The Beast I Drive

Im an idiot. After 3 or more hours of ******* around with the carb, timing, replacing the entire ignition system, and doing all kinds of various tests, I determined that the problem was.... A vacuum line hooked up wrong. I had the HVAC line hooked up to the fuel return line I disconnected that, plugged the port, re-tuned it and it runs perfect now, smooth as glass. im just PO'd that it took me 3 hours to realize such a simple mistake But at least I figured it out, and my ignition system is practically all new now now to mod the roll bar... -Bill

That is beautiful! You wouldnt happen to still have the cop pushbars do you? Id be interested in those... -Bill

Well I played around with it a bit so far today, it is definitely missing on cylinders 3 and 1. I can unplug either spark plug wire while its running and it makes no difference. the plugs are new, there is spark to the plugs, the plug wires are new, the cap and rotor is new. Im thinking its time to swap out the stock ignition and put the disty from the Beast and a new coil in, but there is a lot of different stuff in the Brat that isnt there in the Beast or my other Brat, like a transistor box or something. Im not real sure what I can remove...:-\ I did a compression check on 3 and 1, 3 showed 110 psi while cranking the starter, and 1 showed 105 psi cranking the starter. Is this low? I did the check with the engine warm... It seems like they should be in the 130-140 psi range, but I forget... -Bill

Well, i plan to keep all the Brats and the Gen 1 wagons, but the 86 Hatch Im stuck in a rut with, I started a project with it, 6" lift, stripped interior, re-wiring it, body mods, etc. Its not that I want to sell it, there isnt much there to sell so I prolly wouldnt get my money's worth out of it. I plan on making it a mud rig, but I have so many projects I get too easily distracted. Its not that I lose interest, its just I have to many interests and conflicting Ideas... As for Rusty, I got the mufflers welded up yesterday, and I got the high beams to work, but my dash lights still dont work, and there is a very weak current to the lighter jack. So today I plan on fixing the electrical issues, then maybe get to work modding the High roll bar I have so I can get the stacks installed I also have to figure out why it likes to randomly cut out 2 cylinders after it has been driven for a while and gets warmed up :-\ its fine under throttle, but if youre just cruisin, it will start to miss on 2 cylinders, but if you give it more gas its fine. its just anoying at this point, Im thinkin it might be the disty, but Im sure it could be the carb too. Its jetted for a 1.8, I have the idle mixture screw turned out 1 turn IIRC, might be 1 1/2 turns... Also I smell gas really bad if I take a hard right turn... -Bill

swap a Weber on it, re-time it and you'll be good to go. I found a Weber on an old soob at a junkyard the other day, got it for 15 bucks -Bill

haha, I have to re-count them all, but off the top of my head: -3 1980 Brats -1 1978 Brat -1 1985 Brat -1 1986 Hatch -1 1983 Hatch -1 1980 GL5 wagon parts car -1 1973 Tailgate wagon -1 1976 4WD wagon -2 1986 turbo wagon parts cars -3 1987 GL wagons (one for parts) -1 1989 DL wagon (soon to be sold) -1 1996 Outback parts car -1 1985 DL wagon - Robbie's old offroader, now a parts car - the burnt remains of my 1988 RX I think thats all of them, for now, looks like I might be gettin a 84 wagon soon, and Im trying to save up for a bad rump roast built lifted mudracer '78 Brat -Bill

Did a little more work on it tonight, nothing worth pictures though. Took the roll bar off one of my pther Brats and set it in the bed, Ill have to make some spacers to get it to set just right. Then Ill weld the joints, make new mounting tabs for 4 lights instead of 2, paint it white, and install it. I also will be running stacks on this brat too, I want to be able to drive it out on my buddie's ranch in the summer, and I do not want to start a fire. Ill go with black 3" tubing for those. I got about 1/3 of the exhaust done, this weekend I hope to mount the mufflers and the roll bar, and the stacks too if i can get ahold of some 3" tubing Overall I think it will be a good companion to my other Brat And The Road Warrior is one of the greatest movies ever, period. -Bill

