Engine Bushings with Fitting Position Front and Rear, Front, Rear for 2014 Subaru Forester XT

Put your foot down and the engine twists against its mounts before any of that torque reaches the road.

Engine bushings control how much it moves in your Subaru Forester, and on a tuned car that movement is costing you response and traction every time you accelerate.

What Is a Subaru Forester Motor Mount

A motor mount holds the engine to the chassis while isolating you from what the engine is doing.

Most cars run three or four, including a front engine mount and a rear motor mount, positioned to carry the weight and resist the engine trying to rotate under load. The mount itself is usually a steel bracket with rubber bonded inside it, and that rubber is what absorbs vibration before it reaches the cabin.

Transmission and gearbox mounts do the same job at the other end of the drivetrain, holding the gearbox and controlling how the whole assembly moves as a unit.

The compromise is built in from the factory. Softer rubber means a quieter, smoother car and more engine movement. Firmer means better control and more noise reaching you. Manufacturers choose comfort, because that is what sells cars.

Why Subaru Forester Factory Engine Mounts Let the Engine Move

Factory mounts are engineered to deflect, and on a performance car that becomes the limitation.

Many modern mounts use voided rubber, with hollow sections designed to collapse in one direction. Others are hydraulic, filled with fluid that damps movement at specific frequencies. Both are excellent at keeping a car refined and both allow significant movement under torque.

That movement costs you in several separate ways. Power delivery softens, because the engine rotates on its mounts before the drivetrain loads up. Shifts feel vague as the gearbox moves with the engine. And on a front wheel drive car, engine movement under hard acceleration pulls on the driveshafts and affects how the front end behaves.

Age makes every bit of that worse again. Rubber hardens, cracks and separates from the bracket, and hydraulic mounts leak their fluid out. A tired mount allows far more movement than it did when it was new.

Bad Motor Mount Symptoms on Your Subaru Forester

• A clunk or thud from the engine bay when shifting between drive and reverse
• Heavy vibration through the floor and steering wheel at idle
• A noticeable jolt through the car on hard acceleration
• Engine movement visible when the throttle is blipped with the hood open
• Vague or notchy gear shifts, particularly in a manual
• A knock when coming on and off the throttle at low speed
• Cracked, split or separated rubber visible on the mount
• Fluid leaking from a hydraulic mount
• Driveline shunt felt as a surge when lifting off

A broken motor mount is the extreme version, where the rubber has separated from the bracket entirely and the engine is resting on whatever stops it. That is a repair rather than an upgrade decision.

Insert Bushings Against Complete Engine Mounts

Two approaches, and the right one depends on what the factory mount is doing.

An engine mount insert bushing fills the voids in the existing factory mount with polyurethane. The original mount stays in the car, and the insert stops it collapsing in the direction it was designed to give.

That is the cost effective route, it keeps most of the factory isolation, and it is the sensible first step on a street car. Insert kits are typically a fraction of the price of a complete mount.

A complete engine mount replaces the factory unit entirely with a polyurethane bushed assembly. This is the answer where the original has failed, where it is hydraulic and leaking, or where the insert cannot control enough of the movement.

Complete mounts deliver the most control of the two. They also transmit more of what the engine is doing into the car, which is the trade off worth understanding before ordering.

Pitch Stop Mounts and Fore-Aft Engine Movement

A pitch stop mount is found on longitudinal engine layouts, and it does a job the main mounts cannot.

It sits between the top of the transmission and the chassis, controlling fore and aft movement of the drivetrain. That is the direction the main mounts are least able to resist, because they are positioned to carry weight and resist rotation rather than to stop the assembly rocking backward.

The factory item is soft, and it lets the whole drivetrain rock backward under acceleration and forward when you lift. Drivers feel that as driveline shunt, a surge on and off the throttle, and shifts that feel imprecise.

Whiteline addresses the pitch stop mount two ways. A pitch mount bushing kit inserts polyurethane into the standard arm, which sharpens things up at the lowest cost. A complete engine pitch stop mount replaces the arm entirely for applications where more control is wanted.

On the platforms that use one it is among the cheapest changes available and one of the most noticeable, which is why it is usually the first mount anyone upgrades.

