Numbchux

FWD cars can be towed on a dolly with the rear on the ground. Otherwise, on all 4 wheels, yes: Manual transmission is OK, Auto is not. The FWD fuse disables the AWD system, and should be used with a spare tire. As far as using it to tow on 2 wheels? No. It requires both electrical power and hydraulic pressure to function, and is DEFINITELY not intended for that big of a speed difference. No way would I be involved in that (my car, or my tow vehicle....).

Pulling CV axles every time you want to tow the car seems like a massive headache. Also, you'd have to carry the outer stubs around, as that's what holds the bearings together.

I did remember to check, and the stamp was still legible. 12" long, 250 lb/in springs, on KYB GR2s for a 4WD EA82 wagon, with stock upper mounts: This gives a slightly taller ride height, and matches my stock WRX front springs very well.

Yea, the 2013 should be a CVT, which is a little better than the older automatics, but still will not sufficiently lubricate themselves for anything more than very short and slow tows (like, emergency flat tow to the next freeway exit, etc.)

That's one thing for a very short emergency tow, but please don't plan on it! Right out of the Subaru 2003 Outback accessory catalog, the car is rated for 2000 lb. In 2005, the H6 models went to 3000 lb, and the Tribecas had an accessory transmission cooler available that brought it to 3500. Now, I have seen several hitches for 00-04 Outbacks that are rated for 3500 (the hitch....not the car), but they're all 1 1/4" receivers. I put an auxiliary transmission cooler on the 2004 Outback I'm repairing to be my wife's daily driver, because we will likely push it a little hard with bikes on the roof, and a boat, and such. But I wouldn't even consider towing a car trailer. An SVX weighs close to 4000lbs, and figure another 2000 or so for a steel trailer (Uhaul trailers weigh 2210). Featherlight Aluminum trailers are more like 1300....but still, you're well over 5000. You could go with a dolly, which only weighs a few hundred pounds, but the concern there is the tongue weight. Under braking, the force of the car being towed is above the centerline of the wheels on the dolly, which turns all that force into downward force on the tongue. I rented a dolly from a private rental yard to tow my Celica home when I bought it. They made me sign a waiver to do it with a 3500/350 hitch, even though I was about 1000 lb under the curb weight rating of the equipment, that want a minimum of 500lb tongue weight rating. Also, you'd have to remove the driveshaft of the SVX....

Paying a shop to do Head Gaskets can easily get to $2k, especially if it needs ANYTHING else (head work, timing components/covers, power steering something....there's a lot of things that could come up with the engine out). With the Head Gaskets blown, it can't be test driven. So from a buyer's perspective, there's no way to know that it's got a good transmission, suspension, brakes, bearings, etc. etc. And it will have to be picked up with a trailer. So now your talking about a maybe $2k car that needs at least $2k. So it's value is probably similar to scrap. A few hundred bucks. Now, I see your in New England...I've been lead to believe that you guys have some serious rust issues on cars. So, if it's a solid shell, that could drive it's value up, regardless of the miles. But it could still potentially be a money pit.

Maybe the market is a little easier in the rest of the world. But a rustier, crappier version of that car, without a picture of it being jumped, would sell for 3 or 4 times that much up here, EASY. So yea, it's had a rough life, but seems to me it's priced accordingly. No, you're probably not going to hop in it, and get another 100k miles with only oil changes....but you can't expect that on any 200k mile car.

Yea, that part number is discontinued, and I did a search of dealer inventory, and none with 5000 miles of here in Northern MN, shows any inventory. It also looks like that number is for a 2WD car... They are 2.5" ID springs, which happens to be the most common size for coilover springs. They can be had from many suppliers in many lengths/spring rates for fairly cheap. I think, off the top of my head, that most EA82 rears are about 190 lb/in springs. I have definitely used 250 and 275 lb/in with good results. I think I'm running a 10" 250 Eibach in the rear of my XT6 right now (I'll try to remember to check later tonight when I'm working on it....if the stamping is still legible).

