Fixing minor problems in the running gear

Struts
As the race car's conversion progresses, we find that we need to further customize parts. Case in point: Our Ground Control Advanced Design struts. They bolt right in, but when we set the ride height as low as we can get it, the fronts have too little room for travel.

A quick call to Ground Control explains the problem. The struts are designed for the Impreza with it's differential in the normal position. When you lower the car as far as we have, the half shafts from differential to wheel would hit the frame of the car. So there was no point for Ground Control's Impreza strut to be designed to be set so low.

We explain that our diffs will be custom mounted. Ground Control cheerfully offers to swap a shorter set of Advanced Design front struts to replace ours. We disassemble the front suspension and ship the struts off.

Studs
Our ARP racing studs arrive. They are exactly as advertised. We just did not check all the dimensions we needed.
Here are three studs. The one in the middle is the stock Impreza stud. The one on the right is the ARP ½ -20 Racing stud. Notice that the knurled section on the ARP stud is substantially longer than the knurled section on the stock stud. That means the knurled section will protrude from the hub (where it keeps the stud from spinning) and into the rotor and wheel. Either we drill out the rotor and partially drill out the wheel holes or we modify the stud. The stud on the left is what we decided to do.

Modifying the stud was not that difficult. We placed it in the lathe and turned a section down. It was doing it twenty five times (four wheels with five studs and five spares) that was a pain.

Rotors
Our Subaru came without ABS (Antilock Braking System). We are not planning to use ABS, but we would like to read wheel speed in our data acquisition system. The best way is to read off the ABS sensors. We can get these off an Impreza that came with the optional ABS system. We use Car-parts.com to locate and buy Impreza hubs with ABS from a junked car.

When they arrive, we discover that the brake rotor we have, will not quite fit over the sensor wheel. ABS equipped Imprezas seem to have come with a larger rotor. Since most of our stopping should be done by the regenerative braking system, we want our rotors to be as small and as light as possible. So rather than purchase the larger rotors, we modify the ones we have. Red arrow shows cutter, blue arrow shows cut

We put the rotor on the lathe and cut down the interfering lip. End result: A close but clean fit.