Just figured I would share my latest acquisition This is Rusty, the Brat that Twitch was selling, as seen in this thread http://ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=95448 This is what i started with (Twitch's pics, not mine) It had a few issues... The rear bumper was destroyed, and it took much of the rear unibody framerails' structural integrity with it. The same incident which caused the bumper damage also apparently killed the clutch, the rivets had dug into the pressure plate about 1/8" . It is rusty, hence the name. I have done some work to it so far though, I started by removing the canopy and replacing the rear bumper with something I whipped up to match the front Then I fixed the hood hinges, the mounts were ripping out of the body, but a little WD-40, liquid wrench, and some welding and all is well. I also replaced the split sunroof with a single piece unit from an S-10, cuz the slit roof was missing one of the glass pieces. It didnt come put pretty though :-\ but thats ok with me this time. I then pulled the engine to replace the clutch. While the engine was out, I polished up a 1400 intake manifold and mounted a Weber carb. Then I reinstalled it As you can see, the 1400 makes the engine bay much cleaner. This is a Factory A/C equiped car, and I saved most of the AC stuff, I just don't need it on this rig. I still have to do the exhaust work though, Im running 2 1/2 foot long headers right now, so i need to make an X-pipe and pull the glasspacks from my burnt RX. I also replaced the tail lights and a side marker light. The interior is black with faux woodgrain, which I dig! the seats need re-upholstered, but I don't care. Amazingly, the stock AM radio works! The dash is cracked, but who has a Brat with a good dash anyway? There is a good bit of rust. The car came from Colorado, and I have deduced from the condition of the mechanicals that is only has 127,xxx miles on it But the rust is killing it. There is rot in the rear of the floorpans, the rear unibody framerails are toast, the rear inner fenders are rotted, the rockers arent pretty, the rear fender arches are being eaten, and the front fenders are only held together by the bondo someone laid over the rust While all the rust on this car is curable with a lot of work, my long term plan is to part this one out for one of my less-rusty shells. But for now, Im gonna spruce it up a bit and drive the crap outa it. As of today, this is what it looks like On the to-do list still: -Build the new exhaust -Oil change, tune-up, trans/diff fluid changes -clean and paint front winch bumper, acquire winch for it -install my high roll bar after I paint it to match the bumpers -Paint the rims back to stock silver -add tow hooks to the front bumper like I did the rear -make my mounting points for the Brat snowplow I recently acquired -fix the random electrical issues. The fuse panel has to go, Ill put a newer blade-style panel in its place. the dash lights dont work, the high beams dont work, and there is a wierd short in the column/dash area, its intermittent. -clean it up a little -new wiper blades -Drive the crap outa it! Eventually I might use it to break in the hot rod 1600/1400 hybrid motor Im building. It already has a lot more spunk than stock, what with the Weber and opened up exhaust Anyway, just thought I would share -Bill

I might just bring out the Beast for this one, all i need to do to it is swap the JDM motor in, fix the exhaust and replace the rear wheel bearings... And all the axles. Might swap in my LSD from my burnt RX too... -Bill

Only problem I see here, is people will mistake that for a Toyota -Bill

I think thats the one I was thinkin of buyin a while back, but I just didnt have the ambition to go get it... Nice score -Bill

With me and Robbie doin the work, the structural integrity of the body will be retained. We went over a few ideas while I picked up some parts from him the other day, and there wont be a tailgate per say, too much work and he wont really need it anyway. The plan is so far to start with a Gen 3 coupe, which will also be the easiest to modify to make this work. The C-pillars are going to get moved forward and modified to be straighter, and the Hatch will be cut out below the glass and used to make the bed sides and the lip over the tail lights. We talked about what to do with the back wall/C-pillars, he wants them straight vertical with quarter windows, but I am more partial to the Brat look, so that brought to mind the '80s El-Caminos, which have the little quarter windows, vertical back wall, and angled C-pillars. Nothing is set in stone yet, just tossing around Ideas. He needs to find a donor car to cut up, he dont want to do it to his daily driver... Prolly gonna use whats left of my RX to try out some styling ideas as far as the C-pillars and quarter windows go... -Bill

