99 2.5RS Subaru

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BigJ

I'm just about that action Boss.
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So I finally got rid of my car and I'm waiting on going to the bankon monday then I'm going to buy a 99 2.5RS. It's black, 87k on the odo, and is pretty much stock besides a wrx exhaust, clear side markers, and a strut bar. The guy wants 10k, but I offered 9.5 and I'm pretty sure he's going to take it. Good deal? Worth it? He's the 2nd owner.
The car is sweet, oodles of torque, and well it handles like a dream stock, and I already have a set of wrx wheels and a bit of other stuff lined up for it.
 
so i'm guessing the plan is to basically turn it into a wrx?

sounds like you want a wrx but they cost too much. hmmm...i would get a bigger turbo for it and call it a day. have fun in the snow. keep it sleeper.
 
get_nick said:
so i'm guessing the plan is to basically turn it into a wrx?

sounds like you want a wrx but they cost too much. hmmm...i would get a bigger turbo for it and call it a day. have fun in the snow. keep it sleeper.

How do you put a bigger turbo on the R.S?
 
^^^ :werd: they dont come with a turbo or it would probably be called a WRX.. :shrug2:
 
Thats really not a great deal, but its whatever you can find in your neck of the woods.

FYi, wrx wheels are dirt cheap. Most people go from WRX wheels to RS wheels because the RS's are slightly wider.

The RS definately isn't a fast car but does handle great, especially when it has some basic suspension mods. Much better driving feel than the WRX.

...and wtf does it have a WRX exhaust on it for? Thats a shitty flowing exhaust all choked up with stock cats and not a very big inner diameter. An STi axleback is good, but get rid of any stock WRX exhaust since its a restrictive piece of garbage.
 
Here's a '99 with 99k on the car, and 20k on the engine for $6500. To me, for $3,000 less and only 12k more on the body, its a no brainer to me.

Although the interior is "worn" and its an "Ok" paintjob. For that $3,000 you saved you can get new seats and a new interior and a paintjob if you wanted.

NASIOC - FS: 1998 RBP/Gold RS 99k, 6500.00

I wouldn't really pay more than that.
 
^^^ :werd: they dont come with a turbo or it would probably be called a WRX.. :shrug2:

i'm sorry, i should have said to swap in the boxer motor and put a bigger turbo on it...
 
Thats really not a great deal, but its whatever you can find in your neck of the woods.

FYi, wrx wheels are dirt cheap. Most people go from WRX wheels to RS wheels because the RS's are slightly wider.

The RS definately isn't a fast car but does handle great, especially when it has some basic suspension mods. Much better driving feel than the WRX.

...and wtf does it have a WRX exhaust on it for? Thats a shitty flowing exhaust all choked up with stock cats and not a very big inner diameter. An STi axleback is good, but get rid of any stock WRX exhaust since its a restrictive piece of garbage.

Kid's became a tough guy and said I wasn't fully committed to the car so he's going to allow others to view it. Which is completely true from the get go. I'm a business man and if I want something I put a deposit on it. I was 50/50 so it might be gone by the time I get back from the bank today. Honestly, I haven't seen one this clean under 12k in my life in WA state. I'm not going to drive more than 75 miles for a car probably? You ask why? I don't have a way of getting there.
 
i'm sorry, i should have said to swap in the boxer motor and put a bigger turbo on it...

They already come with a boxer engine. Its a 2.5liter NA version of the WRX engine.

98-99's only real downside is no LSD. The prices on 2.5RS's are SO expensive and are hard to come by. As others said, not the best deal, but sometimes you don't really have a choice because there are NONE to be found around you.
 
it's a good deal since it has a new motor. i would turbo it and call it a day.
 
The Kid started playing real hardball, told me I was committed to the buy and such. I put no deposit down and told him I had to get financing and such, and well red flags came up. He was being pushy about it, and said he watned to show it to other people because I said I still wanted to look at other cars, trying to get me to commit. I did no such thing, told him to take other offers and let others view it until I could give him a seroius offer.

Wasn't business smart, and seriously seemed like he was trying to put the car onto me.

I got financing today, I'm 19, and well I didn't know I could get 8.5% at 25k and now going after something a bit.... newer. And said fuck this guy, he was being a dick still about it, and the car isn't worth helping him out. If I'm going to buy from someone, I need them to be as courteous as me, I drove 70 miles to view it for 10 minutes, wasted maybe a half of gallon of his gas, and 6 of my buddy's.

Now the adventure begins because I have no cars lined up besides some new TC's I might go gander at.
 
2.5's with a turbo kit run into the low 13's. I had a friend with a ghetto kit on one running high 13's.

The swap to wrx is rly easy as far as the mechanical stuff is concerned, but the wiring is a real pain in the ass. Rallispec in NJ does it for 1100 and theres a place in Cali that does it a bit cheaper, I forget the name though.
 
I doubt I'd ever swap it. Too much hassle. Hell I barely swapped a crx when I had one, yet alone anything else. I'm fricking lazy.
 
They already come with a boxer engine. Its a 2.5liter NA version of the WRX engine.

98-99's only real downside is no LSD. The prices on 2.5RS's are SO expensive and are hard to come by. As others said, not the best deal, but sometimes you don't really have a choice because there are NONE to be found around you.

The downside is no LSD, the upside for the '98 is its DOHC. Its the easiest to turbocharge. The downside to the '98 is the blown headgasket problem, but some are warrantied and already changed.

