GeneralDisorder

I looked but my search-fu must not be the equal of your's. I was unable to find an applicable kit for a VF-7. Lots of them for the newer stuff but nothing that I could see for the older. GD

Used turbo's or rebuild kits? GD

It's not going to hurt anything - might even prolong the life of the bearings a bit. The 5MT's tend to last about 250k give or take - doesn't really matter if you change the fluid or not. Being as there is no contaminates other than what the transmission makes on it's own from gear wear (wihch gear oil does a great job of suspending) it's not really going to matter. I know of 5MT that have died at 200k with fairly regular gear oil changes and I know other's that have lasted (and are still going) at 270k without ever being changed. Luck of the draw mostly. So yeah - it's probably a waste of money but if it makes you feel better go right ahead. You might be very alarmed by the amount of metal that comes out of a manual tranny..... so that's one reason to not touch it. If you don't see it you might not worry about it so much. If you are not used to draining MT's and seeing that much ground up steel I mean..... GD

If you are talking about the mechanical seals inside the turbine - good luck. I doubt you will be able to purchase a rebuild kit for a VF-7 and if you could it would be more cost effective to just find a used one. GD

That's all well and good but does not apply to a carb setup - also removing the knock sensor after tuning would be a bad idea simply because if something should fail (an injector going lean, etc) then the system will not have the ability to retard the timing to compensate - there is also the issue of summer vs. winter fuel formulations, altitude, etc - you cannot forsee all possible running conditions or failure modes so leaving it as a fail-safe is always wise. GD

The knock sensor detects "knock" (cylinder detonation) and retards the timing till it goes away. Without that you will have no choice but to set the timing at a very low initial advance with a high-compression engine - thus robbing power. You can do it but it's not ideal and you will lose performance through a large portion of the power band over a knock control ignition system that can advance and retard the timing in repsponse to detonation. GD

Yeah - my '91 Turbo had 205's on it when I got it and I had to replace the rear's because the strut spring perch had cut a groove in the sidewall..... be very careful with tires that wide unless you go to an OB strut that has a higher spring perch. I put 195's on my SS and the handling improved from the lower center of gravity. Traction was not changed much if at all. GD

Will I run into anything other than the 8 bolt vs. 4 bolt bell? I have solved that before.... will it have the threaded boss for moving the fork pivot in order to use the cable clutch fork on the '96 OBW? Anything else I might run into? I know there are some differences in the castings but will all the exhaust brackets bolt up, etc? I've done pre-'99 5MT's (a '97 OBW tranny) into a '99 8-bolt car which worked out very well but I haven't messed with one this new. GD

A carbed setup would not have knock control (unless you added it with one of the spendy MSD setup's) - which would be bad for a high-comp. engine. GD

That's an Outback sized tire - I wouldn't bet on them fitting without rubbing in turns, etc. You would do well to get some outback struts and springs to go with. GD

Water in the air cleaner wouldn't be a carb gasket - sounds like it's comming from something else - perhaps spraying from a hose leak? Run it with the top of the air cleaner removed and see if you can spot anything - rev it up a bit as sometimes pinhole leaks in hoses won't show till the water pump starts moving more volume and pressure, etc. GD

You may have to jack up one end of the car and manually actuate the vacuum servo on the side of the tranny. Without vacuum it will not work and that requires the engine running or for you to apply vacuum to the accumulator tank...... GD

I have not done specifically what you are doing but consider that the engine/tranny combo *can* sit at a different angle to the body than stock if you wish - this affords you the ability to bring the shift linkage closer to the floor pan by tilting the entire power train forward. Part of accomplishing this change will be to make the lift blocks for the transmission shorter than those for the engine cross-member. Changes to the pitching stopper (or better - an adjustable pitching stopper) will likely be required as well. GD

