GeneralDisorder

Thanks guys - that was my concern as well - that there is just a ton of information missing on both ends. Am I going to pay $350 for a tranny that has unknown ratio's, and that the seller has never driven and doesn't even know what vehicle it for sure came from?!? Not this sucker..... If I were going to buy one I would much rather pay $700 for a single unit - shipped by someone that at least has verified what's in it and that it doesn't look like a hand-grenade went off inside it. GD

You might take a look at the EA81 2WD sway bars. They are shaped differently in the area of the exhaust loop and it may just solve your problem. GD

You use the same clutch cable you have now. The only thing that changes is you move to the EA82 flywheel and clutch assembly that match the 5 speed trans. The flywheel bolts up like stock but you do have to grind a couple small areas on the EA81 bell housing to clear the flywheel - 5 minutes with a die grinder and it's done - really not a problem at all. The mounting holes for the flywheel are larger on the EA82's but it doesn't cause a problem - you just center it up, bolt it down tight, and it center's on the crank with a C-face anyway so there's no real alignment issues. Some folks have cut small sections of steel or aluminium tubing to bush the holes in the flywheel but most have done nothing and never had an issue. The starter has to be shimmed out a tiny bit - generally done with a washer under each mounting ear. Then the only thing left after that as far as mods go is to weld in the carrier bearing mount or have a single peice driveline (your stock unit) lengthened by a few inches as the 5 speed's are considerably shorter than the 4's. If you get Jerry's kit for the swap it will bolt-in with the above small modification and look 100% stock on the inside of the car. All you will notice is the better gearing and the extra gear. You don't even have to change your knob if you like it the way it is. It sound more involved than it really is, and a ton of folks have done the swap now. I've done several myself and the last one I used Jerry's kit and it went much quicker than the times before where I've fabbed the mounting myself. GD

You will break axles with a welded diff if you run them at a severe enough angle, but if you run them relatively flat you will likely twist the stubs off the diff first. If you want a locker, go to a larger diff - either a Hitachi R180 or an R200. I'm pretty sure the R200's used in the older Nissan truck IFS have locker options. It would require mods, but if you are going with a large lift anyway it can be done. GD

So, effectively, there is no reason to want one of these unless you want to get rid of the adaptor plate? Sounds like a waste of time, effort, and money to me. I thought that was probably the case but I wanted to ask and make sure. I'll just stick with my laser-cut, CNC'd adaptor plate and keep the $350 then. GD

Leaks in the exhaust or the ASV's, and unburned fuel will cause backfireing. Generally speaking, a good running (street) engine that's properly tuned will not backfire. Race engines are a horse of a totally different color and backfireing is generally unavoidable. GD

Yes it is quite amazing. My Brat currently has an SPFI EA82 in it. The 16 HP makes it quite a bit sportier. Turbo's don't play well with the SPFI's stock computer. You could go with something like MegaSquirt though that natively understands when manifold pressure goes above atmospheric. Well - I guess you asked the right guy since I'm the one that wrote the SPFI conversion manual for EA81's. Here's the link: http://home.comcast.net/~trilinear/EA81_SPFI.html GD

I wonder..... you know I've noticed that all my Gen 1 Legacy's (I've had like 5 or 6 of them now) have NEVER had a wheel bearing failure while I owned them. Even my 91 SS that was totally abused - wheel bearings are fine at somewhere north of 170k. On the other hand I have, in my garage right now, a '96 with 113k and a bad front wheel bearing, and I have a '99 Forester with both rear's going bad for the second, and third times. One has been replaced once, the other twice! Both were done multiple times by the dealer and barely made 50k before failing again. The knuckle I got at the yard for the '96 - came from a '94 with 156k on it. They feel great So yeah - I don't know what the deal is with this bearing stuff - perhaps it's supplier issues. I bet they get them out of Mexico or Taiwan. At any rate it would seem that trusting a used OEM bearing from a Gen 1 is better even than installing a new one at the dealer! I've wondered about that myself - the 4EAT's in the Gen 1 Legacy's seemingly never have this problem - despite the majority of them being owned by poor/young/careless folks at this late stage of the game. You would think that it would be rampant due to the tendancy for mismatching tires and poor maintenance among the primary catagory of owner's of these sub-$1000 cars. It's all very fishy really. What it seems to come down to is that Subaru feels that 1. It's not an issue, or that 2. Due to the higher power/torque output of the new engines, design changes were neccesary that had this failure mode as a side-effect..... but that seems unlikely because the 92 through 94 Turbo Touring Wagon's only came with 4EAT's, put down more power and torque than the current EJ25's, and still did not have this issue. Very strange indeed. GD

