Matdaymon's DeForester MKII: The Ghost

Finally got my hands on another Forester!

It's an automatic 1997 SF5A T/TB (JDM) in two tone Green on Silver just like the first one. Sand/brown interior, just like the first one. And full of dog hair, just like the first one :lol:

Only differences between MkI and MkII is lack of rear spoiler, this one has factory Foz wheels and it doesn't have a passenger airbag.

Picked it up for $2k off TradeMe this morning.

Needs a hell of a cut and polish and a mega service to flush out whatever gunk the previous owner was scammed with (he was an admitted non-mechanically minded person). The coolant system will take a lot of effort and is #1 on the to do list.

So tomorrow I'm off to SCA to pick up some new spark plugs, oil, coolant, air filter, oil filter, roof basket and anything else that takes my fancy with the money I saved when I got it for less than asking price.

Will take some photos tomorrow of the process and how it looks at the start of the process.

The plan *currently* is to chuck in some KING springs to raise it up (if anyone has the part number for Forester SF springs I'd appreciate it), just them on SG struts front and rear and hopefully chuck on a set of all terrain tyres.

Hopefully it'll make a great beach basher for fishing trips and get me through my parents often flooded road in the coromandel.
 
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Yeah just a bit...

I think I've fond the culprit - the 17mm nut that holds one of the lines to the rack in. It's in a sod of a place to get to above the subframe so I had to wrap my hand around the axle to get the wrench in there.

Have cleaned it all up and tightened the sod up. Hopefully it was the only one that was loose. Will find out soon enough. Planning on another beach mission tomorrow night for another fish. I think I'm hooked on this fishing business :ebiggrin:
 
Hopefully that's fixed it, there's always little niggles to work on, as long as it's nothing major I'm happy!
 
Subaru's are Like Onions, they have layers,
you fix one problem, it exposes another. :D
 
Been a while since I've updated this thread. A few things have happened and mostly for the better.

After spotting a couple of really cheap 4" LED light bars on Trademe I snapped them up and took them to one of my sparky mates house to fit them.





They work a treat and should make finding my way out of the dunes after a fish a lot easier.

We also fixed the boot wiring so I now have a demister, rear wiper, and full central locking for the first time since I've owned her. Central locking is totally not something to take for granted!

While I was there we decided to chuck a boost gauge in to see how that was doing.



Duct tape mounts FTW!

I've since replaced the vacuum pipes on the turbo side of the engine as they were DODGY AS ALL ****. Picked up a couple and they shattered in my hands they were that far gone.

She's boosting a healthy 10/11PSI which is stock for a 97 turbo Foz, but seems a bit slow to build boost. After running some upper engine cleaner through the engine today it looks like my up-pipe might be stuffed.

Plan is to save up for a full 3" turbo back exhaust system and new up-pipe down the track(though the boss has said I have to wait until after the honeymoon), and chuck a new silicone intake in to prevent any bad mojo happening in front of the turbo.

Today I finished the boost gauge install by wiring in the back light. Pretty chuffed with myself as I have avoided anything to do with Electrickery in the past.
 
NachaLuva said:
Love this #jdmgoodness lol. Nice to see you've sorted out some of the issues & made a few additions :)
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Thanks! Got to say this is pretty much the only vehicle I've owned that has actually gotten better since I've owned it. Feels weird to think about :rotfl:
 
Haven't really done a hell of a lot to my Foz lately but will share what I've done.

Firstly since I now have decent vacuum pipes in the engine bay I decided I'd start work on a split fuel rail system. Even though it's not necessarily needed it's something fun to do and will be a bit of insurance for when the engine is under heavy load on the beach.



She's now even closer to needing her cambelt done after hitting 187,000 km. Surprisingly the engine and trans are original though it is a little on noisy side.


Last weekend I did my first trip down into the mud for a play with my best mate and his brother. Was awesome fun though I really do need to build a bash plate for the engine and trans at some point. Had to use my spade and axe at one point too to keep up with the lifted Safaris and even had to pull out a Terrano a couple of times from places I could go but he couldnt (he was on Highway Terrain tyres).



