Readers' Rides: Matt's Supercharged Subaru Forester

So far on Readers' Rides we've had a nice variety of motors, from FWD hot hatches to RWD super-saloons and everything in-between. You may also remember Dakota's WRX, a modified version of the world-famous AWD road-going rally car.

Today's Readers' Rides submission comes in the form of a supercharged Subaru Forester. As owner Matt notes, it is a lifted version of the WRX based on the same chassis and drivetrain. This Forester, however, has a slightly bigger beast in its belly. Over to Matt to explain...

I've always been interested in moving vehicles, starting with electric trains in my early childhood. After several pedal karts and many bicycles, I turned 15 and began looking for a car. My neighbours had a stock 2006 Subaru Forester with a 2.5-litre, naturally aspirated engine making 175hp at the crank.

It was the perfect platform for a young mechanically-inclined teenager like me. It was based on a rally platform and the engine compartment had plenty of space. Unfortunately, the naturally aspirated engine did not have much room for improvement. The four-speed automatic, while strong, was outdated. I immediately set to modifying it.

First were small appearance modifications, but I soon started adding some more purposeful mods. I upgraded the suspension end links, added a front strut bar, deleted the power steering for stronger road feedback, and upgraded the transmission mount. All of these modifications improved the driving experience, but the stock 175 crank horsepower was barely enough to break the cheap, all-season tyres loose in the rain and I longed for a manual transmission.

In January 2013, I began collecting parts for a five-speed manual transmission swap and a supercharger build using the short-snout Eaton M62 roots blower from a Mercedes CLK230 Kompressor. The Mercedes version of this supercharger was short enough to fit perfectly in the Subaru engine compartment and would boost a healthy six PSI to avoid over-pressurising the cylinder walls.

Over the next two weeks, I worked at my uncle's garage and pulled all the old automatic transmission parts out of the car, and then swapped in the five speed parts. During those two weeks, I got to know my car much better than I had planned to. I pulled the engine apart to replace the timing belt components and head gaskets. When the engine was reinstalled, I fabricated the supercharger brackets and installed it.

As of now, this is the first documented supercharging of a 2006 Subaru Forester X and one of the few documented Forester transmission swaps. I still have some more electrical work to do as I currently don't have a functioning speedometer or a proper tune; but the supercharger noise is great.

I hope you guys enjoy my Subaru as much as I do. I've affectionately nicknamed it "Sleeping Ugly". It's reasonably fun to drive in stock form, but even more fun to drive with the new manual transmission and upgraded parts. Once I finish up the supercharger tuning, I should be looking at 200 all-wheel horsepower and even more torque.

If you want your car featured on Readers' Rides, email darren.cassey@carthrottle.com with a pic and a few words explaining why you love it so much. If we like it, we'll feature it!