1991 Subaru Legacy Sport Sedan: Wants Extra Sport

From the February 1991 challenge of Automobile and Driver.

When Subaru introduced it was going to bolt a turbocharger onto its greatest se­dan, we fortunately anticipated the arrival of a Legacy From Hell. Think about: 217 horse­energy, 0 to 60 in 6.9 seconds, four-wheel drive. Why, John Buffum might nostril this automobile out of the showroom Friday evening and return on Monday morning with an enormous SCCA PRO Rally trophy wedged into the again seat.

“No, no, not that automobile,” stated Subaru’s Fred Heiler once we requested about this Legacy Sport Sedan’s stateside arrival. “It is a tamer model, a extra most important­stream automobile for the U.S.”

Uh-oh. You hear the phrase “most important­stream” and also you simply know it may embody “Child on Board” indicators and a free tape of John Denver’s biggest hits.

Here is the unhealthy information: We cannot see the 217-horse four-cam be­trigger (1) it is costly to construct, (2) it was meant solely as a rally homologation ex­ercise, and (3) it would not jibe with Suba­ru’s picture in America, which, because it hap­pens, resembles nothing a lot as a medley of John Denver’s biggest hits.

What we get as a substitute is a Legacy Sport Sedan with a diminutive water-cooled IHI turbocharger that raises the SOHC 2.2-liter boxer’s output from 130 to 160 hp. Rocket buyers will probably be disappoint­ed, though the force-fed engine’s extra vital statistic is the additional 44 pound­-feet of torque payload arrives 1600 rpm earlier than it did earlier than.

All of which is extra essential than it sounds. This turbocharged engine feels as clean as a usually aspirated one, with the juice delivered from 2000 to 5500 rpm in a fats, seamless circulation. That was Subaru’s intention. The turbo’s inlet is tiny, and each the angle and the curva­ture of its turbine blades are designed for fast spool-up. Throttle response is superb, and there’s no turbo lag. In reality, there is no enhance gauge within the cockpit. If it weren’t for the chrome “Turbo” badge on the Legacy’s rump and the refined air consumption close to the bottom of the windshield (a scoop that does certainly work, force-feed­ing air straight atop the turbo snail within the curiosity of cooler operation), numerous driv­ers wouldn’t know that this growly, whiskey-throated boxer was respiratory artificially arduous.

Below the whip, the Legacy Sport Se­dan accelerates well, however the 160-hp engine is just not completely accountable. A few of the credit score goes to sage engineering. This automobile weighs 3140 kilos, good for a five-passenger sedan with full-time four-wheel drive. It sprints to 60 mph in simply 7.9 seconds and clears the quarter-mile in 16.1 seconds, which makes it a half­second faster than the equally highly effective Nissan Maxima SE.

We’re not speaking about gobs of energy right here, and it is powerful to maintain your proper Florsheim out of the 8.7 psi of accessible enhance. The penalty is a 19-mpg ob­served-fuel-economy determine—and the Sport Sedan insists on ingesting premium unleaded.

We took the wheel for an eight-hour drive with Masaru Katsurada, the automobile’s chief engineer. Katsurada wished to professional­vide larger steering effort, in addition to extra aggressiveness from the spring charges, the anti-roll bars, the bushings, and the tires. However the remaining tuning, he groaned, would require a course of he hates: a herd of engineers, product plan­ners, and basic hangers-on all bicker­ing and nit-picking and fussing with the settings till, he stated, ”I might have a suspen­sion with the persona of a committee, which is no persona.”

Katsurada’s answer: “I pointed at one in all my engineers, a rally driver named Eiji Tatsumi, and I stated to him: ‘Tatsumi, you choose settings. You drive alone. You alter suspension till you might be comfortable. Nobody else. Then drive Legacy to me. That is the suspension we construct.'” And that, he stated, is what occurred.

The engineer’s rally roots apparently weren’t deeply buried. He retained the Legacy’s lengthy wheel journey and its rela­tively supple journey. At warp pace, the automobile nonetheless steps over railroad crossings and B­-road yumps with grace and composure. However when the struts and is derived ap­proach the restrict of their strokes, they’re now 70-percent stiffer than these on non-turbo Legacys.

