GeneralDisorder

No - of course not. You are sucking on a dead end. You need positive flow from one valve cover, through the crankcase, and out the other valve cover. You can't just suck on the crankcase - try sucking on a drinking straw while plugging the other end with your finger...... GD

Oil burning on long, sweeping, RH turns was a problem with the pre-Loyale SPFI system's. It was addressed by a "kit" that was to be installed if the customer complained about it. Later in the early 90's the "kit" became standard on Loyale's. I've had it happen with a few older SPFI's that I've owned. My SPFI converted Brat has the SPFI system from a '93 Loyale so it's never done it. But I see no reason why the EA81 wouldn't be prone to the same problem given the way the early design was setup. GD

They are easily rebuildable so no one buy's them - that's the reason they are expensive. Get some joints and boots from Rockford CV. GD

170 air corrector is on the smaller barrel. A/C's act to slow the fuel supply from the main jet - larger A/C = less fuel. Thus the large barrel has a smaller A/C as it needs more fuel. A/C only come into the equation at the top end of the RPM range so they aren't real important till you hit 2500 RPM and up. EA82's sometimes like a larger idle jet than the stock 50. Not always but often a 55, 60, or even 65 is needed for proper progression from idle to WOT. Sometimes increasing the size of the primary main jet just a hair in combination with a larger idle jet helps the progression as well. GD

I swear I'm going to do a you-tube video of an axle swap one of these days. Not enough people around that understand the different types of shaft/bearing fits that are found on machines. One thing that gets people every time - ANYTHING on a passenger car that can be done with a press can also be done with the right pusher/puller and often without even that sophisticated of a tool. Just wait till you have to do a wheel bearing on an EJ. GD

The distributor serves two functions - first it distributes spark to the right plug via the rotor and cap. Second it has an optical sensor device with a slotted interruptor disc that produces a square wave (5v) signal to the ECU to tell it the posisiton of the driver's side cam, and thus the posistion of the crank. The ECU uses this info to advance and retard the signal that it sends to the amplifier - which is just a transistor that makes/breaks the current to the primary winding in the coil. It's a very simple system but to actually test the distributor's optical pickup you need an o-scope and testing the coil amp is similarly not within the abilities of most people with just a simple meter. But just having a good used set is typically enough to solve most problems. You should be checking for power at the amp and the distributor though to at least rule out power supply issues. The coil is not attached directly to the distributor as in old-style points/electronic distributor's. The distributor is merely another sensor used by the ECU. If the ECU were capable of driving two coil output's then you wouldn't even need a distributor because you could mount up some cam/crank sensors and replace the cap/rotor with a wasted spark coil pack like the EJ's use. But that would require a more advanced ECU and probably one with a faster ECU to accomidate the additional sensor signal and the additional amplifier output for the second coil. The ECU's almost never fail in these cars - I've been here a long time and I've never heard of a confimred case outside of folks that hooked up battery's backwards and blew the ECU power supply (FSM warns against this and that it will damage the ECU). GD

That's stupid. It will foul the oil with acidic blow-by gasses and eat your bearings. If you really want to eliminate the PCV then remove the crankcase from the metered air of the intake. Install a road-draft tube on each valve cover and plug all the lines to the intake. GD

Yeah - that is unfortunate about the SPFI swap in CA. What sucks the most is that you are actually *improving* the economy and emissions of the EA81 by doing it but according to the letter of the law you aren't allowed to - it's as if the law assumes that all modifications done to produce better power/economy/reliabilty are automatically going to comprimise emissions. That simply isn't the case though - I would imagine the GM guys feel the same way about not being able to put TBI on their carbed 350 SB. Yet another reason I'm about to aquire a '69 GMC 3/4 ton..... it's well outside of the testing window. GD