I had an assistant hold the shifter in the "area" where 2nd should be. I then *tapped* on the linkage with a brass drift and a BFH. Nothing. It's as if 2nd just wasn't there. Time to pull the tranny :-\. I hate doing tranny's..... I'm going to split it and see if it's a simple fix. If not I'll be looking for a replacement. GD

Exactly - and it's not just the pressure - you have to consider the CFM @ 9-10 psi (which is still higher than stock). With your TD04, you are pushing probably 50 to 100 CFM more than the VF7 @ 10 psi. Pressure is only a static measurement - one must consider the CFM if you are talking about a non-static system. The real question is - from your experience, how much life have you drained away from your short-block by running it the way you have it set up? If a bone-stock EA82T could make 250k miles, what would your's accomplish given the mods you have done. 75% reduction in overall life of the engine? (just a guess). GD

Since you are going to all that trouble anyway, why not make it really fabulous and do a blow-through turbo setup on it? You could easily push 5 psi through it and probably push it up around 125 HP or so. Wouldn't hurt anything - the bottom end will handle 5 pounds without issue. I have an extra EA81T engine cross-member in my collection that I might let go if you promise to build it right GD

So the EJ dual-range offered a locker for the center diff (lockable VC?) which was not offered here? Could this component be added to say an RX tranny making it capable of true 4WD and compatible with the 1.59:1 and 4.111? GD

What is the symtom of the "cracked" head gasket? Typically the SOHC EJ25's leak externally when they go. 50,000 is pretty low mileage. It would not need the timing belt/water pump job till it reaches 105,000 so you don't need that yet. GD

Correct - front diff, transmission, and transfer case are all in one unit. More correctly refered to as the "transaxle". They all share fluid. GD

If they are loud enough to annoy you then they aren't being caused by a faulty anti-afterburn valve. That was my point. I haven't a single one of them installed and you have to know what you are listening for to even hear the difference. It's more of an economy device to appease the EPA than anything. Cars didn't have these for 75 years - it wasn't until the 80's that stuff like this caught on. GD

If it's an automatic then the above amounts do not apply. I just mention it because you said "front diff" and terminology like that is often applied to the auto's because they have a front diff section that runs gear oil while the rest of the tranny runs ATF so..... More clarification would be good. GD

I want what you are smoking! With those modifications, leaving the boost set to factory, he would be lucky to make 5 more HP, let alone 35 . Rob isn't even making that much WITH more boost from a higher CFM turbo. And he HAS all those mods with dyno sheets to prove it. A lightweight pully will not do much. The general rule is that each pound you free up from the rotating assembly = 1/2 HP. So if you lost the whole freakin pulley you might get 2.5 HP - but you wouldn't get very far before you were wanting that pulley back..... To make 150 HP on a tired, EA82T with mileage on it, you need to increase the boost - but the engine will last about 5 to 15 thousand miles. Maybe less. It happens every single time someone does it. I've been here quite a few years now and one thing is a constant - the EA82T sucks balls and no one wants to invest the $5,000 to $10,000 into making one put out 175 HP reliably when EJ22's putting down 135 or 147 HP are readily availible for under $1000 complete with donor car for wireing, computer, etc. Bonus that there's no troublesome turbo to deal with on them either. Even bigger bonus - you CAN put 5 psi through an N/A EJ22 and it will shoot up to around 200 HP - and it's even reliable! People have run used, higher mileage EJ22's with 5 psi through them for years without issue. Makes for a fun ride on the cheap. GD

I'm about to dig into this - anyone have any sugestions or ideas? Anyone even seen something like this before? It's a new one on me but then I haven't dealt with many AWD 5MT's - my experience is with the 4WD 5MT's but I don't think the differences are huge? GD

