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Okay. Sketchy repair maybe (because I don't know 100% what I did) but it is running as well as it ever has. I set out to shoot a short video of the issue last night and decided to check the IAC one more time. It is NOT a b-metal control. It is an on-off solenoid that has the flow metered by a small adjustment screw that is in the throttle body, not in IAC itself. That screw allows minor adjustments to the idle speed while the IAC is active. I turned it in a few revolutions and then backed out to the same spot where it was. I went to start the engine and then do the same adjustment while it was idling but nothing else was required. The engine started as well as ever but never stuttered or bogged down. It idled perfectly and I've now driven it about 45 miles with zero issues. Maybe the port was blocked inside and turning the screw opened up something that has been blocked or too restricted. It runs like a champ now so we'll see if it ever repeats again. The really cool part about all of this is trouble that I figured out a way to use those reversed TPS sensors (SERA484-10) that others have experimented with. I'll detail that in another thread.

There in spirit. Got it. Ordered a timing light gun. Not sure when I'll tackle this.

What you could do is look for options package pamphlets on eBay or the like. They may provide some insight as to what was offered from the factory. Could also get some RX and XT informational pamphlets. Just an idea.

Definitely don't want an auto. lol. 5spd dual range for sure... I'm at the point where the more forum posts I read, the less I know, due to conflicting information...

I'm not here to answer your questions, because I don't have the answers. I know you're in for quite a bit of searching and just as much work, but I can offer some help potentially finding parts. I know for certain my parts guy has a fulltime 4WD Turbo wagon. Problem is that I'm 99% sure it's a 4 speed auto. But the next time I'm over there (probably early June) I can take a look at all the cars he has and see what's available. He's trying to get rid of the parts and would like to know the parts are actually being used. Good luck though, if you can source everything it'd be a trick piece of kit! :]

With the driving I've been doing lately, I've been considering switching to a full-time 4wd with locking center diff. I've been doing a LOT (sometimes 50 miles/day, 5 days a week) of gravel and dirt roads, too loose for 2wd, too solid for 4wd. I've been searching the forums for information about these transmissions, and the posts I've found mostly seem to be from people who have never seen one, as most of the information is directly contradictory... so I'm hoping to get some solid answers. What I want: 5spd full-time 4wd with locking center diff, 1.59:1 low range, 3.9:1 final, widest 1st-5th ratio possible. I'm in the US. Some posts say only the RX had full-time with locking center diff, some say also the XT6, while others say any ea82 turbo might have one. How to identify them is utterly unclear, either from looking at the transmission or at the interior of the vehicle, with no one apparently ever having actually seen one or otherwise giving a useful description. Some posts say they only came with 3.7 final, others say half of them are 3.9. Most say they have a poor (1.19, 1.2, etc) low range, but some say the 1.59 is a direct swap, some day it's not, some say you need au-only gears, and one even says 4spd parts fit, while I'm rather sure they do not. Some posts say that if you get a 3.7 you can swap the 3.9 pinion from an EJ box in, others say you can't, while some say you need XT(6?) parts. Some say it's a mechanical shifter, others say it's electric. el_freddo has a post saying nothing swaps without welding, but his posts are specific to a dual-range EJ tranny that's not available in the US, while I'd be using EA82 parts. Some posts say I'd need three transmissions, an RX, an XT6, and a non-turbo dual range. My current 5spd dual-range is in need of a rebuild (multiple bad bearings, input shaft wobbles an eighth inch, something clunks like a rod knock when in neutral, 5th->R lockout sometimes requires going all the way to the left then back to get to 4th, selector sometimes jams, synchros aren't the greatest, leaks from every single seal top and bottom and back and front...), so I wouldn't feel bad using it as a parts donor for the low range gears. I've tried doing a couple searches, and couldn't find anything available that looked like a full-time box. But, I don't know. car-part.com lists the full-time separately and says there's two available, but I think it's just lumping all ea82 transmissions together. So... What parts do I actually need? How do I identify them, either looking at the transmission or at the car it's in? Are they even available at all?

Tach jumping around could mean the pickup module is going bad or the shaft in the distributor has excessive wobble due to worn bushings. I'd toss my MODIS on it and go for a test drive if it were mine, but that's hard to do over the internet...

