el_freddo

The diff lock light will activate the 4wd light on the dash if you’ve got a PT4wd dash centre fitted. If you still have the original centre instrument panel you can swap it in. Why did you swap the instrument clusters anyway? With the locking diff actuation, Jack one wheel up, start the engine and flick the switch, then rotate the raised wheel until the lock latches - at which point you won’t be able to rotate the tyre. Unlock it before you drop the wheel back to earth Get the pitch stopper rod done before you start driving it, you’ll be surprised how much the engine moves without it! This can cause other issues such as fan belt or pulleys making contact with the rad fans. From memory others report odd issues when driving. I’d totally have one of these if we got them over here! On the NA turbo conversion, it doesn’t have to be expensive. Keep an eye out for a TD04 that’s in good condition, a set of WRX/turbo foz turbo exhaust manifolds (your EJ22 has dual port exhausts?), dump pipe and you’ll need a turbo water pump with the thermostat housing. You can opt to add a factory oil cooler or leave it out, it doesn’t matter. The expensive bits are the oil lines and T piece - these are important to get right. Coolant lines aren’t difficult to do, there are several ways to do those. You can shave the throttle body where the inlet pipe connects to. This shortens it’s overall length by about 10mm - this could be just the amount needed to clear the intake piping to the intercooler from the spare wheel mount - many cut that off but I’d be inclined to keep it in case the vehicle was ever reverted back to stock. Some argue that you’d never go back to original but I prefer to have that option. All the best with the safe arrival of your expected new arrival! Cheers Bennie

I doubt it’ll be a burnt out valve. We had one of these on an old Holden of ours - at idle there was a drop in the strength of the engine’s rhythm and an occasional whistle too. Dropped cable guide sounds interesting - I’ve not experienced this and haven’t heard it being a common issue over here in Oz. I’ve got two EJ251s in the family, one at 370,000km and the other at 480,000km. Both original engines, no valve issues. Luck of the draw? Well the description by DM about the noise occurring after running at temp for a while on the highway along with changing down gears to increase revs and reduce engine load fits with detonation issues. I listed some of the reasons of detonation occurring. I wasn't convinced it was the tensioner as they typically don’t follow temp differences - they just make noise regardless! Hence why I shared about detonation. My brumby does it if it’s a really hot day 35°C+ or I run anything less than 98RON fuel, so I’ve got some experience with how detonation behaves. What I didn’t think about was the vibration issue that goes with it, that’s the baffling part. I’m hoping it’s not a dropped valve guide and that it’s valve adjustment required or something that’s not painful to DM’s wallet! Cheers Bennie

What I’m finding confusing here is that this noise appears when the engine is running warm but then isn’t there at idle. I feel that you’re also saying that revving the engine when in this “warm” state the noise isn’t present. With the temp reference - are we talking full operational engine temp or higher? Is the noise present if you “clutch in and coast”, letting the engine idle? And if you rev it as you continue to coast? If it’s not there at idle and coasting it’s definitely an engine issue. My gut says it’s not an engine component issue, and I find it odd if it’s a tensioner as typically once these start knocking, they always knock, even when revving without load if not present at idle. My thinking is you’re experiencing pre-detonation. Using high revs can reduce this but not always. This could be due to poor fuel quality, filling with the incorrect (lower) octane fuel, low compression, burning excessive oil, running a lean mix that generates high cylinder temps or a rich fuel mixture. So, did you just fill up prior to this issue showing up? What condition/age are your O2 sensors? How much oil does your engine consume? You need to do a compression check too as this could show up a low reading cylinder. When was the last time your valve lash adjustments were done? When that cam belt snapped, any significant marks on the face of the pistons? Cheers Bennie

Mud guard in Aussie terminology = fender in US terminology Good effort and the extra effort to clean the interior out was a great decision. The wiring looks pretty tidy which is what you want. Keep up the good effort, it’s not far off now! Next: NA turbo conversion Cheers Bennie

All good, just the change to the next line half way through a sentence took a bit to get used to… Cheers Bennie

I still don’t understand why your PS lines are so messy - I use the EJ hoses from the pump to the rack, but over here we don’t have that funky block to hard lines setup as our rack input is on the right side of the car so the PS lines go straight into it. Everything else looks good to me. With the firewall hole, you couldn’t route the wiring through the guard with the length you had in your cutdown loom? Cheers Bennie

Well done mate, it looks awesome, got a bit of a ‘70’s vibe to it with that colour scheme Subyclub.com has a whole subforum about the twin turbo setup: http://www.subyclub.com/forum/7-twin-turbo/ There’s a lot of good info on there. KONG is a guru on these beasts if you want to retain the twins. There are a number of threads about converting to single turbo too. Cheers Bennie

They’re the auto fluid heat exchange ports. You’ve got a manual, pretty standard practice to drop an auto radiator into a manual as a replacement. Nothing to stress about. Cheers Bennie

