Bein driving one for over 8 years now. Parts may be rare but everything in the drivetrain, suspension and steering is basically all compatible with other gen subarus. And that 3.3 it incredibly easy to pull if you ever need. It may not be super fast but as for long distance winter driving it blew my 01 impreza away to the point i sold my impreza and bought another svx and haven't gone back. Oh yeah and the fact the eg3.3 sounds like a porche and straight piped sounds like a v12 the noise they make is hard to replace
Well I bought one and lemme tell ya: It's an awesome car but an absolute pain. Every fluid except the brakes has leaked and it's annoying to fix. But that flat-6 sound and the feeling of "thrust" when you accelerate is absolutely worth it.
My "before we get into it comment": Reluctantly, yes I would buy one. It has always been a cool car, and the engine is pretty special, but they have never been cheap nor had much aftermarket support. I love a good underdog retro car. Let's see if this video changed my mind.
@@dylanletchworth8348 depends on a lot of factors. If it was a really low (20,xxx) miles car up to $15k? I don't know what the market is these days on SVXs
That white one is me :) I manual and RWD swapped it myself a few years ago, two things that probably would have saved the car if it was offered back then
I bought one of these 10 years ago for $2000. I had now idea how good this deal was at the time, even though it was a relatively low mileage single owner car. It is still going strong today with very minor work needed. Super comfortable and unique car with a great sounding flat6.
I had a 94 SVX. In 2000 my friend made it into a STI. Ohlins suspension all the way around, lowered it by 1/4”. My friend was a fabricator. Air intake made out of Stainless steel, Titanium throttle body, FAL electric fans, Tomei racing exhaust, 6 speed Hewland transmission uncut gears, SSR 3 piece rims, IAG head gasket, electrical re wired. Single turbo, Methanol injection on the liquid cooled intercoler, Griffin industries custom aluminum radiator, HKS controls for turbo, Water pump control, oil pump speed adjustable per how hard the car was driven, AEM stand alone ECU, Tial SSBOV, AP 6 piston brakes all the way around.
As a current owner of a 92svx and after owning 3 other svxs over the years. Parts can be a pain to find. The transmission issues can be fixed by either 4.44 swapping with late model phase 1 4eat auto or manual swap from outback,legacy,wrx. I've had both a manual swapped one and 3 autos and by far the car with a manual is 10x better. Keep in mind the car is 30 years old and performance parts for it are practically non existent. With that said 100 percent would recommend getting one of your mechanically inclined you will be more them fine.
Thanks for the fun summary video and including my SVX, Pandora (the red '93 in the video).💖 I never had transmission or continuous wheel bearing issues (typically caused by improper installation) but swapped to a 6MT in anticipation of forced induction build.
Don’t let this distract you from the fact that Hector is going to be running three Honda civics with spoon engines, and on top of that, he just went into Harry’s and bought three t66 turbos with nos, and a motec exhaust system.
There's a guy down the street from me with a really clean SVX repainted in WRB. It's been a few years since I've seen him take it out of the garage & drive it, but every once in awhile I get a peak at it if the door's open. One problem with the car that I foresee is that Subaru has been discontinuing EG33 & SVX parts like crazy over the past couple of months. This channel I follow called Smeedia is building a '17 STI with a big turbo EG33 shooting for over 1k hp and lots of little things like o-rings & bolts that he was able to buy a few months ago are NLA now.
Own a (currently stock) '97 LSi in Bordeaux Red Pearl. #356 of 640 cars produced for the U.S. market for the last year. OBDII (about half of '96 and all of '97 were), all '97s were fully loaded LSi - sliding roof panel, rear wiper, leather interior. I'm the third owner since it was new, and I have some things to say. If you want one of these cars, stuff you should know: 1. The transmission issues: The elephant in every room ever where the SVX is spoken of...yes, it's the weight. It's pretty obvious. Roughly 3500 lbs. It's all the glass in the car, and those big coupe doors aren't light, either. Notorious for going Three Mile Island right around 120,000 miles. **BUT**, what people don't know is /why/ it kills trannies---first off, it's the same 4EAT you'd find in any non-turbo EJ powered automatic car, which all have curb weights of around 3000 lbs. And the weight, plus the EG33 in front of it, causes immense heat build up in the transmission, which also cooks the ATF inside it---so it's not actually the weight that kills them, but heat and fluid degradation. The previous & 2nd owner of the car installed an auxiliary trans cooler & inline screw on filter, the size of a Cummins oil filter. My car has 166,000 miles on the original engine & transmission, still runs and drives fine. Still gonna get a 5 speed when I get around to it. 2. The scarcity: Over 1992-1997, just about 25,000 cars were produced. That's 5,000 cars per year on average---for total worldwide production. About 14,000 of them went to the United States. Technically speaking, the rarest SVXs are not the 640 produced for '97 in the US, but the 1993 25th Anniversary Edition to celebrate 25 years of Subaru of America (1968) --- only 600 were produced. There aren't very many left, and parts have not been produced in 26 years. Helps being a parts specialist at a dealership, and knowing where to find parts for it. It's a game of figuring out what's made now that will work. For example, nobody makes radiators for them anymore--but the 2019 STi radiator has a very similar upper outlet, enough to make it work. STi rear wheel bearings ending in PA000 are not actually STi rear wheel bearings---PA is a part number model designation for the SVX. It's the only Subaru before the STi to have a 5x114.3 hub pattern. It's not a car to own for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of work to keep up with it, but when you do, it's quite rewarding. For the record, my wheel/tire setup is FactionFab 25mm 5x114.3 to 5x100 hubcentric adapters, 16x7 Impreza 2.5RS 5 spokes (for that OE+ look), on 225/55R16 Cooper Zeon RS3-G1s. About 1" wider track than stock @ all four corners.
