bushbasher

its usually quite difficult to properly disable the airbag. They don't make it easy for liability reasons. Often the airbag circuit is integrated with the ignition and various other things so simply cutting wires or disconnecting stuff will prevent the car from running. Generally the older the car the easier though. That said, I've never heard of airbag problems when off-roading. I know a guy who wheels a grand cherokee with driver and pass. airbags, he's been airborn, had several low speed collisions with rocks and trees, and his ride is dented to all hell, but his airbags have never gone off.

the rear cv axles have a seperate splined stub that goes through the hub. The outer cv slides off the splines on each end, leaving the stubs in the diff and hub. To remove an axle, the suspension must be all the way unloaded to give room for the axles to slide off the splines. Then you just take a 3/16 punch and knock out the roll pins on each end, wiggle the axle around and pull it off.

the SPFI makes a huge difference, you get higher comp. pistons and a better fuel system. carb ea82s are really really gutless to begin with, as I'm sure you've noticed. SPFI is just gutless. Instead of a weber conversion I would consider an SPFI swap. It will probably end up cheaper if you go to the right junkyard for parts, but it will be more work. In the end though, you will get preformance comparable to the weber, but with better power off-road because efi is not affected by angles like a carberator. There are more factors than tire height that determine street performance. The tread pattern, width, and tire weight also impact. My gearing turns out so that when I run 31" tires my ratios should make my car feel like its running 28s. Let me tell you, I can still tell the difference between the 31s on modded gearing and the 28s on stock gearing. This is because of the tire/rim weight, and the high rolling resistance of my tires. I have to really ride the clutch to get the thing moving on a hill in 1st high/high.

be a real man and weld that s*** up

No doubt, dremels are weak. I'm using a dremel to do the final finish work on a set of heads I've ported with a die grinder. I would have given up a long time ago trying to use a dremel to do the serious meat removal.

we have dual range transmissions that have fwd, 4lo, and 4hi on a selector lever instead of a single range vacuum pushbutton tranny. We just drive around with the tranny set to 4hi to use the rear output, and the front diff spinning without a load on it (no axles connected) I think you could just rip the vacuum junk off, push the linkage into 4wd and it will remain in 4wd (well rwd) mode.

us lifted and t-cased folks run out of the rear output of the tranny %100 of the time, and never had a problem. Im running on 31" knobby tires, low range gearing and a welded diff. These all add considerable stress to the drivetrain. I havent had any real problems yet, and I havent heard of anybody else having problems either, even running more hp than me. With stock tires, I dont think theres anything to worry about, and you could drive in rwd for the life of the car without worry. -check out vegablade's rear wheel drive video and you'll see e-brake smoke shows, donuts etc etc on slightly larger wheels/tires with no probs.

dude, 1/2" plate is WAY overkill. I would do 3/16 with reinforcement welded on behind it for strength, 1/4" if I was too lazy to do some welding. A totally flat skid plate is a poor design, because the forces its designed to handle are in the direction it is weakest. Going thick on material to make up for an inefficient design would make for a heavy subaru!

nah. Well if you manage to crack or break them then yes.

Hey I laughed

why not just swap the whole legacy turbo engine control onto an ea block?

cool. I guess you RX owners get to watch your investments increase in value now! What country is that article from, cause obviously US/Canada have been getting them since '85

I would get in there and get my hands dirty first, your motor problems dont sound serious at all, and theres nothing to be scared of down in that engine bay. The important bits are most likely in perfect shape. Gaskets, oil seals etc are the first to go. I just pulled apart a turbo motor with 130k miles and it barely looked broken in on the inside. And thats a turbo motor which sees higher intake, coolant and oil temperatures, in addition to the extra hp/torque. You would save some serious cash by doing some engine work yourself, instead of getting overwhelmed (it kinda sounds like you are to me) and starting from scratch. Even with a new motor you have to pull your old one and put your new one in, which is a fair amount of work anyways.

rguyver, hasnt been around here for at least a year I think.

I pulled that same mistake the first time I took the bumper off a sube. Only I managed to break one nut loose before I realized what was going on

Just about every time I get in the thing In double low thats about jogging speed

I played around with pic16f84s and 628s, I think they would be capable. You can build your own programmer board and program it in basic, which is easy stuff.

JDM=Japanese Domestic Market

what about crank bearing clearances and stuff, do I have to do anything special on reassembly, or just slap it back together with some sealer?

the oil pan had some grunge in it, but the heads/cam covers were overall pretty clean as far as deposits go. A bit of an orange coating that wipes off pretty easy. Can I take the pistons/rods out without splitting the block? How big of a deal is splitting the block?

No kidding. Unless, you're one of those rare few that love lying upside down in the driver seat, face in the footwell, surrounded by wiring harness.

If you see a center diff-lock button or switch then you are looking at a 5spd full-time 4wd dual range transmission, which isnt much good for serious off-road, due to the tall ratios. A normal 4 or 5spd dual range is already effectively locked center anyways, so you wouldnt be gaining capability. But grab that LSD quick you lucky bas#### you may have to swap diff gears to match the ratio in your transmission though. **if there is a red button on the shifter, its a single range pushbutton, which is crap.

I scored a complete ea82t motor with pretty much all the accessories for $75 CDN a few days ago. The dash said 215k KM so pretty low mileage. Piston 1 has NO CRACK between the valves, and this is on a gen1 head. All others have a crack between the valves but not extending past the valve seats. So thats good news. Also, the factory hone marks are still visible on all the cylinder walls. So what I'm asking is since the cylinder walls are completely without wear, should I bother taking the pistons out and inspecting/changing the rings, or are they more than likely just fine. This is on an apparently babied motor (in a 2wd auto sedan) with 215k KM (129k miles). Edit: I shoudl also add that this will be for a performance build. Ms&edis most definitely, self-made up and downpipes, intercooler, stock turbo. I've already started porting the heads after dissassembling and cleaning.

The rpm that your valves float will be the same under accel or free revving. If your car cant make it to the rpm under accel that it can while in neutral, then something else is restricting/your powerband drops off really quickly.

when the valves float you will hit a flat spot that you cant rev past, and you will hear it too. my spfi wagon floats at a bit over 7500 according to the stock tach, and its got 290k kms on it. My old turbo wagon floated somewhere above 7k according to the digidash.