Correct about the starter wire. It just references the starter solenoid so it knows if it should richen the fuel is if the engine is cold, similar to using a choke. And yes, get all the wiring squared away before you put the dashboard back in/together. It will make your work so much easier. AC wires - I only recall one in mine but that’s not to say the second is to trigger fans. I had one AC wire hooked into the AC wiring in the vehicle, referencing the clutch wire somehow. I can’t exactly recall which one other than I used a wire at the relays on the firewall mounted near the vacuum tank. The ECU takes care of idle up when the AC clutch is engaged, fans come on etc. Good luck with the CEL and neutral wiring. Cheers Bennie

For the temp and oil wires just use the engine wiring loom from the EA82 and plug the wires for the oil and temp sensors onto the EJ units. Job done there. Check engine light - changes to a Red/Yellow wire if I’m reading the wiring diagram correctly. There’s a Red/yellow wire in pin 6 of the black connector. I can’t see where the CEL wire goes in the diagram as that black plug should be referenced in there and point to pin 6 being the required pin. Hopefully you’ll be able to see this with the wiring diagrams in front of you as it’s hard to put them together online! Tacho wire certainly seems to be the yellow wire in pin 7 on the black plug. The VSS wire could be pin 4 on the white plug. Again you’d need to trace the wiring diagram to see if these line up to what we think we're looking at. If not we need to go back to the drawing board Cheers Bennie

Dunno what it does exactly. I’ve heard it improves fuel economy but can’t verify that (cuts injectors when coasting down hills etc), and that it helps when rolling to a stop to avoid stalling but again can’t verify it either. GD might have some insight if he takes his “get a link management system” hat off for several minutes Cheers Bennie

1) this is the vehicle speed sensor. You can leave it disconnected. This wire connects to a Reid switch in the back of the instrument cluster. I’ve heard of a GPS unit being used too. 2) These are for the rad fan relay. I only remember one wire for my Gen1 loom, yours might have a two speed fan setup that’s a little more complicated. But you might be able to run a fan off each relay with the ECU triggering them as needed. Hopefully someone else will know for certain what’s what here. Mine is an ‘88 series 2 and had the Reid switch behind the cluster in a carb model, if yours is a series 1 you might not have this, best to pull the cluster and have a look. 3) Neutral wire I believe you can leave it disconnected. I recall leaving my one disconnected and don’t have any issues. All the best with it! Ensure you finish off all the things you want finished before you start driving, otherwise they’ll always be lingering! Your very close now as you know Cheers Bennie

Use google for your search and include “site:www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum” at the end of your search words. Cheers Bennie

The next thing to look into would be replaceable cartridges that get spotted into the tube with a screw cap holding them in place. When one dies just replace the cartridge with a new one, retain your strut for reuse. Amit could cost a little bit to get this setup sorted but if you pick a common model of cartridge to use you shouldn’t have any issues for parts in this department Other option is to convert to 5 stud and EJ brakes - the front end uses an EJ strut, and there are still many of them around! That’s a lot of work to get around a strut issue though. Other benefits are the brake upgrade (plus parts available!) and almost endless choice of rims… Cheers Bennie

Is this that yellow painted engine from the kombi conversion that was the topic of discussion asking about the TBI system on the EA81? Cheers Bennie

How much oil is in the gearbox? You can check this on the gearbox dipstick. If you’ve got too much in there that could cause drag through the gearbox, but not in the way you said the engine behaves between 2500 and 3000 revs. It could be a coincidence that you did the oil changes and now you’ve detected this issue. That or your Subi is pissed it was forced into some maintenance at a Honda place Other issues it could be: a dirty MAF, needing a new air filter (unlikely to be root cause but a clean filter is always good!), dirty TPS contacts, and that’s about all I can think of atm. Laegion covered many good points to start with too. Cheers Bennie

You could look up the test procedure in the manual and conduct that. Otherwise I’m out of ideas other than using the visa or Mastercard method… Cheers Bennie

Or the mechanic messing with the system while it was live? Or that dodgy light socket you found could’ve done it too. Cheers Bennie

Or a heat related vacuum leak. Which has me thinking about a faulty purge control solenoid for the fuel tank ventilation system, it could be doing weird things. Cheers Bennie

I hope you’ve got a replacement distributor ready to go. I believe they’re also annoy so easy part to find these days. Cheers Bennie

There’s not much to identify with these engines other than differences in the heads. The valve covers determine if you have the small or larger valve heads. Black is the later heads with the larger valves, aqua type colour is smaller valves. Other than that difference gaskets and bearings etc will all be the same, maybe with exception to the carb if they changed the carb at all during the production run. I’m not 100% on that though. I do know really early EA81s came with a single throat carb, apparently these weren’t produced for long. Someone else will clarify. Cheers Bennie

Glad you found it that easily! Wiring issues can drive ppl nuts trying to find it/them, and some businesses make some good coin trying to chase the problem too. Cheers Bennie

I still reckon disco stuffed up the procedure using UEC in the EA82 for a start. Second was not enough revs. It’s a shame he put in all that effort then parted it out rather than pulling the heads and cleaning the valves up. Wasted project there in my book. Cheers Bennie

That’s the first time I reckon I’ve ever heard or read that phrase! I hope you’re all safe! Cheers Bennie

Sweet Cheers Bennie