So, its about time to continue the documented life of this wonderful car that fell into my life. Its a 1992 Turbo Legacy Touring station wagon purchased locally, yet again, off of this forum, just like all of the goodies. (thank you Carly). https://mnsubaru.com/threads/1992-subaru-legacy-wagon-turbo-2-000-obo.54051/ I went and looked at the car early 2019, it looked very nice, clean interior. Had a dead battery. Sadly was unable to make a deal and my heart had sank. Silence from then on, until @subi-roo got a message from the owner, @subie-roo had found a turbo wagon, by now and had sent me after it again. This is late august 2019. I ended up buying it at my original offer. Wonderful! Paid for it without ever hearing it run. Talking with the owners, I said that I had planned to just drive it home after I had met them at the DMV. They assured me that it would not make it (35 min drive) because it had been sitting so long, and that I should tow it. My portable jump pack got it fired right up, drove straight onto the trailer. After getting it home and putting a new battery in it. Ran great, drove fine, but needed a few little bits. The alternator/power steering belt was the incorrect size (it was brand new but probably from a newer subaru because the tensioner was maxed out.) and the valve cover gaskets were very bad. I have a video of my first drive around the block, which i will upload. After driving it I realized it needed a knock sensor as well, common enough. (psa look on ebay for knock sensors, new oem ones can be had for less than 20 dollars shipped.) Fixed and ordered all that stuff, got her insured and daily drove it until snow hit. In the for sale ad, she said that it had a transmission issue, i only experienced it once, still unsure of what it could have been, the car had the TCU replaced in 2014 as well.
I fixed all those issues the car had, and started to daily drive it. I bought this smashed 99 2.5rs in Wisconsin, it had kyb AGX struts with eibach lowering springs in it, so I swapped them over along with my summer 17inch wheels from my winter beater outback. They were too big, rubbed and didnt look as good as I hoped, A set of 2.5rs goldies were posted for sale local so I picked those up and slapped them on. Perfect.
I daily drove it until snow. Let it sit for a decent while whilst I collected parts. Midwinter I bought another gem off of the one and only mnsubaru.com. 2000 2.5rs with an EJ20G swap and 4.44 trans. Bought with the intent to use those parts to swap my wagon. Bought the car not running, had been sitting since 2013. There is more detail on what I needed to do to get it going here. https://mnsubaru.com/threads/ej20g-2-5rs-resurrection.54535/ (but every single picture is gone from the thread. Hopefully this one does not end up the same way)
Here is that promised video of how bad the valve cover gaskets were. These dumb EJ22T cars get so stupid hot under the hood that everything rubber just gets baked into plastic due to the lack of intercooler, even at 100k miles. That being said I do have the service records for this car, the valve cover gaskets were declined 4 or 5 times. So with the plan to use the 4.44 transmission/ 20g/ bits from the 2.5rs, I pulled the car apart. ^this is good luck.
Im lucky to have friends in high places. Ending up with a big boy transmission instead of the 4.44s from the RS. I had already bought 4pot/2pots for the car, so I needed to get "gravel" rotors to suit the 190mm parking brake that the STI rear knuckles use so i could use the R180 with its STI axles. Traded a 2.5rs bumper for GD STI control arms, so those went in along with a whole 2004 STI rear subframe/links/kunckles. (I cleaned the control arms up, too dirty to install like that)
Some sick speedlines popped up for sale local for cheap. I hope to run them, but the offset is +55 and they look like with tires they would be quite close to the struts in the rear, my 225/45/17s rubbed the arches so I need to see what tires I can use to make them work. Otherwise 5 spokes will do for now.
Engine is in, clutch is bled. Intake wiring for the 20g swap %75 done, nice and clean. Current dilemma is the factory turbo AC line contacts the slanty tmic. I would love to have working AC in this car because it worked when I bought it. I believe the N/A AC lines fit under the tmic, so my eyes are out for one of them.
KITTEH Are you able to carefully bend the AC hard line basically down and back toward the firewall more for add'l clearance? Maybe not, hard to tell how close it is already.
