Supercharger ?

[trlegacy]

I have non-turbo legacy. i want to install supercharger. did somebody install it. What should i do for high-performance. Can you help me.
thanks

[kimokalihi]

I believe Doug has done this. Douglas Vincent. Search.

[trlegacy]

thanks.. i found some information about it but i'm not sure because my engine is EJ18. maybe can be problem.

[mike-tracy]

I think that the engine will be the least of the troubles, the 100% custom fabrication for everything will be a PIA.

[evolutionmovement]

I don't know where you're located, but I'd try to get a bigger engine and live with a reliable car. You'll spend a lot of time and money for what will become an unreliable and not very powerful engine and probably much worse on gas than a 2.2 or 2.5. A turbo engine with a harness would very likely be easier and cheaper in the long run as well. Depending on where you are, a European turbo diesel transplant might take a little more work and require a whole wreck for parts, but would get you a lot more power and over 40 US mpg give or take a few (that's what the new Legacy gets—about 50 UK mpg—which is heavier and though I'm sure it has a lower cd, probably makes up for that with a larger frontal area so I'd guess the aerodynamic efficiencies aren't too far away from each other).

[trlegacy]

The general idea is negative, but i am 19 years old i interested in my car. i am living in Turkey. if i buy a new subaru i will not be satisfied because i love my car i want to make my car too fast. Car prices are too much in Turkey.For example 2000 year GC8 is 19.000$ and i will spend 5000$ my car will be fast as far as GC8.

[evolutionmovement]

Can you get front clips from wrecked cars? The thing is, any application will be custom work and I don't think the results would be that impressive nor reliable. You've got decent miles on that engine already and guessing this is a fuel injected engine basically the same as the US 1.8 from the Impreza, you're running a pretty high compression ratio with heads that aren't the best as well. You'd be much better off getting the guts of a turbo car. Superchargers require power from the engine to run. They can be put on a clutch, but your choices here are very limited. I don't even know what supercharger you'd use. Doug used one from a Mercedes SLK230, but that engine is about the same size as the US 2.2 as a starting point and he ended up blowing up the engine a LOT of times making it fast. Too big a supercharger will take too much power from the engine and one sized appropriately, if you can find one, wouldn't make a lot of power.

If your engine is carbureted, you're talking a different animal, but blow-through would probably be easiest. You'd likely have to run it very rich and upgrade all your fuel system to keep it from blowing up, but since I don't think anyone's done this, you'll be on your own to figure it out. You could get some information from guys who supercharged V8 muscle cars, but it will only be helpful to a small degree. You'd still have to fabricate everything yourself. It's possible, but I can't see it being anything but a disappointment in the end. If you can get a hold of a turbo engine, transmission, and harness from a wrecked car, it will probably cost you less and would give you much better results in terms of power, economy, and reliability. With a turbo engine, you will also be doing something that thousands of people have already done so any questions would be easily answered.

Unless you have a lot of experience with forced induction fabrication and tuning, I think all you'll end up doing trying to adapt a supercharger to the 1.8 is leave yourself with a broken car and some learning experience. It's easy to bite off more than you can handle (I've done it myself and learned my limita long the way), but it's like with school—you can't start off math by jumping into calculus. Doing something that's been done is a better place to start. You also have to question why something hasn't been done before. Sometimes it's just something nobody's thought of, but a lot of times it's because it doesn't work or isn't worth doing. Superchargers are an old idea (actually older than the internal combustion engine) so someone would have very likely have thought of it before. I think if you research supercharging systems and engines more, you'll see why a supercharger is probably not the best idea for your situation.

A good book, if you can get it, is Engines: An Introduction by John Lumley. I'm sure there are other books, as well. What I have thousands of ideas, and I learned over the years that before I jump into something to research the hell out of it and that has saved me a ton of money and time. And even if an idea wouldn't work out, you can't help but learn a lot of things along the way, many of which can help you with future ideas and projects.

[trlegacy]

My car has a carburator because of i want to install s/c. i have a some different ideas about this issue. Many people said s/c has not big pressure and s/c gives you 10-20 hp its enough for me.Thank you for all answers i must think twice i am confused. i will search another performance parts. You are very experienced thank you so much..

[Jessekrs123]

My car has a carburator because of i want to install s/c. i have a some different ideas about this issue. Many people said s/c has not big pressure and s/c gives you 10-20 hp its enough for me.Thank you for all answers i must think twice i am confused. i will search another performance parts. You are very experienced thank you so much..

10 - 20 horsepower won't be worth the amount of work required to integrate a supercharger into your vehicle. Buying the actual supercharger, custom fabbing pulleys and brackets. Plus remember that superchargers run off the crank so there will probably more loss than gain.

[evolutionmovement]

Exactly, what he's saying. The US 1.8 is fuel injected with electronic ignition and still only makes 110 hp. The 2.2 is 130 hp (though I think this is underrated), so there's 20 horsepower right there. Instead of wiring in an entire fuel injected and electronic ignition system (plus you'd need a fuel pump and possibly fuel lines) ECU (talk about a learning experience!), maybe you could import just a 2.2 block and swap the carburetor and distributor parts over. It's possible to swap around all kinds of things between different engines with these, but being carbureted, I'm only making a guess as to how easy this would be in your case. One issue is driving the distributor, but I would bet whatever they use would bolt onto a 2.2 block. The potential problem you might encounter that I can see is how the drive comes off the camshaft and whether it would mean you'd have to reuse the 1.8 cams (which might not be a problem, but I have no idea what the cam specs are for the carbed 1.8 ). The other thing to look at would be if the intake would swap onto the fuel injected heads (though you could maybe run the 2.2 with the 1.8 heads anyway, but I have no idea what that would do to the combustion chamber. It might make more power by giving you a higher compression ratio, but I don't know about the valve size and cam timing. You might have to put the better petrol in it, but a supercharger would make you do the same thing). OK, so does your carburetor sit on top of an intake manifold that looks kind of like a 4-leg spider? The 2.2 was available in Europe and there was also a 2.0. The newer 2.5 might be a little far removed to potentially be a relatively simple swap.

Of course, I have no idea how hard or expensive it is to import used engines into your country, so my recommendations might be a waste of time. Then again, maybe there's a bigger engine that Subaru offered in your country that you can get from an auto recycler. I think that's about as helpful as I can be.

[trlegacy]

I'll take these experiences into account.You're right 1.8 engine so small for high performance.maybe always it will be problem.Some unknowing person said it will not problem but i can see you have many informations about this issue.As i said in Turkey many people don't know subaru and especially 1991 legacy. I think i can't find some parts. it might be nightmare.Thank you for your interest.maybe in future i can buy new subaru..i dont wanna damage my engine.I think 110hp enough for now Thank you

[evolutionmovement]

Good luck! I think a lot of us know because of experience making mistakes. This will make me sound like an old man, but I was 19 once and had ideas like yours. Lucky for me, I didn't grow up with money so I developed a very pragmatic side and saved more money than most. That got me out of a few times in my life where I lost my job for a while and I don't know what I would have done without that modest amount of money I was able to save. Though when I was 19, I'll admit I didn't save very much, but I was in love so I spent my money going out with my girl and enjoyed how cheap my 1984 Subaru was to run. My friends all had muscle cars and no money for anything else. Today I'm doing pretty well, but I still don't have a lot of money to spend on all my ideas so I have to be selective.

[trlegacy]

You're right. Experience more important than money.I really interested in my car.I will learn a lot of information about engine,transmission,axles.etc. This is the first thing I've learned Thank you for all information.