I bought a Subaru, and don’t own a flat brim hat (Subaru forester xt build)

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

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1753/...728b4472_c.jpg

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Anyways, fun stuff going through the records, of which there are many.
-rebuilt motor, 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

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.

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.

Great looking car, love Subaru's but scared of the maintenance costs of owning one :)

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Originally Posted by craigcd

Great looking car, love Subaru's but scared of the maintenance costs of owning one :)

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Subies are cheap to maintain. Unless you drive like a boy-racer douche, dumping the clutch every light, etc. Even then though, super easy to work on.

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Originally Posted by Tik-Tok

Subies are cheap to maintain. Unless you drive like a boy-racer douche, dumping the clutch every light, etc. Even then though, super easy to work on.

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I have heard this and will own one at some point I am sure. Regardless, lets not take away from the OP's thread! Clean car, excited to see it evolve!

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Originally Posted by craigcd

I have heard this and will own one at some point I am sure. Regardless, lets not take away from the OP's thread! Clean car, excited to see it evolve!

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Subarus are like lego and actually enjoyable and easy to work on.

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congrats and nice looking forester!

im anxiously awaiting for our civic to die so that I can get a forester :rofl:

Nice pick up. I never noticed how nice those look until now and had to look up to see if that was stock.

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Originally Posted by craigcd

Great looking car, love Subaru's but scared of the maintenance costs of owning one :)

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Yeah, that's not really a thing.

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Originally Posted by D'z Nutz

Nice pick up. I never noticed how nice those look until now and had to look up to see if that was stock.



Yeah, that's not really a thing.

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Every other STI on kijiji seems to have had a motor replaced or rebuilt. There also seems to be alot of head gasket issues. I know they can be repaired easily as mentioned above but its still major work.

Looks great, I have a soft spot for Subaru’s in general (owned 6 of them). Super easy to work on most of the time and I’ve never had any major reliability issues outside of oil leaks.

Thanks guys, I was worried about Subaru reliability when I was researching as well, flat brimmer specials were out for obvious reasons, and I was looking for outback xt’s or legacy gt’s. Unfortunately, subaru’s Banjo bolt oil filters tended to starve turbos, causing eventual turbo and motor destruction if owners weren’t religious with oil changes. Even with the cleanest stock models, many owners didn’t seem to be able to answer some basic maintenance questions that made me walk away. This one was different, the motor was already rebuilt, and recently. I have a stack of receipts and the shop invoices for installation. I still plan to dig into this to pull the filters, but I have a bit more piece of mind that I’m not driving a vehicle with a $6k rebuild hanging over my head.

I always have a soft spot for those XTs.

Are those OEM seats? Those are some heavy duty bolsters!

Those are 1000% not OEM seats.


That's an awesome Forester, always loved these. That one's been modded perfectly.

Cool car.

Was worried it would be rhd.

They are corbeau’s but the guy didn’t transfer the airbag sensors over. I bought two seats from another 08 and will be spending Monday night making the right fixes to get the airbag system functional again

Very nice!!! (But does it have a picnic table.?:poosie:)
Sweet ride...:clap:

Looks very clean! Beautiful looking seats!

Got the airbags sorted out, had to take half of the passenger seat 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.

Saw your post on WSC! Once I saw the username I figured we had another OG on our hands. Looks good!! Can't wait to see what you do next.

I can sell you a hat.