s'ko

I have three daily drivers that are running fine 2000 OBS, 1992 SVX and 1982 BRAT I had a 1985 FWD XT and a 1987 4wd XT that I bought a while ago as project cars and I had to abandon b/c I needed to move and there was no place for them. I also had a 1984 GL Wagon that I bought for parts and a 1987 GL-10 that I also scrapped for parts. BW

Sorry for the delay. Ok here are some rough measurements. The distance from front hole to the rear hole is about 6inches. The front holes are 33 13/16 apart and the rear holes are 32 inches apart. Hope that helps. BW

well I feel like a johnny come lately, but I also just did the strut/spring lift on my 2k OBS. THe forester XT struts fit perfectly up front. The top hats are the same bolt pattern. In the back, the bolt pattern is a little different. I thought about swapping tophats but the F XT spring is tapered up top and the OBS is the same diameter all the way up. I took a grinding tool and had to slot the outermost hole. After that it fit fine. I was able to get the sway bars connected but I plan to replace them with adjustable ones in the future. I havent gotten larger tires yet so I am still rolling on the stock 16 inch WRX wheels. Road manners are great. THere is a bit more body sway b/c of the raised center of gravity but other than that it still handles like before. stock lifted back struts front struts best part is I got them from a guy for $250.00 BW

anything can be done. one problem with the SVX motor is that it's heavier and SVXs are rare. If you happen to have a SVX that you take the parts of out then go for it. If you not then you might want to consider getting a WRX motor, same power w/a smaller package. BW

Ok first off let's not start with the "you shudda gone with an EJ22 w/a 5 spd d/r tranny." Now with that out of the way.... Well I am between temp assignments right now so I figured I would tackle a huge portion of the project. I re-drilled the flywheel and installed it. Then I made the adapter plate and one thing that I noticed with the EJ18 is that there are only 4 bolts that secure the tranny/engine together. The bottom two, the starter bolt and one near the the flywheel window. I mated the two together yesterday and it fits perfectly. I took some pictures w/the cell phone camera but I haven't figured out how to download it yet. The plan was to use an EA82 crossmember w/ps. The engine mounts for the EJ18 fit perfectly and there was no need to extend the slots. The PS lines from the engine screwed in directly to the EA82 crossmember. So things are looking pretty good. The lift block that I made ended up being unusable so I am back to the drawing board. (see thread about lift block) It was too difficult to drill all the way through the center. I am going to pre-notch the bolt holes and drill through the top plate. Things left to do are to complete the lift blocks and install them, install engine and tranny. complete wiring. install 5 lug parts. modify OBS front struts to fit BRAT. (this may prevent the need to make a strut lift block. are really daunting is the actually wiring and the Outback Sport front strut mod. Well I have to go. BW

I need some bolts too. if it's not too much trouble are you willing to do a group buy to get to the $100.00 mark. AFAIK there are 14 bolts that are needed? BW

just thought I would bump this up for a reminder BW

hijack just soak it in a parts cleaner for a couple of hours. Here is a pic of an EA81. not as clean as brand new but still plenty shiny. Poor man's parts washer is a metal tub w/behr concrete cleaner 50% mix Engine had over 200k on it BW /hijack/ nice engine

yeah. work's been really slow so I have had a lot of time on my hands. I am proud to be a member of the Crimson Napes. BW

I made some blocks. I made them out of 3" X 1" blocks that were 1/8 inch thick. I welded two together and then welded a 1/4 inch plate on top of them. Think that is strong enough? BW

ok so here are some pictures. here is a picture of the brace One more thing that I did w/some left over parts. I took a gas tank and some steel wheels and made a parts cleaner. there part in the cleaner is 1/2 of an ea81 block. Here is the other half all nice and clean. BW

Nice.. Are you gonna come to the MLK weekend thing and give us taste of Shamaru's off road worthiness? BW

Take a look for the engine block id. It should be located at the front of the engine block on the passenger side. BW

good luck with the extraction. Just take care to bring some anchors or maybe some blocks to keep the car from rolling back down. Nothing sucks more than to gain some ground and have the car roll back down to a worse spot b/c you had to adjust the cables/ropes. bW