The rear bearings will start howling at freeway speeds. Looking over the reccords mine had been replaced about 3 or 4 times on each side prior to my ownership. The Forester used ball bearings for the rears - which is the source of the repeat failures. The consensus is that replacing them with the tapered roller bearings from the Legacy's will cure the repeat failure problem. It's a direct swap - both bearings fit the same into the knuckle. You just buy the Legacy bearing instead of the Forester bearing. The Forester is built on the Impreza chassis but the Imp wheel bearings don't seem to hold up to the added size and weight of the vehicle. The head gaskets will probably need done several times over the life of the car. Mine have just blown for the second round at 236k miles. External leaks on the coolant are common - not a problem till they start gushing out like a fountain. Other than the wheel bearings and the head gaskets - both of which can be fixed - they are quite nice little machines. GD

Don't worry about those intake gaskets - unlike EA cars, the EJ's don't run coolant through the manifold so those aren't critical. Just install them dry. The radiator cap should be fine as well - just pickup a Stant or CSK or whatever japanese brand you can find. Avoid the cheap chinese stuff. Name brand or japanese. And yes - reuse the head bolts. They are not torque-to-yeild so you will be fine. Wire wheel them and run a tap into the block. Make sure you coat them in oil before you install them to insure they don't bind while torqueing them. GD

The coil sounds good from your resistance readings. That's about normal. The ignition amplifier on the coil bracket can fail - it does happen. They aren't cheap - typically those are a dealer item. There are plenty of good one's to be found used though. They are a rare failure. Could also be a problem with the optical pickup in the distributor. When I run into problems like this I try to get a whole set of used bits - coil, amp, distributor, and change one at a time. Of course - check all your fuses and fusible links first. And make sure you have power to the coil and to the distributor. Also - the coil bracket has to be gounded for the amp to work so you have to have it bolted to the body to get spark. GD

You are right - a sharp emissions guy could catch it. The EA82's are setup such that if a guy were really careful about how he built the modified airbox then the carb would be basically entirely hidden under it. Done right, with the right application of oil-mist and a drive down an unimproved road to coat the engine in dust - chances are they wouldn't think to look. I know a bit about psychology, and if I were doing their job I would be looking at the person just as much as at the car. An EA82 is a pretty low profile machine to begin with, but if you add some dirt and grime, and dress appropriately you could be pretty confident that they would judge you to not be sophisticated enough to have hidden something like a Weber carb under all that mess. It's all in the presentation and there's just as much of that in how YOU talk, and how YOU look, as there is in the car itself. GD

Thank you! Next time this question arises - you run with it. A performance evaluation will follow GD

The SPFI uses a similar system but there were two different setups used for the SPFI. The system used till like '91 or thereabouts uses a smaller ID line like the carb models - after that they made a change to prevent oil burning on long, sweeping, right hand turns - this involved (near as I can tell) eliminating the smaller ID line - which I suspect sacrifices PCV system effeciency in the intrest of not having huge clouds of oil smoke after long right hand turns. They didn't have much choice considering the problem they were faced with solving - at least not without making a big $$$ change to all the SPFI cars built prior to the recall - the fix was cheap and doesn't seem to have caused longevity issues that this board has noted. One thing to watch out for with the SPFI - the PCV air is still metered - it goes through the MAF and as such you CANNOT have a leak in the PCV system as it will result in a large vacuum leak as far as the fuel trim is concerned. Same goes for the whole crankcase - dipstick o-ring, etc. All of the air in the crankcase is metered so it has to remain a closed system entirely behind the MAF sensor. GD

5 speed D/R came in 1985 to 1989 non-turbo GL wagons, sedans, and 3-door coupes. Brat and hatchback were still 4 speed's till the end of production. Loyale's (90 and up) dropped the D/R - they are all push-button single range cars. Obviously it has to be the right GL - some were automatic's, and turbo's often had the push-button. You don't want a turbo dual-range as the low range is only 1.19:1 vs the non-turbo D/R low ratio of 1.59:1. GD

7/16x20 does not preclude using a heli-coil back to the stock size. You are actually removing LESS material with the 7/16" tap than you would be with the heli-coil's tap drill. It's also a lot less expensive, easier to source studs/all thread for the SAE size, and simpler for those that are more amature than us hardened vetrans of the wrench - it requires only hand tools and the tap - no drilling is involved as the 7/16 tap will cut using the stock metric hole. The stock size studs can be cut from metric all-thread and the nuts are called "whiz-nuts" and are availible at any good hardware store. None of this stuff is unusual and if I'm going to the touble then I'm doing it right with stainless fasteners - not the crap from the dealer. GD

