Rally X potential Subaru wagons

This week's local to me salvage auction has two different Subaru wagons with various levels of damage.  

'08 Outback wagon with manual that has damage in front fender and rear side fender.  Both combined seem to be enough to financially total the wagon.  Neither is bad enough to be required to be repaired to get the car past the State Inspection to move from Salvage title to rebuilt title.  It does have a blown passenger side  roof airbag.  I suspect that would have to be replaced.  

My guess is $1k to $1,500 will buy this

Second is a '98 Legacy wagon 2.2L w/ manual.  This one has rear fender damage.  It will need a rear light to go back on the road.  The factory rear light will not fit without significant panel bending but I bet it could pass inspection with a generic tail lamp crudely attached. Something like a "jeep light" or trailer light.  

$500 will likely buy this.  Listing claims that it will not start. I'm gonna try to get out to see this Monday before the Tuesday 3-20 auction 

Who needs a Subaru beater?  

The 2nd one looks like it will be swiss cheese underneath. 

A lot of people in Ohio have traded up from running Subarus and Neons to running Miatas.  That should be a clue and a half as to the fun way to do things.

I’m more interested in the 2006 charger RT.  It had a buy now of $3650 and said no damage theft recovery, run/drive I believe.  If I wasn’t tied up in the Forester right now i’d probably be looking harder at the auctions 

Knurled. said:

A lot of people in Ohio have traded up from running Subarus and Neons to running Miatas.  That should be a clue and a half as to the fun way to do things.

If you run any of the AWD classes and are trying to be competitive, what is the point of running anything other than a WRX/STI/2.5RS or EVO? Neons like the E30's are getting thin on the ground for good ones and prices are starting to show that and parts availability is starting to dwindle.  Miatas are everywhere and popular so they are reasonably priced and have really good parts availability and are competitive in their class.  

In reply to MrChaos :

I'm speaking of people who already have cars, meaning they are spending money over and above maintenance budget in order to jump to RWD.

I RallyX my daily 07 Legacy Wagon 2.5i 5mt and it's competitive in our club series but our rules are pretty wide open, I'm in NA 4 wheel drive so I don't have to worry about WRX's or EVO's (but on our tight course power isn't everything) and can do anything I want with modifiactions.

There are a few things I would recommend for the 08 based on my 07 and coming from an 04 wagon. The 04 was a traditional mechanical throttle body and because of that the throttle was very linear and did exactly what I asked of it, the 07 with its drive-by-wire was programed to be very smooth with some rev hang for emissions purposes. Even though the 07 has 5 more peak horsepower the 04 was way more responsive and eager to go in first and second gear. I ended up getting the tactrix cable so I could do an opensource tune, this let me put the throttle back the way it should be (in my opinion) as well as getting rid of the closed to open loop delays and adding some more fuel in to the open loop tables. This really woke up the car and got a lot of the midrange power back that the 04 had. It's obviously still not a fast car but it gets going when you need it to. Unfortunately the tables needed to get rid of the rev hang have not been defined for my ECU so I still have that to deal with. 

With the suspension you are probably pretty good with the stock setup provided the shocks/struts aren't blown out. The Legacy's actually have more suspension travel than the outbacks due to the smaller diameter wheels/tires and have better replacement options (proper Bilstiens at stock height and Koni's if you want to lower). The outbacks are limited to OEM or KYB replacements if you want to stay stock but don't rule out the Legacy Bilstiens if you want to spend some money and lose a bit of ride height (tires should clear on the front but it could be tight). For a really cheap modification to get the rear end a bit more active you could convert from the stock springs to long travel 2.5" coils with height adjustable adapters on the stock shocks, I'm planning on doing this to my legacy using some QA1 high travel springs from summit to just increase the spring rate a bit.

Lastly, 15" wheels will not fit over the stock brakes on the 08, 16" is the smallest you can go. I believe you could put the front rotors and caliper brackets from an 00-04 Legacy (not GT or Outback, those need 16" wheels as well) with the stock calipers to get the fronts to clear 15" wheels. I haven't tried a 15 on the rear yet and I'm not sure you could go back a generation on the back if they don't clear. If you are going to smaller brakes just get some better pads, I've run HP+ pads front and rear and they've taken everything I can throw at them at open lapping days so you can have good brakes regardless of size.

Hopefully that is helpful, these cars are easy to work on and can be fun with some modifications to wake them up. They're also a really good utility vehicle with lots of room for a second set of tires in the back.

Adam

In reply to adam525i :

Good info. Thanks for sharing.

MrChaos said:

The 2nd one looks like it will be swiss cheese underneath. 

+10, that one is almost certainly scrap. Those 2.2's are SLOW, too.

thestig99 said:

MrChaos said:

The 2nd one looks like it will be swiss cheese underneath. 

+10, that one is almost certainly scrap. Those 2.2's are SLOW, too.

 

 

For rallycross beatings, would a 2.2 in a lighter older car be preferred to a head gasket killing 2.5?  Maybe not that particular car, but in general.

I've had the EJ22 in a Legacy Brighton wagon, a series II EJ25 SOHV in my 04 Legacy wagon and the EJ253 in my newest 07 Legacy Wagon (I see a pattern here). The EJ22 had nice low end torque which felt good, there was nothing happening at the top end of the rev band though (not sure where the power fell off, my Brighton didn't have a tach even though it was a stick lol). The EJ25 in the 04 was missing that low end but made up for it from 3000 rpm on and was probably the quickest of the 3 out of the box. The EJ253 needed some tweaking out of the box that I noted above to wake it up, it's probably got the 04 beat now but stock it wasn't close over the entire power band (but maybe better from 4500 up).

If you've got the EJ22 I'm sure it would be pretty good in a GC Impreza or even a stripped out Legacy and be bullet proof (but leak oil like a siv). I think the EJ25 would have it beat but the earlier DOHV version had the headgasket issue where they would fail properly and need replacement immediately (so avoid those unless the car already has it), the later SOHV still fail but the just weep oil so can be ignored. Anything from 05 up isn't worth the trouble to swap into an older car with all the extra electronics (drive by wire mainly).

Adam