Topic: Calgary forester sports - with technical help needed

[finboy]

Hello all, I just picked up my first subbie, a 2008 forester xt sports with 5mt. I bought it from Vancouver island, and am spending a couple days enjoying it out here before heading back to town. I will update photos and details as I get more time, for now I have some photos I stole from the ad











One problem I am having, the car came with great seats...but all the airbag sensors are MIA. I know I need a resister for the missing seat airbag, but I am looking to source the sensors to get the dash lights out. I have to get this thing through an OOP when I get back, so I am trying to figure out if I can either find some junkyard seats throw in, or if anyone has some seats I can borrow to get the inspection finished while I source the sensors and pressure pad.

[Dylan780]

Welcome to the club!

That Forester looks crazy clean, good find!!

[mojikita]

Congrats. You can change the seats or do the resistor mod.

https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=304495

[coop3422]

Nice pickup! Is this the one with the recently rebuilt engine that was for sale a month or 2 ago?

[finboy]

It is, factory shortblock with arp studs 20k ago, the new owner found it too low and bought a truck.

I have been referencing this thread, unfortunately the pics are gone from the corbeau install, but the description is good. I got the resistors from RadioShack (needle in a hay stack, the two I need are unlabelled and are in with 148 other values), and I have secured two seats with blown bags for $80 from an 08 in calgary. I actually have all the bags, so I could either try to transfer them in to pass, or just swap the seat pressure sensor for a permanent fix, will give it a look when I get back to town.

https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=996050

Anyways, fun stuff going through the records, of which there are many.
-rebuilt motor as stated above, arp studs, tomei headgaskets, adjustable cam gears
-“race clutch” and lightened flywheel marked on the rebuild sheet, no idea on brand but it is pretty heavy
-swift springs
-divorced downpipe and invida 3” cat back (have to work on the drone)
-Cobb sf intake
-remote starter and Bluetooth deck
-Cobb v3 access port

Now having seen the car in person
-there is some noise starting somewhere in the pulleys which I will have to get sorted eventually
-the seat rail is about a half inch too short making the clutch *just* annoying enough for my learning curve
-per above, airbag lights, this should be an adventure

I have been scouring threads for power making combos that will keep things reliable as I can’t afford to replace a motor or tranny at the moment, and after some emails with sunny I am looking at the following
-hunting for the right vf turbo, I think I have a line on a low mile one
-sti intercooler in my basement
-Cobb airbox in my basement
-walbro 255 in my basement
-need to find a Grimmspeed ebcs and various intercooler gaskets, turbo gaskets, etc. Who is a good source for Grimmspeed in town so I can avoid horrible shipping costs

Ideally I would like to take the above mods to 275ish whp, stock injectors should be the same size as an sti so I hope this is attainable.

[coop3422]

Thought it was. Been posted twice in the last year and caught my eye each time haha. Nice buy, last I saw it was priced very well for what it was. Good luck on the build!

[finboy]

Thanks, I was looking for an outback or legacy gt but finding one that has had the needed care performed, and hasn’t had a blown turbo or motor on the verge of going is frustrating. I’d written off foresters as I don’t like the standard xt, but this one definitely stood out.

[Scooby Brew]

That is one sweet Forester, tbh I am a little jealous I had not looked at one of these more.
Ah I love my Tk though, hmmm....maybe I can get one as a DD, two Subarus is never enough!

[ScubieDoobieDoo]

-need to find a Grimmspeed ebcs and various intercooler gaskets, turbo gaskets, etc. Who is a good source for Grimmspeed in town so I can avoid horrible shipping costs

I've got most of my stuff from Natty @ GT-R auto; good guy and always fair pricing

[SpdDmn]

Nice score! I saw the ad not too long ago too, it looks so minty and I'm jealous of your proper Sports headlights.

I have been referencing this thread, unfortunately the pics are gone from the corbeau install, but the description is good. I got the resistors from RadioShack (needle in a hay stack, the two I need are unlabelled and are in with 148 other values), and I have secured two seats with blown bags for $80 from an 08 in calgary. I actually have all the bags, so I could either try to transfer them in to pass, or just swap the seat pressure sensor for a permanent fix, will give it a look when I get back to town.

