1997 Subaru Legacy GT: My Final Drive (56K killer)

I have done the unthinkable. I sold my 1997 Subaru Legacy GT. The car that I invested more money in, than it was worth. The car that I spent countless hours modifying in the shop or in a freezing cold parking lot the night before a ski trip, convincing myself that this one modification would save me one day.

Here is the story:

I picked up my Legacy in New Jersey from my Aunt. She had gotten an Impreza when the Legacy threw the timing belt, because she believed the motor was dead as it was an interference engine. Somehow, the valves did not bend, so I picked it up. It had 160k miles, but it had never been over 50mph. It had some rust, but mechanically it was fine. The week that I picked it up, we got over 12 inches of snow in one night. I drove it that night on the all season tires, with the snow shooting up from the wheel wells, and I was amazed. I had it shipped across to Colorado, where I was going to school.

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When it got to Colorado, I drove with my roommate to visit his family in Texas. We averaged 90mph, I topped it out at 125mph, and finished a 9 hour drive in 5 hours. And in doing so, I blew the headgasket. The fool that I was, I took it to the stealership and paid way too much.

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After fixing the headgasket, I took it to Pikes Peak before the road was completely paved, and I drove it so hard that the spark plug boot fell out.

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When the ski season finally came, I was still on 6 year old, almost bald, all season tires. It made for fun drives, but it was pretty bad. One night, I took it out to mess around in the snow, and I got stuck in some deep stuff. It was 11 at night, I had only jeans and my fatigue jacket, no shovel, no chains, and no traction. Right before I was about to give up, and call for help, I put it into first and punched it to about 5k RPMs and after about 20 seconds of squirming, it pulled itself forward on the snow. It was a miracle. I overreacted the next day by ordering Michelin X-Ice tires, 4 chains, a tow rope, and a D handeled shovel.

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Here it is with the X-Ice tires on WRX rims, all cleaned up. I sold the snowflake rims because they had 2 dents from the NJ potholes.

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My best modifications to the car have been to the TCU, aka my switches. The red switch is for the differential lock, which locks the 4EAT in 50/50 power split. The other rocker switch is for power/sport mode for the transmission. It holds it in gear longer and makes it shift faster.

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I took it rallying for the first time at the Dirty Impreza Spring meet. I was amazed at the cars ability on dirt.

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Here is the result: the ability to see where the oil leaks are.

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I have moved on to a 2012 WRX 5-door in WR blue. It is much faster, but not many improvements in the way of creature comforts. It is also a much bigger car with not much increase in interior space. I dunno where all the space went!

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My roommate will be keeping with the Legacy tradition with his 2008 Legacy GT Spec B. http://imageshack.us/a/img827/644/20120905202717.jpg

Here is a video of my Legacy with all the modifications: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL2ZZ-jrlnk]1997 Subaru Legacy GT Final Build Video - YouTube[/ame]

Here is a video of my Legacy final pull: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLScZjBNCGY]1997 Subaru Legacy GT Final Pull Video - YouTube[/ame]

I ave the EXACT same car minus all the mods lol and i LOVE it! Lately its more of a deer slayer than anything else LOL. I swear deer run away from me now. I'm working on getting all the panels straightened back out from that. I fixed the typical Suby quarter panel rust. She has 182,xxx miles and going strong!

Questiona for ya. I see you had a few dif air inatake setups on the car. Did one work better than the other? Any issues with CEL? I have a K&N drop in now but would like to get rid of that stupid box looking thing on top of the motor. Like what i believe they call a "hybrid" setup? Use the stock airbox with a pipe after going to the throttle body? Any info would be appreciated. Did u notice any dif in performance with them?

I ave the EXACT same car minus all the mods lol and i LOVE it! Lately its more of a deer slayer than anything else LOL. I swear deer run away from me now. I'm working on getting all the panels straightened back out from that. I fixed the typical Suby quarter panel rust. She has 182,xxx miles and going strong!

 

Questiona for ya. I see you had a few dif air inatake setups on the car. Did one work better than the other? Any issues with CEL? I have a K&N drop in now but would like to get rid of that stupid box looking thing on top of the motor. Like what i believe they call a "hybrid" setup? Use the stock airbox with a pipe after going to the throttle body? Any info would be appreciated. Did u notice any dif in performance with them?

Definitely get rid of the torque box at the top of the motor. You can use an OEM intake tube from an older legacy that looks like my intake tube in the final video or the dirty rally picture in my post.

I would not recommend my ghetto intake with the silver piping and the dryer tubing that is in the picture with the WRX next to it. It was just an experiment that went wrong.

The best one I had is with the older Legacy intake tube, stock airbox, an AEM drop in, and no snorkus. Go with AEM rather than K&N because the K&N filter will cause fouling of your MAF because of the oil.

Nick, what year cars were those tubes used on. I need to do the power mode mod, that shift point is awesome, much better the the 4,000 rpm on the setting.

I believe it was on any Legacy before 1997. If enough people are interested, there are a lot of them at the junkyard here. I can probably pick them up and ship them depending on the price from the junkyard and shipping.

Here is some more information about the power mode: http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/4eat-power-mode-175367.html

Power mode is activated when you ground pin A4 on the TCU harness. You are just controlling it with the switch.

Cool man thanks for the info. I'll check a few junkyards around here and see if i can come up with one.

I just recently picked up struts from an 03 wrx that turned out to be bilsteins!! Can't wait to get them installed my car has 182,xxx miles on it on the original suspension as well so i imagine that will be a HUGE improvement!!

Cool man thanks for the info. I'll check a few junkyards around here and see if i can come up with one.

 

I just recently picked up struts from an 03 wrx that turned out to be bilsteins!! Can't wait to get them installed my car has 182,xxx miles on it on the original suspension as well so i imagine that will be a HUGE improvement!!

Awesome. That will really be an improvement. Then start saving up for the whiteline sway bars and a front strut tower bar.