Numbchux

Independent of what I think of the reasons... I think it's certainly possible, with the right equipment and money. But, I think will quickly escalate into a complete re-engineering and replacement of the entire front suspension. Selectable hubs require 2 shafts. An inner axle shaft, and outer shaft that the hub rides on. Disconnected, they can spin seperately, connected, the force applied to the inner axle shaft is transferred to the outer hub. They need to have their own bearings (although only the outer ones have to support the weight of the vehicle). This all means that the bore in the knuckle will need to be considerably larger, which will likely require a "new" knuckle. It might be possible to machine the stock knuckle down, and bolt a different bearing flange to it that might allow what you're going for, but I think there won't be enough material left to bolt TO. Years ago, Adam NDJ started designing an adapter plate that would allow him to attach Nissan truck front knuckles to the rear of his Brat. IIRC the primary goal for this was to use the r200 diff more than the hubs, but the beefier bearings and brakes, and lockable hubs were also on the list. Although his had a divorced Tcase, so did not have a FWD option available.

5-year old link. Also. AFAIK, no longer available.

Updates.... It has a parking brake again! About a 1" spacer at the adjustment, and I was able to use the cables designed for drums with the discs. LEDs in the dome lights I used these. Good quality, competitive prices, and they sponsor a friend's Rally car http://www.diodedynamics.com/store/led-bulbs/listed-by-size/194/194-hp3-pair The Blizzaks are like 7 years old, and while they still have decent tread, they're wearing, some more then others (thanks to that blown rear suspension bushing on my last Celica). So I picked up some virtually new Nokian Hakka Qs in 205/50r16, mounted them on some '03 Outback wheels....

Let me clarify....the re-branded Mobil1 thing is fairly recent.

oiling is not the weak link of an EA82. Keep something vaguely oily (A friend of mine with a particularly leaky EA82 uses the used oil that comes out of his other cars....) in it, and you won't have any problems. IMHO, fancy oil is a waste of money on it. Also, I've heard many times that Amsoil is just Mobil1 with a markup.... I work/live just a few miles from the factory, and people here love it.

Yep. Most aftermarket radiators come with the transmission cooler built in. That drastically reduces manufacturing costs.... Looks like Advance carries Vista-pro Radiators. Here's the page on that one: http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=63742&cc=1267725 As you'll see there: "Note: If you have a Manual Transmission vehicle you may be surprised to find a Transmission Oil Cooler integrated into your radiator. This does not mean the radiator is incorrect or that it will leak. The Transmission Oil Cooler is sealed off from the main radiator core and will not leak if left unconnected." I know Spectra ones come with a flyer and/or sticker on the box saying the same... You will need to swap your fan switch in place of the plug. That plug does go into the cooling system, which is under pressure, and that plastic plug will not hold up.

That's very interesting, thanks for the follow-up! Yea, I don't think I'll ever run any additive long-term again. There are a few flushing/cleaning agents that I've seen....ATF being one of them.....and I think switching back to straight gear oil for the long term. Is yours an automatic? That's the only thing that makes sense....a manual transmission (what the rest of this thread is about) has solid mechanical linkage, if the shifter is in reverse, the synchros are engaged. An automatic transmission is hydraulically operated, and it seems (Auto trannies are my weak point....) that reverse seems to be the first to have issues if the pressure drops. You may have issues with the pump/or solenoid(s) within the trans. First thing to do is check the fluid level (engine running, transmission warm). If that's good, SeaFoam makes a flush product for auto transmissions, add a quart of that and drive the car for a hundred miles or so, then drain and fill with regular ATF, drive for a few hundred miles, and then do it again. Fresh fluid does wonders for an old auto trans.

