k3nj11

Well, I figure I should probably start one of these soon or else I'll get so lost in what all I've done that I'll just say f*ck it,

At any rate, I picked up my 2004 Subaru Forester 2.5XS back in September of 2011. She had just over 83,000 when I rescued her from the B-Lot I found her on. The mileage was pretty good and she had all the options I was looking for as well as being in the PERFECT color. She was, however, a little worse for the wear as it was apparent that any of the previous owners didn't quite love her like they should've. Originally, the B-Lot was asking $12,500 for her but after some "negotiating", I was able to whittle them down to $8,700 and decided that was good enough.

I had actually been searching for the better part of about 2 years but really started in earnest back in May when I did some work to my "other car" that basically made it to where it wasn't really Winter capable anymore. I'd been toying around with the idea of picking up a Forester for a while and think that they make great, multi-purpose vehicles with TONS of potential for all sorts of stuff......not to mention the styling isn't too shabby either.

My "other vehicle" is being slowly but surely transformed into a purpose built track car so I wanted something that would do me well but I could still have some fun with and work on when/how I wanted. This lead me to have the idea of building the Ultimate DD for myself. I have many many plans for my "Fozzy" but for now, she will be my Project 2.5XSTi.....

Brakes
-Stock

Exterior
-TRS Bi-xenon Morimoto Mini Stage III Kit (H1) w/E46-R shrouds and 6000k bulbs
-OEM Splash/Mud Guards (fronts only)
-OEM XT Rear Spoiler
-OEM XT Door Handles
-OEM XT Roof Rails
-Importology Front Lip
-Importology Eye Lids
-Importology Grille
-JDM Rain Visors
-JDM Fender Markers (Turn Signals)
-Subtle Soultions JDM "F" License Plate Delete (clear) with backer (black)
-15% Tint all around

Interior
-STi 5-spd Shift Knob
-Custom Forester STi Limited Heated Leather Interior
-Forester "Subaru" all-weather floormats (Fall/Winter)
-Updated HVAC controls (05-08)
-Ver9 STi Steering Wheel
-FSTi ebrake assembly
-Prodriven Auto LED Interior Lighting
-Matte Black Vinyl Wrapped Center Console (By Tex)
-Subtle Solutions Dead Pedal
-STi Key Blank for the Forester (Not Ground at this time)

Motor
-Stock

Suspension
-TiC REAR trailing arm bushings
-TiC GC and GD FORWARD trailing arm bushings
-STi Trailing Arm Brackets

Transmission
-Kartboy 5-spd Short Shifter
-TiC 5MT Lever Pivot Bushings
-TiC 5MT Linkage Update
-Kartboy Rear Shifter Stay Bushing
-Kartboy 5MT Front Shifter Stay Bushing
-TiC Tranny Crossmember Bushings
-5MT Group N Transmission Mount

Wheels
-Stock


Now enough of my flabbering and on with teh pictarz!

(All pictarz -->T3h_F0zzy pictures by black_night06 - Photobucket)

k3nj11

Thread Starter

k3nj11

Thread Starter

k3nj11

Thread Starter

So, my first Mod was.............a WRX shift knob



If you look up in a couple of the interior shots that I posted, you can see a REALLY goofy looking shift knob of some sort. As it turns out, when the B-Lot got a hold of Project 2.5XSTi, it was missing it's shift knob so what did they do? They sent "Timmy" down to Auto Zone (or wherever) and he just grabbed the first thing he saw. The darn thing didn't even fit on there right. I had to remove it and just grab the all-thread in order to shift starting on my drive home. Needless to say, having a shift knob versus no shift knob makes a HUGE difference.

k3nj11

Thread Starter

Not too long after this, I started to talk to a friend of mine who has an '04 XT and I noticed his interior was a little different. Upon further investigation (and/or just flat out opening one of his car doors), I discovered that he had put "Limited" seats into his own Fozzy and as such. He did a little research on his own end and found that the color of the STi Limited seats VERY closely matched his XT Limited leather interior so he just swapped out the stock XT front seats for some STi Limited front seats he was able to source.