I tried to bend it, my hookup at UPull actually snagged an n/a ac line yesterday! I will add a picture comparimg them soon!
Alright where did I leave off... my radiator was broken so i borrowed the radiator from my red 91 turbo for a while, as well as the exhaust. As the car sits right now it needs an alignment, exhaust and a radiator. Im finally back to work after the COVID nonsense so I should be getting back to it. However I made yet another poor financial decision and purchased a 1998 Legacy GT station wagon with a WRX EJ20k swap. Also, my daily driver 1998 outback decided it didnt want to run cold anymore. all the other projects are on the back burner as of right now.
I strive to have no reliable cars so the outback is getting a fresh 160k mile ej25d, with ej20k intake manifold and a TD04, running on the stock ecu, because that sounds like a great idea and I have all those goodies laying around.
It was for sale on FB marketplace for quite a while for almost 5 grand, then the ad updated to $2500 saying it hits boost cut and has CEL. I went and picked it up. It was a hell of a trip, The whole receiver broke off of my truck 30 mins from Milwaukee, my friend in Madison loaned me his truck at 10:30 pm for me to continue to get the car. Then I drove the truck back to Madison, and drove my truck back to Hastings. That was alot of driving for 48 hours, I got home with the car at around 6am. The car has wrx struts with lowering springs, WRX crossmember, hood spacers because the intercooler hits the hood, stock 98 GT 5 speed, some decent clutch, JDM 1 piece headlights with broken tabs. It came with an STI ej20k ecu, but the engine is a WRX ej20k, they use different maf, turbo and injectors. The swap was done with a jumper harness to the stock legacy harness. It was missing the wires to the boost solenoid, so thats why it was hitting a hard boost cut at 3k rpm. I added a boost solenoid from an ej20k and it ran great. Its just a stock WRX EJ20k with a TD04, I didnt trust the STI ecu, I did have a whole WRX ej20k harness, ecu, maf. which is all the correct stuff for the engine that was swapped into the GT. So i rewired the MAF, and put the WRX ej20k ecu in and it runs great. (pause before my computer BSODs again.....)
The MSD coilpack was too tall for the hood with the hood spacers so when the hood was shut it cracked the coilpack on the number 1 cylinder plug. So i put a stock coilpack on it after i noticed it, it did shock me, and the car did misfire at idle.
That engine bay picture was the morning I got it home. Note the post-MAF missing hose clamps, and the BPV was routed to be a BOV, so I put all that back to the way it should have been. From what I could see, it was a very high dollar swap that someone "needed to sell" (thats what the guy I got it from said, he got it from his friend who's wife said he needed to get rid of it. the guy I got it from was not a subaru guy.) Its not rust free, but its really not bad. The engine looks to be professionally wired, and rebuilt to a certain extent. Clutch feels nice but im not sure what it is. It seems to me like a shop did the swap, got it running, but never finished it. It needed one sensor wired up, the wire to the ecu was even labeled. CEL is still on, and an OBD2 reader does not connect, probably because of the ecu nonsense thats going on. But the car runs and drives great, the stock WRX 88 ecu im using hits 7psi, 7k rpm limit. The car is not fast, but its cool. I did plug the STI ecu back in, it has an expensive ESL board on it. (which is theoretically needed to combat the nasty fuel knock these engines get from US gas) after I plugged it back in after I put the coilpack back to stock it seemed to have a hard misfire, so I have not tried it again since, But in theory the board makes the untuneable ecu into a tuneable one. The car just needs some more tinkering. I will try and upload some more pictures of the wiring nonsense thats going on with this thing.
Your “project cars” seem to become “daily drivers” very quickly! I love watching you resurrect all of these old beauts
I try! No one seems to mess with these old motors and OG swaps. My first gen legacy phase 1 turbo knowledge helps!
One of the only other ones that I can compare is @Chux . Matt loves the oldies as well. His old wagon was awesome and of course the XT is also! And there’s this guy...
