Ive seen a couple pop up recently for sale and they sound interesting with AWD, Turbo and adjustable suspension. Anything i should look out for? I know they have an odd power steering and some strange and/or cool interiors
Ive seen a couple pop up recently for sale and they sound interesting with AWD, Turbo and adjustable suspension. Anything i should look out for? I know they have an odd power steering and some strange and/or cool interiors
Ultra quirky ‘80’s vintage interior.
I can tell you they are ridiculously fast with a SVX 3.3L swapped in. I chased an NSX up The Dragon in one, and he couldn’t outrun me.
Antihero said:Ive seen a couple pop up recently for sale and they sound interesting with AWD, Turbo and adjustable suspension. Anything i should look out for? I know they have an odd power steering and some strange and/or cool interiors
XT6s are not turbo. There is the XT (4-cylinder) turbo, and then the XT6 (6-cylinder) which were all NA. Also they are not all AWD, there were both FWD and AWD XTs and XT6s.
I have had a few XTs. Very quirky cars but the platform has a lot of flaws. Basically a EA82 L-series/Loyale with a different body, they are not a Supra or RX-7 fighter like some people assume.
They rust very badly like all 80's Subarus, and I would be surprised if there are any left that still have functioning air suspension. The ER27 six is a bastard of an engine, basically an EA82 with two extra cylinders, and not that great or powerful. Also no aftermarket for anything and parts sources are getting scarce. I struggled for two years to literally give away a rebuilt ER27 to anyone who could use it. Building one of these cars to go fast basically involves retrofitting as many 90's Subaru components as you can manage.
There used to be a decent community at subaruxt.com but it really dwindled in the late 00's, and even when I sold the last of my XT stuff 4 years ago it was pretty much dead.
In reply to pointofdeparture :
Hmm....this might explain why they are all cheap.
Most early subarus around here are total swiss cheese
I don't know a ton about them, but if this isn't '80's awesome, then nothing is. I always wanted one (still do).
They also have the wacky "Cybrid" electric-over-hydraulic power steering system that requires a special fluid that I seem to recall was pretty pricey.
They are awesome. I believe the turbo/awd combo was auto only.
I had one, bought it for $200 with blown head gaskets, one radiator cap later it was fixed.
Someone on this forum has the service manuals for it.
The "shift hold" feature on the auto box really does hold a shift. When pressed it will down-shift very early and up-shift very late all by itself.
Dave said:They are awesome. I believe the turbo/awd combo was auto only.
Sort of.
Until the XT6, manual Subarus were on-the-fly 4WD and only the autos were truly full-time AWD. The XT6 was the first Subaru to have full-time AWD with a manual.
So there were manual 4WD XT turbos but not manual AWD.
I looked at an XT6 maybe 4-5 years ago for a winter beater. Really wanted to buy it too, but the trailing arms seemed to be in imminent danger of rusting off completely so I thought better of it. So much 80s quirkiness to love, though!
Parts availability seems to be really poor for any of the unique components, from what the car's owner was telling me, like to the point you probably need to start hoarding parts cars to keep one going.
In reply to NickD :
Like over $100 a container when the cars were new
XTs are one of those rare cars that was made of nothing but good ideas, but everything seemed to be so poorly executed.
For starters, if you are serious about buying one make sure you are apart of some Facebook groups- XTs are hard as hell to find, and most have returned to the soil. Understand that there are some things on these cars that have no analouge- their wheels and axels are 4x140(!) with axel conversions requiring Loyale parts (also becoming rare), their air ride suspensions are mostly dead (my group only has a couple that still work) and their suspensions aren't "sporty". There are coilover options oddly enough, but little else.
It's gets wierder on the engine/trans side. Early XTs were either front-wheel or all-wheel, and the front wheel only came with a 3-speed auto or a 4-speed manual. By 1989 that switched to 4 speed auto/5 speed manual, but I don't think you can swap transmissions around. To add onto the engine problems already said, XTs had overheating problems (intercoolers are good things, it turns out) and the ER27 likes to leak. If you get a 4-banger your steering is manual, but if your car is the XT6 (and thus, has the flat six ER27) you have to work with the "Cybrid" electro-hydraulic steering, which uses specialized hydraulic fluid to turn an attached motor to turn the wheels- there is no connection between the rack and the wheel, and they break though the Cybrid fluid is still available from Subaru.
They are wierd cars. Some of the lowest coefficient of drag on a production vehicle and clearly suffered from the SVX's "too soon" problem for Subaru. Still, these things have a presence unlike anything else- they just look alien, and I love it.
I agree on the alien look
pointofdeparture said:Dave said:They are awesome. I believe the turbo/awd combo was auto only.
Sort of.
Until the XT6, manual Subarus were on-the-fly 4WD and only the autos were truly full-time AWD. The XT6 was the first Subaru to have full-time AWD with a manual.
The 3 door RX Turbo (1987) would disagree. It had a center diff, which could be locked with a button, and it had a close ratio dual range transmission.
The 4 door RX Turbo had the conventional FWD/4WD transmissions.
Knurled. said:pointofdeparture said:Dave said:They are awesome. I believe the turbo/awd combo was auto only.
Sort of.
Until the XT6, manual Subarus were on-the-fly 4WD and only the autos were truly full-time AWD. The XT6 was the first Subaru to have full-time AWD with a manual.
The 3 door RX Turbo (1987) would disagree. It had a center diff, which could be locked with a button, and it had a close ratio dual range transmission.
The 4 door RX Turbo had the conventional FWD/4WD transmissions.
Forgive me, the 1987 RX is the lone exception. In the context of the XT however my statement was broadly correct.
I stopped wasting my time on old Subarus (and Subarus in general) about four years ago now so the little details are beginning to escape me.
In reply to Knurled. :
Dual range? As in 4hi and 4lo?
In reply to thatsnowinnebago :
Yes. Subaru made hi-lo tranfer cases in their 4WD models for a few years. The DL/GL wagons had them from 1985-1988, I know. Not sure on the RX, but I assume it was the same years
Dual range existed in the Loyale era as well (rebadged GLs made up to 1993 or 94). And, I gather, some Legacies had dual range, given the existence of rare EJ bolt pattern dual range transmissions.
I saw "Loyale RX" once.
The wagons with dual range had a 3.90 final drive and the range splitter (synchronized, and mounted on the transmission's input shaft) made this effectively a 7.11 in low range. The RX transmissions had a 3.70 and the Low range effectively made it more like 4.30, so it was a true gear splitting 10 speed rather than a truck like low range.
The interesting thing is, the 5 speed transmission used in GC STis, and GD and up WRXs, is the same transmission. It was originally designed for 40hp 2000lb cars.
Before I got into rotaries, I briefly had a 4 door RX and nearly had a 3 door. And had a dual range GL wagon for a loooooong time.
They were competent mostly because they had little tire and even less power, so you didn't need much suspension competence.
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