Impreza RS 5 spd tranny strong enough for a SVX?
 

hi

conversion cost is $2500 cdn (parts and labour) + cost of clutch for a RS tranny and rear end.

If I want a WRX one, its $500 more

Is the RS tranny strong enough for the torquey SVX motor?

car has 215k miles on it... an auto tranny and rear end from a 97 legacy will set me back $2k cdn installed. Is it worth spending that much on a 5 spd on such a high milage car?

engine runs beautifully.. and it has passed emissions with flying colours...inside is nice, but outside rear quarter panels have rust bubbles and need attention.

what would you do?

If you want to drive it sensibly, it'll hold up fine....if you want to race it, it'll eventually break.....

Use the stock clutch for safety. It should slip before causing damage to the tranny :D

Are any of the replacements good for "use" of the car?

My only experience is with the WRX tranny in mine and I believe a regular Impreza tranny in my dad's. No issues to report as of yet.

Some people say that the turbo trannies or the pull style trannies are stronger than the push style trannie, but ive heard that no one can really tell the diffrence on the duribility, they break at about the same whp with about the same bause also so i really wouldent be that picky. Really there havent been that many improvements to the strengh of the 5spd, the only improvements have been in the syncros, but the trannie was kind of strenthoned in 98? when subaru added 2 more boltn holes to reduce tranie flex, but since the SVX cant use those bolt holes i dotn think they have really been improved. The only 5spd trannie that has been improved in duribility has been the brand new 05 legacy turbo trannie becasue it got a griddle to reduce tranie flex even more. Of cources the STi 5spd will be stronger becasue they got the better gear sets but thats about it.

Personlay i used a 90 or 91 legacy trannie, with the 4.11 rear end, i havent broke it yet and have been fairly abusive. But i have only put about 4000 miles on the swap so iam not sure how long it will last yet. All i know is that my syncros are horrible i need to doubble clutch upshifting or down shifting into 3 so it wont grind and now iam just double clutching pretty much most of the time. Im not really sure how many miles are on it, the odometer said the car had 230,000 miles but the trannie had 124K written on the side of it and the car had a fairly new clutch when i took it out.

ALso the best trannie fluid has not been synthetic for me its been the vavoline 80/90 GL5 rated with some molybdenum mixxd in ive tried a couple of diffrent fluid combos and this works the best by far. I dont have to double clutch all the time now.:)

The only difference in the Turbo Legacy trannys was they ran a hydralic clutch with a pusher type clutch fork.....the tranny guts were the same.....other than a different gear ratio.....or so I've been told...

I run a 92 turbo legacy and had a problem with 2nd....

The turbo trannys aren't push style, they're pull style like svxsubaru1 said. A pull style clutch is stronger and more reliable than a push style clutch in about every way. Problem with them though is they're harder to repair in relation to a push and are more expensive to manufacture (probably because the majority of cars have push style clutches, I believe subaru and porsche are two of the few that actually use them). They're also not hydrolic by design, that's just for pedal feel. Well not just for pedal feel, but you know what I meant :).

Well, porsche and subaru, my two favorite names :D

THAWA,
Do you mean the pull style clutch has a better throw out bearing or will the clutch be able to hold more power?

The main difference between the two types is the way the leverage is applied to the fingers. The pull type has the pull applied to the center, the pivot is on the outside of the finger, and the pressure plate is held by the middle of the finger.

The push type has the push applied to the center, the pivot is in the middle and the pressure plate is held by the outside of the finger.

The effect is that the finger leverage is longer on the pull type clutch, so that it can have a stronger spring and a lighter pedal.

Harvey. ;)