I'd bet money that's the original EJ25D. It's definitely a phase one intake manifold, which does not bolt onto the phase 2 heads. And that timing cover sure looks DOHC to me. Also, I'd bet money that's a '97, as it has the hood scoop, and separate door lock switch neither of which were native to a '96. Which should mean a solid-lifter EJ25D, where the '96 had HLAs and required higher octane. IF it is indeed an EJ253, somehow. The oil loss he mentions is almost definitely head gaskets (they typically leak externally). But the EJ25Ds almost exclusively blow catastrophically internally, and overheat. So if you go look at it, take it for a drive, for like 20 minutes, up to highway speeds. It's relatively high-mileage, and obviously ridden hard (although I like that he says he checked the oil with every fuel fill....). Of course, it is cheap.

No full coilovers that were designed for the loyale, nor any that I know of that will work bolt in place of the stock loyale stuff. The rear is easy. The shocks are very simple coil-over style shocks, with 2.5" ID springs (which are very common for coilovers), so you can get any length and spring rate you like. But the fronts are a different animal. Coilover sleeves are very generic, and have been used dozens of times. You can get crazy cheap generic ones on ebay for pretty cheap, you can get much nicer ones like those from www.ground-control.com Here's my old Loyale, still 4-lug, with some of those generic ebay sleeves on it (listed for an Impreza, but they didn't fit that very well either). Car looked awesome, but drove like crap. Spring rates were 2.5-3x stiffer. Just rediculous. Here they are on the rear, while swapping parts over for 5-lug: With those same springs on, after 5-lug swap: If you go 5-lug, you can use front struts for almost any EJ-chassis (back to the 1990 Legacy, and 1993 Impreza), which opens up your options considerably. 2000+ Legacies, and 2008+ Imprezas went to a coilover shock in the rear that's somewhat similar to the EA82. So full coilover setups for those can be made to work with some creativity for the rear mount (Tein Flex has been done a few times, IIRC WJM did Megan Racing, and I've seen BC). I also documented that NB chassis Miata rear shocks were a bolt-in, shorter replacement for the EA82 shock, and several better options available. These use a different style spring perch, so must be used with coilover sleeves This is actually a test-fit using a Miata front shock, with the hardware for an EA82 rear. The Miata rear shocks have a much shorter body:

When unlocked (which it must be on pavement), you have nothing to force power to the rear. I can't count how many times I spun up a front tire like a Civic coming out of a turn while Autocrossing. And even with the improved castor and camber with the 5-lug swap, rallycrossing and especially ice racing where very difficult. The front tires have to be allowed to spin a little different speed than the rear for the front tires to bite on turn-in. With it unlocked, the front would bite, but you can't hold any oversteer or accelerate out of the corner, as the power all goes through one front tire. With it locked, you could hold the slide, and power out of the corner, but it took a massive flick to overcome the initial understeer. I have seen a standard 4Kg (I think.....might be 6), phase 1, VLSD center diff dig holes with both oversized back tires, while the whole car was high-centered and the front tires were hanging in space (Austin's WaterWagon 2, hours after it earned the nickname). It seems the phase 2 center diffs are stronger than phase 1, even though they're still rated the same....might just be that they're newer. Also, Subaru offers a 20Kg phase 2 replacement for Group N racing that is drop-in, and phenomenal. Not to mention DCCD. And adding 4.11 and 4.44 to your axle ratio options.

don't do it. A ton of work, for the worst center diff Subaru ever made. Stick with the LSD.

Yep. 2" is about all you can get away with a suspension only lift. Engine and transmission crossmembers have to be spaced down from the body. This also corrects control arm and tie rod geometry. No. Longer axles are not the answer I ASSume, from your screen name, that "your" Legacy is a '95. Yes?

With any engine with a sprung tensioner, spinning things the other way can put slack in a different place on the belt that it can jump time. I don't think is new to a 2012, I've had it happen on an early '90s EJ22. It's rare, and requires the engine to be at just the right place in the stroke to keep the cams loaded against the valve spring in the right place. Subarus with a manual transmission have a guide over the crank sprocket, and sometimes on a cam sprocket to help combat this (it's possible that a person might park the car with the engine off, and in gear, and have it roll backwards a hair and have this happen without taking anything apart).

