GeneralDisorder

I have that same deck in my hatch now ($37+free shipping from Amazon!) and it's great. Mostly because it's so short and does not stick out. Here's my install (EA81 but the same problem with depth exists on both): A regular DIN deck will stick out about 2" and thus you need the kit to properly install them. Yes it's ugly - the only other good solution is to use a shallow-mount deck like the Dual XR4110 (search for it on Amazon). It's a "mechless" deck so it has no CD or Cassette capability. It is 100% digital instead - takes SD cards, USB flash drives, and of course the AUX jack for your iPod, etc. GD

This has been covered monthly for years. Any DIN deck with the adaptor kit availible at any stereo shop - or you can make your own. Split the grounds for the front/rear speakers at the pink plug going to the door speakers at the driver/passenger kick panels. GD

Resurface it - and replace that pilot GD

.002" is basically flat. That's not even a step that's worth trying to duplicate on a resurface. Too small to worry about in the world of clutch measurements. GD

www.rockauto.com is probably going to be about the cheapest. OEM is always twice or three times as much. GD

Or get passed on the freeway by it GD

Hhhmmm - I thought there was still a 35mm but I didn't need a thin-wall like the 4 speed...... I could be mistaken though. GD

It's known as an "H4". The term "V6" both indicates the layout and the number of cylinders. 6 cylinder in a "V" orientation - 3 on each bank with (typically) about a 60 degree offset. As opposed to an "H" orientation which is a 180 degree layout, or an "I" (inline) orientation which has all 6 cylinders on the same bank. Subaru has/does make H6's - the ER27, EG33, EZ30, and I beleive there is a more recent one used in the Tribeca. These are 6 cylinder engines with a LOT more power ranging from 165 for the old ER27 to 250+ for the newer one's like the EZ30, etc. Other manufacturers use/have used the H layout. Notably VW and Porsche, but also BMW and some Honda motorcyle engines are of a similar layout to lower the center of gravity of the bike. Honda also used a lot of V4 engines in their bikes - just for comparison. But Subaru is not in any way unique in their use of H layout engines in cars - in fact they ripped off the design (actually bought it) off of Lloyd - a German car maker from the 50's and early 60's. The first Subaru engine was a light redesign of the Lloyd Arabella engine and was 1100cc GD

Depends entirely on the level of wear. For the price of a resurface - $35 and a 15 minute wait for my machine shop to do it - I do them almost every time. A new one is not that expensive either. I would buy a new one only if I suspected the flywheel had been resurfaced more than once before. My rule is no more than two resurfaces - after that they are done. 3 clutch replacements should carry the car close to end-of-life though (for any normal person) so in practice I've never actually had to replace one. Being that EJ flywheels are flat - it takes a mouth-breathing moron to screw up a resurface on one. You pull the alignment pins, grind it, and reinstall the pins. Doesn't get any easier. I'm sure markjw is speaking of experiences with EA stepped flywheels which are routinely screwed up by shops that don't know their business. When I do those I specify the step height to the machinist and I measure it before I leave. GD

Nice - they torched it out . Freakin rednecks...... The top picture is actually the 4WD-D/R selector, not the gear selector. Bottom pic - top one is the gear selector and the bottom is the shifter "tray" that supports the actual shifter stick into the cabin, etc. You will be using your tray and shifter so you can discard both of the peices in the bottom pic. You will need a new rod for the 4WD selector so get that when you pickup the D/R selector and console peices. Nice converse all-stars! You not 14 still are you? Sorry - couldn't resist. Seriously though - when doing transmission replacements.... you need some good steel toe's for the shop. Losing toes is never cool. GD

No - don't get paid. But the board does bring me business and good deals on used parts, and a community of support. It's worth the little time to help people. I'm on the new-gen side too. I work on mostly EJ's anymore. I just hang out here a lot because I know a lot of the answers people are looking for. On the EJ stuff I'm still doing a lot of learning. Working my way up to newer and newer models all the time. Playing with turbo stuff, etc. Thanks for the appreciation! GD

Yes - the breather/PCV routing looks good now. Should work much better for you. As for the mileage - do you for-sure know the jetting? GD