I recently acquired this transmission as part of a parts lot. I knew it was older than my scope of interest due to the centrally mounted starter. Does anyone know what this transmission is, what engine it mated to, year range, etc? I believe it's a 4 speed single range due to no external selector shaft exiting the front of the transfer case. P.S. My apologies for the grainy image quality. I had to crop the photo way down to be able to reduce the file size. :]

Yep, will we ever learn? One wonders doesn't one! Bill Rigsby - Florissant, CO - 8,213 feet 1982 Brat

The first thoughts that come to my mind are injector, fuel pressure regulator, or the IAC valve. While I don't think the IAC is the main culprit, those valves can be very tricky. I've heard (and this is conjecture) that they can be bad but still test good. Because they are a heater, their resistance changes between cold and warm. So they could test okay cold but are out of spec when warm. Again, this is conjecture so don't quote me on this, but the IAC isn't just for idle. Allegedly it'll also "catch" to maintain air fuel mixture when the throttle snaps shut. It essentially acts as a buffer to compensate for a rapid change in air entering the intake. I've been chasing a mixture issue myself for months as well so I feel your pain. But if I had to guess, I'd say it's fuel delivery related OR some vacuum issue (be thankful you don't have to mess with the vacuum madness that is the factory carb setup). :]

I definitely don't have any pinging. I do have some dieseling when turning off the car but we made a slight adjustment the other day and it improved some. I still have a bit of a high idle. I do feel the car has way more power when the secondary kicks in. Tach is definitely jumping around a slight amount. I did pull the distributor cap and one of the spark plugs when I got it home and all that looked good to me.

Wish you were closer. I'd pick those up just to have. I'm with you. I sold my 83 BRAT in 08 when I was needing something to commute to college. Now, full circle, I'm back in an EA81 doing the same crap all over again.

I've been working on this problem on and off for almost 4 months and starting to wonder if I am overlooking something obvious because I've been at it too long. It was my daily driver up until this engine issue and honestly, I would rather drive this to work than my 2003 WRX so as much as I hate to ask, I need some help to review my problem. My engine had been running like a champ for well over 2 years since I originally bought this wagon home and repaired a leaking head gasket. I put a least 50 miles on it daily with both freeway and city driving. About 4 months ago, it fired right up as always but then stumbled for a bit and died. What? It has never, ever, done that since the first day I fired up after the rebuild and that was probably 20,000 miles ago. It is the SPFI engine so I never touch the gas pedal when starting. It will restart instantly over and over and runs great for the first 2-3 seconds before the stumbling begins and barely stays running or dies. Sometimes, it will continue to idle very poorly in the stumbling condition for 3-5 minutes, right on the edge of dying. If I step on the gas, it will instantly increase engine speed very quickly and strongly until the desired RPM is reached, but then it begins to stumble again as soon as the RPM is held steady. If I had to guess, I would say it seems to be running very rich during the stumbling phases but I don’t know for sure. It runs fine as long as the engine is increasing in RPM. If I hold the throttle steady at any set RPM, it begins to stumble. I can race the engine over and over by blipping the throttle over and over and it seems okay until I try to let it idle or hold a steady throttle position. I checked and cleaned the MAF. No change. I then replaced the MAF with a known good unit just in case. No change. The MAF was not dirty and I do get a rising and falling voltage signal from the sensor when I back-probe the signal wire at the connector. Wiring harness checks out per the shop manual procedures. I'm working from an 1989 dealer repair manual but pretty sure it's the same for my 87. I don’t have a check engine light and the only code I get from the little red LED hidden inside the ECU is the 5 or 6 short repeating flashes indicating the ECU build series. The 2-wire temp sensor used by the ECU is fairly new and reads the proper resistance range for the engine temp. The IAC seems fine. I took it apart, cleaned it and confirmed it opens and closes when power is applied. When it is closed, it is sealed tightly and flows air easily when it is open. It is a 100% open or 100% shut, although I don’t know if it is modulated by a PWM signal from the ECU. It seems to be active all the time during my testing. It is not a bi-metal heated type valve that closes slowly over a 5-6 minute period after a cold start. If I unplug the IAC connector the engine won’t run at all so it seems to need that bypass air for sure, at least when cold. I thought that maybe I had a large vacuum leak but a smoke machine only showed a very tiny amount of leakage around the throttle shaft at the TPS. The TPS is set correctly with the idle contact switch inside closing only at idle per the FSM. The resistance of the TPS matches the factory manual for all positions. The resistance changes are smooth throughout the rotation from idle to full throttle. Fuel is fresh, filters are clean. Constant 23 PSI measured under the hood with ample flow when I open the line for a test. What causes an SPFI EA82 engine to start perfectly with no issues but then immediately run poorly, except when under acceleration? The fact that the engine starts normally at every attempt but seems to only run well when accelerating makes me think of an ECU that is going in and out of a closed loop/open loop program but I know very little about that possibility with this OBD1 technology. I recently tried a new Bosch 1-wire O2 sensor but it made no difference. Figured that was a long shot but it was cheap and easy to change. At this point, I’m wondering if I can’t see the forest for the trees. Am I missing something obvious? She's to pretty to just be sitting in my driveway.

