Possible Turbo Drivetrain Swap

[Luke]

I found a car for sale locally that would be a perfect drivetrain swap for my car. Two problems that I've noticed so far. The car has over 300,000km and he wants too much money for it.
https://www.usedregina.com/classified-ad/10297124

What do you guys think? How hard would it be to swap the drivetrain into my 86 wagon? Are these cars roughly the same size? Would I be able to make the exhaust work with some modification? Is the fuel system the same for these things? What about the radiator? Is it the same size and setup?

Any extra info helps. I'm not familiar with the differences in these turbo cars and mine. If I could pick the car up for $200 I'd go do a compression check on it and buy it. Not reving over 4500 rpm sounds to me like timing. The guy says he thinks its a head gasket but thats a quick 5 minutes to check.

 

[El_Freddo]

Its certainly do-able. Head over to ausubaru.com and check out some of the builds that have been happening. You should get an idea of whats involved from there.

Basically in the short, what needs to be done:

Find a donor vehicle that way you'll have everything you need for the conversion.

The wiring will need to be stripped down to just the engine's running gear including the ECU and powring relays.

You'll need to swap the engine crossmember over as the turbo one will allow for the up pipe to clear the crossmember.

The wiring will be the biggest problem, you could strip it or swap it all out into your L. Dunno if there'd be the rear door wires for the open door switches or if the fittings on the rear lights would be the same, it shouldn't be to hard to work them out though.

$600 for a coupe would be awesome, especially with the elusive awd box with lockable centre diff! It's probabily also have a clutch pack LSD too. For a package at 600, even without the turbo motor I reckon its a good price! We don't get these over here, otherwise I'd have one! I have managed to find one of these gearboxes - and just the gearbox, not all the wiring, solenoids, dash facia etc that goes with it - for $500...

With the blown head gasket there could be some head work that needs to be done, cracked heads are common and these motors are ageing - head bolt threads start to move, requiring replacement.

I reckon that's a good deal, even if you didn't have the cash. But go for the bartering you might get lucky!

Cheers

Bennie