I was super lucky to stumble upon this gem of a wagon this last week, I spotted it across the street from my work, so I had to go and check it out, low and behold its the cleanest bodied first gen Legacy Postal wagon I have ever seen. I left my name on the windshield and he actually contacted me, we were able to strike a deal and she came home today! Owner was up here for work from Florida, They hit a deer, he said he just put new wheel bearings, tie rods, tires on it. It needs some love still but I hope I can make it what it needs to be.
All that being said, WTB white turbo g1s2 hood, white g1s2 fender, white g1s2 turbo bumper and a white door
Alllll right! Update time, The postal wagon project is at a stand still until i get the title issue figured out, The lady signed it in the incorrect spot. Still been daily driving the EJ20K swapped 1998 LGT wagon, No issues besides the cheap cheap clutch coming apart after about 5k miles. Clutch installed by previous owner, Must have just had enough. Fixed that and then have been spending my time on my 1998 Outback which is my winter car, But I cannot leave anything alone so i decided to mess with it when my High compression ej251/d engine overheated. Slapped a TD04 on it. Its using an EJ25d longblock with an EJ20K intake manifold. It runs good but its stumbly around 3500 rpm. I think its because the EJ20k injectors are too big for the stock ecu, which i assumed would probably be the case. I had to redo the wiring for the stock intake manifold harness to suit the EJ20k intake manifold sensors and whatnot that are in different positions. The under the intake turbo inlet works very nice for this. Just need to iron out all the nonsense.
Its time to update all the projects! I "finished" the Outback project, But it runs way too rich due to the larger injectors and the stock ecu. Runs great WOT. Not practical however.
Finally got the lift up in the garage. So the projects will start to get done a little faster. The Postal wagon im waiting on a title issue for sadly. But I will get it figured out. Then that project will get spicy. But for now she sits. For some reason decided to get the RS going again, This time with a ej20k longblock, jdm wrx 4.11 trans and ej20g td05 turbo and intake manifold, tuned ecu for 550cc injectors. Basically the usual setup around here.
Well, where do I start, I guess I added a few cars to this thread, so might as well start with the Outback. That almost immediately got parted out, and the engine donated to a friend for his 97 LGT. Runs way better with the correct injectors and an FMU. The 2.5rs is now gone as well, donated its parts to my new/old one. The Postal wagon has had a little bit of work done. I slowly gathered the RHD pedals and clutch master cylinder stuff. Its now manual swapped with a JDM WRX 4.11 trans, I dropped in a stock EJ22e from the junk yard as well, the old one was very tired. I picked up another 2.5rs that donated its basically new set of raceland ultimo coliovers to this. Then I added my trademark wheels. It runs and drives, but still has a big hole in the windshield, and some sort of wiring gremlin where it will not rev above around 3000 rpm if the headlights are on. ( any ideas? ) Now the black 1998 Legacy GT with the v4 WRX engine swap. Was my daily driver basically all winter until very recently. I did a few upgrades to it since I last updated this. I Put in the JDM projector headlights and foglights, JDM smoked tail lights, and replaced the power antenna. All that salt When I got the car the factory BPV was broken and not connected, they are made out of plastic and very fragile, found a good one online as well as a silicone turbo inlet, when I installed the BPV the car would now do about 14psi instead of 7psi on the TD04. But that was not enough. I had a VF28 on the shelf from my old 1st gen Tleg from a few years back, so I put that on after I sourced a V4 STI ECU, Injectors and MAF. After fighting some bad injectors (typical old garbage) It now runs great! Much much quicker, and 8250rpm rev limit with the 75 STI ecu. Not the smartest move without the shim under bucket STI heads, but definitely worth all of the effort for the upgrade. Yes the ECU wiring still needs work, thats how I had gotten it. Picked up some JDM aero goodies too. I tried an SYMS wing, but it was not exactly what I wanted. I guess I also forgot the wheel change as well as the 4 pot/2 pot brake upgrade. As well as the BC coilovers from my Outback. I was able to score an Air Real Factory wing, which was EXACTLY what I was looking for. Just a little bit longer but still stock looking. After Digging through my phone I found the pictures I was looking for. So standby for more.