Bar the engine over until the timing marks are visible in the access hole on the bellhousing, wire brush both the flywheel and the pointer, then use a white paint marker to mark the 8 degrees BTDC line. Set timing at idle with the vacuum hose(s) to the distributor unplugged. Set idle speed before setting timing. If idle speed changes while setting timing, re-adjust, re-set timing, etc. But, a miss isn't usually timing. Too advanced timing causes pinging before it causes misses, and too retarded timing causes power loss without misses. Check plugs, wires, cap, rotor in good condition, then look at mixture. A 'scope on the primary is also a quick check for ignition misses.

The one with the big shoulder was in the left rear. Not sure if we found the same thing on my Impreza.

Thank you, yes I should have never sold the one I had when I first moved to Colorado in the late 90s, been searching ever since for something worthwhile, meaning not a rust bucket. Now I can sell the jump seats I I have had in the shop for several years in case I found one that didn't come with those.

Strange, I just got digging into the catalog. Yea, one of the rear subframe bolts is different. It's drawn in the LR position. But the bushings are all the same. 🤷‍♂️

Next on the agenda is figuring out my idle/mixture issues. I still seem to have a good little miss while driving. I've never used a timing light so I probably need to get one of those on order and con my father-in-law into seeing if he remembers how to use one. I know my distributor has been messed with at one time because it's got the wrong bolt in it. @bushytails , any advice?

Congrats! I saw that on Cars and Bids the other day.

Long time since I have been here, sold my 99 Impreza years ago. Just scored a Brat on BaT yesterday, I know it is a long shot, but I am going to need to find a perfect front bumper! Any leads would be appreciated. Bill Rigsby - Florissant, CO - 8,213 feet 1982 Brat

Coworker gave me a set of skis. I also have a new fuel filter to install at some point.

You only find plutonium in select delorean cats, not subarus...

We thought we had prerun the rear diff and suspension swap on Bs Forester as best we could so we did that last weekend. Definitely seemed like it was time to swap the rear diff, it has been making noise (pinion bearing?) for a couple years now and there was more debris on the magnetic drain plug than usual. Everything went smoothly until we got to the rear diff bushings. They weren't completely shot but they almost certainly have 300k miles and 25 years on them and this would be the time to replace them. We tried the hollow hydraulic cylinder again but for some reason it didn't have as much stroke as it should and we couldn't see an easy way to bleed it or add oil. Then the threaded rod we were using snapped. At this point B suggested just removing the subframe. He was able to break loose all four bolts but then three of the four nuts started spinning inside the frame. So we hole sawed in from the top to get at those. That wasn't too bad but we cut into a vent line for the fuel tank so I replaced/rerouted that one later. One of the subframe bolts had a big shoulder on it that fit the subframe bushings fairly well, the other three were just 12mm. We used new bolts, anti seize, sleeves for all four bolts to fit the bushings better, washers and nylocks on the top when we put it back in. Pressed the bushings out and the new ones back in. Even in the 20 ton press removing the bushings took some effort. Reassembly went fairly smooth. B said the drive home was mostly good, pulling to the left which slowly seemed to improve. We were barely able to assemble the brakes with new pads on his worn front rotors we used in the rear, one of them was definitely dragging some. The next week he said everything was working alright and then suddenly on Wednesday it wouldn't rev over about 3000RPM, even in neutral. He tried a different fuel pump, the flow and pressure seemed good. Replaced air filter, plugs and wires, and tried a couple different coil packs, no improvement. He drove it to my house and we did some more troubleshooting. If anything the OBDII indicated it was running rich when it would stall and everything else seemed to be working properly (MAP, TPS, etc). Slammo suggested maybe the cats were plugged so we unbolted those. The front cat was empty. Fired it back up and revved out fine. Figured the plutonium from the front cat had plugged the rear cat so we tried backflushing it with compressed air which did nothing. Then tried backflushing it with the garden hose nozzle, not a drop came out the other end. B's hypothesis is that when we got a bunch of rain this week the moisture in the exhaust turned the plutonium dust into mud and completely sealed off the rear cat. He cut it out and welded a piece of tubing in its place and it runs great now. We also bled his rear brakes and replaced his HVAC fan switch with one that works better and did some other little things. In the meantime I changed the oil, oil filter, and air filter and charged up the AC on the Impreza and did a few other things. It's been awhile since I changed the air filter. That picture makes it look a lot worse than it was, there was just a ring of leaves at the end, filter itself wasn't too bad but I put in a new one. It has been running consistently cool now since the lower temp thermostat and hose rerouting and I think I've fixed a few small coolant leaks.

If memory serves me, and it's not as good as it once was, you need to remove the vac module and three screws you mentioned -- the one under the rotor and the two inside the housing by the clips that hold the distributor cap in place. Dangerous amateur tip: you can put a slotted screwdriver tip under the reluctor and use the edge of the housing as a fulcrum to apply slight leverage to help unstick the breaker plate assembly.

Yes. 4th gens were available with the 2UZ 4.7l. Mine is a 1st gen, though. I have a 4.0 1UZ in it. Install is far from complete, but it runs and drives (no cooling system, so very briefly).