short gears on 5speed from the indy...

[ethanohagan]

Number of years ago my dad had a local Indy shop working on his '98 2.5GT forever. It ended up passing smog eventually and when it came out we all noticed the transmission being geared much shorter... I'm talking 4,300 RPM on the freeway at 80mph, obnoxiously short. Is this an anomaly or something common? I've always suspected they wanted to get rid of him and swapped transmissions, possibly a Forester trans or rear diff.. is this something I can remedy cheaply now that it's my daily?

Edited August 25, 2019 by ethanohagan
wrong word

[nvu]

likely got the 4.44 trans from the forester.  i have one on my impreza it does around ~3000 at 65.  both trans and rear diff need to be swapped to match.  not really a cheap fix, you could put on bigger tires to offset the rpms

Edited August 27, 2019 by nvu
updated rpm number

[FerGloyale]

9 hours ago, ethanohagan said:

Number of years ago my dad had a local Indy shop working on his '98 2.5GT forever. It ended up passing smog eventually and when it came out we all noticed the transmission being geared much taller... I'm talking 4,300 RPM on the freeway at 80mph, obnoxiously tall. Is this an anomaly or something common? I've always suspected they wanted to get rid of him and swapped transmissions, possibly a Forester trans or rear diff.. is this something I can remedy cheaply now that it's my daily?

You mean short gears.  Your up against the RPMs sooner, so shorter gears are what you have now.

Tall would be 2000 rpms at 80.

Doubtful he's got a Forester trans in there.  If it was a regular forester trans it would be the same 4.11 as what it came with.  The 4.44 manual trans only came in Turbo Foresters, and not as early as 98.   Also, that 4.44 turbo trans has VERY TALL 5th gear set (desirable to swap into older trans)

 

Here, the GT probably has 4.11 gears, like the Outbacks of same years.  but Becasue of the smaller tires, the gears feel shorter.

Remedy would be a 3.9 trans from a 2.2 engined Legacy or Impreza (not OB sport).......OR   buy the tall 5th gear set from subaru and swap into your trans.......then only 5th would be taller.

FWIW there is nothing wrong with cruising at 4300 RPMS........except for the speeding  

 

[nvu]

 

On 8/25/2019 at 9:47 AM, FerGloyale said:

Doubtful he's got a Forester trans in there.  If it was a regular forester trans it would be the same 4.11 as what it came with.  The 4.44 manual trans only came in Turbo Foresters, and not as early as 98.   Also, that 4.44 turbo trans has VERY TALL 5th gear set (desirable to swap into older trans)

I got mine at an importer, it's from a jdm forester but not sure if turbo.  I could affirm that 5th gear revs high like he's seeing. 

But again to the OP, the fixes are fairly involved.  The 5th gear set parts were ~$200 from the dealer when I did mine around 2012.  Labor might be more than that.

It's working, drive it.

[el_freddo]

Don’t drive at 80mph?? That’ll bring revs down. 

Have you googled the trans code? It’s worth looking into because it could confirm what others are saying about the box being for a different model of subaru. 

This will give you some idea of where to go next with this “issue”. 

Cheers 

Bennie

[nvu]

update: took the car with the 4.44 box out today.  it does 3000ish @ 65mph and a bit over 3900 @ 80.  so no idea what transmission they put in yours.  it might be one of those close ratio ones for rally.

[wtdash]

What's the tag show on the bellhousing? TYxxxxxxxx