bushbasher

Part of the sound created by an engine is the explosion in the cylinder, the other part is the sound created by exhaust gasses blasting past the exhaust valve and port at extremely high speed. So head design, bore and stroke, and valve timing all have a huge effect. WJMs theory on unequal length pipes may have some merit when it comes to the boxer whump whump sound, though his explanation is a bit simplified. Subaru flat 4s DO sound way different compared to hondas, vws aircooled and watercooled when compared open head to open head.

These motors can handle the rpm. Keeping the rpms in the power band is better on the motor than lugging it around at 1500-2500rpm. These motors have a very big rpm range, even though the tachs redline is set conservatively at 6k, my car and I bet most others rev to 8k or further. and make power up to 7.5k. As long as it has good oil pressure it should be fine. I hear the most common failure is the oil pump wears out and the low oil pressure eventually kills it. Maybe inspect the oil pump or test the oil pressure (Im not sure how to test it yet, but it's something I want to do to mine too) There are 5spd 2wds, but I'm not sure that the ECVT ever came in 2wd. Ive only seen 4wd 5door ecvts

if you take off the front and leave the rear on (if you have a rear one) then it will be more prone to oversteer when the throttle is lifted, which is not good at highway speeds doing an emergency manouver. otherwise it just handles worse but still controllable. You'll notice if you are driving the car down the road and toss it side to side like a slalom its easier to get the car upset with the sway bars off, even though outright grip in a corner isnt really reduced that much. I think off-road handling gets better with the sway bar off because in this case body lean and weight shift is less important than maintaining wheel contact on uneven ground.

call me crazy, but a vw scirocco with a full subaru awd setup would be pretty neat

I agree, though one could drill the 6bolt rim to 4 bolt, and fill in the unused holes by sticking a block of copper on the back of the hole, filling with weld, grinding smooth and painting. I almost did this but I wanted to be able to switch rims without ever drilling again.

I have seen the method done on samurai front ends with good success though over time it will get more and more worn. Once it wears enough the gears can try to run over the welds and this can break the carrier. That is an extreme case though. The method is great for front ends cause it allows you to turn the front wheels easier while stationary or moving very slowly because of the extra play. It makes basically no difference over full welded once you are moving because that little bit of slack is taken up way too fast to be noticeable and then you are in the same binding situation. Generally, welding the front is a no-no for daily driving (unless you're really hardcore ) Welding the rear is generally okay on the street but still isnt pleasant. Also welded rears can get a little hairy in the snow and rain.

See, it says that the european justy was a rebadged swift. Im pretty certain that the US models are unique.

Do you have anything to back that up with? From what I see in the yards, the justy's 1.2l 9 valve 3cyl is completely different than the suzuki 1.0 found in sprints/metros/fireflys.

That was one of the questions I was going to ask. Its on the list now.

Just acquired an '88 2dr 4wd justy GL for $350 CDN (talked down from $500 ) to replace my VW as a DD. I calculated that at 45mpg I would save $20 a week on gas going to school and that the car would pay for itself within 7-8 months. The owner was a mechanic too lazy to work on his own s***, and figured it had a blown head gasket. "All the classic symptoms" I think he said. It ran fine but puked coolant and would overheat, so I started to drive it home, pulling over occasionally (these little motors warm up and cool down fast!) Along the way I decided to pull out the t-stat to help it cool better cause it was getting tiring pulling over all the time. Turns out that the problem was just the t-stat stuck closed! The HG is fine and the car has reasonable pick-up surprisingly. Only 150k KM (the pedals arent even worn, the interior is mint) The paint is faded but no rust. I have dreams of turbocharging this thing and making a beast out of it but its just not realistic, I'm doing my 1st year of ME, and already have other projects like the lifted wagon and the MGB GT that I need to either finish or get rid of. Gas mileage and reliability is most important right now. I dont know what you guys are talking about carbed justys being slow. While its no screamer it certainly gets out of its own way and has power to pass. Its faster than my dads '85 honda, but slower than my scirocco.

Sure, but it isnt really the diff itself thats the problem its the hollow stubs and puny cvs. Which would be much harder to swap over from a z.

a 383 is totally overkill. find a v6, thatll be something the rear end can deal with. With either one its going to be a tire roaster, there's very little weight in the back, and with an open diff and 13" tires you wont be winning any drag races. You'll need to put stiffer springs in the front end too, a castiron v6 or v8 with an appropriate tranny is going be double the weight of the sube drivetrain or maybe more.

If the shock is the same length and the lower spring perch is in the same location relative to the shock body, then the shock itself wont make any difference in height. Its just a damper. The spring stiffness and length, and the lower perch location will affect it though. Did you measure to make sure the perches were in the same location in relation to the shock body? BTW they are not struts in the rear, because they dont affect suspension geometry (ie dont take any side loads like a strut does) Im betting that your new rear shocks are made for a 4wd wagon or something like this and your parts guy figured it was all the same thing.

