It all started back in late 2003.
The lease on my Wife;s(then girlfriend) Honda Civic was coming up and she was looking around for a new car. The dealership I work for had taken a 2001 Forester S in on trade and me being the Subaru fiend that I am decided to take it home for the night. She drove around in it for a little while and completely loved it except for the fact that it had a slushbox(I had taught her how to drive my WRX not long before that and she wanted a manual).
After she had made the decision what kind of car she wanted we searched and searched for a manual trans Forester S(had to have the Gigantor moonroof) and happened upon one at another local dealer. It was a Diamond Black Pearl 2002 S Premium, 58k miles, 5 spd, heated seats, moonroof, the works. We ended up getting the dealer I work for to buy it from the other place to save us some money and hassle. I don't have any pics of it in stock form but I am sure most of us know what they look like. :biggrin:
The car stayed stock for a long time as it was my Wife's and I had my WRX to play with. I sold the WRX last year and was just driving around in a beater while looking for another car for my Wife(she likes to drive newer cars and hers was not up to 120k miles). Since I didn't have a toy to play with anymore, I started to think about modding the '02(it was going to be mine after her new car arrived.
The Beginning
Her car had started throwing a CEL for the cat malfunctioning, it wasn't too surprising as it was still the original one, as well as an exhaust leak on the front midpipe flange due to a deteriorated donut gasket. My "modder" mentality kicked in and decided that since I had to buy a new cat I would just pick up a High Flow aftermarket one and since I was going to have a HFC, I should just pick up a set headers and a catback as well. I ordered a set of Ebay replica headers, a Stromung HFC, a Magnaflow resonator, and an '07 STI catback to be installed. Everything fit well after the catback was modded to have the extra length and resonator installed into it and I was happy, for now.
Now it's ON!
Since I had already started with the modding, I decided to just go forth with any ideas that came into my head. The Wife wouldn't mind, right?
There was a Group Buy on Group A lightweight pulley sets on RS25.com so I picked up one of those and started the search for a Cobb CAI. Found the intake after a week or so and bought that figuring that would be good enough for power mods.
I also wanted to move on to the suspension. Here was the plan:
WRX struts(I picked up a new set of Tokico HPs)
WRX wagon springs(Got some RCEs)
STI Group N strut tops
Front and Rear sway bars(Whiteline solid 22mm in the front and 22mm adjustable in the rear)
Rear sway bar mounts(Whiteline again)
Heavy Duty endlinks on both ends(Whiteline front and Kartboy Rears)
Front and Rear strut bars(Whiteline, yet again)
Offset caster Bushings(Whiteline)
Removal of front spacer blocks(thanks for the help Travis)
I also had the following parts laying around so I put them in as well:
WRX steering rack
Whiteline RCAs
Whiteline Outrigger bushings
Super Pro steering rack bushings.
The suspension install was loong but went well but I had to move in to the trans...........
The lease on my Wife;s(then girlfriend) Honda Civic was coming up and she was looking around for a new car. The dealership I work for had taken a 2001 Forester S in on trade and me being the Subaru fiend that I am decided to take it home for the night. She drove around in it for a little while and completely loved it except for the fact that it had a slushbox(I had taught her how to drive my WRX not long before that and she wanted a manual).
After she had made the decision what kind of car she wanted we searched and searched for a manual trans Forester S(had to have the Gigantor moonroof) and happened upon one at another local dealer. It was a Diamond Black Pearl 2002 S Premium, 58k miles, 5 spd, heated seats, moonroof, the works. We ended up getting the dealer I work for to buy it from the other place to save us some money and hassle. I don't have any pics of it in stock form but I am sure most of us know what they look like. :biggrin:
The car stayed stock for a long time as it was my Wife's and I had my WRX to play with. I sold the WRX last year and was just driving around in a beater while looking for another car for my Wife(she likes to drive newer cars and hers was not up to 120k miles). Since I didn't have a toy to play with anymore, I started to think about modding the '02(it was going to be mine after her new car arrived.
The Beginning
Her car had started throwing a CEL for the cat malfunctioning, it wasn't too surprising as it was still the original one, as well as an exhaust leak on the front midpipe flange due to a deteriorated donut gasket. My "modder" mentality kicked in and decided that since I had to buy a new cat I would just pick up a High Flow aftermarket one and since I was going to have a HFC, I should just pick up a set headers and a catback as well. I ordered a set of Ebay replica headers, a Stromung HFC, a Magnaflow resonator, and an '07 STI catback to be installed. Everything fit well after the catback was modded to have the extra length and resonator installed into it and I was happy, for now.
Now it's ON!
Since I had already started with the modding, I decided to just go forth with any ideas that came into my head. The Wife wouldn't mind, right?
There was a Group Buy on Group A lightweight pulley sets on RS25.com so I picked up one of those and started the search for a Cobb CAI. Found the intake after a week or so and bought that figuring that would be good enough for power mods.
I also wanted to move on to the suspension. Here was the plan:
WRX struts(I picked up a new set of Tokico HPs)
WRX wagon springs(Got some RCEs)
STI Group N strut tops
Front and Rear sway bars(Whiteline solid 22mm in the front and 22mm adjustable in the rear)
Rear sway bar mounts(Whiteline again)
Heavy Duty endlinks on both ends(Whiteline front and Kartboy Rears)
Front and Rear strut bars(Whiteline, yet again)
Offset caster Bushings(Whiteline)
Removal of front spacer blocks(thanks for the help Travis)
I also had the following parts laying around so I put them in as well:
WRX steering rack
Whiteline RCAs
Whiteline Outrigger bushings
Super Pro steering rack bushings.
The suspension install was loong but went well but I had to move in to the trans...........