Anyone know what kind of upgrades that can be done to a 86 xt turbo?

Regular maintenance, for one. You can adapt xt6 drivelines, and therefore get into impreza front suspension.

 

If the original ea82 turbo motor takes a dump, opt for an ej20g, since the car has the right crossmember for a turbo engine.

 

aside from all that, make sure all the hoses are good. Go ahead and replace them if you do not want this car to take a dump. The ea82 can be fun, but blow a hose and you cooked the heads.

 

Any maintenance or upgrade you can do to the cooling system will make it most reliable. Do not overboost this engine. IF you do your research, and your searching, you should find out what the parameters with this engine is. try joining the subaru.xt com forums, the link is at the top of this page.

 

There are things you can do with this car, but there are things you shouldn't do with this car.

 

The car itself is novel, enjoy it!

be more specific. you can do anything you want to a car with enough resources or money.

 

5 lug swap is nice and opens up lots of wheel options. you can bolt on nearly any Subaru 5 lug wheel ever made except for SVX wheels and 2005+ STi's.

 

i would opt for preventative maintenance and a reliable vehicle. those motors turn to garbage really quick if the turbo blows or they spout coolant leaks. coolant leaks are easy on cars that are a quarter of a century old - there's radiator, gaskets, and rubber hoses everywhere that are prone to leak.

Well I got the car for 950, just as a work car for me. I have a 2010 wrx. I just dont know much about this car. Right now I am fixing all the problems. The engine, tranny and tubro are in good shape for the age of the car. But I am just trying to find out what kind of upgrades I can do. Today I am replacing the coolent hoses and getting the tranny flushed. I have replaced the exhaust from right after the cat with 2 3/4" pipe and a turbo exhaust. Body of the car is in perfect shape, just needs new paint.

Try doing a search for EA82T, should come up with a few results.

Dont expect a lot of them to be good tho.

I see you're some what local, if you want help or parts just let me know.

TWE made some custom pipes for the turbo, someone down south still has a few new ones for $200-$300 each. delta cams for cams. intake and exhaust however you prefer. later XT's have spider intakes with a little better flow. i forget if the 86's have those but i thought they did not? pretty simple stuff.

 

the EA82T is widely known in the Subaru world as a ticking time bomb and the worst engine subaru ever made. it's a really poor platform for anything but cheap maintenance, daily driver. the reason i say that isn't to dissuade you, but that upgrades generally mean more power and heat - not good on 25 year old turbo's, gaskets, bearings, and Subaru's least reliable motor ever.

 

this is not a WRX - this is old school primitive engine management, terrible engine design, poor flowing heads, poor flowing intake, 2 valve per cylinder heads, on an engine that can't keep itself cool. go play with it, most of us enjoy tinkering and trying things out, so by all means tear it up. just be sure you go into it with the right mindset, that's all.

 

or crank the boost until you blow up, move on and be done with it. most of us wish we would have taken this advice a long time ago