I had this '92 Celica ST for many years. I loved it, but I hated the auto transmission. So I always said I might try to get a GT 5-speed the next time around. Well....due to a severe oil leak, the little 1.6 in my ST popped a month or so ago. Knowing that I had a lot of good suspension and brake parts in it, I looked for a cheap Celica fixer-upper to replace this one. And sure enough, a '91 GT 5-speed, Convertible (a lot of bullet points in both the "pro" and "con" lists there....) was on craigslist. Guy bought it just last spring, and drifted off the road (I suspect into a median/curb) and absolutely destroyed everything in the driver's front wheel well. He brought it to a "mechanic" who must have quoted him several thousand dollars to repair, so the guy signed it over to the "mechanic" who then listed it for sale. Long story short, I never actually talked to the guy who owned it, and the "mechanic" didn't know much about the car other than the damage to the front corner. So, I rented a tow dolly, and hitched up the minivan: I actually ordered a junkyard control arm from ebay, and some poly bushings for it, before I even picked up the car. So, I had a bunch of good-condition parts from the '92, as well as a bunch of new parts from work (AutoZone. inner and outer tie rod, rack boot, ball joint, cv axle). Old v New control arms: Less than 24 hours after picking up that busted up car: And....most of my collection of japanese 2-doors (Would have been better if the Brat could have made an appearance) Those pictures were taken a few weeks ago. Since then, I've swapped over the rear suspension/brakes (GR2s, coilover sleeves, stiffer springs, disc brakes, poly bushings, 15mm spacers so I can run Subaru wheels), gotten an alignment, and put those big Blizzak Revo1s on it. It drives fantastic, still has a few issues, but nothing I can't deal with. I've got about $1500 invested into this chassis (not counting the parts off the old car....), so I'm pretty happy with it. 155k miles, almost no rust (I suspect it was someones summer/weekend toy for much of it's life). The top will probably need replacing in the next couple years, but it's not too bad. Doesn't leak, and we've had many days hovering around zero degrees Fahrenheit, and it didn't seem much colder than the hardtop...

Goodbye you rusty bastard Control arm rust....I've been concerned about this for awhile:

Oh yea....forgot about that. That was a bit of a pain. Required some machining and a sleeve to adapt a WRX pulley to the EJ205 heads.

It's identical to doing an entire WRX swap, just need to tune it for the different engine and suppress codes for the systems not present. It does require a full harness merge. But I bet there are literally thousands of people who have merged a GD WRX harness/ECU into the older chassis. I've done it a few times myself. I even wired a BD LGT for a Link Standalone ECU to run an EJ22t/EJ25d hybrid, we had a hell of a time getting that thing up and running, and a baseline tune done. We later swapped that same engine into a different chassis, and just merged in an '03 WRX harness/ECU. So much simpler....I wouldn't do an EJ Turbo for the street any other way. I didn't get into the details of it because I wasn't sure what the OPs goals were, since they are more modest, it's not really relevant

Well...I've been saying for years that this car would be killed by rust. And it happened......not how I expected, but it was still rust. The oil pan began leaking, and over just one tank of gas (I check at every fill-up), I lost over 2 quarts, which left about 3/4 of a quart. Oil pressure switch wire connector broke and fell off a couple years ago while doing the timing belt job....should have fixed that...so no warning in that fashion. Engine started knocking, I immediately bumped it into neutral and it stalled. Got it home a dropped the oil pan and found a spun #1 rod bearing, and a very deformed rod. Pulling the head to replace the rod quickly snowballs into a $500ish rebuild....and this car isn't worth that. So, the partout has begun. And on Saturday, I'm going to get a Black '91 GT 5MT convertible with 140k miles, no rust, and a bent control arm for $1k. I figure I swap the suspension over, and I've got a better car than this one ever was.

Been done many times..... Usually with a 2.2t block, but they're virtually identical (completely identical, as far as compatibility is concerned). Probably thousands of people putting WRX heads on the 2.2t block, which is almost as close. I've even seen the 25D heads drilled and tapped for oil feed and drain lines for a turbo. I have seen several builds with a 22e block and 25d or 251/253 heads for a budget low-boost build. It seems to be a good way to go about it, puts the compression ratio right in the sweet spot of about 9:1, IIRC. Depending on how much boost you're looking at, the stock ECU might do alright. Those OBDII ECUs are surprisingly smart. I am not a fan of Rising Rate FPRs....I prefer to run 50-60 psi across the board. It's better for atomization, and IMHO gives you more consistent mixtures across the range. Also I'd recommend going to parallel fuel rails to keep your mixtures even across the 4 cylinders. Those 2 mods on a stock ECU should be good for 8ish psi, which will give you pretty respectable numbers. If you're going for decent power, find someone parting out an early WRX, and get the wiring harness and ECU. With the open-source tuning that's available for it, it's almost as powerful as a standalone! Merging the wiring harness is a bit of a bear....but it's worth it!

The 4-lug brake setup is completely different. The brake and suspension upgrade options for 4-lug, are convert to 5-lug. If you want to stay 4-lug, you'll have to be creative. As for routing. I had them go down through the tunnel just like on an EJ car. It wasn't hard, I just used a hole saw, and then cut out between the holes with a cutoff wheel. BUT. It should be mentioned, that I had issues with the cables rubbing on the driveshaft. Now, I had a one-piece shaft (car was a FWD car), so this may not be an issue with a stock 2-piece...but make sure you've got adequate clearance. If I were to do it again, I'd drill through the vertical bulkhead just behind this and go through there.....