Thanks for the info I'm looking to buy one in the next week or so. My brother had one when we were in college and we did a bunch of mods to it. Really a cool car all around.
I have owned four SVX in the last ten years, currently manual swapping my latest one (95 Emerald Green). I daily drove the first one stock for years with the common wheel bearing roar being the only problem it ever had through my entire ownership. These days OEM parts for the EG33 are starting to get hard to find new (several gaskets are discontinued), but I'm excited the BRZ and other models are available now to try and swap parts from.
Doing a very unique swap so it's going slow, but making progress! I need to relocate the accelerator pedal, bolt up the master cylinder, and run a couple wires through the firewall for the neutral safety switch and everything inside the car will be done. Almost have the engine fully mounted to the transmission. Then I just need to figure out how it will mount to the car and how to wire up my Dakota Digital to get the speedometer to get a signal from the ABS because the newer transmissions don't use a vehicle speed sensor
As far as I know, I'm the first person in the world attempting to convert to rear wheel drive using a BRZ 6 speed on this engine or chassis. Luckily a (very) few people have done it on an EZ30 though so I'm following their work closely and trying to adapt it to the EG33
I got the info to the one and only reason this car didn't make it 😂 no manual option . My friend owned 3 and through trial and error he swapped manual transmissions into all three. Once that was done it was an insane super powered car that should have made it
I had the chance to buy a mint SVX with 43k miles, one owner in pearl white for $6500 a few years ago but had to pass because I had just bought my FJ Cruiser and put money into suspension, tires and maintenance on that. Now you can't find one even close to half decent and running in that price range. Will forever be one of my car regrets not scooping that one then.
I have a collection of SVX's which you can see on my RU-vid channel. My best friend has now been buying and added to the collection. I track race one as well. If you go to the channel you will find a surprise and it has 12 cylinders and the Subaru name. I personally think they couldn't keep the engine cool and that is why there were no manuals every made. The higher engine revs of a manual cause the engine to overheat unless you know what to do to fix the issues.
Owned a stock '92 for about six years (third hand, so I could actually afford it), and it only cost me one gearbox. I don't normally drive 'performance' cars (had a Liberty [Legacy] B spec R3.0 wagon, after the SVX), so I can't really compare, but I felt, and still do, that it was the best driving car I have ever driven. I've driven WRX's and an early Evo, but they all felt like glorified roller skates. Stiff, tight and twitchy sure, and great for racing, but you need a five point harness and a kidney belt. The SVX was more up in the limousine field, sat on [redacted, too fast to mention here] like it was driving in a carpark, it was super comfortable and the power steering light and precise, and belied the fact you were driving a nearly 2 ton car. I'm now old and have trouble getting into low cars, so now drive an SUV, but keep thinking of another SVX for my 'second' mid life crisis ;) Think I'd put the STI six speed, and a turbo'd 3.6 in it... (If I didn't just make it all wheel drive electric)
I’ve owned two both 94 both Laguna. I love mine. Is it fun, yes because it’s different. Is it easy to support, no. But it reminds me of my youth as I had one in HS and college. Is it fast, no. Can it handle, yes. Does it hurt my back to get into. Yes.
I own an SVX. Actually I've owned two. The first one sucked and Leaked all the time but my current one is probably the most fun car I've ever owned! Definitely a unique car :)
I am a little older then most here, and I bought a 1992 SVX in 1999. Daily drove it for 2 years. So what I can tell you is when I drove that car no one knew what it was. People commented on it everywhere I went. The car failed because no one heard of it and all the Japanese sports cars where being cut due to Yen to dollar exchange rates we were told at the time. 1996 was the final year to most of them. The little details mentioned here for its failure can be said about other successful sporty cars now. 0-60 in the 7 second range back then is the equivalent of the 5s now. No one had RX7s, twin turbo Supras and 300zx , and VR4s. everyone had base 3000gt/ stealths and 300zx's. and those cars were all 220 -ish hp cars. SVX was 230hp only and back then that was a huge deal. I had a 1994 3000gt in 2004 and it was front wheel drive and felt slow but looked great. The SVX with its all wheel drive (which was rare on any car never mind sports cars in those days) threw you back into your seat. I drove that car in snowstorms with no issues. Back then basically only Audi , Subaru, and Mitsubishi did AWD cars. I did bearings and front axels and sold the car when the transmission went, so that part is true. The sounds system was very good too. I also think the SVX gave Subaru the guts to make the WRX. Glad to see the next generation find this car and give it some due praise.
