just bought a 2010 forester 2.5x premium automatic....great car for the price but a little slow by my standards. wife is primary driver and she didnt want the turbo model due to extra cost,reduced milage,and premium gas requirement..i've also read that there are reliability issues with turbo foresters,and i didnt like the "boy racer" hood scoop..... are there any factory approved performance upgrades for the non-turbo foresters?..20-30 hp would be fine,,not looking to race it,,just want a little more acceleration,esp for merging onto hwy....
musicalgreasemonkey2010-03-06T17:45:34Z
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air intakes like K&N and injen work well, improve throttle responce, sound awesome, and are very nice. I dont know about your 20-30 hp goals, that sounds a little high, but in general the air intake and exhaust would be good places to start. The exhaust sound is nice on subarus, they have a distinctive "burble" in the exhaust- a trademark sound of the boxer engine and unequal length exhaust manifolds. in general, air intake is the way to go. Be cautious of cold air intakes that are placed low on the car though, as they risk water ingestion if you drive in floods or deep puddles. Ram air intakes are nice.
20 to 30 is not out of reach but not with bolt on parts. Your car is tuned pretty efficiently with what it's got so there is little to be wrung out of it with simple bolt on parts. Full header back, cold air intake and a lightened crank pulley might give you the 20hp but in a couple weeks you will get used to 20hp and it will feel slow. Then you just wonder why you spent $2000. And I don't know why you want to insult the XT drivers calling it a boy racer car but you want to add things to your car that will just make it sound like a boy racer car but still slow. The N/A Forester does what it was designed to do better than just about any other car out there. Should have gone with the XT. Whatever your thoughts are of the looks, at least it performs.
Loads of different ways depending on the size of your wallet and what sort of performance gains you want. A common tune is exhaust system, induction kit and ecu remap. Is the engine the same as the Impreza 2.0 sport (thats also non-turbo) if so some of the bits might be more easily located.