Too much torque from a turbo and you will eventually do the tranny in. On iClub, they will tell you that the 5spd. As someone has already stated, the tranny is pretty fragile. As far as a turbo-ing goes, it is no easy thing. Now there could have been some major advancement here since I have owned a Subie, but the last I was on the boards over at iClub, there was a monumental argument as to whether the torque chip even yielded one more hp or lb of torque.

The chips for this vehicle (which I believe thee are two - the most popular being the 'torque' chip), don't do much. Bolt-ons (intake, cat-back, cam, etc.) will only yield you about 200hp (at the flywheel) and barely increase your rev limit. Lastly, I was a bit disheartened in the mod department. Arguably, the TS could take a corner faster and sharper than my Golf, but when your holding onto a limp wheel it really isn't that fun. My driving enjoyment is based on feedback from the road and how the car feels, not how fast I can take on off-ramp. It has incredible play, and actually feels like the power steering on some crappy American sedan. Why? Well, the Subaru steering (at least on the TS) is horrible. Yes, despite the fact that the car has AWD and I had KYB shocks and GC springs, I actually prefer my Golf (with a modified suspension, of course). The other thing I greatly disliked (I'm sure I will be flamed for this), was the handling. With the Impreza I really had to make sure not to push to too hard and to concsiously pay attention to the revs. I have never in my life driven another car that by way of feel or way of sound, didn't let me know when to shift.

The engine response is also not what I'd call 'informative' and on more than one occasion I pushed the car beyond redline, resulting in an immediate loss of power. The engine is OK (inside it's powerband), but it redlines between 6k and 6.5k. I had an MY02 Impreza TS wagon and I hated it.

Subaru gc8 mods