Mitch's 99 Forester S/tb Type A

[millhouse_5]

Done. Rad fit perfect minus the fact that the upper and lower mounts were broken off probably when the guy I bought it off rolled his car. I just placed it in where it was supposed to go and put some good thick bushings in between the mounts and the rad to hold it in place. It's in as firm as I care to push on the rad to test, so that's not going anywhere any time soon.

I ended up using the "stab with screwdriver" method to get the oil filter off and that wasn't working for the first little while so then I hit the screwdriver with the back of an axe. My screwdriver is in bad shape, but that's what it took to get the filter off. I ended up having to stab another hole in it because the 1/4 turn I got out of the first go with the screwdriver/axe wasn't enough to brake it loose to a level where I could get it off with my hands.

Anyway, the next step is bearings for the rear and then a road trip next weekend back to NS. Hopefully I can find where that whining sound is coming from first. Fingers crossed for boost leak.

[millhouse_5]

Bearings finished and it's so much quieter in the car. I didn't realize how much of the noise was wheel bearings and what was road noise until I was able to get rid of it. Turns out that the sound deadening in the forester is actually quite surprising.

Anyway, on to the better update. I've taken off the DZ102's and gone into Winter Mode! Blizzaks to be precise. So much fun to be had in the upcoming subaruing season

[rhdgc8]

Are you going to keep that front lip on or remove it for the winter? I would be scared to get it caught up on a snow bank. Looks like you do have some good ground clearance tho, unlike my wrx haha.

[millhouse_5]

I have thouhgt about it. Seems to be pretty strong on there but I would hate myself if i ever broke it off. I might have to look into how it comes off when the snow starts to come down. Would be very expensive to get another one from japan.

[jesse75]

I removed mine and sold it for that reason. They look great on a slammed Fozzie but any amount of lift and it actually looks odd compared to the stock (without the lip)

[jdmvip]

Hey Mitch your Forester is looking sick. If these guys had a bit more interior space we would have got one but for the family just not big enough unfortunately.

If the lip is made out of a strong material I would leave it on. It wouldn't cost much to have the lip professionally repainted and I think of it has protecting your bumper since the bumper is a pain to remove and paint vs the front lip.

[millhouse_5]

So now that NB winter has com into its element I've determined that the lip is on there really strong. So far the deepest snow I've plowed through is about 10" and I can safely say that the forester is more capable than the 2.5i by a good margin. I kept it in first the whole time and didn't really need to give it much gas as i just drove through it. The extra clearance is probably what attributed to that.

I did manage to get another little project done over the past month. Due to the forester having a higher audio range sound system I'm hearing the front speakers rattle themselves to death whenever I turn the bass up to a reasonable level. So to counter this I purchased an old Altec Lansing computer sound system with a little 6" sub and ripped it out of it's little box.
Once that was done i moved on to making a custom sub box for the forester so i could mount my new speaker without it being invasive.
I decided that the left rear storage area was perfectly sized for my speaker and a small port. I was able to get out the storage area and dampen it up with a generous coating of water proof metal tape which worked a lot better than you'd think. I then fiberglassed over the outer plastic edge piece to fill in the space and covered it with some old black fabric to make it look right.
I've got an amp on the way so for now it's just wired up as another left rear speaker, but even now I'm happy with the extra response I'm getting out of it.

[Nathyne]

Hopefully you get all that stuff sorted out! Those foresters are so damn ugly yet something still really makes me want one. So many cars so little time.

[rhdgc8]

Any updates?

[millhouse_5]

Nothing much really, I've just been enjoying the pros of having a vehicle with some cargo room.

With the suspension as it is I'm able to fit 20 bags of wood pellets in the back before it's lowered to the limit of my comfort area. I think 800 pounds of cargo is enough to ask of my wagon. Lots of room left, just not a high enough spring rate.

However I have purchased a 20mm rear sway bar that I will be installing in the spring when i won't stick to the ground if I try and install it. As for the rest of my suspension, I've got some D-specs pending and I hope to put some factory 04-07 STI springs on them. Not too low and plenty of handling capability. It still is a DD after all so any lowering springs would be bad for the winter, but a fist worth of fender gap is a bit excessive.