Because making gears is beyond the capabilities of 99% of machinists. And the ones that can are going to charge 5x what we already have put into our cars. There are methods of changing gears without remaking the whole shaft. It is possible that a pair of gears from some other transmission with the same center to center distance (not very likely) could be machined and welded/pressed onto the existing shafts in the DR tranny after the existing gears are machined off the shaft. Then of course it all has to be heat treated again.

this chain drive or even gear reduction before the tranny will increase the torque load on the tranny, while reduction after the tranny doesnt. the t-case from a suzuki samurai will give you high range reduction which will solve highway gearing, and it also has low range which will give you all the reduction you could ask for off-road. I used a lada niva t-case which also has high range reduction but I wouldnt recommend it or ever use it again in a sube. The case is made of cheap russian aluminum (which I broke), the drive flanges are offset, and the mounting system is very difficult to deal with. However, the big problem with the t-case route is the front suspension. On an ea82 the suspension arms are not swept back like an ea81 and they will interfer with the cv shafts if you try to stick a diff in the front. You would either need something like 9" of lift (I cant remember the exact amount) Or redesign the whole front suspension, possibly incorporating ea81 stuff. I ended up relocating the subframe forward 3" and making custom a-arms that swept back 2" giving me room for the cv shafts, plus 1" more wheelbase. This gave me better tire/firewall clearance for the 31x10.5s, and also allowed the front diff to pack up higher without hitting the transmission. Still, this could be less work than trying to make gear or chain reduction between the motor and tranny that will hold up to the rpms and torque.

Are you gonna keep the rear wing?

There should be no noticeable difference in gas mileage with downshifting. The reason the motor is slowing you down is becuase it is going through all the work of compressing the air in the cylinders then venting it without getting any explosions to make up for that work. If the engine was burning anything but a negligeable amount of fuel you it wouldnt be slowing the car down. If you want to test this, go downhill with the engine holding you at a constant speed through compression braking, then shut the ignition off then back on. You wont notice a difference in the behaviour of the car.

Hey SVRex, I'm the guy you were talking to on the GRM board about the xt6 hubs/suspension. Heres a pic I made in Solidworks when I was thinking about making a mid-engine awd buggy. Obviously your frame would be different, but this might help show how everything will fit. my trailing arms are angled down but that can be changed to flat for a car without causing any issues. You could make your mid-engine car awd, but it would take a chain drive box or a transfer case possibly adapted from a 4wd, plus an ugly snaking driveshaft to get to the front. Could you get that to pass a safety inspection and still stay under budget, probably not, and even then the excess weight and reliability problems might kill the idea.

Dude thats going to bend easier than a stock bumper. You need to build something with 1/8 wall at least. I would be building it with 3/16.

is the speedo in km/h :-p

pass on those axles, well axle, cause the front is that stupid twin beam setup. I've gone the t-case route and examined solid axle options, and also worked on and wheeled with alot of solid axle trucks. My brother owns a ford ranger which has the same driveline as a BII, and I'm telling you it would be way more headache than going the toyota or nissan route, and you'd have a crappier setup in the end anyways. I could go out and snag a pair of yota axles for $100 right now or some bronco II axles or jeep dana 30/35s for cheap/free, but the cost of the axles is nowhere near the biggest difficulty of going solid, the fabrication is.

Unless you've got a wicked clutch going in there I doubt there will be problems.

that baja-ized wagon is sweet!! And I too want to know how you killed that motor. I've run a 345 at full throttle straight underwater and all I had to do was dry out the disty cap and keep going for a second water crossing attempt (the water was 5ft deep, I never did make it through)

If your car gets an increase in mpg when going from regular to higher grade, its more likely that its because the motor wasnt running quite right on the regular gas, than because higher grade is inherently better. I'm sure that f you went to race gas (really high octane) you wouldnt notice an mpg or a performance increase unless you change the timing to take advantage of it. My point is once your gas is adequate for the setup of your motor, going beyond that is just wasting money.

octane is a hydrocarbon of the same family as propane, butane etc. By alcohol you most likely mean ethanol (if it ends in "ol" its an alcohol), so it isnt going to "raise" your octane level. However it will raise detonation resistance etc which will make it act like higher octane gas in some ways. Octane doesnt really give you more power, its function is to make gasoline harder to light (it is a more complex molecule that needs more energy to break apart) which allows you to have timing advance and high compression levels without burning the gas prematurely. Unless you are going to advance the timing or run higher boost/compression to take advantage of it, adding alcohol or using higher octane gas is pointless from a performance standpoint.