'99 Subaru Forester Build

[casm]

New (well, remanufactured) engine goes in on Monday. We'll see how it does once it's in, but, assuming all is well after a few weeks, another inch of lift is planned.

 

[casm]

Picked it up yesterday from the shop. I'm about 30 or 40 miles in to a 500-mile break-in period (no revving over 4,000 rpm in that time) and have an early oil change scheduled for 1,000 miles. Can't really get much of a feel for it until both of those are out of the way, but power is noticeably improved, there's far less downshifting on hills, and overall it's doing what it should be. Another few weeks and I can start looking into the next stage of upgrades.

FWIW, the old engine was basically shot. Fuel in the oil was confirmed (again), one of the #4 exhaust valves had a burn/chip in it big enough to get a .177 BB through, and both the #1 and #4 cylinders were showing signs of shot rings (oil tracks at the bottoms of the bores). That it ran as well as it did under the circumstances for as long as it did is really rather remarkable, all things considered.

 

[casm]

Time for another update...

Picked it up yesterday from the shop. I'm about 30 or 40 miles in to a 500-mile break-in period (no revving over 4,000 rpm in that time) and have an early oil change scheduled for 1,000 miles. Can't really get much of a feel for it until both of those are out of the way, but power is noticeably improved, there's far less downshifting on hills, and overall it's doing what it should be. Another few weeks and I can start looking into the next stage of upgrades.

Just did the 1,000-mile oil change day before yesterday. No noticeable oil consumption, it was surprisingly clean, and the coolant level looks good as well. Despite an initial drop of a couple of inches in the overflow reservoir, it held that level from about 200 miles onwards. Things look promising, but I think I need to move back to a slightly hotter spark plug; I'm currently using NGK BKR6E-11s, when stock specs call for a BKR5E-11. We'll see; the upstream oxygen sensor was also replaced at around the 700-mile mark, so I'm waiting for the computer to fully catch up before doing another set of plugs.

In other news, I've ordered the next stage of the lift. Going by this thread on offroadsubarus.com, I'm adding another inch-and-a-quarter of lift with body lift blocks. On top of the 35mm springs (which settled by about 5mm over 10,000 miles) this should net somewhere between 55-60mm of lift, or roughly 2.25". They'll get here next Thursday if UPS is to be believed, but it'll be a week or two before I have the time to put them in. Haven't fully decided if I'll move to SG struts at that time or not; finances get to dictate that one.

Related to this, I also ordered an additional six lift blocks to space down the rear trailing arms with as part of the package. It looks like this may be a workable solution to the rear wheel tuck issue; I certainly hope so, given that there's really nothing off-the-shelf for it right now.

Anyway, work progesses. Next goal after this is to score a rooftop tent for cheap.

 

[tin]

I just read this thread. Is your Forester still running? Interested in updates.

 

[casm]

I just read this thread. Is your Forester still running? Interested in updates.

Ooof... Only just noticed this reply. Sorry for being less than fast to reply, but: the project is semi-stalled. The car is still running as a daily driver, but work and life are where I've had to focus on for the past few months.

That said: it's getting tyres soon (General Grabber AT2s, 215/65R16), which will add about a half-inch of clearance at the diffs. I'm waiting for the struts to be completely worn out before replacing them and putting the spacers in, which should happen sometime late summer if all goes according to plan. There's some other stuff I need to take care of in the meantime (I suspect the catalytic converter is shot, but can't confirm right now), so progress is slow.

 

[Perdue]

Ah, I remember seeing this Forester on craigslist a while back. I wanted to buy it for the same reason, but I already have a Legacy and Dodge to work on.

 

[casm]

Ah, I remember seeing this Forester on craigslist a while back. I wanted to buy it for the same reason, but I already have a Legacy and Dodge to work on.

Don't believe that you saw mine on there - I haven't put it up for sale, and when I bought it it was an unadvertised word-of-mouth find.

The General Grabber AT/2s have been on for about three months now, and are really great. Having had them in sand, dirt, and snow I'm impressed. The new catalytic converter also went in over this last weekend. Have only put about 75 miles on it so far, but power is noticeably improved. Fuel economy seems to be a bit better too, but it's really too soon to say.

Haven't really decided what I'm going to do with this vehicle yet. My gut feeling is drive it through the summer then decide, but we're rapidly reaching a point where we need to change vehicles and this one is becoming slightly superfluous.