Subaru Forester Off Road Build Guide.

Hi guys it's Jordan here from NSM Overland and welcome to my channel. So if you have this and you plan to do this or maybe just this you're at the right place because in this video I'm gonna tell you all the essentials mods in order to off-road your Subaru. I'm also gonna give you tips, examples and brand suggestions based on my experience. So watch till the end you're gonna learn a lot. So before starting and before buying stuff like LED lights, alloy rims I don't even have, well just get a good maintenance. I mean change all your fluids, all your filters, do your Also get spark plugs and ignition wires in good condition, have good wheel bearings and not stuck brake calipers and that's a good beginning. Also make sure your Subaru is not fully rusted. Sadly this is the reality and especially check on your rear rings, rear strut towers, undercarriage subframes, make sure you don't have a lot of rust. And now let's talk suspension. What I recommend is at least OEM like struts and top hats in good condition, maybe even brand new. This is what gives you a comfortable, safe and efficient drive so don't skip on that. Kayaba or KYB Pedders just like mine or Bilston provide good quality struts. Also pretty often old Forester have a saggy butt just like this because of the self-levelling struts failing. Just take care of that and change the whole assembly. And if you carry a lot of gear, a lot of weight on the back of your Subaru like your spare tire, a full kitchen setup or even just recovery gear for off-roading, heavy duty spring might be an option for you. Pedders like the one I run, Rallytec, Kings, you choose. That being said I don't recommend raised springs because they are not good for articulation while off-roading plus they give you a harsh ride. Another tip, if you have a SF Forester you can get SG rear struts because the spring perch is higher and will allow you to fit bigger tires. We're gonna talk about that in a few minutes. And if maybe you have a newer Forester, Crosstrek or Outback, Ironman just released an all-terrain suspension which actually provide a 2-inch lift. This can be an interesting option and my good friend Brucey from West Virginia just installed a set on his Outback, made a review and test videos so feel free to check it out. Speaking about lift, this is something you will need for off-roading. It will give you more ground clearance, better approach in departure angles but also allow you to fit bigger tires. The most common way to lift a Subaru is lift blocks or strut top lifts. Basically a piece of metal you put between the struts and the body of the car. A 2-inch lift is a good compromise for a nice ground clearance but not too bad for the CVs. You can go up to 2.5 inches of lift on the front and 3 inches on the rear. After that you will need subframe spacers because the CVs take too much angles. Also don't forget about trailing arm spacers to get your rear wheel centered in the wheel arches. And just so you know if you want a bigger lift like 4-5 inches maybe even more, it will require a lot more of modifications like steering knuckle extension, engine diff and cross member spacers, brake line extensions and more. To get a lift kit check out the well-known and valuable companies out there like ADF, stands for Anderson Design Fabrication, this is the one I run. You also have SLOW for SUBILIFT OZ, SGR, LP Adventure, POLYTECH, PRIMITIVE RACING and MADE BY MADE for the European market. Note that with this kind of lift you will wear your CV boots quicker but they will not fail every two weeks like some people say. Just if you plan to lift your Subaru with stock old CV and CV boots just get two spare genuine Subaru CV boots because the old ones generally fail real quick after the lift but once the new one are on you will have some time before they fail, trust me on that. Now tires, good tires make a huge difference while off-roading and it's also a nice way to have a bit more of ground clearance. 215, 75, 15 inches like the BF Goodrich KO2s I run is a good size, the tire is also great by the way, I love it and is I think a good compromise between tire size and tire weight. 235, 75, 15 is another popular option but they might be a bit more difficult to fit on the car but they are also heavier which means more power loss, lower gas milage but also more stress on the driveline and you can understand more broken CVs with that. All right so as I said I run the BF Goodrich KO2s and I'm really happy with them, I already have another set waiting for the Tactifoz but I'm still gonna give you other good tires option so you have the General Grabber 83, the Falcon Wildpeak 83w, the Yokohama Geolandor, the Toyo Open Country 83 and all of these tires are all terrain tires, I think that's the best compromise for our Subarus and mud tires are gonna be even heavier, louder so if you drive just a bit on the road on pavement it's not gonna be very nice. I will let you check the price range of those tires but also their weight and with that you'll be able to make your own choice. Now skid plates, trust me that's pretty important, at least one on the front for the engine, oil pan and transmission but you can also get one on the rear for the rear differential, they will protect some critical components of your car but also help you slide over rocks or mud if you bottom out. Mine are from the sub garage, they are 8 millimeter alloy and they come with ratted recovery points and that's pretty useful so that's a good option for my friends in Europe but there's also other options out there like ADF, Primitive Racing, Rallytec or LP Adventure. Okay so now you have a pretty good base to mud your Subaru so it can be a bit more off-road ready but there are still other things to think about. First, recovery