In day-to-day driving, the journey is sort of as compliant as the usual sedan’s (which makes you ask, “Why do not all Legacys have these springs?”), and you are feeling the added stiffness solely within the struts’ final inch of journey. The system clearly works: witness our Sport Sedan’s 0.80-g skidpad efficiency.

The distinctive tuning extends to the steering’s variable help, which bleeds off way more rapidly than the usual Legacy’s. It is a worthwhile enhance­ment, though we would nonetheless choose extra on-­middle really feel above 45 mph.

Katsurada’s engineer mated six-inch­-wide alloy wheels to Bridgestone RE88s. For no more money, you’ll be able to specify all­-season RE92s should you reside in a extremely filthy local weather. However do not do it except it’s important to. Related to four-wheel drive, the stickier RE88s provide beneficiant grip and wonderful straight-line monitoring, even throughout a near-blinding downpour on the greasy roads of the Inexperienced Mountains in Vermont. Furthermore, we’re loath to tamper with any tire-suspension mixture that may cease from 70 mph in 173 ft, matching the stopping distance of a BMW 535i.

Subaru’s full-time all-wheel drive is a well-sorted system that’s each dependable and nearly clear in operation, and it accounts for lower than a 200-pound penalty. Within the Sport Sedan, the slick 5­-speed guide is mated to a mechanical middle differential with a 50/50 entrance/rear torque cut up. Viscous clutches professional­vide restricted slip for the rear and middle differentials. To deal with the extra torque, the Sport Sedan has a brand new hy­draulic clutch with a pull-type launch bearing. For some purpose, this has made the clutch pedal stiff, and there’s now extra takeup vagueness than we respect.

Tearing alongside our favourite curler­coaster roads, the Sport Sedan not often runs out of stick, however neither does it en­braveness you to toss it into turns. Hustle the automobile in rally-driver style and it sim­ply plows resolutely, elongating the radi­us of its flip with the monotonous predictability of a Johnny Carson monologue. You may alter this trait in just one means: raise off the throttle and the entrance tires will chunk immediately, returning to the enterprise of steering and—presto!—you are again on target. Product-liability attorneys will hate this automobile.

Consumers drawn to the Legacy Sport Se­dan will not have to spend a lot time jawing with salesmen—not a single op­tion is required. Along with the stan­dard four-wheel drive and Bosch ABS, the deal consists of air con, energy home windows, central locking, cruise management, a moonroof (which rattled like an an­noyed diamondback in our check automobile), a sonically spectacular Clarion-built 80-watt stereo with 4 audio system, and spe­cial entrance seats with new (and properly formed) squabs and backrests.

The Legacy’s cabin remains to be awash in life­much less plastic surfaces whose cheesy grain makes a large number of the doorsills, a lot of the sprint, the headliner, the A-pillars, the solar visors, even the steering-wheel hub. Su­baru’s leather-laden Legacy LSi can be simply the ticket, however no turbocharged engine is obtainable in that mannequin.

Backside-line time: the Sport Sedan is rigorously engineered, succesful, and quick in its class. However it is usually a automobile that drives prefer it seems to be—largely benign and bland, someway failing to excite.

This $19,350 turbocharged Subaru would draw much more consideration if it have been priced to compete with $16,000 Honda Accords and Mitsubishi Galants. As a substitute, it finds itself inside $650 of a nasty brawl with true luminaries within the scorching $20,000 sports-sedan area of interest. It’s, for instance, neither as quick nor as firmly planted because the Ford Taurus SHO. It places out the identical 160 horsepower and rides as capably because the jewel-like Nissan Maxima SE, however it’s not as luxurious, as finely completed, nor as satisfying to drive.

This revised Legacy’s principal al­lure—and the hook on which the advertising professionals appear dangerously keen to hold most of Subaru’s just lately dwin­dling fortune—is most traction: four-wheel drive and ABS. That will carry the automobile to glory in Vermont, and it might give John Denver a rocky-mountain excessive. But it surely makes the automobile a unusual alternative—a sort of Subaru hallmark, come to think about it—in most different areas. The Legacy Sport Sedan is a automobile we respect greater than we need.