well my car is alive!!! awd is in and all is working I started out with a wippy FWD 1.8 110hp 94 subaru impreza now I have a exreamly slow 1.8 110 AWD convered.
now the topic of fwd to awd converison has been beaten like a dead horse but no matter how many times the topic has been posted little details that would of been nice for me to know were never mentioned.
so for awd swap goes heres a few things you should know.
some impreza L's have awd gas tanks it seems to be the 95's that have them look under the car and if it arch's for a drive shalf and has these 4 indents on that arch you got an awd gas tank
theres 13.X gal gas tank and the 15.9 gal gas tank impreza L's use's the 13.X gal RS and WRX's uses the 15.9 and maybe some L's use the 15 I'm not 100 sure on that part
some have said that FWD axles will work with the AWD tranny except the 93 impreza. my car is a 94 and my FWD axles did not work with my AWD tranny
AWD swap you'll need
AWD tranny axles and drive shalf
rear diff with the ratio matching the ratio of the final drive of your tranny
whole rear sub frame from hub to hub
rear diff carrier ((Big T shaped thing that holds the rear diff up))
awd shifter assamly from the same year as the tranny
some problems I came up with is trying to get the old tranny off and the new tranny on its a big pain because old trannys tend to just glue on to the block along with new trannys dont wanna fit on since of the dowl pins
thanks to Tim Sanderson he told me to get my tranny off the old block was to use a sharped puddy knife and start tapping away and to make sure to have a jack up on the tranny since that tranny will want to drop after its off the car and the motor will want to fall forward to make sure somethign will rest on it and as far as getting the tranny back on you'll want to push it back in as far as u can get it and thred the bolts in slowy and they should mate together like Tim said
if you decited to upgrad your shifter assmebly to a wrx shifter assmebly then you need an adaptor part that connects on to your tranny along with the wrx shifter assmebly but if you decited to use a wrx shifter assembly then the drive shalf will hit or rubb up on the bottem part of the lower arm that stays still and you'd have to modify your drive shalf some how since the 4 doors will have a bend in the middle with the use of a unaverisal joint u could put a little bend in the driveshalf using a longger middle bolt with washers on one end. in the end its worth to just use the shifter assembly from the same year as the tranny its so much less hassle that way
since FWD doesn't use some of the same bolts as the awd make sure you have the bolts from the AWD drivetrain and they are in good working order or u will be making lots of stops at the hardware store. when you are under your car looking around you'll notice your car is predrilled for awd and since thos spots haven't been used its wroth to retap the holes so you'll have a nice smooth fit with my swap there was some rough tighting
when starting out for a car to buy or to do a swap 95 seems like a good year since they have the awd gas tank and some extra's that help out with easy. plus its an obd 1 car
this should be all of it if I'm missing something then please add forgive any mistakes its 4 in the morning very tired I am
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show...hreadid=414748 my convered car
thanks to
tdb for very involved help with the swap and for telling me i need the rear diff carrier and helping me spot one.
Tim Sanderson for his expert tips and tricks with out him I might still be trying to pull my old fwd tranny out
Mick for letting me use his awd stock exhaust for a little bit and all of his help and for telling me my later arm link was upside down so my sway bar is the right way now
subyfantic for his speedy parts shipment with out him I'd be in more debt than I already am and the swap
and for everyone and anyone that I left out
if i left you out you can post and I'll put ya in my thanks list