LoL. At least you admit to it. Why not spend that money on some tools and learn some skills like how to drill a hole? You aren't going to be able to go very far with SPT bolt-on's on an OBW. Or why not get something that *has* a bolt-on aftermarket at least? Maybe something with a turbo instead of that mommy missle you're rockin. It makes no sense to them because of where you live. They don't "get" AWD in the sunshine states. At least not the one's that haven't driven a WRX, etc. AWD only comes into it's own (on dry pavement) when you need to put down REAL HP without just making smoke. On a civic that generally means more than 300 HP and there's not a lot of people making that kind of power with them. Basically useless with 2WD. The problem is that this forum is populated with a bunch of cheap, practical, generally older (than you) members that aren't of that mindset - if it's expensive AND does nothing useful then none of us would really know anything about that. You are asking the wrong people I think. NASIOC probably has members that would know the answers to your questions if, for no other reason, than there is probably someone over there that has lowered an OBW and done all the exhaust research, etc. The new style suspension stuff is not interchangeable AFAIK. You would need a lift kit - and those are availible from a few sources. It's going to be more involved than drilling holes though - you might get scared . GD

Yeah - if the guy is crazy enough to want to give you $350 for an EA81 that runs like crap, has exhaust and wheel bearing issues - take the money and run. I got my hatch for $250 and it needed a new clutch cable. . They are only getting cheaper right now - it's a mid-80's econobox to anyone but a member of this forum - basically worthless. GD

Loctite 518 on the case halves. No special tools needed - you will need a 35mm socket. Make sure to carefully note how stuff goes together and work over a clean surface since some of the little springs and detent balls, etc are small and easily roll away. GD

Well - many people get burned at the used car lots. Just try not to be one of them. And as I said - see about getting an auto loan through a bank or credit union. You may be surprised at what you find. Many of them are wise to the used car lending stuff - even if you don't have stellar credit they recognize that people have to build credit somehow and frankly if they have the title then there is much less risk involved.... and most people aren't going to default on their means of transportation unless they have no choice. Car loans use the title of the car as security for the bank - secured loans are much lower risk than unsecured since the bank can just take the car and sell it to repay as much of the debt as they can recover. Car loans are the classic way to rebuild poor credit. Seriously - talk with some lending institutions - at least they aren't going to rip you off without putting it in fine print. I've got a really nice OBW here - you should come see it . Tranny will be done tonight and it will be rolling till I get the parts for the belt/WP job. It's the same dark green like the one you are looking at and frankly the body/interior is fantastic - 9 out of 10 easily. No dealing with shady car lots if you buy from me . GD

Which one? Good lord - I'm in the shop every day looking at broken parts! This year seems to be EJ 5MT wonderland around my shop - besides buying two cars to flip due to bad 5MT's, I ended up with one of the replacement units being bad (had to replace a second time ), and now I've got a JDM STi 5 speed here with blown bearings on the pinion shaft - very strange failure in my experience. . In general I'm not impressed with the EJ 5MT's at all. When the 6 speed's are more common I can see a lot of 6MT swaps on the horizon. So far I've seen 5 bad 5MT's this year and not a single one looks to have been abused in any way - just plain jane non-turbo daily driver's that have failed bearings or ripped up gears. I've always got something broken around here. The clutch in my turbo is shot - been dead for months and no time to bother with it or "fun money" to buy the parts I really want for the job ($$$$$). Alternators always seem to be giving up around every corner. Brakes too - I think I've done at least a dozen warped rotor jobs in the last 6 months - Nissan's and Honda's besides the Subaru's - seems to be a common issue. Engine swaps, engine builds, crazy siezed-up rusted junk all over the place . It's almost too much to handle. GD

Yes - to the point that it's probably not worth even bothering with it. You would be much better served by mounting some aftermarket gauges to get what you want. Add to that the fact that the stock gauges pretty much suck on the GL's anyway (they are ok to a point, but for a real *reading* you need a better gauge with better divisions and markings) it makes it a pretty worthless endevour to try and swap them. Tons of work for crappy gauges? Not happing in my shop. GD

