3eyedwagon

Well, I've yet to see any charts for small passenger car tires, but, I see a pretty good pattern on all the charts I've seen. Smaller tire - Less weight The 225 - 235 75 range calls for 3 oz. You are dealing with about 1/2 to 2/3 as much rubber. So..... I'm gonna say that I'd personally go with about 1.5 - 2 oz. maybe 2.5 if the have a deep tread cap. I'd be willing to be it will work out for you.

I know of the wagon you speak, and I'm gonna say GO FOR IT. At the worst case scenario; you can find another running EA81 for a couple hundred bucks, and just swap it. Then re-gasket the other one, and have a good one on the shelf. In the event you really want to do the head gaskets; it's not that bad. You know well enough that there are tons of people on here willing to walk you through it, and even show up to help... Trust me, it isn't that tough of a job to pull off. Even for someone without a ton of experience.

An EA82 entered in a 24 hour reliability race??? Maybe if you just cruised around at a brisk 35 mph, but, there is the element of "race" added to this. These guys actually get up, and rolling pretty decent. I wouldn't rely to heavily on an EA82 to get this job done. Maybe if you dropped an ea81 into it.

Are you sure you unhooked your swaybar??? This seriously sounds to me like a case of "swaybar-f'ingyouupitis". Pics would help, but, seriously; this should all go pretty easy. Especially if you have a fat friend handy...

Not if you like it how it looks right now. They tend to "lean" on each other pretty heavily. It won't look good even if you finish.

John, Have Jeff get ahold of Woody, and ask if you can crawl under his car with a tape measure. There should be plenty of room to crawl around under there. It usually only sits one of two places when not in use. Woody will tell you where it is if he's cool with it. Take a tape measure with you, and a notepad. Measure all of his blocks. He did some pretty intelligent stuff, so I would take the opportunity to copy a bit from a very tried, and true car built by a very smart dude. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Nobody will be able to tell you EXACTLY what your car will need. Things like strut extensions, and steering shaft extensions seem to all be a hair different on everybodys cars. But, Woodys car is a perfect example for you to take the important measurements from.

Take your front swaybar off right from the get go. It'll do nothing but fight you the whole way. You won't be able to drop your front control arms far enough to get the blocks in otherwise. So save yourself some time, and just cut it off before you even try. The car will still drive just fine without it. The rear is quite simple. Just take the struts off, and reverse them 180*. What was originally pointing towards the outside of the car, should be facing the center diff when you're finished. We used 5/8" bolts about 1" to 1 1/2" in length with matching nuts, and lock washers. Metric will work just fine too. Just take the one out of the body with you to the store when you buy them, compare diameter, and you need just enough to get through the strut top mount, and your extenders. TADA, you're set!

SSSSSSSSSHHH. Don't use the A word around here.... I had a few questions about people having any experience with 60 series extruded Aluminum for rectangular lift blocks a couple years back, and the stuff was treated in the same respect that all my ex-girlfriends treated parrallel parking. I'm with you though. I love aluminum, and think it is underused because of its' misperceived high costs, and "difficulty" to use it. I got a degree in boat building while in college though, just for S's n G's. It's just a different school of thought, and oddly similar tooling to wood working. I didn't even know it when I started college, but, I already had ALOT of the tools necessary to build boats.... I think most people just can't wrap their minds around it. Hit up Alaska Copper, and Brass when you get ready. They're my favorite supplier, and have free delivery along interstate corridors for orders over X ammount. And let me know when you start. I'll bring a chair, high freq TIG makes me nod off....

Ummm, actually NO. Steel is down right now. It's a good time to buy some. Even new isn't a bad deal at the moment. Stick to the "remnant" bins, and you can do well. I just picked up a 1' x 5' piece of 12 gauge sheet, and (3) 8' lengths of 3/16" x 2.5" flatbar yesterday. I'm looking at a receipt that says $29. That's not bad. This was all bought at Skagit River Steel, and place that is known by pro's to be one of the biggest RIP OFFS in town. I probably could have saved 50% by ordering it out of Bellingham. I'd say two tube bumpers worth of material could be had right now for around $80. That's new shiney steel with all that beautiful mill scale, and no rust! Just avoid having pieces cut by sticking to the rem bins, and remember that you don't need schedule 80 pipe, or 3/8" plate for a Subaru bumper!!

