hi jay,
sorry to see you had trouble with your strut bar. mine is a bit different than yours; you can see a picture of it, well one side, but the side in question, if you search in this outlander forum under 'new wheels and tyres.' the last post, among too many others, on page 2 of that thread is mine, with four pictures of my car; the last being a close-up underhood shot showing the weapon-r air intake and the driver side of the strut bar. the bar rrm sold me is straight; yours is nicely bent. however, i would recommend removing it until you get rid of your airbox as it seems to be in the way and pushing it towards your brake fluid reservoir, but it's hard to see what's really happening on that side of your bar. that bend looks like it allows you to leave the black cover over the spark plugs; i had to remove mine to allow access with the straight bar. as far as the pulley goes, it's really easy once you get the plastic clips and covers off, and that's easy as well, merely a bit tedious. just try to keep the pieces in some order to enable you to easily reinstall the lot. If you take your time, it'll still be under two hours; in fact you'll take less time than i did since you won't have to call someone who knows, now, less than we; and you'll save more than a few sheckels....i'm starting to sound like that fellow on 'tricked-out'....whatever happened to that show? anyway, take a look at the pictures i posted, they may help you. unfortunately, i didn't think to take any of the pulley install. had i done so, you'd see how easy it really is. good luck whatever you decide to do, and show us some more pics!!!

 

What's going on Expositor?! Yeah the strut bar allows me to leave the black cover on. But it's not the intake that that is causing the problems. The strut bar actually clears the intake cover just fine, it's the clutch reservoir that is causing the issue. It's just a tad too big and the strut bar is in the way for it be in it normal position. I emailed RRM to see what they had to say about it, and they told me to just fabricate a hinge and just move the reservoir out of the way....uhhh okay, easiler said than done. But the only way to fix is to move it...I just don't know how yet...plus I'm kinda weary of drilling holes into my firewall for a new hinge. I'll figure something out this weekend. Thanks for the tip on the pulley. I'll find time to do it this weekend. I'll post pics as well.

 

it's that bend in your bar; if it's hitting the brake fluid reservoir, the bend isn't vertical, it's towards the firewall. if you check my picture, you'll see that mine is straight from one retaining tube to the other, and therefore lies forward and a bit below the reservoir. if you can't make a switch with rrm to the straight bar, which they made specifically for the outlander by the way, my only suggestion short of breaking the tack welds on the firewall for the reservoir bracket, is to turn the reservoir 90 degrees, whichever way those stiff rubber hoses to the master cylinder allow. at least it could be secured with one of the bolts, with the reservoir retaining tab obviously up and over the upturned edge of the bracket with a couple of washers to shim; and if you fabricate a small metal shim/bracket extension, you could secure one end to the bracket, and the other end to the now 'flying' side of the reservoir tab again using washers as additional shims, all the while hoping that those two bolts are long enough.....at least, if i'm at all correct, it will be more secure than it looks to be now. we first generation outlander owners are an unlucky lot when it comes to aftermarket 'upgrades.' anyway, i know your frustration first hand; if you could find my story about the weapon-r intake install, you might get a chuckle....good luck again, and don't give up!

 

More Updates:

I finally installed the pulley over the weekend and man what a difference! The RRM pulls is like 40% lighter and smaller than the OEM pulley. I noticed improvement down low and in acceleration right away. Worth every penny I paid for it. I forgot to take pics when it was getting install, but I do have a close up pic once it was installed and I'll post it up later tonight.

Also, I called KYB today to get an update on my front shocks that are on backorder...and well...they are still on backorder. But the lady @ KYB was nice enough to do some additional research for me and found a pair left out in their other warehouse. But they are coming from Cali to New Jersey and then from New Jersey to me. So the whole process should take about 2 weeks, which is fine since I need to save money for springs and to get them install.

 

Okay not really an update, but finally got some pics from making a bracket to allow the installation of the strut bar and a small hard to see pics of my pulley. Everything is coming together pretty well, the only thing about the pulley is that I noticed that when my car is idling/parking the lights are alittle dimmer, but when Irev the engine it gets brighter. Not a big deal I guess.

The shiny thingy is the new pulley.


This is alittle bracket we made from scrap to place the reservoir away from the strut bar.



Just a pic of the engine bay.

 

very nice pic's jay! the red bar looks good under there....keep up the good work!!!

 

So close to the res...............keep an eye on that!