On The Bench: Project Forester XT

The next trip to GSD was a little better. Had them install a Grimmspeed EBCS and throw a tune in her.

219 to 252!! What a nice gain for the money. No more oiling problems, no more CEL. And man does she go. I barely let her off the leash and she is bucking to go faster. I had her up to 110 when Alex and I took her out for a post-Dyno street run. Completely by accident of course. He was very impressed. What a great job they do down there. Thanks, Alex and the gang.

The next Upgrade, once the engine was all taken care of, is the brakes. YOu cannot run a fast car with stock brakes now can you...

Out with the Old...

The Stoptech Rotors and Pad are great. they look nice too. I am slowly upgrading the calipers. I have one on now and more to come. All Stoptech of course. Red is the color of the season, so Blue stocks are being replaced. Sorry about the Winter wheels. They are old Volks that I painted. The paint looks better than the wheels alone if that tell you anything. Spring will bring new, shinier wheels I hope haha.

UPDATE: 10 February 2016

Sprang a leak in my stock radiator. Dang. Time for a new one. I talked to a few people and it seems that the AUTO Forester requires a transmission cooler that is internally part of the radiator itself to maintain a steady oil temperature. I wanted to install a Mishimoto but none come with a Automatic tranny cooler. An external cooler will cool the oil too much and bypassing the cooler would overheat the fluid. Good to know. So I went and installed a Stock KOYO Radiator which comes with a cooler. Added some nice UPGR8 red silicone Hoses and performed an in-home coolant flush. The hoses look nice...
Turns out some of the hoses did not go in. But the good news is, I have STI hoses if I ever need them.

Another update:

Unfortunately, It is finally time to let the old WIP go. I am getting married and money is tight. It is been a great run with lots of memories and a great deal of learning accomplished. I am sure I will find I have another Subaru in my garage soon enough. The XT has to find a new home. Good-bye dear friend. May you run forever and always lead from the front.

New site means new journal. Time to start again it seems. No worries though because Ill rehash all that I have done to my project up until today in one short list.

Purchased my 2004 Subaru Forester XT In April 2013!!!
My first Modification was tinted windows. 10% all around. What a difference in appearance alittle thing like that can make.

After running all summer completely stock under the hood I decided to start working on a few upgrade. Man Did I have a lot to learn about self-modification. Project #1 was going to be a bigger intercooler. Thought that a WRX intercooler for $20.00 was a good idea. Looks turned out to be deceiving but the install looked ok for a small upgrade...

The next project was the wheels. Over the winter the wheels started to show signs of chipping and age. So I like spoked wheels, let us swap them out for a set of larger, nicer ones.

Summer 2014 rolled around and I left her alone for a while. But fate, as it would turn out, had other plans for me and my little car...

And that folks is how the world ends...not with a bang but with a sigh. And a rattle, and a clank, and chatter, and then silence. Crap! Well, Time for an upgrade. Sucks that it is the middle of winter. But good because tax returns have come in. It was time for a full upgrade. Stage 2 here I come!!.

Cobb AP, Walbro Fuel Pump, FP Green turbo brand new, High flow catted DP, Catless Up Pipe, and a 2004 STi Cat-back exhaust. I installed them all myself. Thank you, Unabomber for all the helpful forum threads, And a shout-out to all my Mainely Subaru friends for the support and the parts.

The larger Turbo. Little TD04 meat your replacement. Forced Performance Green. Boom! Boom because after driving it to Granite State Dyno, she went BOOM. Who would have known that a little filter can cause so much destruction!!

Just so happens that once I crossed the NH state line, with the world at my feet...chinka chinka chinka chinka tink tink tink. There goes that idea...
Once I limped her home, I gave Mike a ring at Meyagi Automotive. Picked up a Larger Intercooler, a Blouch Td05 16G-XT with 8cm turbine housing from NASIOC for $500.00 and had Mike install it all including the removal of that one little filter that ruined a perfectly good turbo in 50 miles. Lesson Learned. It took a few months to get all the parts and have them installed, but Mike was awesome and did a fantastic Job.

While the car was on the lift, I found a great deal on new wheels. Forum Market Fishing found a nice catch. I needed to look good for the dyno.