carfreak85

It would make sense that that Series-two EA81 blocks would be the same as the EA81Ts, it's easier to pay off the tooling changes if every engine after the changeover uses the same part. Thanks for the correction. That said, the hydro-lifter EA81s are much less common than the earlier engines in the U.S., since they were released in mid 1983 and were only available in the EA81 hatchback and BRAT from 1985-89... And there are probably zero NOS EA81 shortblocks left in the world, so they would all need to be machined anyway.

First off, I want to address what Nowhereman said in the post above. The EA81T engine was available during the 1983-4 model years. From 1985-90 the EA82T was the turbo engine option. They are NOT the same and they are NOT interchangeable. Some parts can be interchanged, injectors, turbos, exhaust manifolds and downpipes, etc. but the engines themselves are not the same. Kristina, you need to get an automotive stethoscope, one that can have the needle removed so it looks like a megaphone. Get your other half to sit in the driver's seat and get him to make the noise. With the stethoscope in megaphone mode, listen all over the car to try to pinpoint the noise. If you can't find it, or he can't reproduce it, reattach the needle and stick it down right on top of the engine block, above the crankshaft centerline. If you hear the noise in this location, your engine is finished. Knocking in this area would be crankshaft main, or connecting rod bearings. Damage to these bearings is bad news. To make the repair correctly, the engine will need a full teardown and cleaning. Both surfaces of each block half will need to be machined, reassembled and line bored, along with crankshaft machining, before new bearings can be installed. Assuming the parts are still in good enough condition to be reused. The engine block is specific to the EA81T and you will lose at LEAST your knock sensor mounting boss if you use a carb'd block. The crankshaft is probably interchangeable. Rod knock is not a cheap fix. A lot of cleaning and precise machining is required, and if done incorrectly of if steps are skipped for the sake of cost savings, you will quickly be back at square one. I hope it isn't rod knock, but the stethoscope should help you isolate the noise.

Best advice would be to find the cleanest, best maintained, adult owned car you can. As mentioned, you will want a very detailed inspection, preferably by a shop who is intimately familiar with these cars. If you see ANY signs of modification, run away. These cars can hold up well with the proper care, but careless owners who make modifications without researching or doing things in the correct order can quickly do damage that may not show up for a while, even with an inspection (Read: crank bearings and ring lands). Intakes without a complementary tune are the absolute worst, and will tell you immediately if the owner knows what they're doing. The myth of the transmissions being made of glass is just that. A myth. We have raced my '02 WRX ("Weakest" trans in the series) since day one and it is still going strong with over 120k on it. Brakes are solid, as are suspensions (if the front control arm recall been performed) and the chassis don't rust any faster than a normal car. The paint is very thin and soft, just something to be aware of. 2008 is the year to avoid, if any. First year of the new body style and pretty limp wristed vs. the 2009+. 2002s will probably be the collector car in the future, if you're interested in that aspect. Notice I haven't mentioned the STI once. I would prefer to recommend that model, but to buy one that won't cause trouble, it would be out of your price range. Maybe not, but that would be the one to buy, '05-07. I'll add more as I think of it...

Just be prepared to spend extra money on gaskets, hoses and the like. Turbos store a lot of excess heat in the engine compartment, so don't be surprised if it has made plastic/rubber parts brittle and prone to cracking.

Are they getting harder to find? Yes, so I guess that makes them rare. Is a 2WD carbureted station wagon the most desirable model of this vintage? No, but as stated above, if there is a sentimental connection people will be willing to pay more for it.

It is not physically possible on this engine to achieve a 10:1 compression ratio just by shaving the heads. Period. Full stop. Also, the Nissan injectors are the same part, same flow. Most manufacturers run about 43 psi of fuel pressure on non-DI engines. FI Subarus of this vintage use somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 psi. Crank that up to 43 psi and you magically get flow rates that match the Nissan part.

Cronan, you're in uncharted territory here. Over the years there have been a handful of members who have toyed with high -compression turbocharged engines, but most (if not all) of those were of the EA82T flavor. As others have mentioned, I am 100% confident that you are closer to 8.0:1 compression, which isn't something that would throw this engine for a loop, the factory electronics should still be able to control the combustion event. My guess is that you have inadequate fueling (clogged filter, injector with bad flow, etc.) or the base ignition timing was not properly set. Also, be sure there aren't any cracks/leaks in the induction system that would allow unmetered air into the engine. This could cause a lean condition that would promote detonation.

A couple of things to add to this thread: A 2002 WRX does NOT need a tune to run a full turbo-back exhaust (TBE). They run a 16-bit ECU that is primitive enough that it's factory software can compensate for the change in airflow. The later 32-bit cars ('06+, IIRC) MUST have the ECU retuned when any aftermarket downpipe is installed. As far as the backpressure comment from CCR: FALSE. Normally aspirated engines do benefit from backpressure, but a turbocharger is it's most efficient when you have a large pressure differential across the turbine wheel. (High pressure before the turbo, low pressure in the exhaust). It makes sense as a business to only warranty engines installed with 100% stock components, and I understand why they do this (See comment about 16 vs. 32-bit ECUs above), but the reasoning is just plain wrong.

Salesmen aren't engineers...

I've been doing a lot of suspension work on my WRX lately and have gone over a few sets of strut mounts. From what I've seen, 90% of the mount is bulletproof. What ends up going bad is the bearing in the front mounts. These need to be able to spin freely, to allow the strut shaft to rotate, allowing the front wheels to turn. If you stick your finger in the front upper bearing and it has any resistance, or feels "grumbly," it needs to be replaced. At 120k miles on my WRX, the fronts needed to be replaced, along with the ball joints.