^ Brian, and Bill I've often thought of the similar designs. Mine was to make an enclosure that was welded to the rear diff just outside the stub plate, with punch out holes to change axles just in case. Then have that round enlclosure (a good piece of pipe that just fit over the axles would be best) angle downward at a fairly gentle angle. The thing to do here would be to pick an angle that Subaru axles can run well at for long periods of time. Then fabricate a mounting plate to weld some of the best available/compatable Subaru hubs to the outer end of that pipe. You would be making a solid axle out of all readily available Subaru components, and the fact that it was fixed would make those weak axles, and stubs last SO much longer. In the end; you would basically be making your own "poor man's Portal" out of Subaru parts, and some well designed trussing pieces. Someone with more time GET AFTER IT! Bill, I really like your idea, I just see problems with the size, and weight that would be necessary to obtain a dual stage setup. I think the complication of it is something that could be figured out by, even just a few of, the group of minds involved in this discussion, but, I just don't see a way around the weight, and bulk it would take to have two sets of suspension working in unison. YET. The axles would probably need 3" - 5" of secondary travel inside the housing that accomodated the initial travel. Even if you limited that secondary travel to 2", I still think that would be a tall order for materials light enough to make it work with such a little ammount of HP. You've definitely got me interested, and I'm sure I'll be pondering this while I'm out in the shop..... "worry about the ounces, and the pounds will come" That will be the key to making this one work. I DO REALLY LIKE where this is going though. It's good to see some people brainstorming on here for once, rather than just some piss poor critiquing of someone else's already finished work. If a few select people, (NOT YOU GD, I think yours is one of the brains we can use on this one) and stupid comments can manage to stay away from this thread; I can see it getting somewhere PS> If you're talking about a long travel Idenpendant Suspension setup..... adopting S-10 or Ranger offroad parts would be my best reccomendation.... probably save you alot of time, and money....

^ I'd leave homeboy alone. He lifted a Brat, and went huge. As in; didn't TALK about it..... DID it. He can probably figure out the rest on his own.

^ I don't know that I'd really call that a Brat. It's a brats shell sitting on a Yota frame. And if it's the same owner as the last time I saw it: he's Mulletastic, and not in the cool Jeff kinda way either. More the "thinks he's David Lee Roth" kinda way.

^ * chair

^ An uninformed, blanket, overly dramatic statement against a method proven useful by multitudes of people. Would you count that as a measure of inteligence? I would. Maybe next time do the research BEFORE screaming it's a bad idea like a crackhead running from a trailer park, meth lab fire. That way you can start your double digit posts in style.

The hardcore offroad mud racing guys you grease. No crap. It's messy as hell, but, a solid layer of it around the mounting flange of the cap is supposed to work really well. Maybe try a thin layer of grease, and then a rubber glove. Should work.

4 ounces John

So says the guy with 9 posts. It's been tried by multiple people on here. They've had no problems, and the tires I've done it to are some of the smoothest riding sets I've ever had. It's a sound idea that's been exercised for a long time. Lead shot has been used even longer, and calcium before that. This is a downright GREAT idea for an offroad tire. Like you said Mugs; why would anyone keep dealing with lead weights that get knocked off? As long as you get the non-biodegradeable airsoft BBs, you'll be fine.