He's got it right. The way I did the math, the higher the ratio between master cylinder area to caliper piston area, the more leverage. More leverage means more pedal travel, and less force. I said it wrong when I said this: My point was that this Master Cylinder change was not even making up for the larger Calipers I have. But I said it backwards, I actually have more leverage, which means more pedal travel.

Nope, not dual piston like a brake caliper, both EA82 and EJs have dual-channel Master Cylinder which has a piston between the front and back half of the cylinder that allows some brake force to be sent to one channel, even if a brake line blows on the other channel. The only change is the bore diameter. The simplest brake systems (No Hill holder, no ABS) have 4 ports on the master cylinder, one for each wheel. The hill holder acts as a splitter for one of those circuits, so 3 port master, one channel has one line going to the hill holder, and then 2 to the 2 wheels on that channel. The ABS pump acts as a splitter for both channels, 2 port master, 2 lines to the ABS pump, and 4 lines from there. These Masters could be mixed and matched with a splitters/plugs from your local auto parts store. It seems counter-intuitive to have a bottleneck like that, but that's how the stock system works on those cars....

That would be the ebrake. You have to pull up slightly on it, and push the button, and it should release.

+1 for the H6. The SOHC 2.5s aren't a bad engine, but they are plagued with head gasket and piston slap issues. The latter isn't really a reliability issue, but can sound pretty aweful, and can scare away buyers.

DOH. Brain fart. I did the formula for Circumference (Pi*D)....not Area It doesn't completely throw the comparison off, since I did it all the same way, but I redid it correctly and edited my post.

Wow, those look sweet. I'm tempted to grab a pair for our Outback when I do the lift.

AWD lever? It has no such thing.....

The primary reason to do this upgrade, is to regain some of the leverage lost by upgrading calipers. But ultimately it takes a pretty significant change to make it genuinely dangerous. And it's almost impossible to describe it. Food for thought, it's extremely common practice on stage rally cars to completely remove the brake booster (as the constant modulation of both brakes and throttle simultaneously that is common in rally technique will use up the vacuum in the booster, and give very inconsistent brake force), and it's still more than possible to make an emergency stop for most people (no, your elderly mother probably can't, but she won't be able to get in over the roll cage, either). Some math for you. A stock XT6 has about 5992 square mm of total Caliper piston area (54mm front pistons, and 30mm rear, 2 of each), and 452 square mm of Master Cylinder area. Which means, assuming the same volume of fluid passed through the system, the piston travel ratio is about 13:1 (13mm of travel at the Master, moves the caliper pistons 1mm. Note, this does not take into account the mechanical advantage of the pedal). My XT6 has dual-piston, ver. 1 WRX front calipers, and Nissan 200SX rears, leaving me with a total area of 8076 square mm (4 front pistons at 43mm, and 2 rears at 38). Before I swapped the Master Cylinder, left me with a ratio of over 17:1, not to mention the air in the system. And the 1 1/16 Master is 572 square mm, that makes a ratio of 14:1. Which actually means I still have less leverage than a stock car. If you were to do this Master Cylinder upgrade, with stock XT6 calipers (5992/572), you'd have a ratio of closer to 10.5:1. of course, none of this takes into account the fact that I also went from 260mm rotors to 276mm, or that dual piston calipers apply the force more efficiently to the pad than single, etc. etc. Ultimately, the change in the amount of force required on the pedal is very reasonable, but the change in how far your foot has to move to do the same job is considerable. This reduces your reaction time to apply the brakes, which is where the advantage comes in.

That's what we quote for head gaskets up here at the dealer in Duluth. And that leans a bit on the worst-case side of things. I assume that Morries' MNSubaru discount is 10% off their hourly rate, at the raw time it takes to do the job, which is usually less than book time.

I assume that Uberoo was referring to an EA81 car with this post, but in typical fashion, it's pretty unclear what he's working on and how it needed to be modified. But it sounds to me like the EA82/EJ 2-bolt pattern between the master cylinder and the booster is slightly different from the EA81, and so the EJ master would need to be modified slightly, but does still work.

Hopefully I've made it clear that I have a huge amount of respect for people doing something different. But I have to argue this point. I don't believe for a second that stock-for-stock an EA81 has more torque at any point in the range than an EJ22. And if you hopped up an EJ22 to 10:1 or more...it'd be a monster.