Ryan at Vex Performance swapped a set of seats for one of my Foresters - a Sports model that I wanted the Limited leather seats put into. Especially with all the parts you're looking to source (they have many gaskets in stock all the time), you should give the shop a call or shoot them an email   Trust me, I have forced Ryan into learning way more than he ever wanted to know about SG FXTs 

-divorced downpipe and invida 3” cat back (have to work on the drone)

We ended up welding in a resonator into my 3" TBE pipe, now it's very quiet. Too quiet for me, personally... But the trunk is just air and so little sound deadening on these!

Ideally I would like to take the above mods to 275ish whp, stock injectors should be the same size as an sti so I hope this is attainable.

Mine does about that with the EFR, ID1000s, and Walbro 450 (without the water meth, which adds ~100whp)

[finboy]

Thanks for all the feedback and information! I got the seats and found a video on YouTube so I will work on the interior surgery when I get back to calgary. The headlights are definitely the stock sports ones which I am thankful for, but the tail lights have me confused. According to most threads on nasioc, they should have a black housing, but I have seen quite a few 08’s online with the chrome housing. Part of me wonders if it was a Canadian model thing, I actually don’t mind on this colour as it matches the paint better.

I saw that there is a cruise planned for early July, unfortunately that is the day I am driving back from Creston for another vacation, but I will keep an eye out for other meet ups. I might stop by some of the beyond.ca meets on Wednesday, but will have to miss this next week for my running club, and a concert for sled island that my buddies are playing at.

[finboy]

Got the airbags sorted out, had to take half of the passenger death apart but the sensor bladder works! If I can get through the out of province, things should go smoother from there. One thing I did notice on the way home, aside from running quite rich, I hit (what I assume) was boost cut when passing a car. The CEL came on and the cruise light started flashing. I pulled over, checked nasioc, turned it on and off 5 times and everything seemed to go back to normal. I threw on the access port and monitored the boost levels for the rest of the trip, nothing outlandish, maybe 13psi peak got a couple? I got error codes that I will check out tomorrow, more research.

[deedz]

Very nice purchase, I had been watching this one on kijiji for quite a few months. I've always liked that color, SSM? Did you manage to get the original sports wheels with it too?

By the way, if you need to upgrade injectors I have a set of lightly used DW650's that I removed to go bigger. I'd let them go fairly cheap. They're slightly larger than the STi injectors.

[deedz]

Thanks for all the feedback and information! I got the seats and found a video on YouTube so I will work on the interior surgery when I get back to calgary. The headlights are definitely the stock sports ones which I am thankful for, but the tail lights have me confused. According to most threads on nasioc, they should have a black housing, but I have seen quite a few 08’s online with the chrome housing. Part of me wonders if it was a Canadian model thing, I actually don’t mind on this colour as it matches the paint better.

I saw that there is a cruise planned for early July, unfortunately that is the day I am driving back from Creston for another vacation, but I will keep an eye out for other meet ups. I might stop by some of the beyond.ca meets on Wednesday, but will have to miss this next week for my running club, and a concert for sled island that my buddies are playing at.

As far as I recall the black housing headlights and taillights were limited to US models, and we didn't get them in Canada.

I'm pretty sure that there was a very limited run of MY08 Forester Sports models released in Canada. They were basically the MY07 that the US released, but came standard with HID headlights, heated wipers, heated mirrors and heated leather seats which US Sports models did not. Essentially the Canadian models were an FXT Limited with the Sports front bumper and same colors as the US models.

My 07 Limited has both as well as a Sports front bumper including the genuine STi lip (ridiculously expensive), however all of those parts were ordered/added. Again if I recall correctly the black headlight/taillight part numbers  typically don't even show up for Canadian Subaru dealers. It seems as though they try to keep things limited that way.

[finboy]

Great info, it would explain why I see such variation, original wheels are long gone.