GeneralDisorder

No that is no the cause of your problem. GD

Clutch life varies greatly depending on driving habits. $2300 is a little high but you are in CA and at a dealership...... so likely about right. Find an independent Subaru specialist. Probably cost around $1500. There's no magic in replacing a clutch. GD

Factory Service Manual (FSM). GD

Kinda depends. Yes in many ways they are better - but for raw low end torque the Weber still wins. GD

Just have the Subaru dealer order the entire knuckle or the bushings if it's the bolted style. GD

The distributor contains the crank and cam optical pickups that the ECM uses to sync up and fire the ignition and injection. Make sure it had power, ground, and check the square wave output with a scope. Likely a power or ground issue. Check all the power and ground circuits for the ECM. GD

The best bet for fluid is the Subaru HPGO. It's about $12 a quart. Shifts excellent. Motul Gear 300 is better but at $25 per liter - it's fairly expensive and unless you are throwing your STI around a track you are unlikely to notice the difference. GD

That's as far as they go. The snap ring is there to keep them at the proper height. GD

Why not just fix the EFI? They are quite reliable and simple systems. GD

You need a hydraulic press and bearing splitters to disassemble the shaft for inspection. You can't determine anything with it together. GD

Nope. The sensor generates a voltage input to the computer via a single wire. You can read this voltage with any meter. But the data is useless as I explained above. GD

It's a narrow band sensor. It only reads 14.7 AFR and has an EXTREMELY non-linear response. "Spec" and "Book" and all that nonsense is to be considered but only within the confines of what the manufacturer's motivations were for publishing it. First and foremost and in some respects the ONLY thing that mattered to them was Emissions. NOT Economy, NOT Performance, NOT NOT NOT. The FIRST rule of tuning - Give the engine what IT wants. It might idle nicely at 14.7 - but it might not. It might want a richer idle - especially if it's worn (likely at this age), or modified. It EASY to tune idle speed and mixture - you alternately adjust speed, mixture, and timing till you hone in on what the ENGINE wants - NOT what you want, NOT what the spec says, NOT what other people say it should be - NOT NOT NOT. Additionally - you won't be able to get any transitionary data from it - your DVOM is too slow and you aren't recording it - your pump shot and your WOT mixture will be WAY too rich to be anything meaningful on the narrow band sensor - it will just be 950 mV and then swing to 50 mV when you decel. It will be a useless swinging pendulum of meaningless data. Because the non-linear response of the sensor means at anything that isn't between 14.5 and 14.9 the readings change so rapidly with such tiny changes in mV that there's no resolution to the data and it's useless. The sensor was designed for a high speed computerized closed loop - wherein the computer responds by counting cross-counts through 0.5v and it is desirable for the mixture to "dither" above and below 14.7 in order to "charge" the catalyst. The computer only cares about the sensor telling to add fuel or subtract fuel - in a dance it calls closed loop. This results in the dithering behavior and is by design. The narrow band sensor was designed SPECIFICALLY for this purpose - to facilitate closed loop operation by computer. It was NOT designed to be a tuning tool. That's what Wideband Sensors are for. GD

Not true. A single wire narrow band sensor will create it's own 0-1v signal. It won't be useful in any real sense of the word, but it will not require power. GD

Correct. Only Honda (and maybe not all of them) that I'm aware of has the trans fluid checked with engine off. GD

It doesn't. It's not a feedback carb so it never had an O2 so there's nowhere to connect it. Just put a plug in the hole - buy a bung w/plug and just use the plug to seal it off. GD

The front differential where the axles snap in uses gear oil - the whining you are hearing is because the front diff is low on gear oil. Don't drive it till you top it off. If it has a rod knock, a head gasket failure, whining from the front diff and no AWD.... send that pile to the crusher. Especially in PA - it's probably a cancerous tumor of a car by now. GD

EJ swap value is highly subjective. Depends who did it, how it was done, and on what. I guarantee if my shop performed an EJ swap on a GL it would sell for significantly more than $300. It's all about pedigree and what the end result looks and performs like. GD

That is incorrect. Just get an Access Port for the LGT and have it properly dyno tuned. GD

His web site is still up..... we are trying to contact him about a pair of them. One for me and one for one of my tech's that also has a lifted EA81 hatch. GD

Why would you do that? The stock ECU can be tuned for the 20X. No harness mods required. Those cars are CANBUS and you can't easily swap an ECU in them without serious issues with the VIN not matching and communications with the other modules in the car. That's really stupid. GD

FYI - porting the wastegate like that is going to lower your peak boost without the ability to tune the ECU. To bring it back up you will need a manual boost control since you can't adjust the software on the EA82T to compensate for the greater flow and therefore lower target duty cycle to hit boost target. You only port a wastegate if you experience boost creep and even then only if you can't bring it under control with more timing and more fuel to lower the EGT's. The cracks evident in the picture around the wastegate were already contributing to it being lazy. Porting it is going to magnify that by a lot. And no - a manual boost controller is not better than the stock setup. It will pop open and with that tiny turbo you will really want to close it again at higher RPM as the engine overtakes the turbo - which you will not be able to do with a manual. They aren't good for small turbo applications. This is what I'm talking about - you have no idea what you are doing or why and it will have unintended consequences which you aren't even aware of yet. And you call yourself "turbodog". I can't help but see the irony in it. GD

Install a relay for the starter solenoid instead of running full solenoid current through the ignition switch and inhibitor/clutch relay, etc. GD

It's all answered here on ADF's site. Tire size charts, etc: https://awdadventure.com/ GD

It's a result of experience. And if you're going to "retire" from being a mechanic after these two we can assume you haven't got any. The time you spend on these de-improvements is time you will never get back and it won't make a bit of difference. The EA82/T is a DEAD PLATFORM. You can't get any of the parts needed to meaningfully build one in the way you seem to desire. Also it will be worth absolutely nothing when you are done. Especially with all the "custom modifications" you have made. People will run from it. The twin turbo is a terrible idea. Yeah they are DIRT cheap. There's reasons for that which I mentioned. Again - can't get any of the parts for the twin's anymore. Even tough to get gaskets and valves for those old heads. No support for them. Could run a standalone but it's a tuning nightmare and those turbo's are super inefficient. Why do you think no one does sequential turbo builds in the EJ world and those engines are like $400? Yeah - reasons. That's why. And it's not at all like going to a flathead forum and telling them to LS swap. You CAN get flathead parts. Same with the SBC. I still have SBC's in my 69 GMC, my 84 Jimmy, my 84 Blazer, my 86 Trans Am, and my 91 Formula. They are great and you can find parts under any rock. Hell I even have a EJ22T in my 91 SS, and an EA81 in my 86 Hatch. Those are still mostly viable. Although looks like the EA81 is going to get yanked for an EJ22 and a Bill Hincher EJ to Toyota bell-housing.... GD

ABSOLUTELY get rid of the 7mm pump. Those things are DEATH. You need a 10mm or an 11mm. All the EJ engines had 10's back to their introduction in 89. They started doing the 9's and the 7's in the early 2000's for an attempt at a fuel economy improvement. It didn't help enough to talk about and when the engines get older the mainline clearance gets WIDE and you need the extra volume or you take out the rods. As far as Genuine Subaru parts - depends. Not many genuine Subaru parts that are good at 800 crank HP so in many cases no. Yes for blocks and cranks. No for pistons and rods and bearings. Most gaskets, seals, and hoses we buy from our dealership. Except when better durability is required in certain areas. For non-turbo applications the factory parts are about as good as you need and often are as good as you can get due to less support on that side of things. GD