GeneralDisorder

You need to specify that you have a Brat when you post here - for ALL intents and purposes of discussion on this board you have an '84 model year. If you say '85 it will just cause confusion and problems. That said, you need to order calipers for an '84. Older are different and will not work. The ONLY year calipers that you can use are '84 or later EA81 models. Which means you have to specify '84 in most parts systems as they don't list much for '85 to '89 EA81's and you are VERY likely to get EA82 parts which will not fit. GD

Yeah - if I knew what I was looking for I would probably surf craigslist for it. But I don't really have the time for that and then not knowing what I'm looking at or brands to search for really hampers that approach for me. Plus opening things that are in brand new boxes is fun . Just to clarify here. So far I'm at: Head Unit: $37 Front Speakers: $16 Rear Speakers: $39 Total: $92 If I go forward with my two potential purchases above: Powered Sub: $94 4 channel Amp: $60 Total: $246 That's for EVERYTHING and I would be done for less than the cost of a good head unit . It's kind of an experiment to see how little I can spend and still have some decent sound. Also - the Hatch originally cost me $250. So I still won't have spent more for the stereo than I spent to buy the car. GD

Cables were used for many years on things MUCH larger than Subaru's. It's all about leverage and if the force required is higher then a different ratio fork is used to change the pedal pressure required. Fundametally, a cable is no different from a solid bar connecting one point to another - it's just flexible is all. The cable itself has nothing whatsoever to do with the feel of the clutch - it's all about the ratio's of the lever's in the system. Hydraulics CAN change the feel depending on the ratio of the sizes of the master and slave cylinder pistons. Personally I feel that in the specific case of Subaru's many of the earlier cable clutches were more reliable than the hydro's and personally I don't have any problems with the way they feel. Many cars use Hydro because of the location of the transmission and how bad the cable routing would have to be - if even possible - for the location of the fork. You see this on Nissan's, etc where the slave cylinder is actually under the car.... Subaru originally went with the Hydro's on the turbo's - this was an obvious choice for the pull-type clutch they use as the slave could be mounted on the transmission side instead of trying to route a cable looped around under the manifold in order to pull on the fork from the engine side. Why they went with the pull-type clutch on the turbo's is beyond me but given that they did, the hydro clutch was the obvious answer to the cable routing problems they created with this choice. Eventually someone realised that they could save a lot of money by only building the hydro pedal assemblies and just putting the slave on the engine side of the fork. At least I'm assuming that's what happened - also the deal with the pedal pressure and the higher clamp force clutches comes into play with the larger, more powerful engines Subaru is using since the switch. It made sense to go hydro instead of having really large ratio forks to ease the pedal pressure for the ladies GD

First of all - do you have these tools? Welder Torch/Bandsaw/plasma cutter Drill/Drill press Tubing bender etc.... If not - the biggest question you need to ask is "How can I gain access to or aquire at least the basics for metal-working." Once you have done that - the rest should fall into place pretty readily. The act of aquireing, borrowing, and learning to use these things will neccesarily put you into contact with the people and places that can answer those trivial questions about material types and sources. Besides - how can we tell you where to get metal if we don't know where you are? GD

I know what you mean about "clean" audio. Unfortunately most of my vehicles don't really benefit from this - either due to excessive road noise or due to excessive exhaust tone. My '91 Legacy SS has a 3" turbo-back, straight-through exhaust system and while it's not terribly loud due to the glass-pack style muffler and the resonator, it's still loud enough that it can be heard. If I were building a totally mundane commuter that was quiet inside (can't see myself doing this ) I would be all over the cleanest sound I could get - and would be making sure the body didn't vibrate from the bass, etc. But as it stands there's nothing I'm going to be able to do about the road noise (let's be reasonable here - the idea is that I can HOSE out the interior) so the difference between a $1000 stereo and my $250 stereo is going to be lost in the translation I'm afraid. I need loud, clean enough to not distort the speakers to death, and some bass to cover for the low-pass filter that keeps the speakers from being overdriven. But I can see where some of your are comming from and I have some friends who do such systems - just usually in Audi's and other semi-luxury vehicles that have really quiet cabins. GD

I have always just used some 1/2" drive sockets that are close to the same height as the rocker assembly for torqueing the rocker bolts. Then remove and replace with the rockers. Never had an issue. GD

