The lifted years, brought you by Anderson design fab, Method race wheels and Firestone tires!
Coming up before winter in 2017 I had always had a thing for tiny little 4wd suvs. I have always been into smaller vehicles, why not make a teeny tiny lifted Forester. My eyes always envisioned the Forester as a cool small Safari wagon, so why not put it together and see how it comes out.
The Forester had been bulletproof for the last year of driving after a rocky start of a driveshaft and headgasket/gasket set overhaul. So i figured a few parts here and there wouldn’t hurt, lets see how much this 200k+ mile car can take.
One year of daily driver and it is time for a change…
Onward to emails back and forth with Patrick, at Anderson Design fab about a custom lift size for the rear to level out the suspension a bit. Mostly for visual appeal and hopes that it would fix the hill assist issue that plagued the vehicle on flat surfaces.
After a little over a week my 2” lift spacer kit had arrived. As with most of my parts purchased it wasn’t much more than a week later that I was in my friend’s garage putting it together. Overall it is a pretty simple install, just remove your struts, bolt the spacers on top and put everything back together. Well.. it always seems that easy.
Anderson Design Fab was the first brand I found on SF.org and following his thread made me very interested.
The first issue was the front lower control arms not being able to accept the added length to the struts. Removing the front end links allowed the control arms to lower far enough to pop the strut back in. With that completed we moved to the rear struts, the same trick helped out but having the additional height to level off the rear of the car made this a bit more difficult Removing the front trailing arm added enough room to pop the strut back in. With the trailing arm out we took advantage of it to install the rear spacer, this helps rear center the wheel for a more equal appearance.
With the front end link attached it is near impossible to get the strut back in with the lift spacer on it. Remove one side and it should be much easier to get them in.
And with that all my hopes of having a stock car were dashed, what can I say… I am not good at leaving my cars alone.
Above is before the lift and the lower is afterwards.
Onward we go to a month of waiting and my Method wheels have arrived. I had really wanted to go with black wheels but after having owned them for a short time on my STi i hated the fact that a small amount of dust made them look extremely dirty. So I opted for the silver version, which ended up making me the silver Method guy to many people. Or I would hear questions about where I had them painted/powdercoated as many had no idea Method offered them in such a color.
In all their glory! Pretty sure they don’t offer them in silver anymore.. bronze appears to be the newest hot color on the block! Method race wheels 15x7 Milwaukee 1/2” impact Gorilla silver lugnuts Firestone Destination A/t 235/70R15
With that came the decision of tire size… I was really torn about this and had no idea what I was doing. But after a bit of discussion with my larger truck/off-road friends the 235/70R15 Firestone Destination A/t became my tire of choice. I choose these for their capabilities over all terrains, not just going with the most aggressive tread I could buy. I knew that I would spend much more time on pavement and I didn’t want a tire that ruined my enjoyment of the car in its every facets.
Factory size on the left and the two tire choices on the right. Firestone Destination A/t tire review.
Freshly lifted and out taking photos! Pretty glad about how it came out!
With those mounted up and ready to be installed, I noticed that things were running into other thing. I.e. The tries were a little bigger than I expected and the new wheel offset had them pushing into the mudflaps. Off with the factory mudflaps. Now with them removed the inner fender liner was rubbing the tire.. A few cuts later it was gone. Then lastly a good sized hammer was used to flatten the seam behind it. Laying it over on one side got the job done, after that a bit of rustoleom primer and rubberized coating was laid down to keep the rust at bay. Thus the beginning of the lifted Forester began.
For more info on fitting these larger tires follow this link.
What would be the next upgrades to make it to the car… would weaknesses be shown that weren’t apparent without lift, would the car randomly explode.. Time will tell.
Amazon links:
Gorilla silver lugnuts
Firestone Destination A/t 235/70R15