azn2nr wrote:1000 for an 18g?? which one are you getting. for that price you could go garrett. plus if you want to go 18 just comvert your 16. im not sure if heads would cost that much depending on which ones you want. the tranny is where it hurts though. no matter what car you get, if its a subaru and it has some power trannys are gonna go bye bye sooner than later. on the issue of the body staying old school will be hard. the easiest way out is to find an L that a grandma has been driving around that has no rust and swap everything over. if you want to upgrade the body than you could do the same thing, just swap everything over. that way you avoid the big bucks for a new paint job and rust repair. unless of course you want to keep the color then you will have to paint the new car anyway.
i thought you already had coilovers or was that just a dream? that and if the tunable chip being discussed in teh engine board goes thorugh you might not need to spend that much on ecu+tunning. though not as cool or maybe as effective as a standalone im pretty sure it will be able to do the job.
Turbo:
http://www.boostplanet.com/product6.htm
Converting the 16, would cost around $800 to do everything, so might as well just go new, and sell my turbo.
Heads are relatively cheap. Head work is expensive. Espically since places I would trust are no where NEAR local. So I gotta ship them three times, and pay for head work.
I want to keep my color, that's the big thing for me. I don't want to buy another Legacy just to swap everything and go from there. I'd have to swap EVERYTHING, down to the carpets. That's a lotta downtime for the car. Plus a paint job, it just wouldn't be any less expensive. Rust free Legacy's don't exist down here I think.
If it's a non 6-speed Subaru, the tranny is gonna be hurtin. The 6-speeds do pretty well. That's the number one reason I want to get the STi over the WRX, is that I can't finance $6k for a transmission with the purchase of the car.
As far as the coilovers goes, I had a set. DMS 40mm's. But there was some significant miscommunication going on, and the final rebuild price was more than double the original estimate, so needless to say, I'm not going to be getting those coilovers. I am out the money I paid though.
I can make the car run with just fuel control. I can't make it run as well as I would like without timing control. Full standalone would produce a more reliable setup, IMO.
It's not that I'm getting the itch for something else. It's that I'm getting kinda bored of being worried about the car all the time. In light of my lean dyno runs, Matt's blown motor, and all of the "blue smoke, white smoke" posts, I have reason to be concerned that my motor is on it's last legs. Matt's car ran great, then one day BAM. Same with yours Steve. Just, POP, and your stuck with a thumb up the pooper. I don't feel like the Legacy is perfectly reliable. I always get the sinking feeling that I'll go on boost, and blow her up. When I get to the upper revs, I start to grimmace and half expect a POP and then have to call the tow.
I want a car that is acceptable, in terms of performance, but is stock. The STi fits that need, and it will prevent me from modding it and I can still mod the Legacy when I get bitten by the bug, AND I won't have to rely on it to get me to school and work.
$13,000 would never build a GC8 to kill an STi. It would put the power out to kill an STi, but it would fall short in so many categories. I can spend $13,000 and make more power at the wheels than modded STi's make at the crank, but the STi has MUCH more potential, and the GD chassis is SO much stiffer than the BC/GC. Stiff coilovers are just going to exploit chassis flex, which is something that's not easily curable. I'm not going to buy an STi so I can be the fastest thing on the street. I'm not buying it to be a race car.
A swapped car, done right, would cost more than $13,000. Plus, you can't finance a build.
Scott - I love the process. I'm not buying the STi as a project. I'm buying it to maintain a level of performance that I have grown very accustomed to, as well as some other things that I think about. I think a new car would be good for me, emotionally. I get depressed when I think about the amount of money it would take to get Lauren up to my spec. When I think about how fragile she is, and how she drives differently every day. How there are random little problems that scare the shit out of me. She is just showing her 110,000 mile age.
Art - My friend Ron has an 05GT Wagon, and my friend Keefe has an 05GT Sedan (with Zeal V6 Coilovers, Cusco swaybars and endlinks, factory SS, custom one-off fiberglass grill, 6 sets of wheels and tires (2 of which are R-Compound), a UTEC going in soon, and a few other goodies). I got to drive Ron's wagon for a day, and really liked it!
I really like the LGT, but I don't know about the cost. The ones I was looking at are more than STi's. I can't decide between the two. The LGT is going to be MUCH more expensive to mod, suspension wise. Keefe spent something like $2600 on those coilovers. But the LGT has that aire of professionalism, not often associated with the STi.
I really don't want to swap anything, to tell the truth. That's another liability that, while it would be fun, I only need one project. The Legacy isn't going anywhere. I just want a fun daily driver, that will meet my performance expectations and make me happy enough stock, to keep my wallet out of trouble in modding it.
2009 Outback 2.5XT. 5MT. Satin White Pearl.
2009 Impreza 2.5i Premium. Blue.
[quote="scottzg"]...I'm not a fan of the vagina...[/quote][quote="evolutionmovement"]This will all go much easier if people stop doubting me.[/quote]