By Nathan Bagster
A few months ago, Randy Wades did an article on my Daily Driver, Beatrice. You can read it here – In it, we mentioned that I was planning a few low buck suspension modifications to help with the wet paper bag that is the handling of a stock Forester. Well, I got started on it and I figured I would do a quick write-up!
First things first, let me address my expectations here, so you know where my baseline is.
I’ve driven quite a few cars in my short years: From several late 70’s G-Bodys to modern Corvettes and Hellcats, and everything in between.
So, I have a basic understanding of how a well-mannered car should, and shouldn’t, handle. I’ve also done a bunch of research into suspension components, and their effects on drivability and made some basic modifications to my ’78 Monte Carlo. The car I succeeded in getting to handle fairly well with extremely low buck or fabricated parts.
And if you know anything about the G-Body shuffle, that’s saying something.
Now, I’m nowhere near a master of performance, or genius in that right, but I do know how I want a vehicle to act under certain conditions. And let me tell you, the Forester is not it.
The Complaint
When taking wide corners at 30 mph, the body leans like a one-legged pirate. Bumps? Can barely feel them, which is great for leisure, not for handling. And forget about take-off – The AWD system throws the nose right into the air for the whole 2 seconds that the whopping 160 lbs. of torque is in control.
All in all, it feels like the car is ready to jump off a cliff if I drive over a banana peel. That’s a two-parter joke.
What is the goal then? I want to reduce body lean, have some sharper responsiveness from the car, and be able to carve curves at will. All that sounds out of bounds with a Forester, until you start doing a little surfing on them-there forums. Surprisingly, Subarus are much like the G-body cars that I have experience with, in the fact that many of the models are plug-and-play like Legos.
I will admit, the aftermarket for the Forester isn’t huge, in fact, it’s downright lame. That is until you start looking into the Impreza line. After a dedicated research session, I found out what parts swap over, what years are interchangeable, and basically, what a decent setup for an Impreza/Forester is. I also found out that I can’t afford any of it.
While the guys online are talking about how cheap the aftermarket is for these cars, I was looking at $200-$300 price tags for simple things like bottom-of-the-line sway bars. And truthfully, that’s pretty good. But to someone who is used to working on 40-year-old vehicles and usually pays next to nothing for parts, or fabs stuff up, that is a huge bill.
Plus, let’s be honest, I’m a writer and I’m poor.
I needed to look for the next best thing; take-offs and junkyard parts. After a mind-numbing search through Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, and seeing similar prices to new ones, I decided to change up my tactics.
The Fix
You would be surprised to hear that the Monadnock Region doesn’t really have many places to look for parts, with Buffum’s Salvage being the only local part yard. But it is my old go-to, so I packed up some tools and headed over. And with the luck of the car gods shining on me, I found a donor candidate in the form of a 2007 Subaru Impreza Outback edition.
An interesting thing to note about the Forester and the Impreza is that they are the same car underneath. From ’03 to ’08, pretty much everything is interchangeable, with a few outlier parts. And that was good for me.
With my mental list, I started taking stock of the ’07 and what I was going to take: I wanted a bigger rear sway bar, stiffer strut assemblies, better end links, and potentially strut tower bracers.
I got the struts. For a total of $120 – compare that to the $500+ price tags online.
Unfortunately, the sway bar on the ’07 was a smaller size than the one on my car, and that was no bueno. There were no tower bracers, and frankly, the rest of the parts were worn out. Luckily though, the rear strut assemblies were newer, with some clean paint on them, and the fronts passed the bounce test with flying colors. That, and I learned something I hadn’t online – the lower lateral links had 2 tabs to support the sway bar end links, whereas my forester had only 1.
With my new knowledge, and new to me parts, I went home and the swap began.
The whole thing was fairly quick, taking about 3 hours in total, and I made out only ruining one spindle bolt. The trouble came when I finished the rear and went for my test ride. I found that the driver’s rear spring perch was digging straight into my oversized tire (215/65R16).
I made a U-turn and lifted the car back up.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it honestly, since the passenger side fit perfectly. My first thought was to loosen the spindle bolts and drive the thing inward, and since it wasn’t a camber bolt, it wouldn’t affect things too badly. But I thought better of it. Instead, I called up Big Joe Hammer and beat the spring perch up to the sky until it cleared the tire a comfortable amount.
Was this the best approach? Probably not. Do I care? Not really.
Slapping the tire back on, I took the thing for a cruise. Despite my turning the front camber bolts inward until they stopped pulling the spindle, the car handled really well.
Though I will be taking it for a real alignment at some point. Other than that, the suspension was stiffer, the steering more responsive, and some of the body roll had diminished from the 2-inch height drop that was gained (I forgot to mention the big difference between Forester and Impreza struts is the 2-inch height.)
For the most part, it handled around curves better and didn’t feel like the car was sloshing around, though my ass is still getting used to feeling every bump in the road now. I’m still feeling out the new quirks of the car and have yet to push it, but I’m excited to see the improvements already.
My next step is to find a bigger rear sway bar, preferably a 21mm, to replace the puny 17mm of the Forester, and eventually upgrade the lateral links to the Impreza 2 tabs. From there, hopefully, I’ll find or fab up some tower bracers, and see how it handles. For now, I’m going to enjoy the cheap upgrade and find a softer seat.
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