Snowman

I had this 85 Golf diesel for a while, and the bushings were so bad that it wouldn't go into reverse or 5th. Ended up sticking some nylon web strap from my backpack in the main bushing, and that tightened it up enough, but getting it into 5th was still a challenge...half the time, it would end up in 3rd, causing the little diesel to rev up to about 4500 rpm if you weren't careful.

Sorry 'bout the type-o. I meant if the wires aren't broken, the sensor will read correctly. The "hair" will be on the two wires that are suspended in the air stream, which are also the ones that can be broken (from vibration or from getting whacked by not being careful when you take the MAF out of its housing). I don't fully understand how the MAF works, but I do know that at least one of the wires is heated (hence the term "hot wire MAF", as opposed to the earlier "flapper door" style ones), and that seems to cause it to collect all kinds of gunk on there, which impairs its judgement. Just take the sensor out, spray the crap out of it with the cleaner, let it dry, and reinstall it.

Good call GD! It is such a matter of preferance that I don't think you'll get a definitive answer here. The actual horsepower and torque ratings are close enough that power is irrelavent. Generally, the EA81 is considered more reliable, and that body style is smaller, lighter, and generally better suited for offroading. The advantage of the EA82 is that it's generally considered more "civilized", with more room inside the car, fuel injection on the later models, the availability of full time 4wd, and such. The other advantage of the EA82 is that it was sold in the states through 94, so good cars and parts are much easier to come by in most areas.

The interferance engine thing is or isn't a big deal depending on where you live and what you do with your car. 90% of the time, if you change the belt when you're supposed to and change the tensioner and idlers every couple of belt replacements, it will never break. However, things like extreme temperatures, excessive dust, oil leaks, or submerging the belt in water when offroading can drastically and unpredictably shorten the life of the belt. If that happens to a non-interference engine, it's an inconvenience. If it happens to an interference engine, you just bought an engine. At this point, that's not a risk I'm personally willing to take. I would also theorize that a lot of the bad-mouthing of interference engines on the USMB comes from the fact that most of us have owned an EA82 at one point. Although it's a great engine, the timing belt setup is subpar and prone to breakage, so most of us here have also had one break a belt on us. Because of those experiences, many of us have this idea that timing belts WILL break sooner or later, so the idea of an interference engine can be rather frightening.

Perhaps water in fuel would cause the second problem. They actually do make "Mass Airflow Sensor Cleaner" in a grey can. It may very well be the same stuff as the QD electrical cleaner, which I use on other things, but I'd hate to find that out the hard way by frying a MAF. Basically, you're checking to see if the wires on the MAF are dirty. If it's bad, it will look like there's hair growing on it. Generally, if the MAF is clean and the wires are broken, it will work fine.

I think the exhaust gaskets between the head and the y pipe are the same. Head gaskets had some different materials in the turbo ones, but their shape and thickness is the same. I always try to use turbo HGs on all the EA82s I work on. Other than the intake gaskets like you mentioned, the turbo engines have that oil separator plate on the back of the crankcase, while the n/a engines don't.

Hold up! I thought I checked on the VSS issue when I did the swap in my 86, and it looked to me like the voltage range was different between that and the 92 EJ22 that I swapped in. Did I miss something?

Clean the MAF with the special spray cleaner from CRC. This is a common problem with those cars.

Did you take the brake caliper loose?

At that temperature it won't matter anyway because any water in your fuel tank will likely be frozen. It's the range from about 25-45 degrees where it becomes problematic.

Like has been said, in most conditions, tires will make a bigger difference. The advantage of the OB will vary according to snow conditions. In light, powdery snow, the difference in ground clearance will not matter much. More important is the fact that the hood is probably lower, so snow will start coming over the top of the car and impairing your visibility sooner (that was the first thing I noticed when my folks went from an 87 wagon to a 97 OBW). In heavy snow, especially if there is ice under the snow, the ground clearance will make a much more significant difference.

There was a blue EA82 wagon at WCSS7 running an ER27. There was no room for a radiator in front of the engine, so they had it attached to the hood much like your are suggesting. It seemed to work fine. Whose car was that?

Hey, it's proven that stuff magically decreases the weight of the car, dissipates heat better, and on spinning accessories it creates an electromagnetic pulse that fries VTEC engines.

With Subarus, I always pull the engine out to do HG's. I know it's possible to do it in the car, and that people do it, but having the engine out on a workbench where I don't have to lean over and I can easily see everything is well worth the time to pull it. Besides, I honestly think that the time you save by having easier access to everything would be greater than the time it takes to pull the engine.

The factory voltmeters are CA-RAAAAAAAP. Some of them read low, some of them read high, and some just spaz out. General rules of thumb for charging voltage: It should be between 13.5-14.5 volts most of the time, but that can vary by design a little bit. If it's charging over 15 volts, something is wrong and you could cause some expensive damage very quickly. At idle, the voltage should remain at least .5 volts above open circuit voltage (engine off, accessories off)...since OCV ideally should be 12.6, anything below 13 volts will not keep the battery charged. For operating temp, I think the EJ22 has a 190 or 195 thermostat. It should get up to that temperature relatively quickly. If the ECM is controlling the cooling fan(s), it usually does a very good job of maintaining a constant temperature, so it shouldn't go much above 200 ever. If you're using the EA82 thermoswitch to control the fan(s), which I don't personally recommend, it may get a few degrees warmer than that.

I've got one in my 92...came with the car when I bought it from Matt last summer. Looks like it was specifically designed to fit the gen 1 legacy, but maybe one from a gen 2 is the same, or at least close enough?

Yup, sounds like a dirty IAC valve to me. Just unbolt it and clean up the moving bits with brake cleaner and a Q-tip or something similar.

There's no replacement for displacement.... (besides forced induction) However, generally, the horsepower per liter of the Japanese OHC engines is higher than that of old-school v8s. That's mainly because the Japanese engines rev higher. It's two different philosophies: 1. make a really big engine that turns slowly, or 2. make a tiny engine that turns fast. But really, you're right that comparing an EJ engine to a big block is like comparing apples to oranges.

Valve cover gaskets are a 10 minute job on the EJ22 tops. Very easy to do.

Just go to a parts store and have them find a matching O-ring in their kit.

Just turn the car upside down! Oh wait, that might cause more problems than it would solve... I'm curious too. And I promise I won't laugh. Too hard.

I paid around $500 for mine from Aaron's Auto Wrecking, the Subaru-only place in WA. I'm sure you could find them at a U-pull-it yard or on ebay for less if you had some time to look around.

Uuuuuhhhh.......?

I don't know if it's normal or not, but my 4EAT Legacy takes a few minutes to get warm enough to lock up the torque converter too. I've also thought about just hooking up a resistor in place of the temperature sensor to trick the tranny. Anybody done that?

As far as head bolt replacement, as long as the bolts are not torque-to-yield, the stretching will be minimal as long as the engine is not overheated. For example, I reused the bolts on my mom's DOHC EJ25 because it had never actually gotten hot (I saw black residue in the overflow tank, so I replaced the HGs before they got bad). I also am okay with reusing bolts on EA82 engines that had seen some heat because they're not torqued as tight and probably haven't stretched as much as EJ bolts that saw the same amount of heat. I do think that if you've had the heads off like five times, it's time for new bolts, but as long as they haven't seen any severe conditions, they're fine for one or two reuses. Of course, that's just my humble opinion.