The Beast I Drive

I think I have one of those, Ill have to look. I probably have 3 or 4... -Bill

How high do you want to go with it? Im planning on making some 4" lifts soon, I helped Jayare12 fix the camber issues he had with the back of his Brat and I have a bunch of Brats here to play with. Where are you located? If you are anywhere close to Toppenish, WA maybe you could come by and we can get that all set up and Ill make you a great deal on a lift for being my guinea pig I already make Gen 2 and Gen 3 lifts, but I havent done a complete Gen 1 lift yet... Also, how soon do you want it? Im pretty busy until after WCSS 11 what with getting the Beast ready for Evans Creek and makin some parts for a few other guys... -Bill

Nice job on the steering linkage, I dont really like what I did with my Hatch, I took out the rag joint and bolted the shaft directly to the input shaft on the rack, then clocked the rack with a custom shim about oh 5-10 degrees (I dont remember) and then lengthened an EA82 double U-joint piece and put that in. It works, has no binding at all, but I dont like that there is no shock absorbtion of any kind, and it looks really hokie/flimsy where I took out the rag joint and bolted the 2 shafts together... But If I ever finish it I will convert to Power steering and open a new can of worms... Just curious, have you built custom rear axles for it yet? I plan on trying the GD formula, EA82 DOJs on the EA81 axles... More flex room when I get my Brat lifted... -Bill

What year and model might help... -Bill

Actually I built most of that lift.... -Bill

I think you are on to something... Lengthening your control arms by about 1" would give you better camber and make the Legacy axles fit better, as well as possibly solve your sway bar issues. Or, you could just cut the sway bar mounts off and move them 1" outboard and it would be a lot less work... -Bill

Nice! Its good to finally see pics of that thing, looks pretty sweet... Are you sure those are 13" wheels? the tires look bigger than 185/80 R13 but maybe its just me... -Bill

No road salt That might be changing soon though, but up until now they never salted the roads in the winter around here Oh, and some Brats are totally OK to off-roadify, like my Black one, if it comes with every body panel trashed and evidence of being T-boned and kinda fixed, along with a host of other "issues" there really is no hope of it ever being nice, so what other options would you have? Hope you get it running good, and if that is a Black interior I am extremely jealous, I dont think Ive ever seen an EA81 Black interior... -Bill

You really can't leave it in the "stock" location, its attached to the crossmember which is now 4" lower than stock, so the bar is still in the stock location relative to the lift... The bar is hitting the tie rods IIRC from when I looked at it, I think it needed to be rotated a bit to clear, so new endlinks would have to do that... BUT my memory fails me this time, I cant remember exactly what we talked about doing... -Bill

Is that a Black interior??? Nice score! -Bill

I love having the front doors off, I modified my hinges so all I have to do is pull the pins and off they come, Im going to try to make some Jeep-style hinges when I get a chance after WCSS 11 though because after sitting all winter with mud and sand in them, the pins did NOT want to come out this spring :-\. Personally I dont really like the look of the back doors off, but it would be cool for the passengers -Bill

Oh no, your fit is definitely worse than mine was, mine was off only by thousandths, 1/8" max, but it was just enough that I couldnt get the bolts in. I think Ill just run regular NA 1600 pistons in mine because I want about 10.5:1 compression... Might have to use 1800 pistons for that though, guess Im going to have to start using some math to make my ideas more realistic On a side note, Ive been using studs to mount my intake manifolds and thermostat housings now, I can torque them to 20 lbs instead of like 7. And it looks sweet, maybe look into having ARP make you a custom set, I just make mine out of B7 Metric threaded rods, but for something as trick as your car it would be killer to have a custom ARP set with 12 point Stainless nuts... Im gonna try this out on my water pumps too... Possibly the oil pump as well. Basically anything that has a gasket between it will get studs and stainless nuts. -Bill

That's odd that your manifold fits worse than my JDM Dual carb manifold, Im running the 1400 DP heads though, perhaps they are taller? Mine fit pretty close, but not close enough to bolt up... Yours looks quite out of whack compared to mine... I plan on having my block milled down though to make mine work, maybe if you throw some lower compression (EA81T 0r EA82T) pistons in there you can have the block milled down enough to make it work? As long as the coolant and oil passages stay in tact it should be fine... -Bill

Looks real good man, especially cuz of the green -Bill

I do have a pair of GL-10 swaybars, front and rear, as well as a pair of RX swaybars from my burnt hulk of an RX... Im keeping my rear discs though... I run dual exhausts for the sound mostly, I love the sound of a sube with duals and glasspacks, but a crossover pipe is important, its a night and day difference from my 2 brats, my 1600 Brat has more power than my 1800 Brat, all because of the x-pipe I put on the 1600 exhaust setup! Both have Webers and dual exhasut, but I didnt put a crossover on the 1800 Brat... -Bill

