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Is a wrx or sti swap worth it?


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you gotta be more specific for what you want. The cost of a "swap" can vary by a huge amount based on where you get parts and who does the work. whether it is worth it depends on what you want out of the car. If you get a motor from a wrx or sti, plan on spending several thousand more than if you buy a 90-94 legacy for 1k and use it to source your parts. 

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you gotta be more specific for what you want. The cost of a "swap" can vary by a huge amount based on where you get parts and who does the work. whether it is worth it depends on what you want out of the car. If you get a motor from a wrx or sti, plan on spending several thousand more than if you buy a 90-94 legacy for 1k and use it to source your parts. 

+1

 

It all depends. Is a Loyale worth dumping $5000 - $6000 dollars and hundreds of hours of fabbing and wiring work? IMO, hell no. A Brat, yes. A wagon or coupe, maybe. Plain EJ swap. Hell yes! Cheap and easy. An STI swap depends on if you find the 'miracle' donor car for under a grand. Otherwise, you'll pay through the nose.

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I'm a mechanic so if be able to do all of the stuff on my own. I don't know though is it really worth spending a lot of money on an n/a ej I mean I'm not sure how much power that would really add...? input?

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Id love to just save up and buy an sti but... They don't have a whole lot of ground clearence and I do a lot of off road driving. Now most people would just say buy a truck... Don't like gas trucks don't want 14mpg and don't want to deal with the spoob that comes along with buying a cheap diesel. And my loyale does just fine off road

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So back to the swap... The ea82 is about 85hp. If I end up doing a swap I'd like around 150-200hp, so I'd probably need to do transmission, steering, suspension, and ecu... So what id like to know is what would be the best route to go for motors and parts... Or if it would even be worth the trouble

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Only you can know what's "enough". or "worth it"

 

The EA82 chassis is much lighter than the EJs, so even a stock EJ22 feels pretty quick in an EA82.

 

 

I have seen WRX swaps pieced together for pretty cheap (like $1000, or so). And you could easily spend $10k on parts for a full STi setup.

 

And a stock SOHC N/A EJ25 is 160hp, which might be enough for you.

 

There are options for hybrid engines that bump up compression (my favorite is a EJ251/3 shortblock with EJ25D heads).

 

There are 6-cylinder engines that are a lot of fun, and over 200hp N/A.

 

 

Stock WRX/STi ECUs are extremely tuneable, just with some software and a cable. Standalones offer even more flexibility for future mods.

 

 

Yes, you'll probably want to upgrade your suspension, brakes, and transmission. There are a myriad of options on how to do all that, depending what parts you have available, what you want to spend, and exactly what you want.

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