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Bought my first Legacy Turbo, now how to modify it??
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2003 4:22 pm
by CobraCDR
I'm a car nut and have always loved and owned subarus. I always have at least two of these AWD beauties for the PA winters. I also love to build, modify and customize all types of cars. While looking for my second Subaru for the winter I came across an imaculately clean one owner 94 Legacy Turbo 89K. It had light body damage left front fender, hood, headlight, and bumper (all easily repaired) Paid $800 and drove it home. I was liked the accelleration, but after looking at your website I see there is more to be had out of these cars. I have yet to do anything with a turbo car but have done a lot with superchargers, EFI, and Mass air systems. I kind of picked out that an MSD dig-2 might help things. I read that there was a lot of engeneering alrady put into the EJ22T block to make it strong. Looks like some stay with the stock turbo with a MBC (any good brands) while other like the Mitsubishi g16? turbo upgrade. I saw mention of a (down pipe and up pipe?) not a turbo guy I guess these are the pipes going in and out of the turbo. I did do an aftercooler on a Votech SC2 about a year ago so could probably do an intercooler with out much trouble. I have almost any tools need form 25 years of playing. I need to learn from the experts though on this turbo stuff so I was refered to this web sight. EDUCATE ME!!! I can pay back in knowledge in numerous other areas and am a fast learner.
Thanks For Your Time!
Doug
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2003 5:41 pm
by -K-
Well I would start with, How far do you want to go? That's a big part of how you go about power. I run a bleeder valve for more boost not MBC. I think vrg3 did a how to post on it, do a search and make one yourself. Get a boost gauge before anything else. I wouldn't worry about the MSD or turbo right now.
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2003 6:08 pm
by CobraCDR
I'd like to get in to about the 250WHP range and still keep street legal. Been looking at the intercooler option and have bid on some parts to set up a 25x6x3 1/2 front intercooler and cutting the front bumperskin to fit ($500-600). Any recomendations on MBC or boost gauges? Found a new autometer boost guage in the truck of one of the Miatas when I bought it. What does "FDC" mean? Is that fuel management?
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2003 8:52 pm
by teaguespeed
your the guy who got the one that was on ebay. lucky bastard. oh well, welcome to the board.
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2003 9:34 pm
by georryan
250 WHP is definately attainable. Nice buy off of ebay. A lot of guys here were looking at that.

Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 1:24 am
by CobraCDR
It was only about 20 miles from here so I went over and looked at it. Other than a flat tire, it was ready to go. Started it and drove it home. I always liked interesting cars. Sounds like this one should be a lot of fun. Staighted fenders and hood yesterday about 4 hours and first two passes of body filler. Finshed sanded today and primed. Bumper bracket will need a couple hours of work. Paint was peeling off wheels, so my boy sand-blasted them and primed them yesterday when I was doing the body work. I have a used headlight and corner lamp on the way. I had some 94 Subaru white basecoat in my paint locker form a car I did a couple of years ago. I think I'll do a wire mess grille as I haven't been able to find a stock one yet.
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 2:16 am
by rsstiboy
twin cam heads, VF34 turbo, fmic, bosch motorsport 600hp fuel pump, malpassi fuel reg, STi yellow top injectors, 3" turbo back exhaust, custom intake, forged conrods and pistons, 20PSI on a AVC-R, Link or Microtech ECU on your 2.2ltr block you will have yourself a weapon, now to make it stop.........
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 3:03 am
by HomeSlice
teaguespeed wrote:your the guy who got the one that was on ebay. lucky bastard. oh well, welcome to the board.
lol ditto----i have white front end parts check my classified post im in ny
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 4:02 am
by Brat4by4
3" turboback exhaust is a biggie. That will make a huge difference, and that will take care of the downpipe. No need to replace the up-pipe. A front mount intercooler will be great if you want to up the boost. 93-96 Impreza WRX's came with a TD05-16G which is slightly different from the ones found on other Mitsu cars. It is basically a bolt on for this engine. Then with larger injectors and better fuel pump you'll be running the numbers you want. If you get a complete drop in Autronic ECU you will be able to gain even larger numbers. You can search for each of these subjects and gain lots more insight.
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 5:03 am
by rsstiboy
oh, and don't forget to get a dog box!

Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 4:57 pm
by CobraCDR
OK where is the best place to get some of these things 3" exhuast, injectors, eihter a vf34 or tdo5-16g turbo??? Twin cam heads? What years work on these engines. Will I need to lift the engine out to remove the heads? Is there a good web site to go looking for these parts?
Cheers!
Doug
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 5:56 pm
by Jarvis
Good grief, nice list of cars!
Jim
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 7:22 pm
by Brat4by4
I wouldn't worry about the twin cam heads... tons of work... difference?
Go on the internet (or this board) and search for "WRX Turboback". Pick whichever one you like. You'll need slight modification to put it on. Vishnu and CES downpipes are downright beautiful. A twin dump a.k.a. semi-divorced downpipe is best.
93-96 WRX STi is the magic vehicle. This will have the injectors and the TD05-16G you want. Adam at
http://www.z1auto.com/ should be able to help you bunches. Also, I would recommend a IHI Vf23 for less turbolag and quicker torque if you go that route. You must modify the intake to reach the turbo with the IHI turbos. A good browse through the turbo and intercooler section of this board should go a long way to helping you understand what can easily be done to this car.
Oh, and tons of WRX parts fit this vehicle. I myself have WRX: Clutch, flywheel, seats, wheels, and front brakes. Also many STi parts are made for the vehicle too, for example: my tranny mount and engine mounts plus many suspension parts that are direct bolt on.
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 11:16 pm
by rsstiboy
ok to make this easy, a TD05 16g is only slightly larger than the standard aus spec turbo on our RS (VF12) it is heaps smaller than a VF23 which btw is ball bearing, and a VF34 has about the same bottom end power as the VF23 but has the same top end power as a VF22. I have a mate with a 2ltr RS that has just put on a VF34 and a front mount intercooler and he says that he is reaching fullboost by 2500RPM, he is aiming for 185KW ATW. he is using pretty much all of the stuff that I have listed above (except for the 2.2ltr block) the way I see it our standard RS's over here came out standard with 200hp at the fly and your RS's came out with 160hp?(correct me if I'm wrong) yes possibly bue to more boost and intercooler but our twin cam heads allow for a 7200 redline. if you can get your hands on a ver3 STi front cut it has the rally spec cams to go to a 8000rpm redline.
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 11:20 pm
by rsstiboy
oh, and another thing to do if your changing your turbo, exhaust and uppipe is to put the turbo on an angle towards the drivers side front guard to allow for a direct air feed from the hole where the factory airbox is located. and to get the opening of the turbo away from the inlet manifold.
Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:12 am
by legacy92ej22t
Brat4by4 wrote:
Go on the internet (or this board) and search for "WRX Turboback". Pick whichever one you like. You'll need slight modification to put it on. Vishnu and CES downpipes are downright beautiful. A twin dump a.k.a. semi-divorced downpipe is best.
.
I run the C.E.S. turboback and it rocks. It is probably one of the best aftermarket turboback systems available and they make a couple
BOLT ON systems for the Legacy turbo! The DP is ceramic coated twin dump. They're not cheap but priced competetively to other popular turboback systems. I had pictures of the system on my car posted but the site that was hosting them crashed and I haven't found any where else to host them yet. Go to
www.msr-usa.com for prices.

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 5:07 am
by CobraCDR
Jarvis,
Been playing with cars for years to build up my play pen. Cobra definately the quickest; mid 10s. (won't get any better than that, it gets too light at 140) SC 400 on nitrous the fastest just shy of 180 but absolutely beautiful at high speed. 84 BMW (2460 pounds) the sleeper; too many loud exhausts out there for people to know the sound of a V-8. 65 Mustang and 65 Riviera strickly show cars. If I could figure how to post pictures here I could post some of the toys.
Everyone else,
Looks like I need to get a 3" back down pipe; I can fabricate yhe rest of the exhaust. FMIC looks like it shouldn't be too hard. I've seen a bunch of letters and #s for turbos ( I need to do some research in this area). Any good books to read on turbo charging that might get me closer to your level of knowledge on these things?? Ive played quite a bit with ECUs and EFIs so have some idea what I need to be looking at with air:fuel ratios and need for moure fuel as boost increases just as in supercharged cars.
Thanks for all your great responses! You have me really interested in building up this Legacy!
Doug[/img]
Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 6:35 am
by -K-
There is a lot of good info and people on here. Now that we get a WRX in the US and a lot of the parts will fit you won't have a hard time getting the stuff you need. I would also check out
www.rslibertyclub.org there is a lot of info there as well.
Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 2:13 pm
by legacy92ej22t
for books on turbo charging-
http://www.turbofast.com.au/books.html
There's other cool stuff on there too, like a turbo map generator.
here's some info on all the different turbos guys are talking about. Be patient, it's kinda slow
http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/redir?src= ... o-data.pdf
Another good read
http://www.autospeed.com/A_0886/cms/article.html
This will really explain the turbo setup good
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/turbo.htm
Hope this helps

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2003 6:41 am
by NICO
welcome cobracdr. for all the money and things u can do in the world put a down pipe and intercooler and turn ur boost up. there u go 300bucks and u got 230hp super touring sedan. if u whant put a xt H-6 2.7l fule pressure regulator in to. it will run very rich, but add more boost and away u go flames and all. i dont think u have to change anthing of the fule system, my cars is fine with gas. i run 16psi in the day cuz of heat at night if its a big race 20psi get me where i am going this set up will last 200thousand kms then get ready to rebuild if u drive like me. not bad