Find a used tank (any EA81 tank from a 4WD non-hatchback) or remove your's and have it repaired. It's a pretty standard type of deal - take it to a radiator/tank repair shop and see what they can do. There are sealers, etc that can seal pin-holes and stop rust, etc - tank still has to be removed and cleaned to use them so it's got to come out of the car either way. First step is to pull it and assess from there. GD

25psi hot idle is good. That's what I like to see - no less than 20 IMO. I keep two spare OEM oil pumps on the shelf for my EA81's. Just because I'm paranoid about them. GD

That's an EA82 tank ('85 to '87 carbs are EA82's) - I just pulled one recently and it looks the same. It will not fit an EA81 (including all Brat's). Notice how the sending unit is on the top? They are on the back of EA81 tanks. That one is too large and completely setup wrong as it's for an EA82 wagon, etc. What you need is a tank for an '84. When searching for Brat or Hatchback parts that are of the '85 to '89 vintage you have to search for '84 parts as those are carryover bodies from the previous gen. GD

Yeah - I may try to put some 4" up front. That should be plenty for me. And I'm thinking about this guy: http://www.amazon.com/Boss-BASS600-Low-Profile-Amplified-Subwoofer/dp/B000OSZA44/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&qid=1283310611&sr=8-1 Only being 2.8" thick would allow me to mount it on the roof above where the back seat used to be. Keeping it high and dry as it my goal for the entire system. My first lifted Subaru's sub amp bought the farm the first time I hit water - under the seat is a bad location for an amp in a wheeler. And I need the cargo area for other stuff so it's got to be small and out of the way of both cargo and water. The roof location also puts the driver about 12" from your head And I'm thinking this small 4 channel for the speakers - both for the line-level inputs and low-pass filter and the added clarity and power: http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_17629_Sound+Storm+SSL+F4.400.html What do you guys think? I am not spending a ton of money here - that's not the goal or even needed - I want a little bit of bass, and enough volume to drown out the non-insulated chassis with aggressive tires on the freeway. GD

Check your readings with either a shop gauge or a decent aftermarket oil pressure gauge. You should open up the pump for sure - mileage has less to do with it than maintenance. I've seen some ugly stuff inside them. The seal kit is like $8 from the dealer and a new pump is about $65. You get my PM? GD

I must say that the XT6 clutch setup (OEM from the dealer) that we used in the frankenmotor Brat is handling the power with no problem at all. The tranny is going to tear itself apart before that clutch gives out - I'm sure of that. It's rock solid and doesn't slip even under WOT from that rediculous torque monster under the hood. Being it's an OEM 165 HP clutch setup - it stand to reason it would handle your's and in fact seems to be capable of even a bit more. In the case of clutches - there is so much aftermarket BS and marketing being thrown around - and the fitment of the parts is a total crap-shoot - the bad luck we had with aftermarket clutch peices totally soured me on them. For your application and the power you are making I wouldn't hessitate even for a moment to tell you to get an XT6 disc and PP from the dealer. You can have whatever flywheel you are using restepped to the XT6 step height (.815") and you should be set. GD

A blow-through carb is possible, and actually not that hard. There's a few modifications to the carb that are needed and also some fancy fuel pressure regulation. I've done it with a Weber DGV but the carb is not ideal as it's progressive linkage makes tuning a real chore. You can PM me if you want more details but I can tell you that on the project I was involved with that uses the blow-through setup we are moving to Mega-Squirt and a throttle body system as it's more tunable. There is a special engine being built for the project as well so the MS is part of a substantial upgrade and increase in boost pressure. What I can tell you in brief is that if you are planning 10psi or higher you should stay away from the carb setup. FI is much easier to work with. Right now the system we built is running 7psi from a VF7 into a 1.3L Samurai engine - it runs like a frieght train. GD

Actually it sounds just fine and works surpisingly well. The "issues" that most people have is typical operator error stuff - not organizing the media the way the deck is setup to handle it and not supplying it with a constant hot memory lead..... etc. It hasn't had any problems with my digital media and it loads the 500+ songs I put on an SD card in maybe 2 seconds. Really all the head unit does is decode MP3's and tune radio stations. The rest is handled by the speakers and if I need to I'll just run them from seperate amps. It's a bit underpowered for sure - but part of that is the cheap speakers I used in the front. And even at that it's easily 5 times as loud as the radio with blown speakers I had in there before. I'm probably going to go with a 4 channel speaker amp and a small self-powered sub. The HU is just the decoder that pushes the signal at that point. GD

