SVX fwd only?

Ok, so, my friend gets a svx, right?

He coms over and shows it to me I am like wow, an svx, awd is nice, he was like no, it is fwd. I was like what?

So then I crawl under the rear and look. The drive shaft is misshing, the rear diff is mjissing, and the 1/2 shafts, obvuiously are not there.

In the rear hubs on the inside part, you can tell it was awd at one time, there are plugs in the holes to protect the splines.

He also told me that the guy he bought it from said te motor was from a porsche boxster, I called BS on that.

What I woudl like to know is why would the awd capabilites be removed? How hard is it to put it back in? I am guessing it can not be too hard, but, how about finding the parts?

I belive the car is a 92.

Thanks!

If it is a 92, then it was AWD at some point. All 92's were AWD. More than likely though, your friend's SVX is a 1994 or 1995 2WD model. It LOOKS like it used to be AWD because the cars used a lot of the same parts. That made it easier for Subaru to build them.

As far as the engine goes, it is similar to the Porsche engine because they are both Horizontally Oppposed 6 cylinder engines. But that's where the similarity ends. Subaru made the engine for the SVX, they didn't use one from another company.


Dave

So if it is a fwd version, how hard would it be to make it awd?

I am guessing subaru just put a plug in the tranny and pluged the rear hubs?

Originally posted by sc0tty8
So if it is a fwd version, how hard would it be to make it awd?

I am guessing subaru just put a plug in the tranny and pluged the rear hubs?

I have a '94 SVX LE, which is FWD stock. In 1994, the L, LE, and LS were all FWD. In 1995, the L and LS were FWD, unless the car had the "active safety" option (which included AWD).

Converting a FWD SVX over to AWD would not be that difficult. The only potential obstruction in a FWD model would be the gas tank, but even the FWD SVXen had a little space cut into it for the drive shaft. This was much debated for a while, but I can verify that the tank still has a drive shaft spacer.

Anyway, to convert to AWD you would need a driveshaft, a 3.54 front diff (the FWD models have a 3.70 front diff), a 3.54 rear diff, a diff mount/carrier, and the two half shafts. I'm pretty sure the hubs are the same.

As for the transmission, I don't know if it would work. I haven't been able to get a good enough look at the rear of the tranny to tell if Subaru just plugged it. Can anyone else verify this? I would really like to know. This may be my key to finally having AWD without performing a tranny swap.

All SVX's use the same gas tank. There was no difference 2WD or AWD.





Dave

Did they uwe the same transmissions?

How would one go about gettig the differantials?

I think a 3.70 ratio would be much better all around, it will give the heavy car some more ompf off the line.

[IggDawg]

I think you'll need a AWD tranny and TCU. I don't imagine the FWD ECU has the AWD transfer clutch programming. likewise I doubt the FWD tranny has the AWD transfer clutch.

honestly, it'd be easier and prolly cheaper for you to find another AWD SVX and buy it. then you have 2 SVXs .

Originally posted by IggDawg
I think you'll need a AWD tranny and TCU. I don't imagine the FWD ECU has the AWD transfer clutch programming. likewise I doubt the FWD tranny has the AWD transfer clutch.

honestly, it'd be easier and prolly cheaper for you to find another AWD SVX and buy it. then you have 2 SVXs .

But it's less fun that way! Well, at least for me, that is.

You may be right about the TCU though.

[Mr. Pockets]

Originally posted by sc0tty8
Did they uwe the same transmissions?

They use mostly the same transmission. Here's an AWD SVS transaxle:

http://www.subaru-svx.net/photos/fil...ckets/6279.jpg

I marked the image to show the sections of the whole thing. On a FWD transmission, the extension housing is different because there's no transfer clutch in there and it obviously doesn't have to accept a prop shaft.

So you'd need, at the very least, the extension housing off an AWD transmission. But I don't know what other differences there would be - I'd be surprised if there were many.

[BigBlueSVX]

what if someone wanted to do a 5-speed and convert to AWD at the same time? What mix of 5-speed/SVX parts would you need (SVX halfshafts, 5-speed tranny, etc.)?

i think they use the wrx 5 speed, not sure...

Originally posted by BigBlueSVX
what if someone wanted to do a 5-speed and convert to AWD at the same time? What mix of 5-speed/SVX parts would you need (SVX halfshafts, 5-speed tranny, etc.)?

I've looked into this somewhat extensively, and you'd need the same parts as an AWD manual swap, plus a few more.

You'd obviously need an AWD MT, and all the usual parts to make it bolt up (new crossmember, new clutch, etc). You would need to get an SVX drive shaft. I highly recommend the U-joint style, as the length of these can be changed (versus the CV-joint style). You would need the 3.54 limited-slip rear diff from an SVX, as well as the proper ring and pinion to match your *new* manual tranny. You would need a rear diff carrier/mount to bolt it up to the car. Finally, you'd need a pair of SVX rear half shafts.

This FWD slush to AWD MT is sort of a Frankenstien, but I would presume that it's not much additional work compared to the normal AWD slush to MT swap.

[TomsSVX]

a fwd tranny is extremely close to an awd tranny. If you were to comvert you would need the new ring and pinion for both front and rear. The transferclutch off an awd tranny along with the output shaft. Of course, the drive shaft rear case half shafts and all harware nessecary to bolt up the case. The tcu and ecu out of an awd. some fwd models did not come w/ abs like mine so if you decided to use the awd hubs( no difference between awd and fwd) you could just remove the sensors. The splines in the rear hubs of the fwd will just pop out when unscrewed and give way to the new half shafts. And awd 5mt is the most feasable thing, cuz it kicks ass.

[mikecg]

plain and simple........ replace everything after the flywheel.

[BigBlueSVX]

hmm..donor car...hmmm. This could get interesting. I doubt anyones done this before, but it definitely would be interesting to see how it would work out.