Direct 'Dear Dave' tech letters to: dave@eyesoreracing.com
Coleman will share mind-numbing details, earth-shattering revelations, and technical nerdisms in this space each month.
Q. Ballistic Toaster
I have a 2004 Subaru Forester XT (2.5-liter turbo) with a manual transmission. I've been told that this is a WRX platform and was wondering where I should spend my money in modding it. It won't see much, if any, track use and it's still my daily driver. I've heard there is a Forester STi suspension set-up to improve handling, but I'm not too sure where I should go with power.
I'm trying to mod something a little different and make some of the VW and Nissan drivers think a little before messing with me. The plan is for an all-round sleeper wagon with light-to-moderate snow duty in the winter.
Bunmi Aremu
Manassas, VA
Answer
I did a day-after-Christmas drive from San Francisco to LA in a Forester XT and my life has never been the same since. The day started dreary, staring down the barrel of a 400-mile traffic jam but, about 75 miles in, the Forester opened up a whole new world.
Interstate 5 is a straight, featureless four-lane hell stretching across the vast, arid plains east of San Francisco, made incomprehensibly worse by thousands of restless, angry vacationers brake-checking each other. After 10 miles of this, I was ready to shoot myself. After 50, I was ready to shoot everyone else.
At mile 75, I got off at the only exit for 15 miles in either direction. There were no paved roads here, only a quartet of packed gas stations with lines of pee-pee dancing kids. Unable to face the crowds and unwilling to rejoin the southbound conga-line of rage, I pointed the Forester west and mashed the gas. Destination be damned, I needed out.
The road devolved to a pair of tire tracks skirting the edge of a dirt farm. The Forester devoured the rutted trail at 70mph. When I finally came to a fence, I turned left, on the logic that south is the direction of LA, and at least I could get lost in the right direction.
I did get lost. Fantastically lost. The roads went from dry dirt, to pot-holed pavement, to deep mud to snow. I stumbled upon New Idria, an abandoned mining town that once survived by digging lead and asbestos out of the ground and poisoning the world with it. I passed slack-jawed ATV riders whose sense of isolation was shattered by the sight of a suburban brat-fetcher powersliding past them in axle-deep mud. The stress of holiday traffic was forgotten, replaced with an unparalleled sense of freedom and invincibility.
When the dirt ended, I found myself on Highway 25, not only one of the best back roads in California, but also decidedly in the right direction to get me home. Here, the very same vehicle that just carried me through the slickest and thickest stuff nature can concoct out of mere dirt and water turned into a sports car. A tall, boxy, kinda sloppy sports car, but pretty capable nonetheless. I attacked the road with triple-digit pace, hurling the big wagon into lurid drifts and leaving four skidmarks out of every corner. There is no other car, I'm convinced, that combines back-road joy and off-road agility so effectively.
What I'm trying to say is: be careful how you tune this thing. If you follow the standard bumpstop-thumping tuning process, all you'll end up with is the world's dumbest-looking lowrider. If you don't maintain the Forester's any-surface flexibility, why are you tolerating its cardboard-box styling?
I've never driven a Forester STi. It's probably good, but I'm a cheap bastard, so here's what I would do: prowl the forums for someone upgrading the suspension on their WRX STi and buy their stock suspension on the cheap. Mounting points are the same, but the WRX's shorter struts will drop the car over two inches.