I feel like I’m about to embark down a road of madness. The plan had always been to lift the Forester. There are off the shelf kits available from, for example, Primitive Racing, ADF, and Subtle Solutions. Mostly they’re some combination of spacer lifts (most common), spring lifts, or both. They all appear to work well enough.
The problem is, my automotive engineering background is telling me I can do better. I’ve always believed that any mod on my car must be “OEM quality” (normal OEM, not Lotus OEM). Basically, a clean solution that looks like it was engineered and not something slapped on. It’s telling me, spacers are a bit kludgy, spring lifts sacrifice droop travel, and why the hell is there no aftermarket replacement dampers for the SJ Forester?
Once upon a time, I was in the same boat with my RX-8. I looked at the market and didn’t see any coilover solution that I really liked. So I partnered with FatCatMotorsports and developed a new RX-8 coilover. That was a royal pain in the ass that took almost a year in development time and multiple revalves to get the damping right. (And then my friend bought a set of the coilovers after everything was all developed, avoiding my pain, but reaping the benefits.) Do you see where I’m going with this?
With a custom coilover of some kind, I can get the best of all worlds. It’ll have more travel. The damping will be set up for the spring rate and I can have a curve that is more trail friendly. The height can be adjustable so I can get the exact height that I need. And it’ll be so cool!
But do I really NEED a set of custom coilovers? I’m planning to go overlanding, not rallying. (Though I might do some rallycrossing.) Most of the time the car will be commuting. It’s going to cost more. It’ll take time to develop. And time is money. And there’s not even any existing Forester solutions out on the market to base my product off of, not even replacement dampers! (I’d probably need to base it off of a 2008-2014 WRX coilover or a strut insert, either revalved appropriately.)
So. What should I do? Embrace the madness? Or be practical.