GeneralDisorder

Lots of folks have done cams in EA81's. It's nothing new. Mostly they go for the torque profile which helps the engine breathe at low RPM and improves torque across the RPM range. It is very unlikely that your engine is salvageable after a cam breakage event - you would be best served by just picking up a used engine and dropping it it. GD

Yes - Delta camshaft can regrind a cam in one of several different profiles depending on your intended usage. But you need a good used cam to send them. And: No - you most likely cannot get a new cam at this point. In any case you wouldn't like the price - likely it would cost more than a used engine. I really don't think you understand what's involved in changing the camshaft - it will require COMPLETE dissasembly of the engine. Down to pistons, rods, and wrist pins. ALL the way down. Every nut and bolt. GD

Yeah - the tape deck input is on all the EA81 radio's - tape deck's were an option in those years. The input jack mod has been done quite a few times - at least two threads that I can recall seeing. Personally I prefer the new shallow mechless decks though - an a decent job of installation of course. GD

Pretty sure it will plug in - if not directly then using the harness off the old SVX tranny. But you will either want to swap the front diff over to the new tranny or go with a custom TCU - the final drive on the SVX is a LOT different than that 4.444 outback tranny and is going to cause shift point problems if you try to use it and the rear diff from the outback without a TCU reprogram. Maybe the TCU from the Outback would work? I'm sure some combination will get you down the road. And a 4.444 final drive SVX is a sexy idea indeed . Though a 5MT swap is even better. GD

Hey bheinen - what casting mark does that one have and what did it come from? Solid and hydro use different cams - and he will need the correct one for his engine. Plus it might help Crazyeights identify his turbo cam..... GD

Wish I could - I can't verify an EA81T casting mark because I've never owned one that was outside of an EA81T block :-p. I can tell you that my Delta cam (from an '85 hydro lifter EA81 non-turbo) has a 76 casting mark. So it's not that one..... GD

They don't have any EA81 core's for sale. If you want a Delta cam ground for the EA81 you have to send your's in (no they won't take a broken one). I know from experience. Don't bother calling to ask - they won't have any. They *might* grind a few EA81 cams a year for people - not enough to keep any in stock. They don't even have any EJ22 cams in stock I don't believe. Now - I really don't think you understand what you are asking for here..... well you do but it's not what you need. . Trust me when I tell you that if your engine has a broken camshaft - you aren't going to be just replacing it and motoring happily down the road. Doesn't work that way. For one thing you have to split the block to get at it - for another...... well how's about you just go ahead and split the block and find out what's inside? I'll tell you right now that it's going to be UGLY in there. It's quite possible that the engine is a total loss (perhaps salvage the heads) - there will be so much metal and grit and destruction inside that if you were to buy a cam for it you would then have to go find another engine to put it in - one that likely has a good cam already. *Something* caused that cam to break - probably loss of lubrication. Cam breakage doesn't just happen on these engines. I'm guessing that whatever led to the cam failure will have caused a massive amount of damage on the way to getting there. Look for a good replacement used engine. And stop crying about the price. Engines run about $500 to $800 in good condition - doesn't matter the year or mileage. That's the going rate for the average salvage engine. GD

You don't need to spend $2000 to fix that coverter issue. There's tricks to taking care of that for about $10 or so :-p. HG's weeping externally are rarely a critical issue that need attention immediately - put in a bottle of the Subaru "conditioner" and deal with the oil weepage. It's not typically enough to impact the oil level between changes. If what you *want* to hear is that you should go buy a new car then stop asking for permission. At the end of the day though - someone is going to take your 2001 - bought as-is - and get another 200k cheap miles out of just by doing a little homework/legwork to fix the converter "problem" for cheap and throw some glorified stop-leak in the radiator. I'm dead serious - a friend and fellow board member just picked up a 2001 Legacy Outback sedan with 470k on it. Finally developed a rod knock. Original engine and tranny (auto). With a few repairs here and there a Subaru of your vintage with good maintenance isn't going to just up and die. If it needs HG's then do them. If it needs a spark-non-fouler on the O2 to shut off the CEL then do it. If you want to be just another member of our throw-away society then go right ahead. But nothing you have said so far points to any great concern or high cost of continued ownership - you just haven't explored all the repair/maintenance options. GD

Nippon for cap and rotor (or whatever japanese brand is appropriate), and NGK for plugs and wires. GD

