I would love to do one of those shift kits on my Legacy, where all you have to do is pull the pan and put a few parts on the valve body and such, but they dont seem to exist :/  you would think as popular as these cars are, someone would make one.  does anyone here know of a shift kit for these cars?  1996 Subaru Legacy.

They do, kind of sort of.  You would probably find more info on sites that consider the 4EAT (not its technical name) part of a performance vehicle, and thus worth keeping.  You might try SVX sites, such as:

 

Subaru SVX World ( http://www.subaru-svx.net)

Main sources there are probably from contributors "OldTom" and "LAN"  (LongA**Name).

 

The transmission core is an R4AX-EL (I believe a JATCO design) that is used on Nissans like the Maxima and Pathfinder.  Nissan sites are another place to look for mod info. 

 

IIRC, most of the mods just have to do with minor things, like firming-up one of the shifts (1->2 ???).

Forgot that another common ID for the tranny is an EC8.

 

TRANSGO offers a kit (NOT an endorsement), example of which is on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/TRANSGO-SK-RE4R01A-Shift-Kit-JR403E-RE4R01A-RL4R01A-RE4R03A-R4AEL-ATAXLE-R4AXEL-/290614397869

These guys make a shift kit:

http://www.transgoonline.com/

 

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2fvkpmNXeMwR3N4eHlGcnNKY0E/edit?usp=sharing

 

I have played around with the TCU to firm up the shifts.  This is another option, but pretty complicated.

 

edit: NorthWet beat me to it by seconds. 

Edited February 16, 201313 yr by presslab

I just put in the Superior shift kit for the RERO1A. It's a bit different than the Transgo one in what it does, although a lot of things are similar. I did the "Heavy Duty" option for drilling the valve body and boy is it firm! The 1-2 shift was quite harsh at light throttle so I put the original 2A accumulator spring back in. I've heard the Transgo spring has this same problem.

 

It's very nice now, shifts like it means it. I'll post a video later to give you an idea.

 

http://www.superior-transmission.com/Product_Page.cfm?ID=43

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2fvkpmNXeMwTXhfbDZPZWhWbW8/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2fvkpmNXeMwMkpRcFpaMFVxWlU/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2fvkpmNXeMwQXJqeEJlTklHVTg/edit?usp=sharing

Omg thanks guys. I think I may be getting an auto again :/ and don't want it to completely suck. One thing I wanted in my Outback before was just the ability to hold it in gear and not shift. Like on certain on-ramp maneuvers, for example, I remember I'd stand on it and downshift, then lift a little as steering around someone not knowing onramps are for accelerating and it already up shifted, then have to coerce it to downshift again. Seems like this would be an easy hack if one knew what they were doing.