94 Wagon - Turbo Swap
Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2011 12:10 am
New member here, I lurked for a while but want to share what I've been doing. This forum has been the main source of info for the work I've done, hopefully I can add to the knowledge base.
I'm fairly new to Subaru's, borrowed a beat-up 94 wagon for a while in college and loved it, it ran great for 285,000 miles! I decided to pick up a nicer one as a DD and winter beater. I found a light blue 94 wagon on craigslist in spring 09'. It had 169,000, was 5 speed, AWD, and had little rust, although some repair work in the quarters was evident. Anyway, seemed like a great car for $700. Here's some pictures after I got it and fixed up some of the little things.
A couple months later I ran across an ad on craigslist for a 93 SS, not running, within 20 miles from my home. I tried to contact the guy but didn't hear from him for weeks, and eventually the ad went away. Luckily a coworker recognized the car and put me directly in touch with the owner, who still wanted to sell.
Upon inspection, the car was very rusty and beat up, but only had 136,000 miles. It had died on the guy while idling in the driveway, turning it over made some ticking sounds under the timing cover, so I figured it was just the belt. I bought the car for $450, got it home and had it running the next day, turned out to be a busted timing belt idler pulley. Since it was auto and so beat up, I decided to make it a swap candidate for my marginally nicer 5 speed wagon. I would have loved to restore it, but I really didn't have room for another car. Here are some pics.
Things went together pretty smooth, I'll start a build journal with some of the details and more pictures. I completely stripped the SS and saved most of the parts. The springs, struts, brakes, front seats, steering wheel and console made it into my car along with the usual swap hardware. I also put on a no-name WRX 3'' TBE while I was at it, It more or less hangs under the rear of the car, kind of hidden.
I've put about 20,000 miles on the swap with no problems. The car is a blast and people get a kick out of it. There's a good Subaru following here in CT and l get lots of nods and WTF's. I've accumulated some more parts and plan to play around with a different turbo once I get the supporting stuff in place. Since it's my daily driver, I'm being very cautions and I'm sure I'll call on some of your experience as I go forward. Here are some pictures of the car as of this summer, it has H&R's on the front in the picture, it now has them on all corners.
I'm fairly new to Subaru's, borrowed a beat-up 94 wagon for a while in college and loved it, it ran great for 285,000 miles! I decided to pick up a nicer one as a DD and winter beater. I found a light blue 94 wagon on craigslist in spring 09'. It had 169,000, was 5 speed, AWD, and had little rust, although some repair work in the quarters was evident. Anyway, seemed like a great car for $700. Here's some pictures after I got it and fixed up some of the little things.
A couple months later I ran across an ad on craigslist for a 93 SS, not running, within 20 miles from my home. I tried to contact the guy but didn't hear from him for weeks, and eventually the ad went away. Luckily a coworker recognized the car and put me directly in touch with the owner, who still wanted to sell.
Upon inspection, the car was very rusty and beat up, but only had 136,000 miles. It had died on the guy while idling in the driveway, turning it over made some ticking sounds under the timing cover, so I figured it was just the belt. I bought the car for $450, got it home and had it running the next day, turned out to be a busted timing belt idler pulley. Since it was auto and so beat up, I decided to make it a swap candidate for my marginally nicer 5 speed wagon. I would have loved to restore it, but I really didn't have room for another car. Here are some pics.
Things went together pretty smooth, I'll start a build journal with some of the details and more pictures. I completely stripped the SS and saved most of the parts. The springs, struts, brakes, front seats, steering wheel and console made it into my car along with the usual swap hardware. I also put on a no-name WRX 3'' TBE while I was at it, It more or less hangs under the rear of the car, kind of hidden.
I've put about 20,000 miles on the swap with no problems. The car is a blast and people get a kick out of it. There's a good Subaru following here in CT and l get lots of nods and WTF's. I've accumulated some more parts and plan to play around with a different turbo once I get the supporting stuff in place. Since it's my daily driver, I'm being very cautions and I'm sure I'll call on some of your experience as I go forward. Here are some pictures of the car as of this summer, it has H&R's on the front in the picture, it now has them on all corners.
