Snowman

I just ordered rod and main bearings from firstsubaruparts.com. Call them though, don't order from the website, as it isn't always right according to the guy I talked to on the phone.

Not sure about valves, guides, and seats. I guess I'll just disassemble, clean and inspect everything. Hadn't really thought about that stuff much, are these items normally just replaced when you rebuild?

I kinda like the tendency for timing belts to break 'cause I got a perfectly good car for free because a timing belt went out on it.

For sure the oil and water pumps will come before springs. I made sure I can afford those before I decided to drop the money for reground cams. I'm just wondering if these usually "wear out" by losing their tension over time. For this engine, I'm want do everything right, cause it needs to be dependable (up here in the winter, if your car dies, so do you...) and hopefully last another 140k or more.

Hey Torxxx, Cat gutting: Well, I gutted my cat last fall because I thought it was plugged. Turns out that wasn't the case, but it did result in a bit louder exhaust and I think some more power overall. It will probably help more after I get my new motor in w/ bigger cams. I don't think it hurts anything to gut the cat, but I have no actual proof of that. My motor was screwed up before, and it was still screwed up after. Only scientists working for the tobacco industry could conclude anything from that... Replacing the back half of your exhaust: You might wanna take a look at mine at the lift party, but I can describe it pretty well here. As I said, I've got a guttet cat, and the stock pipe all the way back to a thrush 3-chamber muffler. This setup is ridiculously easy and cheap to set up, as you can just cut off the stock muffler clamp this one on, and hang it. The stock midpipe looks pretty good for flow characteristics to me, at least for a stock or near-stock engine. And it's a heck of a lot stronger and rust-resistant than most pipe that you would put in its place.

OK, here's the story: I'm in the process of rebuilding my ea82, which has 140,000 miles on it. Right now I'm tearing it down and cleaning stuff. So far, I have ordered or have a complete gasket/seal set, main bearings, rod bearings, head gaskets, reground hi-po cams, and piston rings. There are two items that I'm not sure if I need. The first, and REALLY expensive one is the "cam towers", I think they're called. They are the things that hold the cams. 1stsubaruparts.com, where I ordered most of the stuff from, and who has great deals on this stuff, quoted me around $260 per side for these things, and you can't just get the bearings, as they are part of the towers. The guy I talked to said that most of the time these don't need replacing. Is he correct? The other thing that I'm wondering about is valve springs, especially since I'm putting in bigger cams that will exert more pressure. These aren't terribly expensive at $9 per spring, but that does add up since I believe this engine has 16 total springs (8 valves, inner and outer springs). I'm going to take off the old ones and measure their height, etc. as best I can, but should I replace them regardless just for good measure? In both cases, the issue is whether or not it's worth the money. I can afford to buy these things, but I would much rather save the money, since I already have spent $200 on gaskets and seals, $400 on engine parts, and $190 on cams, as well as the $390 Weber last fall, and I'm also going to be buying a lift and tires very soon. Oh yeah, and I still have to get a water pump and maybe an oil pump depending on the condition of the current one.

I think that subaru engines are just prone to dieseling at shutdown. Mine was reduced by installing cooler plugs, but it still happens on occasion. That's why the hitachi carbs have an anti-diesel solenoid that cuts off fuel when the ignition is turned off. I don't think jetting should matter for this, but I'm no carburetion expert either.

"Trucks and SUVs typically cost less to build, hence the profits for auto makers are larger. Subaru (or GM) is doing this to capitalize on the success of the Outback name which they'll probably cheapen by producing substandard vehicles -- cheap "ladder" frames instead of the safer unibody construction, heavier (lower gas mileage), etc. " Subaru would never start producing vehicles with ladder frames and such, because of principle and that is just wouldn't make sense economically. It might be cheaper to make vehicles that way, but not for subaru because they would have to re-tool everything specifically for that model because all of their manufacturing facilities are already set up for making cars with unibodies, which is still the way that they would continue to make all their other cars. Subaru has always been and always will be a CAR company. As has been said already, I don't necessarily agree with classifying the outback as a truck, but I'm not angry about it for two reasons: Nothing is really being changed from the way the outback was when it was classified as a car. They are adding window tinting and maybe a couple of other nitpicky things. The fuel economy and emissions aren't going to get worse. And subaru is doing this sort of thing to a VERY small extent compared to other manufacturers. That doesn't necessarily make it right, but what makes it okay in my book is that overall, subaru is a much "greener" company than most.

It still boggles my mind that everybody has so many problems with their hitachi carbs. All of the ones I've seen have run really well, and gotten pretty good fuel economy. Maybe I'm just lucky. Maybe there's something different about the gas in Alaska. I have no clue. The only reason I put on a Weber was more power. My hitachi was running fine before. Back to recommendations for cars: ea81 is better offroad, but the interior is not quite as spacious or comfortable. Lack of timing belts makes these motors lower maintenance, which is good. I personally prefer the ea82 wagons for a "do everything" car. They are a bit more refined overall, but still easy to work on, and as long as you keep up with changing the timing belts, they won't give you trouble in that area. Also, I beleive all the ea81s had adjustable rear spring preload to compensate for loads or wearing out, and I know that 86 ea82s have adjustable spring preload. The 87s might have it too but I haven't checked, and I know they stopped putting that on in 88. It all depends on what you are using it for.

"I put the driver's side cam down and the pass. side cam up" If you did this and didn't rotate the crank between setting the two belts, that should be the correct procedure. I prefer doing the pass. side, rotating the crank, then doing the drivers side, but that's just me. I would suspect you are off a tooth or something.

Ruby's window had the same problem. I ended up just wiring up a separate switch for that window.

