legacycentral bbs

OK I'm getting a 90 legacy wagon for 500 clams, non turbo. From what I have read exhaust and intake are the post popular power inhancements. Is there anything else that can be done to squeeze out a little more power? Perhaps a cam or something else i may be missing.

Eventually I will go turbo motor, but thois upgrade wont be in the cards for a while.

speed costs money......how much you got?

Exhaust....you can swap muffler.....it's not a real big gain. Intake....similar, but you'll get more out of it. Personally, I'd suggest just taking the snorkel out of the fender.

Open style intakes under the hood will suck hot air in, and reduce low end torque.

Check out my site, and you can see some of the stuff I've done.

You are in the same boat as I was when I got my $300 wagon.

The first thing I would do (as I did) was just go through the car and make sure everything works! I replaced all the brake pads, including two front rotors, the radiator, plugs, air filter and general tuneup parts.

Check the timing belt!!! and replace if neccessary.

As for making a stock wagon fast, this is what I did for "free"

Removed Air Conditioner and pulled all air conditioner related parts.
Removed Snorkus.
Removed MAF screen.
Detached and rerouted the throttle body heating hose.
Detached the exhaust system and gutted both cats. Remember this can backfire on you when you need to pass DEQ!!!!!!!
Removed all back seats, passenger seat, seatbelts and trim from the rear. You should be able to get the wieght down to less than 3000#.

Even with all this you are going to be hard pressed to do more than I did in the 1/4 mile. I pulled a 16.845 @ 80.07 mph after 20 runs. My speedo said I was doing 87 mph. I beat outright only two hondas, but my 0-60' I beat alot of faster cars.

Have fun!

Pretty much everything has been replaced, just has an overheating issue that needs to be addressed.

Money, not much, my jeep habbit sucks up alot of that, but thats a whole other project and story. Plus a couple other vehicles that are in project mode. This is just to get me around until they are done, then I'll have some fun with the subie.

Thanks for the input thus far, anything else that can be done? Will trimming the deck height on the heads net me some more hp's? Is there no cam options?

My suggestion is to fix everything, then put some very low diameter tires on it.

Your top speed may be reduced to 90mph but the accelleration will be very good below that. Your speedo will be off and you will be at high rpms when driving on the highway.