I think the worst thing that has come into my purview from an "odor" aspect is Ammonia - I used to work on pumps and it was (to some extent) the responsibility of the customer to flush them prior to sending them in - we would have them sign release documents to that effect before we would touch them. Well, as you can imagine, there is often a disconnect between the guy signing our form and the monkey in overalls that's supposed to have done the actual work. I remember on one occasion where a pump of this sort was openened up on the shop floor (mind you - this is a warehouse sized facility with 30' ceilings, exhaust fans, 20' bay doors, etc) and it cleared the building within secconds. The Ammonia was so strong you couldn't breath and we all took to running for the doors. That stuff will straight KILL you dead if you aren't careful with it. I can see now why they don't run ammonia in air conditioners except in the largest, most commercial or industrial settings where it can be carefully controlled and monitored. . Masks that filter it out are expensive too - difficult to work around. Beyond that - as far as straight hazardous stuff - I've had to work on vacuum pumps that provide hospital surgical suction as well as dental office pumps for the same use. Also pumps used to remove the flamable methane from large septic reserviors. I had to do the whole dissasembly, inspection, and cleaning in hazmat gear (somtimes with the ambient temp well into the 90's). Talk about making the process more difficult . Never got sick from and for that I'm thankful for the gear my employer supplied. I know some of the aluminium cleaning chems are really nasty too. Basically acid-based strippers and such. They will burn your skin so I'm assuming from that reaction alone they are fairly high on the scale of nastiness . GD

Drop by sometime and you can checkout the gauges, etc on my lifted wagon. Just PM me. GD

Was that rear slider hard to install? Where did you get it? My '69 could use one of those.... GD

I've worked on them. Reliability seemed alright - we had lots of them in our inventory from the 1960's and 70's. But the military rebuilds stuff occasionally as well so it's no gaurantee they had the original engines. That said - not a single one of them ever let me down. I particularly liked the M35A2's because of the 6 wheel drive, 5 speed D/R and air lockers. They will climb tree's if you know how to drive them . The duals are a pain in the neck off-road though. The multi-fuel 6 cylinder's have a "viscocity compensator" that allows them to run on just about anything except av-gas (too hot for them I think). They will run on Deisel, Kerosene, and Gasoline and any mixture of same. Plus whatever else you might have on hand if it's mixed in. . They prefer Deisel though. I had to change a few starters and such in them from time to time - that was a HUGE pain in the a$$. The starter is under the freakin thing and it weighs just about a ton. Took two or three guys to do it easily. I'm not sure one person could easily do it since holding it in place while starting bolts is nigh impossible with two hands IIRC. But it's been a few years since I did one. I would rock one - the beauty of that plan is that there is tons of surplus parts for them I'm sure. The military pretty much wrote them out of the system about 10 years ago and the only one's left in service are in the Reserve and National Gaurd units and stuff that's been sold to Forestry services and independant contractors, etc. I approve of your plan. Military hardware (especially something like the M35A2 which saw service for 40+ years) is rarely a bad choice. Oh - don't expect it to be fast. Top speed in a duece is like 45 to 55 MPH and they are straining to maintain that. The gearing in the transmission is designed for off-road and low speed use. But at least you probably can't break one. GD

More expensive - and frankly if you wanted that level of quality work - it would be only marginally more expensive to go with MegaSquirt and buy one of the pre-made, printed-wire harnesses for it instead. It would be expensive to source all the sheilded wire for the low-voltage sensors, and the proper deutche style connectors to go with each of the stock sending unit connectors, etc. As well as the tools to crimp those tiny terminals they use, etc. If you were going to produce a large number of harnesses because of high demand it might be worth it but the small numbers that are being done in this community are just not worth that kind of investment. It's actually pretty clean to strip a harness and shorten or lengthen a few wires as neccesary to make it work as a stand alone FI/Ign. harness. You just have to know what you are doing and make the cuts and splices at appropriate points. GD

Most MSDS sheets make it sound like openeing the container might cause a city-wide evactuation to be called for. . Just don't eat it or smear it on any exposed mucus membranes and I think you'll be aright to still have kids . I've used MUCH nastier stuff than some RTV and I'm still standing (most days ). There's an MSDS floating around out there for Water - no kidding. I don't beleive it's officially recognized (by the EPA, etc) but on the commercial side of things lots of companies want one on file just for the sake of being totally anal about having every chemical in the facility in the MSDS drawer. This is very interesting BTW - I have never experienced bad RTV (other than partially or fully cured due to tube fail). I'll have to pay more attention to that stuff from now on. Might I sugest you go with Loctite 518 on the case halves instead - it's an excelent product for flange sealing. GD

^ Flatbill? Hhhmmm - you make no sense kid. You want to waste a bunch of money so you can what? Badge it with a pink "STi"? LAAAAAMMMMMEEE Seriously - if you want to throw away money then you don't need to ask an internet forum how to do that - you ought to be able to do that on your own. I think your questions would be much better suited to the NASIOC board given your disposition for burning cash to no benefit. If you want it louder - ditch the muffler and install a straight-through. It's not that loud with the stock exhaust, cats, and resonators in place. GD