My first car was a 1992 SVX and I put 17" Konig Reasons and Falcon tires on it. I miss that car so so so much. I wish teenage me would have taken better care of it. I also wish I never sold it. That's life.
Couple more tid bits, subaru lost a couple grand with every svx sold, there were only 24,000 sold world wide and 15,000 in the US. That number is down to less than 5,000 as of 2016. The engine is neat af with forged internals, non interference design, and internally meshed cam gears. So if you snap a timing belt the valves won't come out of sync and bend on each other and should steer clear of the pistons. Transmission you can stick any manual that came off an ej from 1990 to 2019, or any 1990 to 1999 4eat.
We have been SUBARU NUTS since we moved to Reno over 23 years ago... We are now on our 5th SUBIE , and I'm looking for my SUBIE , our 4th wagon and our 6th Subaru . BUT , I still want an SVX to add to my. collection...
Assuming you have the money to restomod/rebuild a car like this, there are two major issues I’ve found from experience: finding engine sensors and replacement parts, and the GLASS. The glass on this car flat out cannot be serviced by any glass company outside of either getting replacements from Subaru, which last I heard there was 1 bronze windshield available in the continental US, or getting a custom company to remake the glass from scratch, it’s just not possible. The sensors are really tough to find too, usually you’d have to just find and buy an entire eg33 engine and HOPE the sensor you need works on the engine you bought. It really is a dying platform unfortunately.
I'm a definite SUBARU NUT, AND I have been ever since we purchased our first SUBIE in , July or August, 2000 ! We are now on our 5th SUBARU and I'm looking for our 6th right on now... But , if you are counting , I'm also shopping for the 7th , Which will be a used SV
Thanks again Fitment. My wife's wheels will be here tomorrow. I got the drop-deck confirmation a few minutes ago. Enkei SS05's On Nittos. Make her Escape a bit cleaner. It's the Boosted version so it rips pretty good for a mom car.
We just had the 30th Anniversary meet in Lafayette, IN to celebrate the SVX, check out SVXNATION for photos, the Red, the Blue, & the White cars from your video were there! I also went from the UK (without my SVX though!)!
My mid 90’s model SVX got me through 3 winter storms! The AWD and H6 boxer was great, but sadly its “achilles heel” was the axles. (wish Subaru would re-make the SVX)
The parts are hardest "part" of ownership. They are mostly found at the dealer, thats if the dealer has them. Case in point. I need a drive shaft, my is in bad shape after hitting a dead deer and car going airborne. The shaft can not be repaired in most shops, those that may will charge 500-1000$ canadian. Aftermarket shafts nowhere to be found. Dealership has one, brand new OEM, 969$ plus tax. Gota have a parts car. But I gave away the drive shaft from there, and even with a parts car, stuff is old and rusty, no guarantee it will last or even work. Gasket kit, a friend just bought his EG33 gasket kit, last one in NORTH AMERICA, 500$. Radiators, all died with the dinosaurs. Plastic cracks at the time after 20+ years of age. Have to order from USA, and the guy waits for 20 or so orders till he actually makes them, 500$ USD. My JDM SVX has a full metal OEM rad, but that only gives me dimensions, taking out to a rad builder to make another will cost at least 500$ more. There is little aftermarket for it, for now. But its dirt cheap to insure, I daily my right hand drive and pay 30$ canadian per month with classical insurance. Normal insurance will go for 80$ for a north american model. Eats 91 fuel. Not that expensive to own really. But if you are a boss and daily all your cars including the winter like a true subaru driver, then be prepared for serious preventative maintenance. It can be done, it will be done.
I REALLY wish Subaru would do a halo car. Like a super fast, super sick halo car. I own an STI, I love the STI, but I know they could do something mind blowing because they tease us with just about every concept they make lol.
Watching this video currently as Im finishing a slayer task on OSRS for black demons, I've even looked at local SVXs this week with intent to STI trans swap too lol
My friend has an SVX. We swapped out the trans for a manual from a wrx (forget which chassis). He blew up that trans, because he only paied $300 for it (it was beat on alot)
Very underrated car swapping out the transmission does wonders for it and I think he forgot the fact that the Svxs eg33 holds the record for the fastest and most powerful Subaru
I've been driving Svx's for 20 years. They've all been more reliable than my old 92 Camry V6. The extra headaches were only from finding parts and not from "frequent repairs". But it's a touring car and should be driven like one.. not a drag car
