Need a guru for full undercarriage swap

greasemonkey03

Forum Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2016
Messages
23
Location
New York
Car Year
1997
Car Model
Legacy Outback
Transmission
Manual
Hello folks. I cant seem to find the information I'm looking for and it seems no one has done this yet. Either its too expensive or it's not possible.

I've been sitting on my old 97 legacy outback project for a little while now doing repairs here and there but she's in bad shape as far as undercarriage rust goes. Last time I had her in the air I put new struts and springs up front with fresh pads and cut the rotors. When I brought her back down to pump the brakes my right rear brake line sprung a leak. So i'm at a crossroad. I'd prefer to replace as much as I can for safety reasons. I like the car, but don't want it to kill me. So here's where it gets interesting.

the engine in my co workers 03 forester just called it quits. I have the opportunity to purchase the forester dirt cheap. I was considering swapping EVERYTHING from under the forester into the OB. Crossmembers, subframes, control arms, axles, knuckles, the whole enchilada. Anything and everything that will move over except the drivetrain.

I believe they both use stub axles, width should be the same, the struts swap so I can probably keep the new ob ones. My only concern I suppose is where components bolt to the unibody. I can't get any solid information as to why this wouldn't work. So who's the guru that knows all that can tell me some potential pitfalls? I'm not doing this for a lift but if the only differences are component heights then I'm fine with that. I'm doing this strictly because the forester parts have no rust issues.
 
Can't help much, even though I had a MY'97 Outback and now have a MY'03 Foz, but I do know that at least the front subframe changed with the MY03 Foz so the platform may be different.

I'm sure there are others here who can help further.
 
Forget it, way too much trouble and will cost you more than buying a replacement car.

Buy the forester cheap from your friend and drop an engine in it.
 
thanks liberty. I'm not sure what you mean when you say it would cost more. In general, I agree. But in this case I have two complete cars, so the cost isn't much more than the 500 I would be buying the forester for. A decent motor for it will run me 1500-2000 and then I would still have to replace the struts as those are bad on the forester. Not to mention that swapping the motor has a similar time investment as swapping both sub frames.

Ive had both cars on the lift at work, just not at the same time. And ive worked on more subarus than you can shake a stick at. I have at least two on my lift every day. Ive just never tried to do something custom like this. To the naked eye, small differences that I noticed would be negated by switching everything over as opposed to just one or two components.

the trouble is no trouble at all in terms of the actual work. air tools are the great equalizer. So although I appreciate the input, the question remains. Will it fit. I'm not opposed to opening holes in the support members to match up. Ill also be fabricating new brake lines and whatever else needs to be fabbed up or ordered.

Another option is, Ive been dreaming of a big boy lift kit. Perhaps I can reach out to one of these companies and they can either tell me where the differences lie or they can fab up 97 ob top plates with 03 forester bottom plates. That's another option.
 
I can't see any advantage in swapping over crossmembers etc Both the Outback & Forester have factory lifts so I can't see how it will achieve anything.

I would get the Forester & drop the Outback engine in it (providing it's a 2.2L). You'll need to either do a long block swap keeping all the Forester sensors, manifold, etc or swap the whole lot over incl ecu & loom.

If you want a lift on either, I can help you out with that. A 2" lift kit is simple & well priced
 
In NY it is illegal to swap an older motor into a newer car. Aside from that, I'm not looking to do it for the lift. The advantage is that everything under the OB is rotting away. The forester is mint underneath. It would be very expensive to purchase all those parts individually. And expensive to purchase a new used motor for the forester. But if I can make the forester components mesh up to the OB, my problems are fixed cheap.
 
Oh so you're wanting to swap from the Foz into the OB, yeah I misread that. That won't fix the rust in the body though.

You should be able to get an engine pretty cheap for the Foz though, under $500
 
It's not the body that's rusted. It's everything else underneath. Even the calipers and knuckles are so corroded they're almost unserviceable. Dust shields are gone. Cross members are all swollen. Etc. the body is in great shape. Minor rust that's getting cut out on the fenders.

Which is why I just want to take the "easy" route and just swap complete front and rear assemblies from the forester to the OB. I just want to know if they bolt up. From the diagrams I've looked at so far and having them up in the air, I can't see any major differences that would prevent me from doing it.
 
Short update to this that I will expand on later. Swap is done and I'll detail what does and doesn't fit later on. For the most part it was a piece of cake.
 
Back
Top