Cool - good to know. I snagged one with ABS because I forgot that they were part of the hub and wasn't sure if the car had it or not after getting to the yard. I'll just install it anyway even though the car doesn't have ABS as the tone-ring won't cause an issue and the one I got seems to have the axle stuck in it (I need to replace the axle anyway and the one from the yard has good boots, etc). I'm learning still about the EJ stuff. I like the easy axle swapping, but I dislike the screwball pressed in bearing setup. I've noticed while doing a lot more EJ land stuff in the last year that Subaru really has gone more mainstream with their engineering design's - which may be due to what their supplier's are reccomending they use, but gone are the days of the EA series cars where Subaru's design's were quite strange by comparison to other japanese brands. That's not neccesarily a bad thing either (EA front parking brake's for example ). It's also quite noticeable how cheap the interior's and body are now. The difference between even a gen 1 legacy and a gen 2 is noticeable - the doors are quite a bit lighter on the gen 2. I'm used to EA series doors and that's a world of difference. Even my 91 SS doesn't seem half as cheap as this poor '96 plain-jane L series does. GD

I need to know what other years/models to look for to interchange the front axle and knuckle for a '96 L series 5MT AWD. It's an EJ22 car if that matters. Will the 90-94 stuff work? Those are more common in the yards around here. Or do I have to find something in a smaller year range around the '96? Thanks. GD

The dual carb engines were not just a cam upgrade - the heads are totally different - the valves are reversed like an EA82 for better flow. You simply can't get the flow needed for 120 HP from the US market heads....... unless you turbo it. A simple VF-7 with a blow-through setup is not all that hard to fab up and will give more performance than any dual-carb setup could ever give. GD

No - we did not get the Legacy hi/lo gearbox. What I'm asking is - since you aren't openeing them up, what *for sure* US market parts will fit inside them? That would at least assure us that they can be modified to fit our needs if they don't come that way off the boat. I think most of the people that are looking for these are looking for the lowest gearing possible - so 1.59:1 or comparable low range, 4.111 final drive (or at least 3.9), and locking center diff. We did get FT4WD D/R transmissions here for the EA82's and they can bolt up to the EJ engine with an adaptor plate, but there isn't any combination of parts that will allow all of these desireable features and low gearing. If the EDM dual range can't offer that feature set either then I am less open to dropping ~$400 US on one. I understand that you can't open them all up, and thus you can't really inspect their condition or gearing. But that makes it doubly imperitive that we know what parts will/will not work from the US market transmissions as besides potentially not having the gearing we want, they also may need repair in some way. GD

Haven't had a chance yet - it was dark by the time I got it home. That's probably on the agenda this afternoon. I can't imagine how or what could have caused it. The car only has 113k on it and runs great. From what I can see it's had good maintenance - I see an alternator that says "Remanufactured for Subaru" and overall the engine bay is pretty clean. Clutch seems just totally worn out - doesn't engage till the absolute highest spot in the pedal and slips very badly. Bad axle boot on the driver's side front and it sounds like a bad wheel bearing there as well.... Hhhmmmm GD

*Update* - please see the 2nd page of posts for the resolution and pictures of destruction. Bought a '96 L series last night. BAD clutch - each stoplight might be it's last. Anyway - 2nd gear just isn't there. 1,3,4,5,R all work fine, but it's as if 2nd didn't exist. Feels like trying to hit 5 on a 4 speed. I pulled pretty hard on the shifter and there's nothing - no grind, no noise, just no love at all. It doesn't feel like the shifter is notching into the gear either - it's just neutral. Any idea's where to start? I had thought perhaps racking the linkage over to 2nd gear and giving it a whack with a punch? The tranny otherwise seems to function normally - no odd sounds and goes freely into every other gear. I think it's worth trying to save it if possible. I may pull it out of the car and open it up since I have to do the clutch anyway but I would rather avoid that and pull the engine if possible. Thanks. GD

Well - this section of the site isn't about selling people stuff. And if he wants to go the plug-and-play route you are offering him a good deal on a known good tranny.... It will be twice that to do a proper 5 speed swap... but totally worth it. It's hard to exagerate how much better the 5 speed's are - I'll just mention that the 5 speed introduced in '85 is the gold standard - all future Subaru 5 speed's share this same design to this day. They have no trouble going half a million miles - the 4's rarely last much past 200k without syncro issues and the linkage issues alone are worth the trouble to do the swap. GD