My brother wants to lift his 1997 OBW. A set of 2004 Forester springs showed up locally on craigslist for cheap.

 

I've done a little bit of poking around and I can't find any definitive answers. If the info is out there and I'm missing it, just point me in the right direction. I know that a lot of different spring/strut/car combos have been done. I know that you can put gen1 Forester springs on the gen1 OBW struts. I know that you can put gen2 forester springs and struts onto a gen1 OBW.

 

What I do NOT know is whether or not we can put the springs from a gen2 forester onto my brother's gen1 OBW struts. Are the springs the same diameter, etc.? Is there actually a point - significant height or spring rate difference? Or should we just make 1 inch spacers?

nasioc i think has a good "will this spring fit this strut fit this vehicle" thread.  i've referenced it before.  it is convoluted, hard to follow and find out sometimes

Pretty sure this has been done before... can't remember where I saw it though.

Edited September 25, 201411 yr by AdventureSubaru

nasioc i think has a good "will this spring fit this strut fit this vehicle" thread.  i've referenced it before.  it is convoluted, hard to follow and find out sometimes

 

This sounds promising. I'll try to dig around in there. Thanks!

Pretty sure it can be made to work, might have to use forester top spring plates too though. But it isn't going to gain you much lift. Maybe a slight amount, but I wouldn't think it'd be enough for the effort.

If you could get the 04 forester strut/spring combo you'd probably notice a difference. Outback < gen1 Forester < gen2 forester as far as the combo size.

 

If this happens, be sure to take some good measurements and before/after pics to see what lift it yields.