forester suspension swap

[alexdsmtsi]

hi guys , i have a good deal for a forester suspension.I want to put this on my 96 leg ls wagon,i just want to be sure that everything will fit right in .Witch tophat i will have to use? Wow the ride height will be??

thans
alex

[jjs316]

put this in a different section (a tech section) and someone might end up seeing it that knows an answer.

Im surprised a Mod hasnt already addressed this. Im just replying because i would say most people probably dont read through the site help/suggestion page.

[Frico]

HI,

i´m just lifting my legacy with forester struts. I chosed KYB GR-2 forester struts for my 98-2000. Inthe front and rear the top hats are the same as legacy 95-99. The front forester struts are 3 cm longer as the legacy ones, in the rear they are 2 cm longer as the legacy ones. tomorrow i´m going to have all asambled, then i can tell you how much my ground clearance is.

By the way, my legacy is a fwd, so i had to modify the rear struts a bit to make it fit. But yours is awd, also no worries.

see this photos:

http://i841.photobucket.com/albums/zz334/fricowilkes/forester99vslegacy95frontstruts.jpg
http://i841.photobucket.com/albums/zz334/fricowilkes/forester99vslegacy95struts.jpg
http://i841.photobucket.com/albums/zz334/fricowilkes/forester99withlegacybgsprings.jpg
frico

[alexdsmtsi]

thanks!,
do you have to put the shim for the driveshaft and diff for the driveaxle angle stay good??
show me pics of the final result please...
thanks again
alex

[Frico]

HI,

here are the pics you requested. http://www.sl-i.net/FORUM/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=15361

I do not have problems with the drive angle. But i am doing an alligment all around tomorrow.



Frico

[alexdsmtsi]

thanks for the pics, it look to have pretty good ground clearance now...

did the rear spacer are only for the fwd difference of the rear suspension??

[Frico]

Hi,

the spacers on top of the rear struts is to even the suspension. Rear forester and legacy fwd struts are equal length. In the front, forester struts are 3 cm longer as legacy struts. Thats why i used this 3 aluminium spacers. Thats the only big modification i did to make the struts fit in in the rear.
Yesterday i broke the rear right strut mount. The only one i had was a rear left strut mount from a forester sf, on my fwd legacy it did fit without problems in the rear right.

Now after an full aligment the car fells smoother and drives very good. I can now drive in the shitty roads that we have hier in Bolivia with no worries about bottoming up.

If you have questions, email me at: friederichwilkes@hotmail.com

Greetings, Frico