You might also try gravity-bleeding the entire system. Open all the bleeder screws and just let it sit for a while (at least ten or fifteen minutes) while making sure that the reservoir is full. This technique is often used on really stubborn systems that can't get all the bubbles out using normal procedures. It is slow, but works 99.9% of the time.

Welcome to the board! Usually, the three most common problems with subarus of this generation are oil leaks, rust, and CV axles going out. Since you are mechanically inclined, I wouldn't worry so much about small oil leaks or bad CVs, as you can probably re-gasket the engine if you want to, and CV axles are easy to change. Rust is really the only true killer of old soobs, so check very carefully for it. Also, once you find out how many miles are on this engine, see if the timing belts have been recently changed, as that time may be getting close. $900 sounds alright to me, but where I live, these cars tend to be a bit more expensive than elsewhere. If it's got any of the aforementioned problems, the price should immediately drop a couple hundred dollars. Best of luck to you.

It's too late to switch to synthetic. It might work out ok, but it might end horribly too. I would recommend switching to 5w30 or 10w30 castrol dino oil during the winter. It shouldn't decrease your oil pressure dangerously if at all, and it shouldn't leak any more than it does already (assuming it leaks since it's an old subaru motor).

its either in or right next to the thermostat housing, I can't remember which

Wow, what a great idea! I never was sure just what the heck those brackets were for. Maybe I'll make some up. Does anybody know if these things actually work? I would imagine that they would at least prevent damage from branches and small debris that gets flung up from time to time.

Okay, here goes... Parts needed: 1 electrically actuated vacuum valve (i got one from my spare engine. There are two attached to the intake manifold) 1 large pushbutton starter switch or similar device assorted vacuum tees a bit of vacuum line some wire (18 gauge is fine) small chunk of sheet metal (i cut some out of an old road sign) two medium-sized hose clamps How to make the basic system: Find the vacuum line that taps into manifold vacuum and goes to a vacuum reservoir. Put a tee in this line and run a line from it to the vacuum valve. Put a tee in the little vacuum line that attaches to the secondary actuator, and run a line from it to the other port on the vacuum switch. Now, use the sheet metal and hose clamps to mount the pushbutton switch on the steering column so that the switch is triggered by the end of the accerator pedal that the cable attaches to. Make sure that the switch is only activated at wide open throttle. Hook up wires so that this switch controls the opening of the vacuum valve. Improvements to the basic system that make it much more effective: Improvement 1, which I actually did, is adding an additional vacuum reservoir, teed into the same line that is your vacuum source for this mod. This definitely helped, because the reserve vacuum allowed for better actuation under low-vacuum running conditions, such as near WOT. Improvement 2, which I was going to do if I didn't convert to a Weber carb, is to put a one-way "check valve" right next to the tee that I put in the vacuum line on the carb. I think this is necessary in order to reach this mod's full potential, as it seems that when running at WOT for prolonged periods of time, the normal carburetor vacuum source produces greater vacuum than the manifold source. This results in actually lowering the amount of available vacuum under prolonged high speed driving. By adding this check valve, the actuator will always be receiving the greatest amount of vacuum possible. Overall, I was relatively satisfied with this modification. It was pretty easy to do once I got all the conceptual stuff figured out. There was a definite "hit" when this thing did its job under acceleration, and I think the addition of improvement 2 would have perfected this setup. Mine was also plagued by a leaky additional vacuum reservoir, but once that was taken care of, it worked fine. If you are like me and have more time than money to spend on your car, and like tinkering, this mod is probably for you. And it just makes you sound smart and makes your car sound cool when you have something like this on it that nobody has ever heard of.

I think I've got 2.5" on mine, and it works quite well.

hmmm..... the mystery continues.... I think it was Qman that measured the 1600 pistons and 1800 pistons, and apparently the distance between the pin center and the top of the piston is greater on the 1600s.

Are the 1600 pistons 9:1 in a 1600, or in an 1800? I've heard that in the 1600 motor they only produce 9:1, but when put in an ea81 or ea82, they produce 9.5:1 due to the rod/piston/head relationships.

torxxx, Here is my understanding of the pistons we can run in our motors. Stock ea82 carbed pison: 9:1 compression. ea82 SPFI piston: 9.5:1 compression. 1600 piston 9.5:1 compression. I'm trying to get ahold of some SPFI pistons to put in the motor I'm building right now, since they were originally designed to go in an ea82. 1600 pistons would probably be fine, but there could be some differences, so I want to play it on the safe side with pistons that are meant for that engine.

Do a search. The subject of getting more power is probably the most common one on this board. Start by cutting out the bottom of the airbox, getting a better muffler, and a hotter ignition. As for offroad, check out http://www.ozified.com for lift kits. If you are serious about offroading, swap in a dual-range tranny from a GL or DL.

I second the motion for swapping in a manual tranny. You could spend the money for a rebuilt or JY auto trans, but you still have a subaru auto trans, which sucks. Right now is the best time to swap it for a 4 or 5 speed manual.

Really, what he has done with this car is not going to affect the life of its components that much. All the stock subaru geometry remains intact, the only thing that is putting more stress on components is the larger tires, lower gearing, and higher horsepower. Odviously, this will be putting a bit more stress on the car, but from the pictures I have seen of this car in action, that isn't much of a difference from the way it was before. Sure, bearings, axles, etc. will have shorter lives, but that happens with any vehicle that is set up and used for offroading. As for stuff that might be creeping up on the car due to old age, have you thoroughly inspected the entire brake system recently? Lines rust, seals get hard, and stuff goes bad after 22 years on the road.

I'm not so sure about removing the emissions stuff and keeping the hicrappy. When I installed the weber, everything related to the hitachi came off. Probably the best way to go about this is to systematically determine the function of each component/system. Remove one component/system at a time and see what happens. If the outcome is good, then leave it off. Rinse and repeat.