The downside to turboing a RS in general is the compression ratio. You get about 7-8psi, out of an expensive turbo kit. Really not that much power. Almost a better bet to swap the engine because WRX engines are fairly cheap now that the STi is here, but then you lose .5l of displacement and don't have the low end torque that you could have in a turbo'd 2.5l car. I really like downlow torque so thats kind've a biggy to me, even though the torque when the engine is slightly modded will be greater in the WRX - turbolag is a bitch.
 
I doubt I'd ever swap it. Too much hassle. Hell I barely swapped a crx when I had one, yet alone anything else. I'm fricking lazy.

Well now you have the money to pick up a RS shell and get a STi drivetrain.

It won't be a new car, but mechanically it will be practically new. I thought that this was a bad idea, but in hindsight I probably should have done this instead of buying the WRX.

Buy a '95 Impreza L do the swap, do an interior swap, basically build up an entirely new car for the price of what a WRX will cost you and be happy with a unique car. Its pointless if you just plan on buying the car and selling it sometime in the near future but if you're going to keep the car its really not that bad of idea.

Either Jdm Ver 8. 2.0L engine with AVCS heads (~$6000) or USDM 2.5L sti engine(~$6,000). RA spec 5 speed tranny ($3,000) or STi 6 speed tranny ($4,500).

At this point, I'd definately buy many used cars over a 2.5rs. A used Civic Si would be more appealing than the 2.5rs unless you really must have the AWD. I miss luxury now a lot of times too, a used M3 would have been nice, Volvo S40 T5, 3 series BMW, Lexus IS300 in stick, or used S4.
 
The Kid started playing real hardball, told me I was committed to the buy and such. I put no deposit down and told him I had to get financing and such, and well red flags came up. He was being pushy about it, and said he watned to show it to other people because I said I still wanted to look at other cars, trying to get me to commit. I did no such thing, told him to take other offers and let others view it until I could give him a seroius offer.

Wasn't business smart, and seriously seemed like he was trying to put the car onto me.

I got financing today, I'm 19, and well I didn't know I could get 8.5% at 25k and now going after something a bit.... newer. And said fuck this guy, he was being a dick still about it, and the car isn't worth helping him out. If I'm going to buy from someone, I need them to be as courteous as me, I drove 70 miles to view it for 10 minutes, wasted maybe a half of gallon of his gas, and 6 of my buddy's.

Now the adventure begins because I have no cars lined up besides some new TC's I might go gander at.

Screw that. For $25k you can start looking at used STis and S2000s.
 
The downside is no LSD, the upside for the '98 is its DOHC. Its the easiest to turbocharge. The downside to the '98 is the blown headgasket problem, but some are warrantied and already changed.

The downside to turboing a RS in general is the compression ratio. You get about 7-8psi, out of an expensive turbo kit. Really not that much power. Almost a better bet to swap the engine because WRX engines are fairly cheap now that the STi is here, but then you lose .5l of displacement and don't have the low end torque that you could have in a turbo'd 2.5l car. I really like downlow torque so thats kind've a biggy to me, even though the torque when the engine is slightly modded will be greater in the WRX - turbolag is a bitch.
Turbo lag isn't really a factor, if you're talking about a pre-06 WRX engine with the stock TD04 turbo. A catless uppipe along with a high-flowing exhaust and a good tune will get you fully spooled by 3000 rpm. True, this may seem laggy if you're used to V8s, but really, it's almost neglegible. And if you REALLY want that extra half-liter of displacement, you could always try to source a WRX engine from an '06. Problem is, the TD04 was undersized for the 2.0L. I can't imagine how quickly that turbo runs out of breath on the new 2.5L.
 
Turbo lag isn't really a factor, if you're talking about a pre-06 WRX engine with the stock TD04 turbo. A catless uppipe along with a high-flowing exhaust and a good tune will get you fully spooled by 3000 rpm. True, this may seem laggy if you're used to V8s, but really, it's almost neglegible. And if you REALLY want that extra half-liter of displacement, you could always try to source a WRX engine from an '06. Problem is, the TD04 was undersized for the 2.0L. I can't imagine how quickly that turbo runs out of breath on the new 2.5L.

I rock the WRX, remember? ;)

I don't think you're going to see full spoolup by 3000rpms with a tbe, uppipe and an off the shelf map, its hard to imagine even with a protune - but you should definately have full spoolup by ~3500rpms.

I'm hoping to see full spool (of 18psi rather than 14.7psi) by 2500rpms when I get protuned. ;)
 
I rock the WRX, remember? ;)

I don't think you're going to see full spoolup by 3000rpms with a tbe, uppipe and an off the shelf map, its hard to imagine even with a protune - but you should definately have full spoolup by ~3500rpms.

I'm hoping to see full spool (of 18psi rather than 14.7psi) by 2500rpms when I get protuned. ;)
I rock a WRX too. ;)

When I had my off-the-shelf Vishnu tune, I was hitting full spool around 3500, but that was without a TBE (2 cats still bottling things up). Now that I've got my high-flow TBE and custom dyno tune from Shiv, I'm at full spool by 3000rpm. This damn TD04 is way small.

How are you planning to hit full spool by 2500rpm? And 18 psi? On what turbo?

I'm currently looking at a slightly used VF34, that's being sold with pinkies and a Walbro. Damn good price. I'm tired of my turbo running out of breath by 5000-ish rpm.
 
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