HF tools are a crap-shoot. Though I have noticed they are carrying more and more stuff from Taiwan instead of just China. Taiwan has been industrialized much longer and much of the Chinese stuff is actually based off designs from Taiwan - with cheaper parts and molds made from the parts without proper accounting for casting shrinkages . Anyway I have a couple die grinders and I also have their 1/4" and 3/8" "professional" (red "Earthquake" models) air ratchets and those perform adequately. I don't see anything wrong with your setup - should easily run the ratchets and the impact. The main drawback with small compressors is the small tank. You are never going to have enough air with a tiny pump and motor but you *can* run bigger tools for a short time if you have a large enough tank and waiting for it to fill up is not a concern to you. When that pump dies - and it may not be the pump - it will probably be the cheap chinese electric motor - find a used compressor on craigslist. I have found some great deals in the sub-$100 catagory. I got a machine a few months ago for $20 because the guy thought it was "seized up". Pullled off the head, wiped out a tiny bit of surface rust keeping it from turning - sprayed some yeild down in the cylinder and worked it free by hand. After cleaning the cylinders looked fine and I reassembled it and fired it up - runs like a champ. Just needed some TLC and a belt . It's a decent machine with a US made motor and pump and a 20 gallon tank. Can't beat the price. Compressors are looked at like appliances and most people - even self-proclaimed "mechanics" can't or won't try to fix one. Thus when something goes haywire they just stand there with a stupid look on their face and then go buy another one. I got my "little" 30 gallon unit for $75 because it wouldn't run - just slowely turned. They idiot had wired the motor for 230v with a 110v plug. I changed the jumper settings on the motor, plugged it in, and have been using it as my portable compressor ever since. A comparable unit from Sears (same B&S pump and 2 HP motor) is $400. An interesting side-note - compressor manufacturers have recently been hit with some excelent legislation. They are no longer allowed to advertise their machines using "peak" or "break" HP figures - my 30 gallon compressor claims it's a 5 HP motor . They used to be able to do this because the motor *can* produce 5 HP for a fraction of a second (till it stalls) on a dyno. But they have finally stopped them from being able to publish these numbers in the marketing and advertising materials. They are only allowed to quote the continuous HP rating of the motor. So the same pump as mine at Sears with the same motor and tank are now being sold as "1.6" HP where they were originally claimed to be 5 HP units :lol:. Soooo awesome...... GD

Just something I recently noticed that might help your search - the '96 Legacy GT (EJ25D Automatic) I recently bought has an all-metal radiator unlike all the other stuff from that generation with the plastic tank's...... GD

1. The head gaskets are blown. Just assume that. 2. If the oil wasn't changed after each overheat - you have probably baked the bottom end. Just assume the engine is a total loss. It's "parts" now or soon will be. 3. These engines are notorious for this and chemical tests are often wrong for a variety of reasons. 4. Even if you fix the head gaskets there is a higher-than-normal probability of internal block failure within the next 10k to 50k miles. Again - engine is toast - find another one. Aditionally: 1. The first shops is a pile of morons - you don't EVER replace a water pump and *not* a thermostat on a Subaru. The thermostat is IN the water pump and once removed there is a high probability of failure because they are thin gauge sheet metal and prone to binding (sticking closed). They are also about $12 so there's not reason to use the old one. 2. They also ripped you off - the engine does not have to be removed for the valve cover gasket replacement. That's absolutely silly. 3. The best recourse for you is to find a reputable Subaru shop and have them install a good used '95 to '98 EJ22 w/EGR (from an automatic). The engine you have IS a money pit at this point and is questionable from lots of cooks in the kitchen and too much overheating. It is also an expensive engine to maintain and repair. Dump it and get the vastly more reliable and cheaper to maintain EJ22. You will lose about 30 HP but it's worth it for the reliable engine. If you want to take another trip to Oregon - I can put an EJ22 in it for about $1200 - that's complete with all new seals, gaskets, hoses, etc and with a warantee on the work and on the motor. . I've done quite a few of these. GD

