A “Must Have” guide for Forester SG Series Owners

This thread has a selected popular mods that our team can locate and get for you.

Menu:
Forester SG 03-05
– XT body kits
– Cross Sports/STi kits
– Side Skirts and rear Bumper/Lips
– Accessories
– Important Tips
Forester SG 06-07
– Front bumper types and lips
– Grilles
– Accessories
– Important tips

Forester SG 2003-2005 models

There is one major question you want to ask yourself: Do you want to keep the existing bumpers or you want to go Cross Sports or STi route

XT Body Kits

If you want to keep your stock bumpers you have 2 options:
1) XT Sports body kit ($650-800) – Front lip ($330-400), side skirts (~280-350), rear spats ($150-200)
2) XT STi body kit ($850-1000) – Front Lip ($400-600), side skirts (~280-350) and rear lip ($350-500)

Note: The front STi lip is different to Sports, it is lower and a lot more rare.

Now if you want make the Cross Sports conversion you would require selected parts:
– Bumper, specific bumper beam, headlight surrounds and a grill as well as maybe a specific fender liners

Cross Sports/STi Conversions

There are variety of Cross Sports options but lets take a look for those in general:
1) Cross Sports conversion with no lip ($600-950)
2) Cross Sports with a lip (Cross Fire or STi) ($1100-1400)
3) STi conversion ($1300-1700)

Standard Cross Sports Front end
Crossfire Front end. Different Grill and the lip is installed.
Cross Sports Bumper With STi Lip and Rare STi Fog Covers on
Standard STi Front bumper on a not so standard Forester (IG @Tim.Tann)

There are multiple optional parts to the conversions that might make them more expensive (Fog covers for Cross Sports bumper, Fog lights and surrounds for STi bumper etc)

Side Skirts and rear Bumper/Lips

Besides that you might want a side skirts and rear bumper that come with the Cross sports and STi kits:
1) Side skirts: Narrow with spats ($280-350), Wide 06-07 specific ($300-400), STi side skirts ($550-700) – Very Rare
2) Rear bumpers: Just a bumper alone $330-400, With a lip $450-600, With small spats ($360-450), With bigger STi Spats ($450-600)

Tyler’s 06-08 With Rear Cross Sports bumper with Small Spats
Kev’s 06-08 with Large STi Rear Spats (IG: kevin_the_kev)



So if you want to make a full conversion front to rear it would cost you $1200-3000. Perhaps everything depends on a condition and you shouldn’t buy all the parts at once but there are some tips you should follow:

  1. If you are buying a conversion with no lip make sure you want to run it that way, don’t tell yourself I want the lip but I will buy it later. Don’t – locating a lip separately is tough and it will cost you more money at the end of the day if you just buy the whole conversion, besides, it will also take you a lot of time to locate one.
  2. Replacing side skirts requires a specific fender molding otherwise you will have an unnecessary gap. Make sure your seller will supply you with those (normal price $50-80)
  3. Replacing rear bumper requires trimming or removal of the beam. JDM cars are not running them, all they have is just a top bracket.
  4. Don’t buy just the Cross Sports bumper it won’t fit with your existing front end setup, you need a conversion.
  5. If you have 03-05 Forester (Pre facelift) Always ask the seller about fender extension plastic panels because stock ones won’t line up with any wide or facelift models. In case you have ordered a set that doesn’t have extensions – don’t worry you can always get them locally they are not JDM Spec, correct extensions can always be found on 06-08 Foresters.