Yep, you're right. That's a fantastic example. Now, make some plastic 1/2" wheel spacers that are in no way hub-centric, and tell us how those work. And those probably wouldn't have the same heat to deal with (yes, brakes generate heat. But you have to be going pretty hard to exert temperatures for an extended period of time into the hubs like the engine bellhousing experiences). Refer to GLoyale's post. The studs are the clamping force, that clamping force makes it possible for the surfaces to transfer energy via friction. Bellhousing is the same. I completely believe Scott's number of 7 lbs. That's so very little. You could loose that somewhere else soooo easily. Lightweight battery. Plastic/lexan windows. Bumpers. Sound deadening. Dash. I mean, if you really are building a no-compromise race car..... Then you mention cost. Yes, plastic is cheap. But if that thing deforms almost at all. It's going to very quickly put some weird loads on the pilot bearing and input bearing of the transmission, even the main bearings of the engine. What's that going to do to your budget? How about if it gets so deformed to the point that it begins twisting the bolts in their mounting holes. Remember, lug studs are going into steel. While I agree that the bolts won't break, they are threaded into/through aluminum. It's not out of the realm of possibility that they would break out of the bellhousing on one side of the other. No way would I do it. I just don't have the time to source and replace an engine block or transmission case just because I tried to shave 5 lbs and $100......No way. But, the more I think about it, the more I can picture a broken transmission housing, with a mangled plastic adapter plate, with 4 bolts sticking through it, still with a little chunk of aluminum bolted around each one hanging off the back of your engine. Something like this one: So....bring a camera!

Well...since you didn't bother to tell us what vehicle this is going in....I can't tell you for sure. But I will say, just to be clear. The ring and pinion gear have to match. And the pinion gear is fairly difficult to swap into a different case. So you swap the ring gear to the LSD carrier, and then put the whole assembly back in your 3.9 housing. All the EA82 housings I've had apart were clearanced such that the LSD could be installed without grinding. I did have to grind on an EJ housing once.

Rear diff doesn't effect driveshaft length (at least, not between r160 and r180, I think the same holds true for the r200, but the only times I've seen that done was with a RWD swap, and there are other factors there). It is the 6-speed that requires the shorter driveshaft. Also, I think the 55mm is assuming an EJ chassis, which you do not have, so you'll have to start over on that measurement. IMO....just get your engine, transmission, and diff mounted how you want it, and start taking measurements. I'm betting you'll be best off starting with the stock RX driveshaft and having the front half shortened to match the transmission. You may have to have the rear half shortened as well to compensate for the rear diff (I don't think so, though), and you may also have to do some creative swapping/modifying for the flange between the diff and driveshaft (for example, I know the r180 bolt pattern is larger than the r160, but the flanges can be swapped between them.....some of that might hold true for the r200) That said, the r200 is available in many different vehicles, with many factory ratios available, and even more aftermarket. 3.54 is probably possible....

I'm reading this as rear brakes only....right?? In which case. yes. WRX through 2005 have the exact same rear brakes as any GC (-'01 impreza)

I've seen it done with a Civic, and a Celica. You basically cut the "body" from the floor pan on both cars, and swap the body. So the floor pan, firewall, suspension, and all suspension mounts are all Subaru, with the body of your choice over the top. There's even a guy doing that with a Subaru STi under a Subaru XT.

I also recommend an aftermarket, universal kit. It's going to be much easier to interface with your setup...

+1 for 5th gear and parking brake. There's a little play in it....but it works.

Well.....guess I'm going to find out. Just got my hands on this. '04 VDC, 133k miles, beige leather (oh well....). Salvage title means I'll probably just fix it and keep it, so the 4-cyl one will have the highest resale value.... btw...this one has a VDC Off button..... Dave. Any luck with that VTD diff swap? Does it work without the VDC?

Follow-up.... 1 can of SeaFoam Trans Tune. Drove 100 miles. Drain, fill, drive about 50 miles, drain, replace trans filter, and fill. The problem seems to be completely gone. Also.....the toe was pretty out of whack, front and rear. Alignment shop was (surprisingly) even able to get the rear adjustment bolt to move, and got it back in line. I'll throw some new tires on it this week, and hopefully have it ready for a new home by the weekend.

Some wheeling pictures from this last weekend....I was with a pretty large group, but we kept moving most of the day. So really the only pictures I have are from this one obstacle when everyone was out watching....