Hi Offroaders,
I thought I'd start a thread about our 'new' Forester which my wife has affectionately called "Brutus," to show our progress as we mod it. The mods we choose will revolve around building a capable camping vehicle. We're not looking to go "wheeling" or sloshing about in too much mud... at least not yet
Progress will be slow as we gather spare funds to throw at it, but stay tuned and I'll keep you all posted!
==============
Planned mods in no particular order:
New tyres -- more of a necessity than a mod and our first mod which I'll be covering at the time of this thread creation.
Lift kit -- Probably a 1" strut top from NachaLuva for now, need more research into this though
Stock strut, shock and spring replacements -- This will be down the track a bit if it's even necessary for the mild off roading we plan to do with Brutus. Looking at options from KYB and King respectively. Need to look into benefits (if any) over OEM replacements before we comit to anything though.
Sport Grille -- Genuine item from Subaru in the USA. It's a bit pricey, but worth it for the quality.
Thule roof rails and basket -- For any longer trips away, this will be a necessity due to the limited space in the back of Brutus. This will be even more important once we get a few kidlets to bring along on our trips
Air compressor -- Even though we don't plan on hardcore offroading, I think this is an important thing to have when going off the beaten track. When it comes to camping and offroading, an air compressor is an invaluable piece of equipment.
Fog lights -- Being a base model Forester X, Brutus didn't come with fog lights. After having them on my 3GEN Liberty, I've found them very useful for their intended purpose and I know I'll miss them if we ever get caught in heavy rain or fog in our travels.
Nudge/light bar -- Looking at either the chrome options from TJM, or going all out and shipping over the SH specific option from Primitive in the UK. Speaking of Primitive,
Skid/bash plate and R/diff armor -- Getting into the much later mods here for if/when we do start doing more hardcore offroading. As with the light bar, I'd like to get this from Primitive, but I contacted them and the postage of over $200 just for the skid plate is going to be a killer. I'm thinking I may have to contact my local engineering works and get them to custom make me a light bar and under body armor. It would probably save me a few hundred dollars. Time will tell.
Driving lights, pencils and spreaders -- Pretty self explanatory. Not sure which brand we'll go for. I've always been partial to Hella lights, but this is another area I'll have to do some research into when the time comes.
That's about all I can think of for now, but I'll update the list as necessary.
==============
I thought I'd start a thread about our 'new' Forester which my wife has affectionately called "Brutus," to show our progress as we mod it. The mods we choose will revolve around building a capable camping vehicle. We're not looking to go "wheeling" or sloshing about in too much mud... at least not yet
Progress will be slow as we gather spare funds to throw at it, but stay tuned and I'll keep you all posted!
==============
Planned mods in no particular order:
New tyres -- more of a necessity than a mod and our first mod which I'll be covering at the time of this thread creation.
Lift kit -- Probably a 1" strut top from NachaLuva for now, need more research into this though
Stock strut, shock and spring replacements -- This will be down the track a bit if it's even necessary for the mild off roading we plan to do with Brutus. Looking at options from KYB and King respectively. Need to look into benefits (if any) over OEM replacements before we comit to anything though.
Sport Grille -- Genuine item from Subaru in the USA. It's a bit pricey, but worth it for the quality.
Thule roof rails and basket -- For any longer trips away, this will be a necessity due to the limited space in the back of Brutus. This will be even more important once we get a few kidlets to bring along on our trips
Air compressor -- Even though we don't plan on hardcore offroading, I think this is an important thing to have when going off the beaten track. When it comes to camping and offroading, an air compressor is an invaluable piece of equipment.
Fog lights -- Being a base model Forester X, Brutus didn't come with fog lights. After having them on my 3GEN Liberty, I've found them very useful for their intended purpose and I know I'll miss them if we ever get caught in heavy rain or fog in our travels.
Nudge/light bar -- Looking at either the chrome options from TJM, or going all out and shipping over the SH specific option from Primitive in the UK. Speaking of Primitive,
Skid/bash plate and R/diff armor -- Getting into the much later mods here for if/when we do start doing more hardcore offroading. As with the light bar, I'd like to get this from Primitive, but I contacted them and the postage of over $200 just for the skid plate is going to be a killer. I'm thinking I may have to contact my local engineering works and get them to custom make me a light bar and under body armor. It would probably save me a few hundred dollars. Time will tell.
Driving lights, pencils and spreaders -- Pretty self explanatory. Not sure which brand we'll go for. I've always been partial to Hella lights, but this is another area I'll have to do some research into when the time comes.
That's about all I can think of for now, but I'll update the list as necessary.
==============