Yes - I am going to try the dry ice method I think. I read about that in another post of your's. Where to get it I wonder? GD

Correct - only the turbo's and the XT's got the MPFI - all others were SPFI or carbed. An XT6 injector harness might work but IDK. GD

All the change that's in my pocket right now..... if the owner let me kick him square in the boys for a youtube video . Seriously though - it's probably worth around $1000 to the right person. But it has to be the RIGHT person. And that probably means someone that's looking for the pristene body and interior for a really nice EJ swap ride. A well-done EJ swapped RX with a 5 lug, etc is a sexy machine...... with the original engine and the 4 lug it's just a big pile of frusration-to-be. GD

The actual injector harnesses can be individually purchased I think. But a used one would be pretty easy to find. Any of the MPFI EA82's (Turbos (85 through 90), and XT4s) would have the same connectors for the injectors. Send a PM to "losingalltouch" here on the board. She is parting out an '86 turbo and will have the connector(s) you need. Should easily go in a priority mail box. GD

You can use phase-II heads as well. A lot of folks are doing this with OBS's and such that have the phase-II heads. They use the thinner WRX head gasket IIRC. You get the benefit of the roller rockers too and adjustable solid lifters. The 2.2 heads have smaller combustion chambers across the board because the 2.5 is a bored AND stroked 2.2 so the chambers are larger on the 2.5 heads to accomidate the piston traveling much farther - even to the point of actually cresting over the deck on the EJ25D for example. At least that's my understanding. In the EJ world, the only time the Frankenmotor makes sense is if you have a 2.2 vehicle already - then it's just a head gasket job with a short block change thrown in and makes for a really decent performance improvment. Throw in a set of Delta cams and it's a really fun machine that can be built cheap. renob123's engine was just about $700 with a $200 used EJ25D block (90k - from a 2.5RS), totally reworked heads, Delta cams, and a complete reseal. IMO - that's about as cheap as I've seen for ~200 HP on a Subaru. GD

You need weight if you want to move something. A regular hammer is probably not going to cut it. You need mass so you get inertia behind your blow. It's force vs. leverage - if you can put a huge cheater on it and it doesn't readily move (unlike crank pulley bolts, and other nuts/bolts on rotating assemblies) then you can just leverage your way out. If it moves or there is no room for the cheater then you need inertia on your side - a heavy blow that has so much force to it that the fastener breaks loose before the assembly can begin rotating. Sometimes you have to hit it many times. Especially with too-small of a hammer. Think about how many blows an impact might have to use before it would spin out easily. You could easily have to hit it 20 or 30 blows with a sledge before you would even notice much movement. That's just the nature of removing tight or stuck fasteners. Have you tried heat? A propane torch can get it hot enough that it more easily accepts penetrants like Yield or PB Blaster. The cooling effect of the penetrant causes it to wick up into the threads. GD

Put a 1/2" ratchet on it and smack it with a 4 lb sledge = manual impact . This is how I remove crank pulley bolts - people are amazed that it's this easy. I swear people are just too used to all these power tools and specialty tools anymore - no one can think far enough outside the box to realize that our fathers and grandfathers didn't have that stuff and figured out how to get by none-the-less. . Once you commit to the idea that it *is* possible some other way - it's just a matter of finding the "other way". I do this all the time and frankly I feel it's what differentiate's me from my competition. There is no situation that I can think of that a hand tool wouldn't work with the right setup. Might take half a day.... but if you have more time than money you do what you have to do. GD

Start simple - plugs and wires. Turbo's do NOT like old plugs/wires - especially if the gap is wrong or worn away. You are getting misfire's right where the turbo should be comming online - which is indicative of high cylinder pressure's not allowing the spark to jump. GD

Use the EJ25 short block under the EJ22's heads. It's a well documented upgrade - high compression and makes somewhere around 180 to 200 HP. We call it the "frankenmotor". They talk about it on NASIOC all the time. GD

There is a torsion bar adjustment under the bed that you can use to lower the rear end back to where it's basically level. It's likely been ratcheted up using that adjustment. As for handling..... the options are limited unless you want to do quite a bit of custom work. GD

Brake booster nipple is on the manifold and the Weber adaptor for Subaru's does not have or need one. You don't need the EGR. Just don't hook it up. Run a new vacuum line from the ported vacuum nipple on the carb to the vacuum advance nipple that pulls on the timing advance plate in the distributor the most when you suck on the line. Leave the other one open to atmosphere. GD