Mods
Complete WRX Drivetrain swap. Anderson Design and Fabrication 4.5” lift kit. 235/70r16 AT tires
Build story
Over the course of a year my Boyfriend and I acquired bits and pieces to make my dream come true! A BIG bad ass, hopefully kinda fast Subaru Forester. We first acquired a severely rotted, but good running 2003 Subaru WRX wagon. We drove it an hour home from New York. It was so rusty that one of has fallen through the floor board while we were stripping the car. A couple months later, we drove to a salvage yard in Shirley, Massachusetts to buy the Forester. A 2003 Forester XS 5 speed manual. Clean body, with an engine expected to blow any minute. We put it in a Dolley and brought it home. 4 hours away. Both cars sat for a year and a half before we started the tear down. It took us a few months, but we got it done. I merged and soldered all of the wiring harness. We swapped every single thing from the interior and drivetrain of the WRX to the forester and ended up with a beast! While it looks like any other ‘Forester XT’ it’s much more than that. The whole reason I dreamt of this was because after having a daughter, (she’s now almost 8) I would’ve never been able to afford an XT, they were priced anywhere from $8-$14k. So I built my own, and avoided well known issues with the 2.5 turbo motors. I knew exactly what I had too. Initially I had only $1600 invested. $1000 for the forester, and $600 for the WRX. But why go only part way? Every single thing was taken apart, every gasket was replaced, no nut or bolt was left unturned or removed.