legacycentral bbs

After a bunch of 80's Nissan turbo-cars i just bought a Legacy 1.8 GLX 1990 because of it's superb winter traction... (I live in the north of Sweden).

The car is in VERY good condition and the previous owner was the chiefmechanic of the carshop. Well it was ment to be a turbo but they are quite expensive. I payed 2200USD for mine and you have to pay around 5500USD for a 91-93 Turbo Legacy here.

That brings me to my questions;

What are the differences between the two. The turbo has the EJ20G? engine with MPI to start with. Do they have the same gearbox and reardiff apart from the final gear ratio?

The turbo has discbrakes in the rear too but do they have the same front brakes? Is the driveshafts the same?

What does the gearbox, differentials and driveshafts cope with? 3-400Nm?

I'm probably going to swap engine to something more powerful.
At first i thougt i'd just turbocharge the stock EJ18 and put on a megasquirt but the high CR at 9.7 wont take any boost.
And I want to skip machining the pistons beacuse it's my daily driver.

An EJ20 turbo swap would be the easiest but such an engine seems to cost the same amount as the whole car here in sweden.

Then theres the 2.2. It has a little lower CR but not low enough. and it's not that powerful N/A... What do you guys think?

And another thing, is the suspension the same between the turbo version and mine 1.8 GLX? ... well what differs?

I would be VERY thankful if you guys could answer my questions... I'm very new to Subarus...

Nobody? If there already is an answer for my questions please point me in the right direction beacuse I can't find them...

Kindly Regards / Gustaf

Hi Gustaf,

Most of the guys on here are from the US, and we didn't get the 1.8 liter in the Legacy, so it's hard to say what's different.

However there are more then likely differences between the turbo and the 1.8. Suspension, brakes, etc.

If you're looking for more power, you could probably drop in a turbo motor and it should work.

The problem is that the turboengine is so expensive. Has anybody turboconverted the N/A EJ22 or EJ18 .. any tips how to lower the compression??? Is the MPFI the same on the EJ22 N/A as the EJ20G turbo??

i'd suggest trying the liberty RS board, they have more knowledge of those engines than we do, as they are available on cars in australia

Where can i find the liberty RS board?

You can turbo the EJ18 just fine. My friend Brent ran 7psi in his EJ18 for quite some time. Plus, 1.8L engines are cheap and easy to come by. It's just a matter of specing parts and such. All EJ20 parts will bolt up (headers, uppipe, and such.

You just need the turbo engine crossmember, and that's it. You'll be golden.

BAC5.2 wrote:You can turbo the EJ18 just fine. My friend Brent ran 7psi in his EJ18 for quite some time. Plus, 1.8L engines are cheap and easy to come by. It's just a matter of specing parts and such. All EJ20 parts will bolt up (headers, uppipe, and such.

You just need the turbo engine crossmember, and that's it. You'll be golden.

The euro ej18 is carbeurated. Assuming this doesnt present a problem (fat chance) that's all he'd need.

Really? Well shit, that's weak.

Gustaf's EJ18 isn't carbureted; it has throttle body injection, unless I'm misinterpreting what he meant by saying his engine is SPI in the other thread.

Carborators eh?

I learned something today, YAY!

Are the intake manifolds swapable with a 22?

*carburetors

It's a TBI injection (SPI in subarulanguage). As I would need to get intakemanifolds etc. from the MPI version of EJ's it isn't worth the work of converting the EJ18.

I'll try to get hold of an EJ22 cheaply and turboconvert it with home made manifolds, if i cant get an ej20g turbo manifold for free (but does the doch mani fit?)

And then run MSnEdis beacuse of the lack of distribrutor. The only problem is the triggerwheel. Do the EJ22 MPI engine have variable resistance throttle body or just ON/OFF?

Regards // Gustaf

Seriously, Gustaf, I think you should look into fitting the EDIS trigger wheel to the crankshaft pulley. If you wanted to be really cheap about it you could probably even get away with just using epoxy.

The EJ22 throttle position sensor is a variable resistance. It's just like most other modern TPSes out there.

I'll probably weld an edis triggerwheel to the pulley, is the front pulley alu or steel?