A while back I had several replies to topics that I posted that succsesfully took my 250k plus 1987 subaru GL-10 from montana to North Dakota and back in -40 degree weather enough times for me to buy another vehicle. Now I believe its time to let the old snow crawler go out with a bang. I would like to turn it into the ultimate woods thrash wagon before it gives up the ghost. So how can I get the most power out of the old turbo ea82 for the cheapest. reliability NOT required!

i would prize dependability over power any day that I am off the beaten path, but theres a few things that come to mind.  opening up the exhaust is always good, if you can bump the PSI from the turbo up it will give you more power than anything else, but if you do I would put in an exhaust temp gauge and get some injectors from a junkyard car and clean them up.  any 150ish hp or higher car with the same style of injectors as we have will help the fuel keep up.  exhaust temp gauge will let you know when you must take your foot out of it (no sense blowing it up intentionally).

 

I don't know if you can use control unit to increase the psi of your stock turbo, but if you can find a turbo out of an early legacy (vf11 I believe) then you can use a controller to turn it down to 8-9 psi (11 psi at max).

 

not a lot of just tuning upgrades to do so your pretty much stuck changing parts, so there will be some cost.  Jy turbo and injectors and a cheap exhaust gauge shouldn't be terrible.

 

even with this it won't be omg hold on power compared to what it was.  your best power will likely be just redoing the motor and resealing everything.  if you can do the work yourself then it won't be a huge $$ to do head gaskets and timing belts, whats wrong with the car?  

Nitrous. 

 

John

The car sucks oil, leaks coolant, is rusting on the fenders, has tons of dents, cracked windshield, over 250,000 miles collapsed shocks, and much more. I love the thing to death its a beast in the snow but I dont trust the motor any longer and if I put any real time into the car it will be pulled apart all the before mentioned things fixed and an ej swapped in. Im actually trying to see what he motor can take in its current form before it blows so I can have a reason to do my ej swap!