You can't just add a turbo to a non-turbo engine. It's not that simple. You either have to rebuild the engine completely - changing the compression ratio along the way - in order for the turbo to not cause big internal problems, or you have to swap to a newer style of engine (2.2 or 2.5) that can handle low boost pressures and/or already has a turbo and was designed for it. Making it 4WD with a manual transmission is not technically hard - but you might as well get a donor car as you will need every single mechanical component except the engine. Transmission, clutch, rear diff and rear suspension, driveline, pedal assembly, and the exhaust from the mid-pipe back. It's expensive and time consuming and you would be much better off just buying one that already is 4WD. To run an AWD transmission you will have to first find one - that's not easy on the EA's ('87 to '89 RX, XT6, and some FT4WD wagons, etc) or you have to run an EJ transmission with an adaptor plate and that gets complicated with custom mounts, custom length drivelines, and custom shift linkage. People spend many thousands of $ on builds such as you are asking about - how much do you have to drop? I would say don't even consider this unless you are willing to spend at least $2k to $3k on parts and spend a lot of long hours doing the labor yourself - if you want it to be reliable anyway. If you just want to have some fun and blow your engine up in 500 miles - strap on a turbo, crank the boost to 10 and hold on.... till you let the smoke out. :-p. You wouldn't be the first and you certainly won't be the last if you go that route - also get yourself a nice collection of flat-bill's, some saggy pants, peircings, and a hefty chain for your wallet..... or perhaps you already have those items - at any rate they go hand-in-hand with low-reliability performance builds. GD

On a perfect EJ (normal compression, warmed up) you should see 185 on all cylinders at sea level. GD

It's a lot of work - and you don't gain much with an EA82 body over an Impreza. My personal opinion is that they are not lighter enough to warrant such a massive performance build like that. A regular EJ22 - or a frankenmotor - especially on something like an RX, etc. But a plain GL wagon from the 80's is a ton of work - plan on spending $5k on parts at least and then all the labor..... easier to just buy an STi - they aren't going for much these days for the earlier years. GD

If it's not bent past the strut tower - I could save it. It looks like it might be salvageable but you would have to carefully inspect the strut tower and the frame rail under and behind it. They usually crumple in front of the tower but that's a pretty hard impact so it's hard to tell. Front ends are cheap at the yard - about $35 is what I pay for a core support that has been cut in front of the strut towers. Then it's about $150 to $250 for the fenders, hood, bumper, grill, radiator, etc. I have done the whole deed for about $800 including labor. No paint or anything - either find matching panels or just go with multi-color for a while. :-p GD

I don't feel that Subaru's have become any less reliable. Sure you may have to replace some HG's now and then - but it's just a gasket. The main mechanical components are actually more reliable since 2000 than ever before. I *would* say that Subaru's as a whole are not as reliable as say - the average Toyota FWD car. Camry's, old Corolla's, etc. It's a trade off though - when something on those cars breaks they are a pain to work on. Subaru's aren't. And with Subaru you get a lot more car for the same money. AWD has more parts - more parts will always lead to more maintenance and repair. But still - Subaru has an excellent track record of building very long-lasting cars. Most will go well over 300k even if you need a couple HG jobs to get there. It's just part of the cost of owning a vehicle with their capability. The reason for the poor snow performance is likely tires and weight. The newer Subaru's are larger and heavier than ever before and good tires are very important. The AWD systems are about the same as they have always been. If the traction isn't good enough then look into getting a LSD for the rear. GD

Warmup time is unaffected by radiator size. That's the whole point of a thermostat. Assuming it's working properly. Sorry to dissagree about the temps of various radiator designs but I just finished up installing a newly resealed engine and new radiator (single row) into a Loyale with an OEM thermostat and all new hoses, etc. It runs at 1/4 on the gauge. It makes no sense that this wouldn't be the case - the thermostat governs the lowest possible temp of the engine and any properly functioning radiator that can reject enough heat to keep the engine from overheating can sustain the thermostat's desired temperature with proper airflow. Thus - the temp is dependant on the thermostat and not on the radiator design - assuming the radiator is at least minimally sufficient. If your gauge reads 1/2 - that's fine. If it reads 1/4 that's fine too. As long as you have a mental note of where it's generally reading and YOU note any unexpected changes and react accordingly - it's doing it's job. "Calibrate" your visual gauge experience with a proper infra-red gun or accurate thermocouple and meter. That is all...... :-p GD

$300 is a good deal for an engine - why don't you go check it out. Run a compression test, pull the oil pan and inspect. That's a good deal - don't pass it up just cause some idiot with a jump pack can't start it - might be out of gas GD

It does sound like you have a lean condition. Use a can of spray cleaner (brake cleaner, carb cleaner, etc) to spray around the hoses and fittings - if you hear the engine smooth out and the idle speed increase you have found a vacuum leak. Use this technique on the intake manifold gaskets before you go tearing off the manifold and replaceing them. Also - have you changed the fuel filter? The high-RPM surging could be fuel starvation. At any rate you have a lot of lean symptoms. GD

You don't have any dealers that can order you this stuff? When I need to "do them all" that's what I tell my parts people (Julie, Paul, and Leah :-p) - I tell them to order me every single coolant hose in the car. And when I get them they all have the part numbers on the bags . GD

