Snowman

HA! That's awesome. I think Miles Fox had one of his trashwagons featured on that site once upon a time.

Considering that it takes a lot of money to make a show car, think of what you could do in the "go" department while leaving the looks alone. For a rally car, I would go with swapping in a turbo motor. Find a good-running turbo car that has been in a wreck and swap the motor and all the electronics. Then you can start making some power.

Duh! Slaps forehead repeatedly.

No Flowmastered87GL, it needs an EJ22T, preferably a modded one. Nice score! A friend of mine got a 4wd wagon like that for a dollar and it lasted him a year and a half before he sold it.

Have you tried verifying spark by grounding the plug to the head and watching while the engine is being cranked?

Do a compression test. Then do another after putting a little oil in. If the reading increases after putting oil in, it's rings. If not, it's either valves or head gasket. As to rings "just going", that's apparently what happened to my engine. It was running in tip-top shape then all of a sudden it wasn't making any power. I tested compression and three of the cylinders were perfect, while the other had half their compression. The rings were the culprit. I have no idea what made them go, but I'll tear that engine apart after I get the rebuilt one in.

That's pretty decent fuel economy. My parents' old 87 would usually run almost 500 miles to a tank on the highway, but that was with really conservative driving. Mine usually gets about what yours does when I'm not driving it hard (which is maybe 10% of the time).

I went to check on the cost of getting some SPFI pistons to put in the carbed ea82 I'm rebuilding for Roxanne, and subaru wants roughly $90 per piston. That seems ludicrous, especially since the entire rebuild kit from NAPA cost me $205 with my student discount. Where can I get OEM-quality pistons from without having to pay an arm and a leg for them?

Mine does the same thing basically. I have a feeling that it's related to my low compression in the #1 cylinder. It's not getting warm enough for good combustion right away. You might check your compression.

I'm gonna be running rims from a chevy LUV pickup. They're either 14X5.5 or 14X6 I think, and they stick out 2 or 3 inches more than a stock soob wheel.

Torxxx, if you're willing to wait until the beginning of april, I can probably get the bumpers (need paint) for you. I may be needing the front bumper from my parts car, but the rear is definitely available. I've also got the struts, but I think they are pretty much useless. Make an offer if you want it.

There is a detailed explaination of the hitachi secondary mod on subarujunkie's website. He did it on the ea81 hitachi, and I tried without success on an ea82 hitachi. I think it's possible, but it just takes more time than I had to mess with it. Torxxx, I could also show you how to get better secondary actuation while keeping the economy of a vacuum secondary on your hitachi when you are over here for the "lift party". I even have all the stuff for it here, and since I've got the weber now I have no need for it. I would try to explain it here, but without pictures or seeing it in person, it's kinda hard to explain. Archemitis: I think your actuator is probably bad. Most likely it has a hole or a crack in it. When you apply vacuum to that line while it's running, it should be just like stomping on the gas.

Why not intercool it? You would probably see small gains in power from doing what you are suggesting, but with just a little more work to put an intercooler on you could gain a lot more power. Just my two cents.

Put me down for another one, which will bring my total order to two calendars. I'm sending the check tomorrow, and I'll include with the check the two separate addresses to which the calendars need to be sent.

I've never seen or heard of these flaps of which you speak. Could you explain just where they are and how they work?

MDD- I know the feeling. I don't think any of my friends could touch me in a race if we had similar cars. Problem is, they all think I'm gonna kill myself! Case in point: Two years ago, I entered a snowmachine race with my personal sled. I was at a ridiculous disadvantage due to my setup, which was for going up mountains and through deep powder instead of racing on a lake. Mine had 2/3 the horsepower of the next smallest one. In a 60 mile race, aside from a couple of guys with super-fast sleds, nobody was more than a mile and a half ahead.

DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!! :eek: That is totally absurd!(In a good way) I know nothing about VWs, so can you tell me how the specs of that engine (displacement, hp, torque) compare to the stock one?

Well, that sounds pretty good to me.

Matt, As long as there are no white-out conditions or really slick roads, the trip is a lot smoother in the winter than during the summer. All the construction has been cleaned up and smoothed out pretty well, so I didn't even have to slow down most of the time. During the summer months, the construction and RVs combine to slow you down immensely. This summer, I found it wasn't too bad when I left Anchorage at 5pm and drove overnight when there isn't much traffic and they aren't working on the road. The only bad thing about this trip in the winter is that no matter when you leave, it's going to be dark for most of the drive, which can be fatiguing. I don't think I would want to make the trip without my auxilliary lights. My straight-through times so far have been as follows: Anchorage to Haines during summer: 13.5 hrs plus 2 hr nap Anchorage to Haines during winter: 14.5 hrs Haines to Anchorage with sickly subaru, during bad winter conditions and with delays: 17 hrs

I think they cost at least several hundred dollars. Otherwise, I would jump on one too. I might see if I can borrow one from the UAA shop for the weekend.

I wish that I lived somewhere that I could get access to driving courses, schools, and such. I consider myself a pretty good driver, but I know there is much room for improvement.

If you haven't disassembled and cleaned the carb yet, you should do that anyway just for good measure even if it doesn't fix this problem. Hitachi carbs are REALLY easy to take apart, even if you have no clue how they work. Out of necessity, I ripped into one for the first time last spring, and now I wouldn't be scared to on the side of the road seeing only with a flashlight. While you have everything apart, you can check the operation of the fuel cutoff solenoid and anything else that could cause problems. The idea of a failing fuel pump might be a good one. Maybe turn the ignition on with the fuel line disconnected and see how much comes out. Try restricting the flow a little with your thumb and see what happens. Good luck.

Finally got all my pics up from Christmas break. Here's one that I took near Tok before it got dark and nasty.

Hmmm.... video sounds neat. I bet we could do a lot better than those guys on Trucks TV and stuff. It would probably be a lot more popular if we got some hot girls to do the install in the video instead of us. Yes, I am looking for the 3" lift for ea82. Another question: Does anybody that's going to be in on this have access to a spring compressor? I would like to turn up the rear spring preload on my struts while we're doing this, and the compressor makes it a heck of a lot easier. Last time, I improvised with cables and hooks and stuff, and that took a really long time to figure out.

Whoah! This car sounds awesome. I would love to see pictures, specs, or whatever you've got. As for hooking up, if you can find all the stuff to do it, you should get a FT4wd drivetrain out of another car and swap it in. From what I've heard, it's not that hard to do once you get all the stuff to do it, and that would definitely put the power down. If you still couldn't put the power down with 4wd, then at least it would look really badass to do four-wheel burnouts as you launch.