I thought to myself, this is something I MUST have b/c while the stock seats are fairly comfy, they don't do a whole lot for you in terms of support or sportiness. Well, I contacted a relatively local shop (Silverline Automotive) to see what they had in stock and with a little convincing I was able to acquire the following:

-STI Limited leather front seats
-XT Limited leather rear seats
-XT Limited leather door cards
-New '06 STi seat bases
-New Black STi floormats




Now all I have to do is acquire a black XT carpet or just have one custom cut (leaning towards this one right now) and I'll be set!

k3nj11

Thread Starter

So I started to think to myself, ya know, Gold wheels on an AWP Subie just so happen to look pretty darn awesome and thus the hunt began. I really only wanted Gold colored wheels but as time went on, I decided I wanted to keep with more of an OEM look, especially with what my overall plans are for my Project 2.5XSTi.

Instead of just looking for Gold wheels, I decided to narrow it down to what seemed like darn near an impossible find, '04 STi Gold BBS's for a decent price and not totally garbaged either. Man, for the longest time I thought this was going to be impossible to attain since these wheels were only made over the course of 1 year and EVERYBODY covets those things. Still, search on I did and eventually I found a member over on IWSTI that was thinking about selling his. After a bit of conversation with him I was able to convince him to to sell me his '04 STi Gold BBS (with tires) for a whopping $1000. OUCHIES! More than I originally wanted to pay but what I later found out made it totally worth the price being asked....










Other than still being a bit dirty, this is the only real blemish there is on any of them....




What came as even more as a surprise was that these were the tires....





YES!!!!! I just scored a full set of Gold '04 STi BBS's with RE-01R's wrapped on them (still have about 3/4 tread life in them) all for that awesome price!!!! So totally worth the $1,000 I paid IMHO.

k3nj11

Thread Starter

Now for any of you watching at this point, stay tuned because I have some more extremely awesome news to go along with what all I've just posted but I have yet to take the pics of any of it yet so it'll have to wait until I can get around to doing that.


Until then, I will leave you with the pics of my "other car" named Blackbird and Project 2.5XSTi sitting pretty together. Enjoy!

onemanzu

what a good start. seeing what you're capable makes me confident, the forester will be sick.

__________________
H-Stock #78 --- f --- Omz's Foz

2cam16

Nice. Subscribed

__________________
-Rob-
'01 S Sedona Red Pearl

abacall

Excellent. Love the Impreza!

__________________
My Foz is gone
But the STi lives!

jgrote

You don't mess around. I assume you plan on drivetrain upgrades? Nice "other car" too.

__________________
04 X a/t
00 L a/t w/ 200K!

k3nj11

Thread Starter

Thanks!



Thank you much good sir!

I try to be as efficient as possible when it comes to attaining my goals with what I want, especially when it comes to my vehicles. I do indeed plan on certain, ehem, "drivetrain" upgrades but that'll be a little later on down the road. First things first.

k3nj11

Thread Starter

So after driving Project 2.5XSTi around for a few months and swapping back and forth between it and my "other car", there was obviously going to be a HUGE difference. Even when my "other car" was in stock for it was leaps and bounds beyond what Project 2.5XSTi is in stock form. There are many MANY reasons for this and I'm sure most of us are all aware of them. That being said, I decided it was time to rectify my biggest gripe about it and start sourcing some parts to make it handle and ride a bit better than she does in stock form. Once again, after searching around a bit over on IWSTI, I found what I was looking for....

k3nj11

Thread Starter

......yup, I scored a set of '04 STi strut assemblies. As ya'll can see, there's a decent amount of rust and they are pretty dirty but it's nothing too serious. I looked around at the rust and there isn't anything that couldn't be cleaned up with a wire brush or wire wheel. I also looked around for any excess grease or oil leakage and didn't see anything there either when it came to that either. All in all, for what I paid for them to be shipped and with only 60k on them it wasn't too shabby a deal I'd say.

Just need to use a little elbow grease and clean up the bodies, remove all the surface rust and repaint them, and then disassemble them and re-grease it all and they'll be good to go!

k3nj11

Thread Starter

OOOOOooooooohhhhhhh!

More awesome parts to add to the growing list arrived earlier today!

Wish I could take pics but seeing as it's just after 1am I don't think they'll turn out too well.....oh well, that's what tomorrow is for!