Snowman

I finally got around to ordering some OBW struts to lift my 92 Legacy, and I'm pretty sure I've got everything I need, thanks to Zap's advice. I'm now curious, just for the sake of knowing what to expect, about the setups that some of you are running. So, for all of you who are running this type of lift on your car, whether it's a Legacy or Impreza, could you tell me.... 1. What kind of car it is. 2. What size tires and rims you're running. 3. If you had any tire clearance issues. 4. How much ground clearance you have now (and how much you gained over stock). 5. If you had any CV axle issues. 6. How it handles on the highway compared to stock. Please reply to this, as I'd like to compile the data and make a USRM entry. Thanks!

Okay, scrap487 wins the prize for gnarliest bullbar. And judging from the pics, the prize for soob owner most likely to put said bullbar to good use!

I've always left the intake manifold, alternator, and everything else on the engine and then remove it once the engine is out of the car. I've heard people talk about unbolting the intake so you can leave all the stuff connected to it, but there really isn't that much to disconnect, and I don't *think* it would save any time overall.

Checked the MAF sensor? Water in fuel? (it's getting to be that time of year).

Lockers of various sorts have been pursued for quite some time by the offroad old-gen Subaru crowd, without much luck. You're talking about ARB air lockers, which are awesome, and very popular, despite their expense, with the toyota and jeep crowds. The only way to put them on a Subaru is to install solid axles from a rig that they are available for. Qman did that in the rear of his brat a while back, but I never did hear how that turned out. The readily available options for lockers that work with the stock drivetrain are: 1. Taking the rear LSD diff carrier from an EA82T car and installing it in your diff. 2. Welding your diff, creating a solid rear axle.

It just depends on what you're used to working on. Having done both on the same car, I'd rather do the SPFI swap, but I know LOTS of people would disagree. To each his own I guess.

I love optima-type batteries. I'm currently running a pair of blue-top knockoffs sold by NAPA, and they're great. What sold me on them was the original optima red top that I bought four years ago for my 86 wagon. It lasted through AK winters down to -40. It lasted through a POS carburetor and engine with bad rings that had to be cranked for almost a minute before it would start at those temperatures. It also lasted through many deep discharges from leaving dome lights on, as well as some pretty good overchanging due to alternator problems. After all that in my car, it still worked fine, so when I junked my car, I put the battery in my mom's 97 OBW, and it still cranks better than the stock battery did when it was new.

I actually had trouble with mine freezing up in cold weather. After I shut the engine down, condensation would freeze the choke plates closed and it wouldn't start. Perhaps it was tuning, but I never could get it to have decent drivability or even idle until the engine was warmed up.

Seriously, rent a truck or something. U-haul rents F150s pretty cheap. Judging from how my Subarus have handled when towing 1000 lbs, and how a 1/2 chevy pickup handled when I used it to tow an EA82 wagon, I would not want to try something like this.

Garner's brat had an EA82T with an intercooler and a few other tweaks, right? There's pictures floating around of various brats done up by a guy in Australia named Rigoli. Here's a link to one of his projects, a gen 2 brat with a heavily modified EJ22 making a claimed 495 hp. I can't even begin to imagine how many thousands of dollars it cost to build that brat. http://www.rigoliracing.com.au/brumby_dave.html I've seen pics of a similarly set up gen one brat that was dark green, but I couldn't find them.

Replacing them with plain old mudflaps will cause less junk to be trapped in there.

Wow, that's bizarre. I wonder if it's coincidence, or if the super-human 80's Subaru engineers planned that? Good point about the drilling, Subiemech. I've done that in the past too. Just drill a small hole, and the air will get through no problem, but it won't allow so much coolant as to over-cool the engine.

I'd start checking the obvious stuff like the alternator itself, as well as the wiring that goes to it.

The aftermarket gaskets available for these cars blow (literally and figuratively). I only use the OEM ones, and I've never had trouble as long as the studs, the heads, and the exhaust were in decent shape. It shouldn't be that hard to get some, and they are not expensive at all. Many websites offer discounted OEM parts, and they should be able to ship to you.

I ran RX springs on my EA82, and it seemed to raise the front about an inch. Even after swapping in the EJ22, it sat pretty high.

