Numbchux

So, As I mentioned in my thread in the new gen section, I just bought a '99 SUS with a mangled crank snout. My coworker just parted out a '01 RS. So, since the EJ25D is leaking like mad anyway, let's yank it out, and put in the 251. Pulled the EJ25D last night, and noticed an oversight. Continued research today has me worried. All EJ25Ds have the idle air solenoid mounted to the manifold next to the throttle body. And all EJ251s have it integrated into the throttle body. Then came the thought, we'll just swap throttle bodies. Well, then we'll have nowhere to put the solenoid. So, started researching swapping electrical connectors, and having the 25D ECU control the 251 stuff.....looks like the TPS would be fine, but the idle air, not so much. Looking at the pinouts, looks like the 25D has an Open and closed signal circuit coming from the ECU. Where the 251 just has one signal wire. What are the odds, that I could hook up the Open signal wire from the 25D ECU to the lone signal wire on the 251 IAC, and have it work? Plan B....Possible that a phase 1 EJ22 intake manifold would work? Gaskets are a different part number, but they look awefully similar.

Got the motor out tonight, it needs a pretty substantial reseal before it should be used again anyway... But....

I have driven a non-Subaru offroad rig with a welded front. It was very frustrating to try to get that thing to go where you wanted it to. But, each to their own. It sounds like you've weighed the pros and cons. And if you hate it, just throw an open diff in there.... I don't think anyone has done it before, so you'll be the first.

I don't think it's been done with a 5-speed. I know Mudrat did it many years ago in his hatch with a 4EAT for their Rubicon run. Have to either weld the center diff, or get one of those RWD conversion sleeves (basically center diff delete). CV axles will depend on what you use for a front diff. But I don't think there is a Subaru rear diff that would work with your STi axles. If you get an EA series rear diff, it has 23-spline male stubs out of the diff, and you could use '93-'94 FWD 5MT Impreza axles without modification (well, they probably wouldn't like the track width of the STi control arms...). Then it's just a matter of all the other fabrication involved in a divorced Tcase rig, which is fairly well documented here.

They both appear to have original head gaskets. I think the 25D should come out for a reseal anyway....so I'm still leaning more towards putting the 251 in it's place.... Still runs. So I'm guessing they're OK :-p

Wow, my apologies. I didn't bother searching, as I didn't think this would be even remotely common :o That's very good news. I will take pictures of it when we get in there. I am concerned that the snout damage will effect the timing sprocket too. So, we'll see. It does run, though, so it might be salvageable. I still haven't decided which motor I'd rather run. They're both pretty high mileage (170k on the 25D, and 200k on the 251), and we're thinking of keeping the car to replace my girlfriend's POS KIA. In which case I think I'd still rather have the 251. If we sell it, I'd rather there not be anything we have to "make the buyer aware of"....

Just bought Subaru #12 for me. It's a '99 SUS, the woman I bought it from said it needed an engine, and she didn't know why, but I got it for $700. A coworker of mine has happened to have just finished parting out an '01 2.5RS with a great motor..... But, as we took a look at what was wrong with the SUS, it appears the crank bolt backed out, the pulley walked out a bit, broke off the key, and took a pretty nasty gouge out of the crank snout. As soon as I saw that, I shrugged and said, "oh well, at least we still have that EJ251". But, some of my coworkers (AutoZone) were talking about some different epoxies and such that might successfully repair this damage. Thoughts?

Wow. That's crazy. How far do you think you've lifted the drivetrain to get to that point? Hows the clearance at the front? That's awesome. But makes me really glad I didn't try to do an EG33 into my truck when I did the swap. I knew I didn't have the skills/equipment/space for the fab work to do it, and I massively underestimated how much would be needed. I raise a glass to you for doing it. Cheers!!

Not really. There isn't much debris flying around in that part of the engine bay. Running without covers probably shortens the life of things a little bit, but it makes replacing them a breeze. The last EA82-powered vehicle I owned blew a belt on my way to sell it (idler seized....). Once I got the parts (I had a belt....but no pulley), it only took me 15 minutes to get the car back on the road.

green wagon? Mine? I think I'm the only one that posted a picture... Last number in the tire size, is wheel size. So those are 15" Pug Alloy wheels. I looked at tire availability, and with that in mind, I'd run 205/50r15 if I did it again.