In line with what gary said give ol Bucky one of those prestone radiator flushing kits. The one where you can attach a garden hose to your cooling system. That way you can flush your radiator anytime you want. congrats on nearing 200k. It's also cool when you hit 222,222.22 BW

The purpose of this mod is to be able to engage the low range gears while in 2wd. This is helpful for those who are running lifted Soobs b/c you will get the extra torque from the low gear w/o having to engage 4wd. On an EA81, the dual range is located at the front of the tranny on the driver's side. The 4wd is located near the gear shifter pivot point. There is a plate there w/4 bolts that covers this area. The two systems are connected by a small rod that exits the front of the plate area and connects to a rod. Here is the hi lo rod disconnected at the shifter. I punched out the pin on the collar holding the rod coming from the plate area. I actually had to saw the pin in half b/c it was hitting the tranny housing and would not go through all of the way. Once the collar was removed from the small rod, I reconnected it to the hi lo shifter and I welded a bolt to a metal rod. The bolt was then secured to the collar w/a nut. yeah the welds look crappy... but it holds. Here is a video of the shifter engaging. http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...t=MOV00310.flv There is a bend in the end of the rod that goes into the cabin. The idea is to place it right next to the 4wd shifter rod and then secure it so that it moves forward and back. This was done a spare tranny that is going into my EJ powered BRAT but I have tested engagement of 4wd and 4wd lo while driving around w/the current tranny in my BRAT and there was no issues w/engaging the low gear at speed. Once it is installed I will play with the lo gear engagement and figure out what get is best for what speed.

are you interested in hosting other videos? I have some from the rally tire test run.

falken azenis. med compound. got them from a rally guy who t-boned his 1st gen RX7 car into a tree So he parted out all of his stuff. Tires were the last to go. BW

bought some rally tires used for 60 bucks for all four:banana: http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j208/boswan/?action=view&current=turn1.flv http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j208/boswan/?action=view&current=turn2.flv http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j208/boswan/?action=view&current=turn3.flv needless to say... it was amazing grip BW

don't know the exact measurements but I do have a crossmember from an EJ18 sitting on my work bench. Will take measurements and post tonight BW

I will keep that in mind. I was going to ask you about that but then I got the forester XT struts. I will be doing the install on them soon and I will be comparing the stock OBS strut to a EA81 strut. I want to see what the height difference is before I make plans for my strut lift blocks. BW

I haven't test driven a Tribeca b'c mostly I can't get past the nose. RE: the Murano, we test drove one of those, it was nice, but I have a huge problem buying a car for 35K or so that has the same cabin space as my OBS. if i really wanted to spend the 35K I would get a legacy GT and spend the rest on go-fast parts or something like that. Or get a WRX and spend the rest doing a JDM engine swap for my OBS

just talked to the guy. He said that most of the managers are busy prepping for the upcoming sema show. I sent him an e-mail so that when he sees them he will be able to answer these questions. ***************************** Thanks for taking the time to look into this. Basically what we are asking is if there is a way to get some wheels with a 4X140 bolt pattern. This bolt pattern is for the 1970-early 1990s Subarus. Is there a way that we can get a range of sizes? 14, 15 and 16 inch? Also is there a way that you can sell only the blanks so that they can be custom drilled? How many would you need in order to make it around 400 dollars a set?. Would I have to sign up as a dealer in order to get them? ******************** will post more when I get reply or solid numbers BW

I cleaned up the crossmember and took the steering rack out. I think I am going to weld a piece to the side of the crossmember mount and make it smaller like the EA81 crossmember. Will take pics

Any VW guys here care to chime in? I was talking to a guy at this off-road/desert pre-runner shop and when he looked at the bottom of my BRAT, he commented about how similar it was to a Baja bug set up. So if there are parts that are similar couldn't we bolt em onto our soobs? Next time I go to a PAP i will take a peek underneath a bug and take some pics. BW