That'd require removing the hubs, an extra step that can be avoided by just drilling the wheels. Plus, drilling the hubs is going to require 4 holes be drilled in each hub, and that those holes match the nurl size of whatever stud you decide to use. That's something that is going to take a bit more precision than drilling out a set of wheels. Drilling the wheels can be done blindly by any monkey capable of lifting, and manipulating a drill. I agree with you completely that drilling the hubs would be cleaner, neater, and stronger. However, the fact is that we are beating the crap out of $400 cars, not going to car shows in hopes of a "Best of Show" trophy, nor are we launching men to the moon. People drill wheels because it's the easiest, simplest, and quickest way (that has been proven reliable) to achieve the goal of mounting those wheels on the cars. Argue all the reasons you ever want, the fact is that here we change from Pugs to 6 lug rims fairly often, and taking off your hubs to pound out studs just to change wheels is kinda silly.

You can squeeze a few more MPG out of it, as well as get some more power with some simple tricks. I don't know all the cool tricks about the later 4.3s as I do about the OBD1s and early OBD2s, but, there is a wealth of info out there about stuff to do to these. These motors respond REALLLLLY well to simple things like K&N FIPK kits, and throttle body spacers. My 2wd S10 gets around 27 mpg, and it is way faster than they ever designed the chasis to handle. My point is that you can get some of that MPG back with a little research, and have better pulling power, and some more fun. And the best part is that all those aftermarket parts for these things are ridiculously cheap compared to most everything else. The 8th digit in the vin will tell you what motor yours has, and you can learn alot from there. It's probably an X or W code, meaning TPI or CPFI/SPFI. Those are pretty hop up friendly.... I'd suggest roller rockering it.... It is the number one best mod I ever made to my 4.3, and probably the main reason it has lasted so long under such harsh conditions.

A 4.3L v6 with a 4l60e AWD packed into a shaggin wagon. Yup. Good call. There was a twin turbo'd one in Car Craft a couple years ago that ran low 11 second quarter miles. Killer drivetrain = win

And be sure when shopping for your wheels that you don't accidentaly buy a set of the metric 390 Puegot's They get people all the time. 390s are metric, and you can't get tires for them unless you have $800 sitting around to throw at a set of Michellins

Any 14 or 15 inch Puegot wheel will work just fine It's all up to what you want for tires, and how much hammering you're willing to do on the body. It sounds like none from your post, so that REALLY limits you to what tires you'll be able to run. The smaller the tire size the less likely you'll be able to find something very agressive. You really need to get up around the 205/55/15 (even that range still isn't very agressive) range before anything very agressive at all starts to open up, and at that size, you'll probably need to trim your fenders a bit. If you really want any kind of Mud Terrain, or something that agressive; you're going to need 215/65/14 or bigger, and that's going to take some modification on a stock height vehicle. You may get lucky if you keep your eye out, and find some old one offs that are pretty agressive, but, you're just not going to find many agressive tires under 27" tall. That's just the way it is, and the main reason so many people have done lifts.

^^ You're fast GD.

Not to ruin your parade, but, rag joints WILL fail eventually. It's what they were destined for. It will probably last a good long time, but, they have left me unturnable a few times on different rigs. I got a double U-Joint piece off of a 3rd gen, cut it in the middle, and lengthened it with some 1" pipe. You have to true it up, or else it will wobble, and you'll feel it in your steering. Or, talk to General Disorder. I remember him saying something about a piece that will fit in there perfectly on the power steering cars. And one more thing. Whatever you do; DO NOT modify the rod coming out of the rack, and pinion. It is hollow, and runs into the power steering fluid supply. Don't cut it, don't weld to it, don't look at it funny. You'll mess up the seals, and be F'd. Just letting you know!

Dynamically. There are websites out there that explain all of it. Long story short; I balance my tires with non-biodegradeable Airsoft BBs. 180/60/13 sould be about 2 oz. per tire. 205/55/15 up to 235/75/15 should take about 3 oz. per tire. It's the same idea as Calcium, or those expensive tire BBs (AKA lead shot) It works extremely well, and since this is in the Off Road section; it works great for wheeling tires, because, there are no external lead weights to knock off in the mud. It's cheap too. A big bottle of BBs will balance two sets of tires, and costs about $10. Just weigh them before hand, seperate the ammounts, and ask the mounter to pour them in when he's mounting the tires. Or in this case; do it while you are mounting your own tires.