Hello fellas, I do have a suspension upgrade question (probably asked a million times in this forum). But before that, let me give you some background details.
Vehicle – Forester 2003 XS manual with self levelling rear suspension. Kilometers – 130,000.
Usage - Touring - with a breakdown of 60% black top, 25% beach, sand, gravel (rutted roads) including bull dust and the rest 15% fire trails, very moderate rock hopping, very moderate water crossings etc etc. Please note – I do not do drag races or high speed cornering, (used to, but now I am too old – says my handbrake)
Weight – Mostly fully loaded with fridge, esky, camping gear, chairs, table, recovery gear, extra wheel, fuel, water, luggage and other lots of girlie things (handbrake).
I have been given 2 opinions from 2 suspension companies. Can anyone please shed some more light and obviously give me an unbiased suggestion or your personal opinions or views.
Below are the direct conversations I got from both these suspension shops.
Workshop A – Using blocks to do a body lift is very complicated and not necessary also expensive. Might as well go with a spring upgrade, shocks upgrade. The new springs (King) will give the vehicle about 30mm extra clearance which is good enough and the new shocks (KYB Excel-G) will be good for this kind of usage.
Do not put bigger tyres, cos that might affect the car, like drive ratios and the caster bushes will wear out faster. So stick with stock size.
Workshop B – We can give you a body lift (using blocks) and on top of that we can also do a spring and suspension upgrade (same companies as above). This will give the car about 50mm more clearance. Then you can also put a bigger tyre like a
215 65 16 (Stock – 215 60 16). Other than the speedo being a bit out of whack, putting bigger tyres will not affect you in anyway. It’s perfectly normal and all right.
What do you guys think???
Also while you are all there, does my model have LSD?
Cheers
Matt