A friend of mine named Jerry Winker has been doing motorsports photography in the midwest for about 30 years, and he's been slowly uploading much of his old pictures onto his website ( http://www.comicozzie.com ). For the most part, he only got to one stage rally event a year, Ojibwe Forests Rally in northern MN, so it's not a huge portion of the photography, but the REALLY cool part, is the detailed information about driver, codriver, vehicle year/make/model, sometimes even how they finished or why they DNFd (if applicable). I'd HIGHLY recommend to anyone interested in classic motorsports to take a look through his albums, and maybe consider buying some of his work, as he is trying to make this a living (which means thanks to Rally America, he's likely getting out of Rally for 2013 and any foreseeable future). Anyway, the reason I'm posting this, is I started noticing a name, Chad DiMarco, in the late '80s that seemed to have a different EA82 rally car every year, and it seemed to be a new RX model (switched sedan to coupe in the '87 season). Here's one sweet picture of him in '87 in a sedan: http://www.comicozzie.com/gallery2/v/1987/of87/OF87-14.jpg.html So I started searching for his name, and found this article on the history of the Subaru Rally Team USA on the Subaru Drive Performance website. Pretty cool read!! http://driveperformance.subaru.com/Print.aspx?printpath=/Articles-(1)/dp71/dp71_origins&classname=custom.SDArticle Love this: "In 1986, DiMarco fielded two cars in the WRC round in Olympia, Washington. New Zealander Possum Bourne also entered a Subaru and, significantly, this was the first time Subaru had entered multiple cars in a WRC event besides the Safari Rally in Africa. Photo: courtesy of Chad DiMarco/Subaru" And this: "For the 1987 season, DiMarco used one of the RX Turbo 3-door coupes that had been prepared for the Safari Rally." Also.....he won the first of his 4 Group A National Rally Championships in 1990....which was the year he switched to the Legacy chassis.....

There's a good chance that it wouldn't be a simple swap. I have measured and compared a standard EA82 (Loyale) one to an XT6 one. The XT6 ones are bigger (front to back). For example, the distance between the control arm mounts and sway bar mounts is more (which is why an XT6 sway bar will rub on the control arms in an EA82). Also the jacking plate is longer. So I would bet that the 2 bolts that hold the crossmember to the frame are further apart. I'm sure it's swappable, but don't expect an easy bolt-in project. There will likely be some modification, that will effect the suspension geometry and engine fitment.

^That's interesting. That's a good idea to spend some of your own time to finish the production of them correctly. I had a day off today, with nothing pressing on the agenda to get done. Wanted to make it out to the shop to get some SVX parts, but it didn't happen, probably before work on Wednesday... Anyway, I spent some time on my transmissions. I decided to rock the 4.444, 1.2 and Carbonetic in the Brat. I bought some Anaerobic gasket maker and set to putting it all together today. Took a few tries to get the right order. Getting everything lined up on the input shaft was a bit of a pain (locating pin on the middle bearing, hi-lo shifter pivot, forward bearing flange, low range oil slinger). I forgot where the oil slinger went, thank goodness for the exploded diagrams of European models on http://www.opposedforces.com ! Then I got it in there, and realized it was also going to have clearance issues with the larger ring gear, so I had to pull it back off and grind it down a bit. Then I remembered why I was excited to use the 1.6 case. The speedo cable base crumbled in the 1.2 case. So if I'm going to have a working speedo with that case, I need to figure out how to disassemble that shaft and clean out the remains of that plastic base, and replace the seal in there. I think I'll put the PT4WD 1.6/3.9 case back together with some 25 spline axle stubs for a 5MT swap into my XT6. I should have everything I need to do it (If I can figure out which ring gear is right.....lots of transmissions have been parted out on my work bench :-p ).

Technically there are other options, but they are far more rare than Pugs (somewhere there is a list of 4x140 wheels, but they're all extremely rare, even compared to the pugs, which aren't exactly common). Everything else involves either converting wheels to a different lug pattern (6-lug to 4) or the vehicle to 5 or 6 lug. There are a few members/companies ( http://www.sjrlift.com comes to mind) who could do the modification required for the 6-lug conversion so it would be as easy as swapping hubs, which anybody with some mechanical aptitude could install.

You should be able to pull back on the turn-signal/flash-to-pass stalk a bit harder, and it should click between high and low beams. I know my XT6 sometimes doesn't catch and switch between them, but I haven't looked into the repair.

Love it! I was just thinking about this, and wondering if progress was being made. An XR4ti in good shape sold fairly locally to me for $1300 about a month ago....man did I want that thing, but just couldn't justify it. Anyway, as someone who now owns a brat, and lusts over Merkurs......I love this build, and I'm glad it's still continuing!