Other accessories

  1. Slim door moldings. Slim door moldings were placed to Cross Sports or 06-07 Forester versions. Their market value is $200-250
  2. Hatch Spoiler with brake light (known as STi) $180-$280
  3. Mid (Waist) Spoiler $250-350 (we are making them in Carbon Fiber)
  4. Rain Guards $190-250
  5. Front Grill (for stock bumpers) and more aggressive headlight surrounds $280-400
  6. STi Fog covers for Stock bumpers $200-350
  7. STi Hood Scoop (fits from STi Bug eye) $200-350
  8. Power folding mirrors $200-250 XT and Cross Sports, ESAM XT with turn light $300-450, ESAM Cross Sports $350-500.
Top and mid wing as well as rain guards and lots of other good stuff on Jake’s 05 Forester (IG: subie_jake3)

Important Tips

  1. JDM Spoiler would require making 5 holes, 4 for mounting and 1 for wiring. You can find mounting templates in google: Forester SG spoiler templates
  2. Rain guards must have metal brackets and they must be shipped in a proper packaging
  3. Slim door moldings can be found on 06-07 USDM versions.
  4. Always check if seller has the switch and wiring, give highest priority if the plugs have a pig tails. Even if you will pay $50 more for pig tails, its still better than finding plugs separately.
  5. Waist spoiler mounts with a 3M tape from factory, it is not a single piece with a garnish. So if you see a seller selling one that is a direct garnish replacement that means they are both glued together.

Perhaps there are variety of different optional bits besides these, but this selection was made using our own experience of most asked things.

Forester SG 06-07

Facelift version of SG had absolutely different front end design yet almost the same rear end and sides remained identical.

Front Bumper Types and Lips

Though there are 2 types of front ends you can see people running:

  1. Fog light bumper which is less aggressive
  2. Sports bumper that is obviously more aggressive
Limited Bumper
Jake’s daily 08 with Sports front bumper. These bumpers are also coming on Cross Sports and STi on JDM 06-08

Sports bumper can be obtained at a dealership in most States, the other question is what are you going to do when you have bought it.

If you have a sports bumper and you want a lip for it you have 2 genuine options:

  1. Splitter STI lip $350-400.
  2. Traditional lip $400-500

If you choose to keep your fog light bumper don’t worry it has a traditional lip in japan as well price $400-500

Grilles

The shape of the grill is same for sports and fog light bumpers there are 2 types of them:

  1. Plastic mesh grill with STi or Cross Sports badge $250-350, there was an option made for United states for a limited WRB Foresters, but they are rare as much as I know
  2. Metal mesh grill came as an option to a cars with fog light bumper and sports body kit. Usually it was chosen by people that wanted to stand out as it’s not too common. $250-350
Will’s Forester with STi Grill
Tyler’s w/ Cross Sports grill (basically same STi but w/ cross sports badge)
Sport’s Grill

As I mentioned before, sides and rear are identical, so if you are choosing the rear and skirts just take a look at 03-05 thread.

Accessories


Though the rear end is similar, the hatch is a bit different, that is why the mid (waist) spoiler is shaped differently.

  1. 06-07 made hatch spoiler $180-280
  2. 06-07 Mid Waist spoiler $270-400
  3. Folding mirrors with a turn light $400-550
  4. STI Scoop is same as 03-05 and Bug Eye $200-350
  5. Black housing Xenon headlights $550-800
  6. Black housing tail lights $300-450

06-07 list is smaller because it still shares most of the bits with 03-05 model.

Important Tips

  1. 06-07 spoiler has a different mounting method. it has 1 plastic clip on each side and a bolt on the top covered under the caps. To install this spoiler you will have mount 1 riveted thread on each side and drill 2 holes for the clip and 1 for wiring.
  2. Fitment of the Mid Spoiler is identical to 03-05. If you are planning to install 03-05 Mid Spoiler because it seems more aggressive, don’t, you will just throw your money in the garbage, it has a different shape.
  3. Same rules apply for the 06-07 mirrors as they are for 03-05
  4. Xenon headlights are shaped same way but you need to wire them up to work with the USDM harness, make sure you know a good electric or may struggle a bit.
  5. Black housing tail lights are priced pretty much the same amount of money everywhere, so don’t expect the seller to give you huge discount on those as they have very low margin.

Hope this guide cleared your path for the JDM accessories and conversions. If have some of these mods hope I have explained to you something you were wondering about.

If you haven’t found some pictures of the following parts list, shoot us a message we will show you some.

All prices include shipping. Many of those parts we can get for you anytime.

 

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