Anti-roll bar > anti-sway bar. Bodies don't sway, they roll.

Grossgary, the view from the outside is always going to be different from those on the inside. I can only speak to how my company operates. Granted, we aren't building vehicles for John Doe and Sally Sanchez, our vehicles are expected to have a 1 million mile service life, so perhaps our reliability goals are on the far end of the spectrum. That said, I think you would be surprised how quickly one or two major flaws in a vehicle's overall design can erode any profitability, sometimes for several years. I will reiterate my main point: Every manufacturer who sells a product in North America is trying to build the best product they can based on thousands of constraints. Yes, companies are making more money from parts (not so much service, but parts for sure) is because many manufacturers have a house brand for parts. If you ever make it out to the West Coast, drop me a line. I can talk about this stuff all day, soooooo much different when you're on the inside looking out.

Yes. Sometime after 1985 ('86 maybe?) the EA81 hatchback gained a "high mounted center stop lamp." Beyond that, I don't know what else changed.

I don't have an EA82T hose on hand to compare with, but I think they are close enough to be interchangeable. If anyone has a junk EA82T hose to donate to the cause, let me know.

I found my Brembo blanks on eBay, but that was a few years ago and they might not be in production anymore. Also, the calipers for the rear disc brakes are very hard to come by, so you might want to circle back and grab those, in case you can't find any remanufactured calipers.

Attention all turbocharged EA owners! This thread is to gauge the interest in an aftermarket replacement for your MAF-to-turbo hose. As you probably have experienced owning an older Subaru, many critical parts are no longer available (NLA), including the inlet hose on our EA81T and EA82T engines. This particular rubber hose happens to be out of production and is installed in a location that sees a lot of heat. I found the pipe on my personal vehicle had split where it joins the turbocharger's inlet and once I found out I couldn't order a replacement, I reached out to a few companies about building a replacement. The details: Replacement hose made from silicone Molded to match the contours of the OEM part Nylon reinforced for rigidity Lined with fluorosilicone to resist damage from PCV oil mist Resists degradation in temperatures up to ~500*F (EPDM rubber is good to ~210*F) CARB legal There is also an opportunity to have replacements made for all the other molded rubber PCV/vacuum hoses that are currently out of production. At this point I have a rough idea of what it will take to manufacture this part. Price will depend on how many parts are made, so this thread is for me to get an idea of how many folks here would be interested in one of these hoses. There are still a lot of variables to work out, but I'm open to comments and suggestions. So, who's interested?

They have all sorts of different grinds, your best bet would be to give them a phone call and talk through what you're looking for.

Did Grimmspeed ever dip their toes into this market?

Can you be a bit more specific? I know the VF3 and VF4 are both in the RHB5 family, but are all RHB5s created equal? If you haven't installed your kit, how can you be confident that it will work on the VF3/4? Not trying to bash you or anything, just want some first hand knowledge about it, since I see these kits around from time to time.

Not sure if the really early VFs can be rebuilt, but if they can, good luck finding a rebuild kit! A better bet would be, like turbosubarubrat suggested, would be to source a functional turbo from a later model. I would stay away from the VF11 or TD04s unless you plan on opening up the exhaust, those are much more common these days, but are: Too big for the EA81 engine, and, require modification to the up and downpipes.

I just looked at one of the EA71 4 speeds I have (Sorry I haven't got you a weight on those yet, no scale on hand) and on the one I could see, that square was filled in as a single casting of the trans case. It looks like it can be punched/cut out, but it is filled in on the one trans.

Ahhh yes. The side-mounted bumper lamps are also marker lamps. NHTSA regulations say something like "You must be able to see the lamps from a rear 3/4 view of the front of the car." The marker lamps next to the headlamps don't really shine in that direction, hence the side-mounted bumper marker lamps.

The lamps next to the headlamps are only marker lamps. The lamps in the bumper are the turn signals.

Ahhh, the joys of youth and inexperience... I'm going to have to stop you there Comatosellama. I work for an OEM manufacturer (not Subaru), deep in the bowels of the Warranty and Service departments and you've got it all wrong. The profit margins ARE from selling vehicles. The markups aren't huge, maybe a few thousand dollars per vehicle, depending on the model, manufacturer, where the vehicle is built and sold. The goal is always to make the most reliable vehicle possible. Your product is your reputation. Where is Yugo? When you bring in your '99 Forester under warranty with blown head gaskets, guess who eats the bill for the parts and labor? It's not the customer or the repairing dealer, I can tell you that. Warranty work COSTS us money. We have to pay for the replacement parts, the tech's labor AND any markup for the dealer. Not cheap to do, I've presided over recalls that cost the company MILLIONS of dollars, just for one little issue. It doesn't cost more to engineer a better product, but there are many factors that you can't see or understand until you work in the industry. Turnaround times for projects are short. Engineers are human and make mistakes, overlook the obvious and are known to screw up once in a while. Unless you really know what you're saying is true, keep the conjecture off the web. You're just misinforming other folks who don't know any better.

The recesses for the bolt heads are a potential gunk-trap, but it won't be an issue until you've put substantial miles on the setup. $80 seems pretty outrageous, considering I just saw the Redline adapter on ebay for half that, and a used adapter from another manufacturer for $5.