I've tried running both the clear covers and the blue covers in heavy snow. With the white covers, the lights lit up the snow flakes in the air like crazy, but not a lot of usable light made it to the road surface more than a few hundred feet in front of the car, much like driving with your high beams on. With the blue covers on, the lights weren't as "bright", but a lot more usable light actually made it to the road surface, so I could effectively see a lot farther down the road. Last year was the first time I really had a chance to test these lights in bad weather. Previously, I had been running some $30 driving lights, and on one stretch of road, I was limited to about 20 mph by visibility. Last year, (using the new lights with the blue covers) on the same stretch of road with similar conditions, I could go around 65 mph and see far enough ahead to be safe. That was enough proof for me. Lightforce also sells amber covers that are designed for fog and dust. I've been meaning to experiment with those as well, as I see a lot of them on trucks.

Most EA82 body cars, turbo or non, came with a one-row radiator that worked okay when the car was new. If you need a new radiator, or want to improve your cooling capacity, you can get a two-row radiator that will do a much better job. If your parts supplier doesn't list one for your car, ask for a two-row radiator for a 1989 4wd turbo wagon with automatic transmission. That's what I do every time, and I haven't had trouble getting one yet. And yes, ANY EA82 radiator will fit in ANY other EA82 car with no modifications. The one-row replacement radiator costs around $100 from most suppliers I've dealt with, and the two-row cost around $125. Definitely money well spent, as it may prevent costly cylinder head damage or other big problems down the road. While I'm on the subject, I should mention thermostats. I've had horrible luck with aftermarket thermostats just not working in Subarus. The one exception is the Stant Superstat model (I think NAPA sells a rebadged version). If you can, just use an OEM thermostat though, as I've never had one of those go bad.

http://www.lightforce.net.au/driving.html Best lights I've found so far. There's probably a reason I see them on EVERY line-haul truck in AK and Canada. Here's my car. I've got a pair of 170's, and I run the blue covers on them during the winter, which improves visibility in whiteout conditions. They're also adjustable from a flood light to a pencil beam. The second set of lights under the bumper is some cheap foglights.

It SHOULD specify in the manual if anything is needed. Every gasoline engine I have worked on specified a coat of oil on the head bolts. On a Subaru engine, that's the only special procedure I use. All the other bolts get cleaned and put in dry. If you use anti-sieze, it will change the actual torque value, which may cause problems (I'm thinking specifically about your camshaft cap bolts here...too much torque could squeeze the cams too tightly and wear out the bearing surfaces).

If you've got the money and need the light, Lightforce lights are what I see on EVERY line-haul truck in Alaska and Canada, where it's dark from 3 pm to 10 am for about five months. That's why I bought a set, and they kick major butt (however, that's also where you'll be paying out of). Here's a picture I found on some Scananavian website:

It depends a lot on your driving and load, as well as the condition of the fuel system and the engine itself. My parents claim to have gotten over 40 mpg in their carbed 4wd ea82 wagon when it was new (they're really conservative drivers). On my first trip after the swap, I got around 25 mpg, going 75 mph, with a decent load in the car, while pushing through 4-6" of snow. Overall, it seemed like the SPFI got similar fuel economy to the stock hitachi when driving carefully, but the SPFI did better when driving aggressively.

It depends on your definition of "easy". Like has been said, you could put in an EA81 1.8L engine, but the power gain really is minimal. An EA82T 1.8L has been done, which gets you up around 115 hp with no other mods, but at that point, it's really not any more work to install an EJ22 2.2L, which makes 130 hp, and is much more reliable and long-lasting than the EA82T (sorry guys, somebody had to say it). The EA81 is virtually a direct bolt-in with little or no fuel or electrical modifications. The other two engines require installing the ECM and engine control wiring harness, as well as a high pressure fuel pump. The EJ22 also requires an adapter plate and different flywheel to bolt up to the tranny.

I haven't personally done it, but if I know Subaru, it should bolt up with no modifications. The Y-pipe from my EJ22 bolted right up to the rest of the EA82 exhaust! As far as backpressure is concerned, GD is right. That cat in the Y-pipe is all the backpressure you need, especially if you have ANY sort of muffler behind it.

I remember noticing that oddity myself a while back, and that's the way they're supposed to be.

I just had a car where the little drive tang that acts as an intermediary between the cable itself and the drive assembly in the tranny had broken. Use a 17mm wrench to remove that plug-looking thing that the cable goes into on top of the tranny and see if that little piece is broken off inside there.