Mine not really a horror story, more of a comedic anecdote, the result of my stupidity and my dumb friends egging me on Anyway it went something like this Basically, I tried to cross a ditch out in the hills that I had crossed 2 times before, but this time I hit it at the wrong angle, and got hight centered. Well while my buddies got out to push me off, when I gave it gas it caught traction and launched it up the opposite bank, resulting in what you see here. Luckily I was prepared, had my tools and my High lift, and using the High lift, spare tire, and 2 tow straps, we got it unstuck. This was the only damage, besides busting off a Gen 1 Brat mirror I had on the fender Put some oil in it and went on our way One of the scariest moments though was in the same car, a few months ago, my buddy and I were puttin around the range at night cuz we were bored, and I decided to go down a finger into the valley off the ridge we were on, but my buddy said there was a better way... Well his way wasnt better, and we got the car so sideways that a slight breeze coulda pushed the car tumbling about 400 yards down into the rock bottomed valley below. I told to get the ************ out of the car and proceded to recover the rig safely Lesson learned: My buddy can navigate, but he dont know ************ about how to wheel Oh another time I took the grey Brat I got in Idaho a while back out into the hills. Only catch, it was in RWD, no front axles. it made it down the finger into the valley just fine, but I couldnt get it back out. I had to wheel a stock height, rwd small tires Brat out of 3 miles of boulders in the bottom of a canyon at 2 AM by myself. That was... Interesting. But I did it Had to keep up momentum so I wouldnt get caught with one wheel in the air (open rear diff ) Like I said, no real horror stories, just some stupidness -Bill

The bosses I used to make the kit are present on any EA81 block, it bolts to the factory alternator bracket location. It should work with what you want to do -Bill

Way to go with the hand made bushings! I might have to get ahold of you to make some for my projects... I dont have a wood lathe, only a metal lathe... -Bill

Its still on my plans for sure -Bill

Never had a problem with dripping oil catching fire, but I know first hand that when a turbo explodes after climbing a long grade, and that oil touches that glowing-red Turbine, all hell breaks loose and your car burns to the ground while you sit and watch for 20 minutes for the fire trucks because you dont have a fire extinguisher... Yeah. Oil on the exhaust is not bad though. -Bill

Lift it. Join us, you know you want to -Bill

Front and rear diffs are very different, the rear diff is an R-160 Nissan unit, while the front diff is a Subaru piece. a rear LSD unit will not fit in a front diff, and a front LSD will not fit in the rear. Actually the fronts you can buy brand new for around $400, and you can get either Viscous or clutch type units. As for the rear, find someone parting out an RX if you want clutch type, or find a Turbo Legacy or some other EJ series car with the Viscous unit. -Bill

Wow, thats like 5 subes for every 6 miles, or something like that I used to count them, but there are just tooooooo many around here, your head will explode -Bill

You shoulda kept that Brat backwall I traded you, this would have been perfect for it... We will get it all figured out when you get over here, plenty of stuff to play with -Bill

Right on, I have no problem cutting that RX up, hell I could paint it up and make yard art outta it -Bill

I know a coupe is a better starting point, but I dont know if he wants to chop up his daily driver just yet, I havent seen any coupes for sale around here lately, but wagons are plentifull, I have like 5 parts wagons and a coiple have clean titles, so thats why I was wondering... -Bill

I like the way you think... This time Gonna start with a wagon again or a coupe? We could chop up the remains of the RX to get an idea of what you want... -Bill

All you have to do to put an EJ trans in a Brat (providied you are not also going to 5 lug) is split the trans case and swap in 23 spline stubs. The front diff in the EA box and EJ box is reportedly the same, and while you have it open you might as well throw an LSD in there (they are available). Then modify the crossmember, drop the trans in, and slide the axles on just like stock. -Bill