Hey, I just registered for this site. My mom bought me a Scion xA in blue about a month ago. I like it so much- looks really cool. I can drive it in less than a year- I'm only 15, but I wanted 2 know what you could do to get some more power out of it. I know it's not a Subaru-Scion's look much better- but I still want it to be fast. So if you could tell me what I could do, or what you've done, that'd be great. Thanks

 

depends on how much cash money you have to spend on it. but why did you get it so soon?

 

Well, my mom is going to drive it for about half a year, and THEN give it to me. And it doesn't matter about the cash, not that I'm rich or anything, I just want to know all the possibilities.

 

Do you think maybe a new engine- but won't that be really expensive because you'd need to get custon parts so it would fit the scion.

 

yea you could do a swap, it hasn't been done on a xA or xB yet, I'm guessing that it would be about $6k because it would all need to be custom

 

for now... dont worry about an engine swap, its too much, too soon, instead just go for a cold-air intake, some headers and an exhaust, drop that sucker with some springs and get new struts. add a front strut tie bar, rear sway bar and get some nice wheels
AND.. if you're really willin to throw down mucho CASH! go for the supercharger!
dang i wish i had money

 

get the turbo kit not the supercharger, the blitz supercharger sucks. very low hp gain

 

Thanks Alot, I'll look around some more

 

maybe its just me but i think you should leave the engine alone except maybe the intake and stuff. for your first car you dont need anything with turbo or supercharger. wait until your more experienced driving before you start adding a bunch of power.

 

hes 15 let him dream, he will realize that he doesn't have the funds to do a swap, or get a turbo.

 

oh well in that case id say take the rear seats out, build a wall behind front seats and drop a ferrari engine in the back and make it a rwd ferrari xB

that would be wicked cool if someone stuck an engine in the back and made it rwd. they did that with some ford festivas before, stuck the yamaha v6 engines from ford taurus SHO's

jay leno has one i think

 

yeah but it is also a diy instal. versus the turbo kits are a pita

 

man, i remember when i relized all those things i was going to do to my car costs money. that sucked.

 

What's wrong with Subaru? My 2 Subies look and drive awesome. Scion is a league of its own, so I don't think it's fair to compare the cute factor vs the Subie or the turbo vs the xA.

Anyway, you are not 16 yet, and IMHO, the xA is plenty fast for you. There are exception always, but generally speaking, a person who just recieved their driver license is ideal to start with a normal engine and go from there.

As far as mod goes, any power mods cost money. There are ways to reduce cost, such as the poorman intake method. Will the xA ever be like the WRX. no? Same thing if you ask if the WRX will ever look as cute/compact as the xA, you will receive the same answer.

My wife RS 1.0 is getting prettier each day. With new wheels/tires coming along with all the mods going in, her car will looks both cute and cool. Again, she can never catch up with my cars, but that's not the reason why we got the RS 1.0.

Last, but no least, congrat on getting a xA, it's a cool car to start off with (my 1st car was an old Escort, then an old Cavalier but I had fun nonetheless).

Good luck

 

haha I still don't think I realized it

 

So you wanna go faster? Just eat lots of burritos and drink lots of ex-lax before you drive. . . you're car will be plenty faster.

Might I recommend seat covers too, if you do this mod. I call it, the mega-custom turbo colon upgrade.

 

Yah thats alot of help from the chips and doritos guy. And by the way, I'm not ___- I've known things cost money for a while now, so I got a job- my next door neighbor owns a store. I've had it for about a year and don't plan on quitting- oh, and I haven't really spent any of it either, so I do have some money to do stuff.

So far, I've just put interior stuff in like lights, SEAT COVERS, a new steering wheel, and other stuff like that.

 

faster acceleration or faster laterally?

the scion benefits greatly from bigger wheels/ lower stance/ stiffer ride/ swaybars MUCH more than from a CAI.. i put my bone stock xA up against an xB with intake/header/exhaust and whipped it..

the xA is slightly quicker than the B.. but put some $$ into suspension, and you can have an awesome little corner carver. just keep the shiny side up!

 

you could drop in a 2JZGTE engine in your xA , but first you need to get your license :D

 

it all comes down to money. . . it's not all that hard to make the car faster. If you got about $3-4k to blow, you can make a pretty big difference. Anything less, and you'd be wasting your time (in terms of REAL performance gains). You can make it slightly more aggressive, but that's about it.