^what he said. Wheel and tire size are 2 different, and only slightly connected, statistics. If you want to get oversized wheels, you just need to get appropriate tires. Luckily, Subaru used relatively large tires, even though they're 13" wheels, so it's possible to go up quite a bit in wheel size without getting a larger tire (I ran 17s on my Loyale....which was even lowered a bit). The challenge, is that finding oversize wheels that will fit without modification is difficult. And really the only viable option (Pugeout) will bolt on, but the offset is not correct, so they stick out more, and you will have more issue with the tires hitting the fender. Here's my '85 Wagon with 205/60r15 tires on Pug alloys. I had a little issue with the rear tires hitting the fender while loaded, but I think that car was a little......uh....saggy. I still might go for some lower-profile tires, like a 205/50 or 205/55.

I had a wiring diagram.....but it's pretty simple. The switch is just a double throw. switched 12v in, then out one way or the other, straight to one wire on each of the solenoids, other wire to the ground. I set mine up with relays, but once I got it set up, I tested the draw on it, and it was only a couple amps.

Any Phase 1 gearset will drop into the XT6 front case halves (phase 2 got a beefier reverse gear, and therefore the idle shaft is a bit further away from the main shaft. no way to get around this in a phase 1 case). Center diff and housing will have to match front pinion shaft, of course. I ran my '88 XT6 with trans internals from a '94 AWD Impreza. 4.111, I think taller 5th than XT6. I loved it, don't remember what rpms I was turning on the freeway, but no complaints. If you're planning a swap, I'd baby this trans until then. Fresh fluid (Extra S!), and be a little gentle on it. It'd be worth it to be able to use an EJ pressure plate with a new-gen H6!

The new studs in a 6-lug conversion are probably weaker than the originals But there are more of them. You still have 2 in their original place, and you're replacing 2 with 4, spreading out the load that much more. I don't believe for a second that that will be on the list of weak links in a lifted subaru. Also, the whole point of using 6-lug wheels is to open up your wheel options. I own 5 sets of 6-lug wheels between my Brat and 4Runner. None of them could be redrilled to 4-lug.

I looked rather extensively into doing a Subaru swap into a 914. My uncle has one, and about the time that my XT6 was crashed his 1.8 was giving him problems (ended up being a failed cam). Anyway, he ended up getting a genuine 914 2.0, and I ended up not getting anything from the woman who wrecked my car, so it didn't happen. BUT, at the time, there was a guy on 914world making adapters from 25-spline subaru transmissions to the stock 914 flange. This means any FWD transmission that was behind a 2.2 would be a perfect match. I was planning to use a modified 2.2, but a 3.0 or 3.3 would be sweet. There's a local guy who I've met a couple times here that has a 914 with a Euro 928 engine in it.....absolutely awesome.

The guy in Colorado with the EJ swap and 4.111 D/R Trans that was built years ago (I forget his screen name...) had a Forester 5th in it. Not sure if it was phase 2, but it almost had to be.

You say that....but I bet there wouldn't be a single who would pay fair value for a long travel suspension setup for an old gen subaru A similar performing kit from Total Chaos for an '86-95 Toyota truck/4Runner costs about $2k. And that's just upper and lower A-arms and hardware: This would require custom knuckles and engine crossmember too, at the very least. That said, I think it's awesome. That camber change through the range of motion kind of makes me nervous, but it might still function well. I'm anxious to see how it performs, and how those front axles hold up

For the record, phase 1 and 2 gearsets are not really interchangeable. The reverse idler is a few mm further away from the shafts in a phase 2 set, and therefore the gears are slightly different. No way to safely use the phase 1 reverse gearset in a phase 2 case, or vice versa. Also, the VSS is interchangeable. If you still have your forester trans, pull the sensor out of it, and put it in the legacy trans. Done!

Good way to get someone killed. I knew a guy who was killed a few years ago when the tow point on the other vehicle let go. Pretty cool pictures. Hakkas FTW, for sure. I'm constantly shocked at how much snow my FWD Celica will plow through with Blizzak Revo1s (more of an ice tire, than deep snow), so much fun. I don't go anywhere in the winter without my gear, which includes a good well-oiled comealong, 60' of looped recovery straps, a collection of shackles (some tow points won't allow use of a nice big 10k lb one, but still better to use a small, ~5klb shackle than a hook) and a couple shovels (not to mention tools, clothes, etc.)