquarters out there.
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