This particular car is very well known in the local Subaru community. The car has been around for some time and like most projects, it all began with simple bolt ons. It has now become a full blown monster, with a race motor built at Ball Engine Parts and Service, and all of the supporting modifications to support well over 500 awhp. I will not divuldge the actual final number until authorized by the owner.
For this project we were removing the old turbo, FMIC, exhaust manifold, and up pipe. We were also fabricating new intercooler pipes to match the new I/C and turbo. The turbo being installed is a Precision Turbo 6262, with journal bearing and a billet compressor wheel. It is also utilizing a V band inlet/outlet exhaust housing that has been ceramic coated. A custom up pipe was fabricated here, in-house, at Batlground. The up pipe is designed to match the equal length header that was installed. This up pipe has a 3 bolt flange to mate to the header and a V band flange to mate to the turbo. The up pipe diameter is 2.5″, which is a significant increase over the previous 2″ diameter. The new unit also needed to have an extension to accommodate the Tial 44mm wastegate. I re-used the Baller Racing down pipe that had been in the former configuration to get my locations for all the piping and routing.
Once the turbo was in position and mounted I could fab up the hot pipe and intake. The piping was routed to the new intercooler that is an increase in core size to provide some extra cooling for the new, larger turbo. On the cool side of the things I increased the outlet piping to 2.5″ before it mated to the already existing 3″. All the intercooler piping that was missing beads was fixed to insure we didn’t have any “blow offs” on the street or dyno. The new intake is a 3.5″ diameter in contrast to the 3″ that had been removed. The only modification needed for that was some trimming and a smaller bodied air filter.
I love the routing of the hot pipe on this car! All rotated turbo set ups on Subaru’s should be this way. The Legacy does have a little more clearance than say an STi or WRX, but it has a different intake manifold. It also has a very large opening in the wheel well for the intake and I/C piping to get routed. The only thing left was to trim the bumper cover to make some room for the new intercooler and piping and we were finished.
I was very pleased to get the opportunity to work on this car. It had been to 2 different well known shops before and I feel proud we had earned the privledge to do this upgrade. There aren’t many more upgrades to be done to this car besides the possibility of a stand alone. Having already performed that upgrade for another customer, I hope the owner would allow us the opportunity to do it on this car.
That is one bad grocery getter. I’ve seen the nice stereo setup too. This car is complete.
Yea we think it’s awesome and were excited to be able to work on it.
Oh, btw Chris, you are moving?????