The Brats w/o jumpseats had the bars closer together than the ones with seats, and the bars themselves are different too... Basically the headrest bars bolted to different locations on the ones with seats, and were longer. I tried to use headrest bars in my 85 Brat but the mounting points were in the wrong spots.... -Bill

Clean the engine bay, eliminate anything that is not essential to make the car run/drive safely(makes the engine bay much cleaner and easier to work in), check all the wiring for any damage, clean all the grounding points, change the gear oil in the tranny and diff, flush the brake system, replace all the old heater/vacuum/fuel/PCV hoses with new ones, that kinda stuff. I would do a new dual exhaust too, but thats just me -Bill

Ive never had a problem with GL/Loyale series hubs being weak at all, in fact Ive seen several that were re-drilled with 3 bolt patternes in them and were used off-road with no issues... As for the bolt coming loose, did you torque it to the required specs when you installed the new axle, and did you re-torque it after a couple hundred miles? Also, did you install the cotter pin to keep it from loosening? Ive done plenty of axle swaps and have never had this problem... The only rig that I ever saw that problem with was my black Brat when I bought it, but I believe that was because someone was driving it in 4wd on the street thinking it was AWD :-\... Anyway, proper torque, re-torque, and cotter pins are important... -Bill

I had a thought when I was thinking of how to build my Carbed EJ25 that you could possibly trick the ECU into igniting the coilpacks at the right time but still run the carb... But to me that would still defeat the purpose of swapping to carbed, becasue of the wiring it would entail and you would still have a few sensors. If there was some kind of "switch" or something you could set up that could control the coil packs like the ECU using some kind of RPM signal then you would just need a crank angle sensor of some kind and that switch unit to run the coils, and it would all be solid-state electronics that way... -Bill

Im running 31-10.50 R15 Maxxis BigHorns on 15x7 Toyota wheels with a 6-ish inch lift. Power is a bit lacking in the top-end, but it still gets up to 80 at see level. A little big for crawling, but man I can go over things I did a good bit of cutting and bashing in the front, really only needed to do some hammer work in the back but I got crazy with the sawzall instead... Bad Idea. -Bill

You will need to use whatever lugs are supposed to be used on those alloys, using the tapered seat lugs on wheels that need Mag lugs is an absolute NO-NO. Shouldnt the Toyota thread pitch be the same as the Subaru studs? idk, It would just make sense to me, being as how they are both Japanese... -Bill

Andy's rig is more of a "poser" rig, for lack of my ambition to think of a better word Its pretty much a street beast. I think the most hard-core wheeling it will ever see with him as the owner would be a B-grade service road.... No offence Andy, but we all know you baby that thing.... When I looked at it It looked like the answer lies in either new endlinks, relocating the bar's position to the mounts on the car, or a combo of both. OR, we could attempt to make brackets to adapt an EA81 unit to fit, so it would mount to the radius rods instead of the trailing arms... But it prolly wouldnt give you *quite* the handling you are looking for... -Bill

I just got the Beast in the shop minutes ago, will begin prepping it for the trip tomorrow! 5 major that must be done: 1. Replace bad motor with the JDM I have on the floor 2. Replace the bent up and broken exhaust with a new, tucked-up design with an X-pipe 3. Replace the rear wheel bearings 4. Convert my RX's LSD to 3.9 and install 5. Replace all 4 axles If I have time I might clean it up a bit, but this will make it trail worthy. So far my list of spare parts is -extra axles (front and rear) -Diff stubs -bailing wire -Duct tape -tool set -come-along -Maybe a distributor, if I can find/build a good one in time. Shouldnt need an extra though... -Maybe some extra ball joints, I think I have an extra pair... Im excited, I'm finally gonna get to play on the big boy trails with all the other Washington sube wheelers! -Bill

You could always swap in some Delta camshafts, they aren't that expensive and its not much harder than changing a timing belt to do it... Might see about 30 hp gained from it depending on the grind and fuel map... But thats pure speculation on my part -Bill

Thats an EA82 steel wheel, You can tell by the raised ring that the bolt holes are drilled into and the soft indents(as opposed to a hard, clearly visible line) around the spokes/holes. it will fit any 4 on 140mm Subaru hubs, except the rear wheels on gen 1 cars, it will scrape the control arm... No rubbing issues with any front calipers though. -Bill