gear, I really don't recommend you to get out there without any kind of recovery gear so you can get at least traction boards or recovery boards, something to hair down but also something to hair up if you have to drive on pavement after, it's pretty important, make a huge difference. I will say maybe a snatch strap, properly ratted for your car, the ones for our Subarus have a lower rating and maybe a shovel to dig you out of a bad situation but you know what, I actually have a full video about my recovery gear and what you should have in your vehicle while off-roading so make sure to check it out, the link is gonna be here or down below in the description. Another thing is to learn your and your vehicle limits, remember even lifted your Subaru is still just a sucker mom wagon, okay a lifted sucker mom wagon but it's definitely not a rock crawler so you have some limitations. Also keep in mind that the lines you're gonna take while off-roading are gonna be really different than the lines of the real four-wheel drive trucks. Also the weight, this is a pretty big advantage we have with our lightweight Subarus, it's pretty important while off-roading to try to limit the weight, the weight on the cargo area, the weight on the roof but also your tires and wheel weights like all the rotational mass are pretty important so be careful with that. Also that's not essential but this can be useful if you are going on some adventures in the dark so an LED light, some ditch light as well, maybe even rock lights in the dark for off-roading, it's really helpful but don't start with that, it's not essential. Also you can organize your car and especially your cargo area like with drawers or MOLLE racks so that way everything is nicely organized in case of a recovery but also everything is nicely safe and secured so while off-roading your hatchets won't fly right off your head, this is gonna be a bit dangerous. Okay so now maybe you already have some mods we talked about earlier, maybe in a few months, in a year you're gonna have some mods and you're gonna want more, I can understand that and that's why right now we're gonna talk about advanced off-road mods for your Subaru. Let's get to it! And the first one is gonna be to remove your sway bars or maybe put a quick disconnect on it or you have another option is to leave the front on but remove the rear and if you do that you will have more articulation while off-roading so you'll have better traction and more wheel on the ground and this is what we want with our Subarus. Just keep in mind that if you remove those sway bars obviously you're gonna have more body roll on road so it really depends of what you do with your car but even me with my Overland rig I do a pavement, highway driving, I remove both of my sway bars. That being said keep in mind that if you have heavy duty springs on the back it will help with the body roll so it's actually not that bad. Another one is to get a limited slip differential or LSD on your rear differential and this will kind of act like a soft locker and it will help your rear wheels to rotate the same way at the same time so better traction. And another advanced transmission mod you can do is to get a DCCD which is basically a center diff lock. It will give you 50% power on the front and 50% on the rear so even if you lift a wheel you will still have power on the other wheels without that and open diff if you lift the wheel all the power goes to that lifted wheel and you won't move. That's the main problem with the stock Subarus. And now if you want a more hardcore solution you have the torque locker for the rear which this time is a real locker it's the lunch box kind of locker so it's not that expensive actually so I don't have one on my Forester because I think it's really for off-road vehicles if you don't drive a lot on pavement it's pretty noisy you will have to adapt your your driving so I don't want that on mine but for strict off-road condition it can be pretty useful. Keep in mind that with the manual transmission if you don't have a center diff lock it might not be that useful at the end. Another thing to consider is something I have stock on my Forester and this is the only good thing we have here in Europe this is the low range gearbox so it comes stock with a naturally aspirated manual transmission Forester and Outback and Impreza in Europe but also in Australia so you don't have them in the US. It's low range but not that low but it still helps a lot I love mine every time I'm on the trails I'm on low gear and it's a nice help. Another thing to consider is to get long travel off-road coilovers with that you're gonna have probably some lifts but also more travel on your suspension so once again more traction less wheel lifts this is really what we want with our Subarus so that's a great option. Another good thing with those coilovers is that you can get maintenance on it so you can rebuild them and they will last longer but also they're actually pretty small in diameters so you won't have this massive lower spring perch that interfere with bigger tires. That's a good option I'm actually thinking about for my Forester you have some brands out there like Flatout suspension, Gorilla off-road and Oddbits suspension. Okay so that's it for the essential mods to start off-roading your Subaru in good condition I hope this was helpful and will help you build your dream Subaru and for even more infos I invite you to check my playlist about my own builds of my Overland off-road Subaru but also my dedicated page on my website about it on alsmoverland.com you can also check my instagram account for awesome pictures and my patreon page to show your support and get exclusive content everything is down below in the description thank you guys for watching see you next week