My mate in his Safari eventually got stuck just on sunset and that's when we decided to call it a night and make our way home.


The results of a fun night in the mud





My finacee and I are heading down south this weekend to visit our grandparents in different parts of NZ and we'll be taking the Forester. Forecast says there could be snow on the Desert Road so my fingers are crossed to add some more cool pics from the adventure.

When we get back I'll have to do my brake discs and pads as the rears are close to shot (sadly cant replace them before the trip) and I'll be pretty much due for the cambelt so I'll have to order all those parts.

Gonna be expensive but I need to get is sorted as we're officially moving out of Auckland and out into the countryside in September/October! Can't wait for that!
 
Over 1500 kms later and we have returned from a successful trip.
The Foz did great, if using a fair bit of fuel (especially when climbing over the central plateau).

As predicted the rear brake rotors are now completely toast and urgently need replacing. Have a whole new set of brakes on order and will hopefully chuck them on this weekend.

Also ordered a new timing belt kit and water pump from Subaru, who said they have to order it all in as my car is now considered 'too old' to hold the parts in stock :cry: what lies! It's only 19!


In my splurge I may have also ordered a snorkel kit from a 96-06 Mitsi Triton to chuck on it. Apparently the Triton unit fits just that little bit better than the Pajero unit so will be interesting to see how it goes on.

Anyway here's a few pics from our adventures through the North Island of New Zealand. (apologies they're all from an iPhone)


It all started with the biggest frost of the year yet. Took a few more cranks than usual to get the Foz running.


We parked up to enjoy the view of the central plateau's volcanoes. One of which is Mt Doom from the Lord of the Rings movies.



We then visited the giant carrot at Ohakune. Apparently they grow carrots really well there and like to celebrate it in statue form...


Since the weather was so good we had to try get up the mountain, so we drove up to Turoa ski field. The ski season is a bit delayed this year due to lack of snow but we found enough to make a terrible snow man and get some snow pics of the Foz.


One of the only times I managed to get the car off the road on the trip at Castlepoint lighthouse. Windiest. Day. Ever.


The last pic I bothered to take was at the Blue Lake in Rotorua. Beautiful spot and a good place to read a book while waiting to be let in to your accommodation down the road.


Frozen ferns just 'coz. :monkeydance:



Next year will be our honeymoon trip which I am slowly planning and which will involve us taking the Foz for a tour through the South Island.
 
Nice trip, Mat :biggrin:.

What do they mean - too old! It's still only a teenager ... :poke: :lol:.
 
Funny to see a pic of Castlepoint, I lived 3 years in Masterton as a child and we went there sometimes on the weekends !
 
Hey quick question. Do you still lke your Maxxis 771's? Cause I was thinking of getting some
 
Taroona said:
Hey quick question. Do you still lke your Maxxis 771's? Cause I was thinking of getting some
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Yep, they are a nice compromise between on and offroad. Was actually quite pleased with how they handled some back road thrashing on the Masterton trip.

Not loud either apart from on my long 'right of way' driveway with walls on either side.

I don't air them down at all and they handle sand dunes etc really well.
 
Well this weekend was PRODUCTIVE!:bananagunner:

First I went to a meet up with my mate who works at Repco and we sorted out some new stoppers for Foz. Turns out they were needed a hell of a lot more than even I thought, with the rear rotors complete trash with less than 8mm thickness to them. Minimum thickness was on the rotor at 8.5mm!

Massive difference with new pads and rotors all round.

Yesterday I went over to another mates place and things got awesome. The Foz now has a snorkel!!!



It's a snorkel designed for a Mitsubishi MK Triton (1996-2006) and after we threw away the useless template we busted out the marker pen and lined everything up just right.

I'm glad I bit the bullet and went for it as on removal of my DIY marley pipe job I found it wasn't particularly fit for purpose...




