legacycentral bbs

I am building a cheap winterbeater/project rally car. I recently
bought a 1990 Legacy L AWD w/ 100,000k for $900. The car runs great,
just rusted. But the whole automatic transmission thing isn't gonna
work. Who can tell me (or show me) what is needed to turn it into a
manual transmission. Im guessing I'd have to do a complete engine
swap. Can I put a turbo engine into it? I do not know much about
modding subarus so if someone can give me some answers or point me
to a site with some "how-to's" that would be great. I'm wondering if
it would be easier to just hang on to this car until I can find
another AWD subaru cheap that is a 5-spd. Give me some feedback.

Thanks, Jon

This is an excellent writeup of it:
http://www.xmission.com/~dac/library/tr ... onvert.htm
Also, http://bbs.legacycentral.org

It's actually relatively simple. I've been
contemplating the sawp as my auto is shot, but am
probably not going to do it, and just rebuild the auto
instead. I was quoted about $1100 for the parts from
a local wrecking yard.


-Matt G.

My question is why you are so against the auto?

It's somewhat hard to control your slide in a manual. You don't have
the feel, when you mash the gas, the car downshifts, there is always
a delay between your foot and the power. It's also a bit easier to
keep it in the power band with a manual, you can have fun AWD
launches, and in general I prefer a manual.

Use the shift lock! Thats what its for(and no clutch to Burn out, or to
ride)!

The Subaru AT is one of the best for control. The AT can shift faster
and will "NOT" make any mistakes unlike the gear head human.

I have nothing against a manual 5 speed. I have been shifting gears for
18 years(Driving Trucks w/ 26 speeds( 3 shifters) and down). Shifting is
getting very tiresome(more like a pain in the @ss). The AT is very nice,
if you don't want to shift you don't hafta. The control is there if you
want to shift.
$0.02 Dan