renob123

Does your idea of "best" factor in money at all? If so, how? Jacob P.S. I'll use "motor", "transmission" and "swaybar" however I want until I die, no matter how much nitpicking goes on:banana:

It is? Curses. I can never tell when I'm at work. It's out there somewhere, though. I used it to decide on springs a few weeks ago. Jacob

Pics are blocked at work, but so I'm not sure if monstaru's post still has the chart in it. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=90464&highlight=rx+springs Jacob

If you're clever with your search terms, you'll be able to find those rates on here. I know because I found them on accident one time. Don't quote me on it, but I think monstaru posted them. I'd start by searching for posts by him and something about springs. Jacob

Ok, in that case, much of my advice still stands, and you should definitely be doing what dwuollet recommended. I'd also add that you look into cams. They'll give you a healthy bump in power, and from what I've seen, they're pretty much the biggest power adder short of an engine swap. You could go for cams and focus on suspension/braking and still meet your criteria. Jacob

The guy has a $5,000 budget, and he wants to drift/race with it. WRXs aren't allowed at drift events unless they've been neutered, so I'm not seeing the point in arguing over how much it would take for an RX to perform like one. Plus there are a lot of variables. My Brat is faster than my STI...in the mud. The STI can handle power that an RX would take intensive work to handle, meanwhile all I do is wash my car. OP: If people think drifting a Corolla GTS is possible, then there should be no problem with that car. You can do an EJ swap and convert it to RWD for less than your budget if you do it yourself/with friends. Any leftover money should be used for brakes and suspension upgrades along with fixing broken parts. WJM, Turbone and carfreak85 would be good sources of information for how to spend the leftover money. An alternative is to save yourself the time, blood, and sweat, get a job at McDonald's, and use your paychecks/$5k budget to buy a car that's more suitable to what you want. If I were you, I'd just be happy that I'm 18 with a car that has 4WD. Remember that when you were born, that car sort of looked like it came from space. Jacob

Nice. Someone else asked my standard two questions. Jacob

The VRI at Western is the shiz. Legend has it that the guy who came up with the Brat's rear seats founded that school. You're in good hands. Your dealership, however, sucked last time I checked. Try to plan ahead and get things from subarugenuineparts.com if at all possible. Jacob

I have a rechargeable filter for that reason. Here's edrach's son and me going through some St. Helens ash a few years ago: To the OP: I have an eBay header on my EJ-swapped Brat, and I haven't seen a CEL yet. There are ways around it if you search on here and NASIOC. Also, to clarify, the Frankenmotor can use 1.8 or 2.2 heads. Jacob P.S. Pics used totally without permission from SubieGal's website. If that's not cool, I'll take them down post-haste:)

That's what I was trying to get at. Jacob

Bob, Subaru started offering the new metal head gasket for all 2.5s a few years ago, so even a Forester or whatever from before then may have the new, much better gasket. It sticks up a little in certain places so you can tell if it's the good one without pulling the heads or anything crazy. Hopefully then you don't have to limit yourself to '04+ 2.5s. Jacob

There are no rear struts. I think the shocks are the same, though. Jacob

You should definitely take up smoking when you do this:lol: I'd lean more toward chunks of crud causing your problems than bad gas, but it would be really easy to test the bad gas theory by running all of this stuff through (or pumping it out) and replacing it with different gas. Jacob

I had the same problem when I got my '85 Brat. I went through a few fuel filters, and after the Weber swap, I never had the problem again. I hear you can pull the tank and pour this special goo inside and swirl it around. It doesn't really clean the tank, but the goo grabs all the loose stuff in there so it can't make it out of the tank and into the pump/filter/engine. Jacob

Grr, you beat me to it while I was eating:) Jacob

There are a lot of decent shops in the Seattle-ish area. To find the best one for the job, I'd ask edrach on here. He seems to have been to them all. With a trailer and time, going to GD would be a very good option too. Jacob

People were breaking WRX trannies on test drives at dealerships when they first came out. Putting 7 more EJs:lol: of power on the EJ18 tranny should be fine if driven properly. Jacob

Here's a video of the ghost that keeps messing with my idle. Is this anything like your issue? Jacob

See, I'm more interested in the Legacy rear, but I'm happy to see someone combine their interests into one car. Hopefully there's a 4WD Subaru nearby for the Spokane winters. Jacob

I have no advice for you, but I'm subscribing in the hope that when you do find what it was, you'll let us know. Jacob

My work blocks most picture sites, so I can only imagine how cool this is. Is it driving yet? Jacob

I had a rotten experience with Auto Parts Warehouse. If you get the exact thing you want, and it arrives unharmed, and it's not defective, then you should be fine. If anything goes less-than-perfectly, and you have to call their customer service, you'll wish you had ordered elsewhere. Their entire CS department is in India, and the ones I spoke to were beyond rude and certainly unhelpful. Bremerton isn't exactly on my route, but it wouldn't be that hard to bring some EMPIs from Portland up there. $100 for dealer ones would be hard to beat, though. Jacob

Nice! What was the name of that color of paint? I have similar plans for my Brat, but I'll do a worse job:) Jacob

I'm no guru, but I'll take some Slow Elk:-) Your question is covered in that thread, and a member here did that swap. You can find it by searching for "Frankenstein" here, I bet. It was in an Outback Sport, I think. Jacob

My biggest wait was on the wiring harness. If you have that sorted, then best of luck to you. Those bolts remained unused for my EJ swap, so I'm not sure what they were intended for. Jacob