Racing Brake H6 rear upgrade install.

You can read about the install over HERE at NASIOC.com

My rear discs were in terrible, terrible shape. I guess 114k miles does a number on pretty much anything. The 266mmx10mm solid discs felt fine when cold, but as soon as they started warming up, the whole car would *shudder* *shudder* under braking. A real positive, confidence building feel, ya know? When I got my wheels bearings replaced at 110k I decided then to perform the ever popular H6 rear disc upgrade for the Subaru Impreza. There is a few different ways you can go about this:

1. Buy all the OEM parts at a Subaru dealership (online/local)
2. Buy just the H6 brackets from a Subaru dealer, and buy your own favorite brand of discs in the same size.
3. Buy a whole kit online that gives you everything you need to do the upgrade. (aka Racing Brake kit)

I went ahead and bought the whole Racing Brake kit from Boxer 4 Racing based out of North Carolina. The around $300 kit came with *red* Racing Brake H6 sized caliper brackets, Racing Brake solid slotted discs in 290mmx10mm, and Hawk HPS pads (D770 style). I wasn’t too fond of the whole red bracket action so I purchased some black caliper paint at my local Shucks. (Duplicolor caliper paint sucks BTW, but I will leave that for another post.)

There is other options besides the H6 upgrade for Subaru Impreza owners that want more rear brake bias. All of them are most costly and complicated when compared to the H6 upgrade. Like the Legacy GT rear brakes which are a massive 290mmx18mm vented design but they require new parking brakes which can be a PITA. A few NASIOC’ers went that route and wished they had just went for the H6 size rotors, simply more bang for buck.

Suspension install prep work

I was going crazy waiting for my suspension bits to show up. I have never really modified a car before so I didn’t know exactly what it was going to be like. I had most of the tools that I needed to do the job correctly without an air compressor, but there was still a few bits that I had to grab before the parts showed up.

1. passthrough socket set by Kobalt; comes with 3/8″ and 1/4″ drive ratchets and assorted sockets. Awesome kit!
2. 19mm 1/2″ drive impact socket for the hard as hell to suspension bolts
3. A BFH (a engineer’s hammer in my case, an awesome BFH BTW)
4. 1/2″ 3′ long breaker bar, I wanted to save wear and tear on my 1/2″ ratchet
5. 4′ section of black pipe for leverage
6. Brake cleaner, WD-40, PB blaster, Caliper paint

It took me a few days of searching to find what tools I liked and didn’t like. Running between Sears, Home Depot, Lowe’s and Ace’s until I found all the stuff I liked.

Then finally the parts came in. First was the Tokico D-spec struts and Prodrive springs, sourced from CVR Motorsports. There was a 2 month backorder on the struts, apparently they are crazy popular for Subaru drivers and Tokico cannot make them fast enough. Second set of packages was two boxes from Subaru Genuine Parts which contained the Subaru Group-N strut mounts. Once you handled them you could tell that they were considerably firmer than the OEM mounts. Last and heaviest was the Racing Brake H6 rear upgrade kit from Boxer 4 Racing. They came with Hawk HPS pads which I was actually troubled me somewhat as I live in Alaska and I still want good pads for the winter.

Ah the beginning.

I have finally started modding my car. It only took, what… 6 years?

I originally bought the car in Aug 2001. A brand spanking new 2002 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS with plans of modding the suspension and eventually installing a turbo. I bought a used Ganzflow air intake in early 2002 and installed it in the dead of winter. Great times. And then I end up buying a house in 2003.

Time flows fast, let me tell you.

So now it is over halfway through 2007; the car has 110,000 miles and there is a few things wrong with the car.

1. Struts are crazy old and worn. Driver rear is blown.
2. Rear discs are warped pretty bad, you can really tell once they warm up a bit.
3. Bushings are old and loose.
4. Passenger rear wheel bearing is bad.

I had some vacation time coming up in July, so I went and ahead and ordered a few upgrades for the ride.

1. Racing Brake H6 (290mm) rear brake upgrade
2. Tokico D-Spec struts
3. 02-03 Prodrive Springs
4. Subaru Group-N strut top mounts for all four corners
5. Subaru 25mm Front Sway bar

We shall see just how far this rabbit hole goes.

New Subaru Blog

Well I finally decided to make a Subaru blog since I am going to be performing a slew of upgrades to my car. I plan to take a lot of pictures and do a few write ups about what I have done, hopefully someone will find it useful or at least humorous . (At my expense!)