We chose to mount it low on the guard so that we didn't need to cut into any of chassis in order to get the flex pipe to fit into the air box. It looks a little weird but at least it should mean that I have no trouble when it comes to Warrant of Fitness time.



It required a tiny bit of heat gun melting to get the top end to get close enough to the A pillar to bolt it into the mount, but other than that we did nothing to the snorkel itself.



I reckon it looks absolutely bad donkey from the front now!

Really chuffed with my weekend of tinkering. Next thing on the list is to do the cambelt service and then when funds allow get some sway bar quick releases from Nachaluva, and a set of lift springs. I'd love to chuck in a 'proper' lift kit but since it needs a $600+ certification from an engineer to be legal I'm putting that idea on the back burner for now.
 
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So last weekend I borrowed my mate's garage and did the cambelt service on Ghost.

Pretty much he and another mate (this one is a Subaru mechanic) sat back and instructed me while I did all the work. Was an awesome learning experience since I've never done a cambelt or water pump swap before - even with them pulling my leg every 5 minutes saying 'don't do that!!

While we had the radiator out we gave it a flush and expert mechanics opinion is my radiator is functioning at about 50%. Not surprising really considering the state of the rest of the cooling system so I'm going to source a replacement hopefully this weekend to swap in.

Another issue he found is related to the loud noise the engine makes. Pretty much he reckons I have a leak in my up-pipe which I have suspected from the beginning. Performance isn't effected at this stage but I have noticed smoke come out when I pumped upper engine cleaner into it in the past. I'm wondering if it is work buying something like this might be a better option than trying to find a factory replacement that isn't shafted.

Big news to me is that I've owned it for a year now [wow time flies!] and apart from the cooling system I'd had no problems with it. So stoked with my little foz. Just hope it gets a warrant of fitness with the snorkel as the mechanic mate reckons it is potential fail with the snorkel riveted into the a-pillar. Hopefully they look at it as awesome and don't go asking how it's on it's mounted :lildevil:
 
The snorkel does look awesome! Can't see why they'd fail it as all snorkels have some attachment to the A pillar.
 
Wow, you've done so much since I've seen this thread!! Love the pics of Mt Doom & the silver fern. The snorkel looks good, do you have a side on pic showing the blinker & pillar? Should pass fine, as Kevin said this is standard on 4wds. Did you seal the holes?

I don't think that up-pipe will fit, you need one for a Foz GT, but I might be wrong.

Try a Golpher radiator. They're all alloy so you won't have to worry about the stupid plastic end tanks splitting. Like this one:
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/AFTERMA...TURBO-AT-MT-/281816327072?hash=item419d8fe3a0
 
Thanks Nachaluva!

Here's a couple of pics of where it sits with the side indicator. It's still visible side of and from the front angle its visible to a point too.






All the holes we cut in it are painted or sealed with the ones in the A-pillar being both painted and sealed with sealant to prevent water getting in there at all. It's WoF is due next month so I'll find out then what Vehicle Testing NZ thinks of this wee mod haha.

The Gopher radiator looks good, though it doesn't look like they post to NZ. I'd have to modify the trans cooler lines to fit that rad too as mine has the side tanks with the trans cooler in the pass side tank, rather than a top and bottom tank with them on the bottom.

I'll probably just get one of these for the foreseeable future until I decide whether or not I'll convert the car to a manual box. That opens up quite a few options for locally supplied performance parts.

With the JDM Foz it has essentially the same engine as the equivalent year WRX EJ20G with a TD04 turbo - though a dyno shows it has much more low down torque so the theory we've had for a while is that the Foz has different cam profiles. Anyway I'm thinking I might just save up and try and buy a whole new exhaust system down the line as I'm kinda wanting to free up the engine a bit more.
 
if you fail WOF due to the indicators - look for some JDM indicator mirror covers. I know they exist for legacy/liberties... may also exist for the Foz.
 
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