Staying slightly on topic here, Ive also forgotten I added a 22mm whiteline rear swaybar to the LGT as well as a stock WRX front swaybar. I removed the front swaybar when I got the car because it was for the NA crossmember, the car has a WRX crossmember, so the stock swaybar would clunk over bumps. Fixed all of that now. Since this engine pic, I have added a fairly rare JDM BG chassis STI carbon fiber strut tower bar, I do not have a picture of that yet. Some JDM Mines mirrors as well, Cannot see a damn thing out of them because of the RHD glass. More wing pictures.
Alright and now for the original car from the thread. Right around early spring time the car was great, but one morning on my way to work an injector died causing a misfire, I replaced the Injector but the car was still down on power. The EJ20G was tired and smoked very bad when I would set off from a red light if stopped for more than 2 seconds, so the engine was on its way out, I think that injector was just the nail in the coffin. So sadly I stole the engine from my red 91 Turbo Legacy sedan to drop into this. So a 22t/20r heads. I transferred my RA header and EWG setup over to the new engine. I had a larger turbo as well, It was sold to me as an EVO 3 16g, but it is definitely larger than that. I will try and find some pictures of it. Regardless, I slapped that on too. Did a lot of cleaning to the engine as well, I painted and found new of all of the bits that should have been black instead of rusty. Hard to tell but tried to use as much zinc hardware as I could. Added my JDM legacy alloy filler neck too. I wish I had time to make it all crazy clean and nice, but for some reason I have too many projects and cannot focus on only one car. I did my best though. I could not find too many pictures of the engine install. It is much much happier now, the EWG is set at 15psi, definitely not enough for this larger turbo. I will say it felt much better at the 15psi mark with the stock TD05 16g, but that is to be expected. Im still running a stock EJ20g slanty intercooler so im not looking to go too crazy just yet. This car now has my Prodrive Bilstein/P1 (22b) suspension, 22mm whiteline rear swaybar, Prova rear strut tower bar. I bought all of these parts ages ago but never installed them. I also never finished the center console/radio area. Still a bit of a work in progress there but console and shifter surround are in, radio and CD player are in. Trying to figure out what I want to do for a boost gauge, I have the WRX gauge pack but I like my CD player. I also have the bits to change my auto cluster to a manual cluster. Probably a nice winter project to do all the little fiddly things, Ive been so busy with rally car stuff these last few months to be able to really finish anything, I suppose nothing is really ever finished.
Ive fixed that vent now as well. It could definitely use a few more PSI, but you can hear that EWG open on the launch and chirp through 3rd .
I did all of that work to the Silver wagon very early spring after the old engine died. It ran fine for a while but it started giving me a knock sensor code, which if you know how these knock, cam and crank sensors are wired, they are part of the body harness, not on the intake harness like the newer cars. My red Tleg I needed to replace my entire wiring harness to fix the issues I had with these sensor wires, they get very hot and very brittle with age and the very high amount of engine bay heat these cars experience without an intercooler stock, so after that knock sensor code and looking at the wire, I let the car sit basically all summer until I recently did a little repair to the wire, seemed to help but the code kept coming back. I ordered a new knock sensor for this and my RS because they were both giving me knock sensor trouble. FINALLY installed the new sensors to both cars and they both work fantastic now. The sensor on my RS was basically shattered, so that was to be expected, but the sensor on this looked just fine. Who knows honestly. Old car things.
I can't help but think about how bad my knees would hurt if I stood with my feet like that (pic of the pedals). Damn. Love the seemingly random @ss, "vintage" Subaru hot rodding. Wish I had the brains for that.
I went to the DMV for tabs and was told I needed new plates so I got the critical habitat NEW style with the bees and the butterflies, Im not the biggest fan of vanity plates honestly.
Little mockup of a GT28rs (I think? absolutely no idea) Something to do for winter. picture featuring a 1999 Outback EJ25d from the junk yard for mockup
If you look way back at the beginning of this thread, you will probably recognize this car, Sold it to a buddy but the engine let go due to them putting a microsquirt ecu on it. Another friend bought it from him and we got it going again how it should be.
