1999 s turbo - what to check for and some insight please.

[Captainbeaky]

Hello all,

I live on Madeira (tiny island in the Atlantic) and the selection of cars we can buy is a bit limited, as you can imagine.

i need a 4x4 now to access the land we have bought, my partner has a fabulous little old 2.0 SWB RAV4 which is ideal, but I need something a bit bigger, and, well, something that scratches my performance itch.

As much as I love the Landie that we specialise in for off road work, I miss my barnstorming Saab Turbos, and I want a bit of the turbo action again, but it’s got to be a well balanced car and 4x4 ( as good as the Saab’s were, they were very front heavy motorway bruisers, and not great for our winding roads. )

I’ve a good deal of turbo modding experience in Saab’s, VW’s, Smarts, Bentleys and of course the diesel Landies, but admittedly none in Subaru’s. The only Subaru I had was a stop gap car an n/a 2.5 legacy auto saloon from 2002- only had it a short while.

Problem here, is that I can’t mod cars too much, so, say a 3SGT in the RAV won’t pass MOT. But a bigger turbo, and some remaps is fine - hence this car - a 1999 Forrester S turbo I found for sale. Seems low km, and is nicely scruffy, but straight. 

We know our way around cars generally, but don’t have any Scooby experience. 

What are the top usual suspects I need to check on these please?

From the forum, i gather that the Forrester is readily modifiable, bigger turbo, boost controller, mapping, exhausts, cams from an Impreza etc, which suit should me really well ( we do performance tuning, so this should be business as usual). 

But what should the handling be like? I’ve been bombing around in the little 180,000km RAV, and it’s been a pretty damn good little car - even on the All Terrain tyres and worn suspension it has fitted. If the Forrester is as good as the RAV as standard, I’ll be golden. If it’s like my 280bhp Saab 95 Aero, it’ll be a disaster!

 

[SF5Fozzi]

The sf5 Forester's suspension is what I would call(in standard form) 'very much boat like'. 

Swapping to a kit with stiffer springs would be a good start, like pedders suspension, they do a straight swap standard height kit that's quite good. Then a thicker rear arb fitted from a gc8 impreza would be better because the oem is really quite thin. Oem brakes don't stop very well either.

[Captainbeaky]

"Boat Like" I can handle. I can fix poor damping and change spring rates / anti-roll bars - I need to retain ground clearance, and compliance to handle off-road use.

It's more the weight balance I'm interested in. Big engined front drive cars like my old Saabs, and T5 Volvos are not so much fun here - I have fixed a few customers T5's and I find them very front heavy here - a lot like my Saabs - they tend to push on, and with the very hilly and very winding roads, makes for a less than fun experience. 

By comparison, an old TDi Range Rover feels much better balanced.

I'm guessing (hoping) that the Forrester will have better weight distribution and balance?