I want to do a full interior swap on my 1996 Impreza l coupe and I can buy a wrecked rs and take the interior out of that and I want to a dash swap. Will it be plug and play? I know I will have to convert my manual windows to power windows to swap the door panels. What are the hardest parts about that dash swap? Thank you.
‘96 Impreza L dash swap to ‘99-‘01 RS
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The steering rack has a different mounting point IIRC, you’ll want the RS dash beam with your swap. Also the HVAC controls are different, Im not sure if the harness plug is the same as 97-01 so that may need to be rewired as well. Also the passenger air bag may have different mounting/wiring. The RS gauge cluster definitely has different wiring and has an electronic vehicle speed sensor compared to the manual cable speedometer in your 1996 car. This would require swapping out the speed sensor on the transmission. The rest of the stuff is mostly the same.
Do you think it’s possible to use my original gauges so I can keep my odometer the same?
Yeah you can modify the gauge cluster to fit inside the dashboard for sure. By modify I mean the mounting points may be different so you might have to cut part of the cluster to fit it in (they may bolt up but i dont remember 100%). I did a 04 wrx cluster in a 98 dash and had to cut off all the mounting tabs and lay it in there.
You looking at doing alot modifications in order to make it fit . It would be easier if you get a 98 impreza L and do the swap since is pretty much plug and play
98 hvac is cable driven so you might be okay with that
There’s more than you would expect to be splicing to go between these two dashes. I ended up swapping my entire car to obd2 after starting this process.
All 93-01 imprezas have cable driven HVAC. Elevtronic hvac started in 2002.
If I’m not mistaken, 1996 is OBD2.
what was the hardest part of the conversion besides taking everything out?
I’ll have to let you know. Still in process.
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