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Hey folks! I have an 88xt non turbo, part time 4wd that I would like to fully restore or do a build of. I bought it from the original owner who unfortunately drove it in the snow so there is some cancerous rust. The water pump fell off into the crank pulley and damaged some things but I believe the engine to be salvageable as it didn't overheat too terribly. I would love any help finding body/interior/engine parts to help restore or build this thing back glory. It would be cool to swap in a higher power motor or the ER27. I would be ecstatic to find a set of louvers as well. Anything helps! I'm new to Subarus so I'm kind of unfamiliar with alot of things. Thank you all for responses/help

There is a transponder in the key that must be paired with the ECU in order to start the car - this is a dealer process, not the user. Either they pairing was lost and can be restored, or the transponder is bad; only the dealer has the tools to diagnose and repair this. You really need to have a second working key because if one is lost or destroyed the process to repair it is long (ECU has to be sent to Subaru) and expensive (I've seen prices upwards of $600).

Honestly, the best advice I can offer - especially for a brother who needs to jam econo - is to find a good local indy tire shop and buy a good used matched set from them. Then stick with them. The guy we go with here in Calgary, I think we've been dealing with him for 30 years. Every ten years or so he moves his shop to try to get away from us, but we keep tracking him down. He's almost always able to take care of us; we've only had to look elsewhere (the local buy+sell - kijiji) for the old '95 Legacy wagon with the small wheels because those sizes are getting rare. Then we still take them to him for mounting+balancing.

brand does not really matter that much, it is about the circumference you want it to be as close as possible to the other tires and no big deal running with FWD fuse in - just be aware that it WILL handle differently in regards to doing the 2 tires - putting them on diagonal corners will allow you to run in AWD mode if you really need to... or, you can go FWD and put them both on front if you so choose.

I've had pretty good luck getting individual used tires with partial wear on ebay. Just did it when my wife managed to find a nail with her car.