I've helped a friend build up his 2002 WRX. We swapped 98 legacy outback struts, 92 legacy wagon springs, and oversized tires onto it. It's got 11.5" of clearance under it all round.

 

I used my truck to pull it out of a pond today, he highcentered in some knee-deep ruts under water. 5" of water over the floor and the ECU wasn't happy about that and shut down. After bailing water out of the interior, we took the ECU out and apart, rinsed it off in a fresh mountain stream, and dried it off using the defrost on my truck. After using my trucks tailpipe to blow-dry the wrx's air filter, we threw it back together and it fired right up.

 

Not bad for a 173k mile wrx that's been overboosted at 18psi with a piggyback tuner for the last 100k miles and 3 owners. It burns some oil but it's awesome hearing a turbo when ripping through a mudhole.

snorkel

 

and forester struts

The tires we have on it probably wouldn't fit with forester struts. The outback ones have more clearance to the spring seat in the rear. It's a tight fit, we had to lightly massage the rear of the rocker panel where it meets the rear wheel arch to stop it from rubbing, and that's with outback trailing arm brackets.

 

The tires fill the wheel wells to the max, so there's no going bigger without lots of cutting/bashing, which isn't happening. It only has 3.9:1 gearing anyway so bigger tires might make it harder to use in the woods without stalling.

 

I've recommended a snorkel to him a few times now, maybe after this incident he'll take my suggestion more seriously.

Id bet if you found him a super cheap hood he might reconsider the snorkle.

Thats a hot ride!