Whatever you do, don't change the stock header. It's pretty well tuned to the engine and if you change it you will likely lose the scavenging properties - you can gain on the high end but lose torque on the low end if you lose your scavenging. GD

I need you to undertand this so you can explain it to people. I'm sick of being the only one around here that knows how to setup a PCV system on an EA. . It's one thing to copy what I've done and just trust that I know what I'm talking about - it's another to understand it and be able to explain how and why it works. Frankly I didn't understand it either till I spent the last few years working on vacuum pumps and systems every day. Vacuum is a strange beast and there's a whole learning curve surrounding it that most people are not at all familair with. Especially high-vac applications where you get down to the micron or millimicron range. GD

Grade 2 is fine. You don't need real hard all thread for this job. GD

The 1/4" line is just there to prevent full manifold vacuum from being present in the line from the PCV valve to the head. It's like drilling a hole in the side of the hose for your vacuum cleaner - it's not going to suck as hard with the hole there as it did before you drilled the hole. Make sense now? The size of the hole is known as the "orifice" size and the size dictates how much vacuum will reach the head and thus how much flow the PCV system will get. The size is somewhat important - it needs to be close to the size of the stock hose that Subaru used to maintain the correct PCV flow characteristics. Thus the 1/4" ID as that is very close to the original hose size (it's probably 6mm ID). GD

EJ timing belts rarely fail. Even the 60k belts will usually last past 100k. It's not that big of a concern in reality. Mostly people prefer the EJ22's because none of the similar generation EJ engines are as reliable. All the early EJ25's have more problems with gaskets and mechanical failures. GD

I would pickup a couple gaskets from the dealer - but that doesn't preclude you reusing the old one's if they are still good. Moisture will damage them eventually as they will rust but if they are not rusted or damaged you can probably reuse them. All-thread is easy to source in the size you need. And it's soft and easily worked with - a hacksaw and a bench grinder or file is all you need to make studs. We never stocked studs at the machinery company I worked for - we stocked all kinds of all-thread (even some left-handed, metric, tool-steel stuff ). You can get any type you can imagine - you can get stainless if you desire and stainless nuts/washers as well. Assuming you have a hacksaw and a file to chamfer the edges with, it shouldn't cost much more than $25 for the whole job including gaskets. (not couting the tap's of course). GD

You need that 1/4" vacuum breaker line to prevent the PCV from sucking oil out of the driver's side head. You can build an adaptor from inexpensive brass fittings at home depot. About $20 will do it. You come off the driver's side head to a standard Subaru plastic T fitting, then one T goes to the PCV valve while the other reduces to 1/4" and goes to the filter. I might have said that if you *didn't* need the vacuum breaker you could just run from the head to the PCV...... but I don't remember. I would have to see the post to figure out what I meant if I said that. GD

I think the idea is that you use studs on both sides of the plate on top. Threaded into the plate, the plate can then be mounted on the engine (after drilling the threads in the bell-housing), and then the transmission can hang on the studs pointing away from the engine. The trick is to just use a smaller OD thread for the engine side studs - this allows enough material so the threads don't interfere with each other and normal studs can be used. Proper location of the alignment dowels prevent incorrect alignment between the input shaft and the pilot bearing in the flywheel. If this isn't done accurately you risk uneven loading on the bearing and potential premature failure of either the pilot or the transmission input shaft bearing. I got my plate from Rguyver and he said he went through about 8 designs before he got the alignment and the fit where he wanted them - though he needs to change his design again to accomidate a pitching stopper mount. Don't forget to add that to your design Will.... GD

So simple - you'll wonder why you never did it before breakfast on Christmas morning. Really - it couldn't be an easier thing to fix. Biggest concern is getting the tap started straight - but in aluminium that's not a difficult task. Just push and turn - you'll get it. GD