86BRATMAN

In stock form the 4wd's had a smaller shaft than the fwd models. Fwd axles have have the same thickness shaft as early legacy axles. I've used them to build 5 lug ea81 width axles a few times.

All ea81 axles are interchangeable, the turbo ea81's are still 23 spline. 2wd, 4wd, turbo, all the same front axles.

The 99 gt/ob ecu may run the engine, but it will not be happy about it. It will be looking for multiple inputs from the tcu that the earlier ecus do not have. It will also be looking for the fuel temperature sensor and rear evaporative emissions equipment that the 97 and previous do not have.

The workaround will work, I've done it before. But if you want to make it oem the thread is m20x1.5 for the phase 2 egr bung.

For axles I would get in contact with FWE, formerly MWE. He's still doing remans of oem Subaru axles. Not sure on pricing for those though.

So their $2k estimate is all inclusive, that's not too bad then. Might be worth looking at the RA or LGT gearset, I'm not sure what those are going for these days so it may put you over where you want to be for the repair. I'm familiar with awd tuning, they currently have the fastest Legacy in North America and a close contender for the world. I'm not a terribly big fan of Mary, but it's not because of the work the shop does more about the attitude revolving around her car in the legacy community. But that's neither here nor there.

You can get a used wrx 5mt for a good chunk less than repairing yours. What year is your car, that will make a difference when it comes to a replacement.

I didn't think about the length difference. It makes sense now, thanks for the explanation.

I would call ground control and tell them what you're working with. They're generally good people to work with, and can set you up with a set that will be matched well to the car. From what I've researched even stock replacement struts for the front of the xt6 are virtually non-existent. So you may have to go with legacy/impreza struts. Which are easy to fit, you just have to spread the knuckle mount point of the strut a little to fit on the wider xt6 knuckle. For the rear kyb still offers struts, which will be for a 4wd xt/ea82 vehicle. Don't get caught up thinking 2wd models will have a shorter strut, in reality they're about an inch to inch and a half taller from mount to spring perch. Before you call ground control you should be sure which route you're going to go with the struts, legacy/impreza front struts have a slightly larger body diameter than stock xt6 so that could cause a problem with fitment. I had a set of xt6/ea82 fitment sleeves left over from a brat project that I had to get machine a bit to fit on legacy struts on my coupe project. Also find the actual curb weight, which I think is in the 27-2800 lb area on the manual xt6. And if possible the weight balance front to rear. That will be of great help determine spring rates to balance handling with comfort.

Heating coils is a horrible idea. It effectively kills the spring rate. Just because one person is happy with the result doesn't mean its safe or that someone else would be happy with it. If it were me, I would look into ground control coilovers sleeves. But don't expect too much from stock struts 25+ year old struts. There are some not so expensive options that will work with some modification, such as Miata struts for the rear and legacy/impreza struts for the front. There have also been some people who have modified 08+ wrx stock struts or coilovers to work. Front is fairly straightforward, but the rear needs a small sleeve for the bottom bolt hole and stock ea82/xt6 top mount to be used. Either way you have options.

I'm not sure if Ken (dohcej22e1) has updated his posts yet or not. I've been working with him to correct a lot of the wrong compression ratios in his write ups. But there is still a lot of good info in his posts.

Why cut the tie rods? I've threaded ea81 tie rod ends onto ea82 and legacy steering racks. So there should be absolutely no reason why you couldn't use ea82 tie rod ends on the ea81 rack.

Also, using phase 2 ej22/ej25 sohc heads on any phase 1 shortblock will lower the compression because the combustion chambers have a larger volume.

Phase 2 ej22 shortblock and 97-99 25d heads actually creates a 10.4:1 compression dohc ej22. And you can use the thin phase 2 ej22 gaskets which don't blow like it's their job unlike the 25d gaskets.

Pricing and shipping is usually cheaper from the site you posted, sometimes even ends up being cheaper in total than using a US dealer site. I've used it several times over the years.

http://jp-carparts.com You can find the part number for what you need here.

There is no usdm gasket equivalent for the 1st gen legacy ej20g.

I've been surprised lately at what random parts you can still get for the ea81 cars from Subaru. A month or so ago I bought a couple of the "unleaded fuel only" decals that go over the gas door, one for when I repaint the car and the other just because. Apparently the gold targa stripe is still available for the brat as well.

Here is my single blue center cap And one of several green, which are all faded at this point.

These days it probably doesn't matter honestly. People aren't going to be critiquing it that heavily. At least in my experience, anyone who remembers these old things are just excited to see one again.

I found a picture in one of my albums from around 95 of my first brat. It appears to have the same green centers as my 84. I'll try to get it scanned over the weekend and post it.

From what I've seen you can only get them with black centers. There was someone on Facebook who posted the part number for them in the last week or so.

Best of my memory my first brat, an 86, had blue center caps. It was purchased by my dad in 94 and was completely stock aside from having jump seats added to the bed. I'll see if I can find any pictures of it next time in at mom's house. Almost all of the center caps I still have are green center. One set is from my 84 coupe, one set from an 82 hatch, and several mixed years, I don't have a single center cap with in black, I think that is something they did later in the production, and is also the only color you can still get new from Subaru.

You'll be good to go with that setup.

Every factory turbo ej except the 5th gen legacy gt uses a convection coolant tank for the turbo.