And I can assure YOU that GD knows exactly what the forces involved are. The pickup tube has plenty of clearance with the bottom of the pan and the engine has excellent oil pressure. The reduction of pan clearance without the gasket is less than 1/16" and is not significant with a stock engine and oil pump. If a high volume oiling system were to be implemented then you would need a dry sump to supply it with the volume needed. Here is the gasket crush with an OEM pan gasket. A little more than 1/32": Pan depth is 4-29/32" (with gasket - without gasket the pan is 4-7/8", or more precisely [it's Japanese] the pan is 124mm deep): Pickup tube height from pan mounting surface of block: 4-3/8" (111mm) to the screen: Subtracting the (lets say it's 1/32") of gasket from the numbers - we get a clearance, pickup tube to pan, of almost exactly 1/2" (13mm). The pickup screen is 2" (50mm) in diameter: Now - lets consider the surface area that is represented by the imaginary cylindrical edge of a 1/2" thick, by 2" diameter cylinder - without ends of course. This is described by the circumference multiplyed by the height (imagine it as a stretched out rectangle that is 1/2" by (Pie)*diameter). In this case that would be (2 * 3.14159) * .5 or approximately 3.14159 square inches of surface area. (or 2042 square mm :-p) The cross-sectional surface area of the pickup tube itself is less than .25 square inches (it's actually about 132 square mm) and is thus over 15 times more restrictive than the area that is available to the pickup screen WITH the reduction from the loss of the gasket thickness! The bottle-neck of the system from the pan to the pump is CLEARLY the pickup tube itself. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could see that without even doing any math. I only do the (rudimentary) math here to show how incredibly wrong, lacking in common sense and without a "thumbnail" sense of geometry you really are. I hate to say it - but I took all the measurements involved in this setup into consideration at a mere glance and came to the conclusion that the numbers involved were trivial and need not even be calculated - I only measured it and took pictures for the sake of argument and to show how badly you misjudged the tollerances. Your arguement is 100% specious and without merrit. Further I do not appreciate your attack's on my work. You have not seen my work and you obviously can't understand it nor do the basic math behind your own arguments against it. I sugest you keep your trap shut and appear an idiot instead of opening it and removing all doubt. Pickup tube o-rings are always replaced in my shop. With HNBR. Pulley alignment is absolutely perfect. It was aligned with carefully selected flat washers behind the pulley to compensate for the lack of a gasket. And in any case it's a v-belt driven pump. Pulley alignment isn't that critical with v-belts. Within 1/16" is perfectly acceptable. GD

Agreed - don't mess with the head bolts. Do yourself a favor and pickup new cork valve cover gaskets, bolt grommets, and an oil pan gasket from your local Subaru dealership. Give them a few days as they will have to order them. The cork quality is much higher than aftermarket. Coat the cork in a thin layer of RTV and let it dry prior to installation. GD

The kit with the belts and tensioners is $65 off ebay and the belts typically want replaced about every 60k. Often they break before that in fact. If you replace all the components when you do the belts (why not for the price) then you will have no troubles at all with bearing failures. GD

Airbox behind throttle body to valve cover - most likely. GD

A friend of mine bought a car that had been run about 3 qaurts high for quite a while - the kid didn't understand the dipstick and filled to the second "twist" instead of to the second hole.... there was a river of oil running out of his garage and he felt pretty stupid when I pointed out what he had been doing wrong..... We ended up pulling the engine to reseal it because it had comprimised the rear main and the seperator plate was plastic anyway. Runs fine to this day - no signs of damage from the abuse of the former owner. It was a '98 Impreza OBS with a 2.2. Exact same engine you have. I would say it's unlikely that it did any permanent damage. GD

The gauges are not accurate. They are a sanity check only. 1/4, 1/3, 1/2..... talking about a gauge that has no numbers on it. This is silly and worthless. It's not science and it's meaningless. You can't compare one car to another as the gauges are not even close to calibrated after this many years. If you want an accurate gauge you need to install an aftermarket - preferably a digital panel that reads from a new thermocouple. You can do a rough guess at the temp using a laser infra-red temp gun to check various parts of the system and to "calibrate" your brain to where the gauge sits at various operating temp parameters such as fan cut-in and cut-out temps. Typically the fan thermo-switch is a much better sanity check than the gauge is. If the fan turns on, and then a short time later turns off. You can be pretty sure the cooling system is operating correctly. The longer the fan has to run - the hotter the ambient temps or the worse the flow is through the radiator. If it runs for more than about 30 seconds on a 70* F day - start looking for cold spots in the radiator, etc. GD

No one with any kind of brain runs a BOV on a Subaru. You run a recirc valve to keep the turbine spinning when the throttle shuts. BOV's just make noise and hurt performance. GD