Dogbone Mounts on Transverse Engine Layouts

Many transverse engine platforms use a lower torque arm that enthusiasts call the dogbone mount, named for its shape.

It sits below the engine and controls rotation under load, and the factory bushing in it is deliberately soft. Under hard acceleration the engine rotates until that bushing is fully compressed, which is why a standard car can feel like power arrives a moment after the throttle does.

A dogbone insert or a complete replacement mount limits that rotation and minimizes the lag. Throttle response sharpens, wheel hop reduces on powerful front drive cars, the tires find grip sooner, and shifts feel more connected.

On a tuned car it is one of the highest value changes per dollar, which is why it sits near the top of most build lists.

Universal and Application Specific Engine Mounts

Both exist, and knowing which you are looking at avoids a fitment problem.

Application specific mounts are engineered around one platform, matching the factory bracket geometry, bolt pattern and load path exactly. They bolt in and the engine sits where it should.

Universal engine mount bushings turn up most often on older V8 platforms, where one mount design was shared across decades of engines and chassis. A mount that fits a range of applications there is genuinely universal rather than a compromise.

Where a mount is listed as universal, check the bolt spacing, the height and the orientation against what you have before ordering, since a shared design still has variants.

For anything modern, application specific is the only sensible route, because engine bays are packed tight and a mount that sits even slightly out of position puts load into the rest of the drivetrain.

Transmission and Gearbox Mount Bushings

The engine and gearbox move as one assembly, so controlling one end without the other leaves the job half done.

A transmission mount bushing stiffens the rear of that assembly, which does more to stabilize shift feel than engine motor mount upgrades alone. Where the gearbox can move relative to the shifter linkage, every shift includes some of that movement.

Upgrading engine and gearbox mounts together gives the most consistent result. Doing only the engine end can leave the drivetrain pivoting around the mount you upgraded.

Whiteline offers engine and gearbox mount bushings as combined kits on several platforms for exactly that reason.

Motor Mounts for High Torque Engines

High output engines have their own requirements, and torque is the reason.

A high torque V8 twists harder against its mounts than a four cylinder does, and factory mounts on older platforms were never specified for the power levels people run today.

Whiteline motor mount bushings and complete mounts cover a range of six cylinder and V8 applications, along with clamshell inserts for diesel platforms where the standard mount tears itself apart.

On a car making serious torque, mount failure is not just a comfort issue. An engine moving under load puts stress on the exhaust, the driveshaft, the cooling system and the linkages.

The NVH Trade Off With Polyurethane Engine Mounts

Firmer mounts transmit more into the cabin, and that is worth being straight about.

Polyurethane does not absorb vibration the way soft rubber does. Expect more engine noise at idle, more vibration through the floor, and more of the drivetrain's character reaching you at low speed.

How much depends on how far you go. An insert kit shifts the character only slightly. A full set of solid polyurethane mounts changes it a lot, and on a daily driver that can become tiring.

The usual approach is inserts first, since they deliver most of the response improvement for the least NVH penalty, with complete mounts for cars where the compromise is worth it.

Diesel and four cylinder engines transmit more at idle than a smooth six or eight, which is worth factoring in.

Supporting the Engine When Fitting Motor Mounts

The engine has to be supported before any mount comes out, and that means a hoist or a jack with a block under the sump rather than taking the weight on anything else.

Work one mount at a time where possible, which keeps the engine located while each one is changed.

Insert kits often go in without removing the mount from the car, which is part of their appeal. Complete mounts generally need the mount unbolted and the engine lifted slightly.

Check the engine sits back in its original position before torquing everything down. A drivetrain bolted down out of position puts load into every other mount.

Use new fasteners where they are single use, and torque to specification rather than by feel, because these are load bearing fixings.

Find Engine Bushings for Your Subaru Forester

Shifting feels vague even after new mounts? Shifter bushings and transmission mounts firm up the rest of the driveline.

Select your Subaru Forester to see the engine mount bushings, insert kits, pitch stop mounts and complete motor mounts available for it in front and rear fitments. Start with inserts if the car is a daily driver, and go to complete mounts where the factory item has failed or the power level demands it. Every part ships within 24 hours with 30 day returns and a US based support team.