I have three or four of those distributor splash guards in my shed - both for EA81 and EA82 applications. I usually toss them off when I install a Weber. A rubber glove and vaseline works well to seal the distributor. That's my version anyway. GD

I've been ordering all my kits from mizumoauto and haven't had a single issue other than one time I got an incorrect idler (wasn't for a Subaru I don't think - part number mixup) and it was PROMPTLY corrected though I did incur return shipping on the incorrect idler. Otherwise I've been getting quality bearings in all the idlers, and belts that will surely do the job required of them if changed at the reccomended interval. The water pumps included have been good also - better than the GMB water pump I took a look at a couple weeks ago - I wouldn't consider using something of that low quality. The casting and machining looked like it was done by an 8 year old school girl from Pakistan. I also recently did a job where my customer bought all his parts from Dayco - their timing belt components were great - the lower right idler had the lip and everything. Their hoses on the other hand were terrible - incorrect fit and "cut to fit" stuff - wouldn't touch their hoses again. Be glad it's just that lower right idler - you can easily change that later without disturbing the timing belt or any of the other idlers. GD

If you are running the defrost setting on the heat then that will kick on the AC compressor and also the fans. They will run as long as the AC is running to dry the defrost air. GD

Unlikely unless the GL-10 is a carb or very early turbo ('85/'86). It's probably grounding issues with the digi-dash. The bushing wear on the earlier designs causes issues with the reluctor gap and makes the coil fire more rapidly even though the engine is not spinning that fast - this makes the tach signal (which is just the ground signal from the negative side of the coil) more rapid and thus the faster tach reading. When they get real bad it will read many thousands of RPM faster than the engine is spinning and will cause preigntion issues and may even make it undriveable. GD

It's the shared exhaust port (less cooling time between exhaust pulse exposure), and the two-valve design. Good designs from the '80's were running multiple intake and exhaust valves like the EJ's. The EJ18 has the same heads as the EJ22 - 4 valves per cylinder. That's good flow for a 1.8. Even the Justy engine had two intake valves making it a 9 valve engine. To some extent flow is less of a problem with forced induction - but since the EA82T can't really handle much in that respect either due to its other issues...... High compression and turbo's don't mix - you can't easily remove the heat of compression (which rises exponentially with compression increase but linearly with pounds of boost). You can easily cool the air from a turbo. That is why the engineers lower the compression of these engines. You can add fuel to cool it or do some exotic stuff like alcohol injection but they aren't good choices for a daily. GD

The shaft bushings in your distributor have too much play. Either replace them, replace the distributor, or have it rebuilt. GD

2.2 manifold with EGR if you don't want a CEL. 2.5 manifold will not fit the 2.2 heads. You can use a 2.5 EGR setup and drill/tap the head/manifold for the pipe but you will either have to order the pipe or make one since the 2.5 egr pipe will not be the right length. GD

I agree that anything you do without cams first is very stupid, yes. Matt doesn't say whether the frankenmotor he built had cams or not. Nor is there any cost comparison on the cam pricing or "bolt ons" for the 25D. Obviously there are twice as many cams and what bolt-ons? wouldn't most of them be applicable to the frankenmotor as well? Good points but more data is needed. I still highly doubt you could get the performance from the 25D as cheaply by using the DOHC heads. A rebuild on the DOHC heads runs me about $500 vs. $160 for the SOHC heads........ at least double the price for cams - you are near $1000 right there. GD

The compression increase is what gives the power gain (HP but especially torque) as it improves the thermal efficiency of the engine. The head change is what does this - to increase the compression using the stock heads would take a piston replacement which would drive up the cost significantly and destroy the whole "cheap power" concept. The whole idea of the frankenmotor is that it can make close to 200 HP without spending more than about $800 in parts and machine work. You can't even buy a replacement (used, stock) EJ25D for that little. I agree that if cost is no object then the 25D heads are the better choice but my experience is that you aren't going to build a 25D with the same grunt as the Frankenmotor for less than a couple thousand $. That is a large difference. GD