GeneralDisorder

Unless it was bored oversized with a legitimate boring plate, there's potential for the liners to break loose (they are cast-in liners) and spin in the block. The stresses of having the heads bolted to the block must be simulated by bolting a 3" or thicker steel boring plate to the block before the machining takes place. I wouldn't risk it - not unless this guy has a lot of knowledge and has built a few of them. Why is he giving it up? Sounds like he's put some effort into the thing. I'm skeptical, but them I'm not there in person to evaluate him or his supposedly rebuilt EA82T. Also, I know it doesn't need to be said, but no amount of rebuilding or machining will help that engine. Only way to help it is to melt it down and recast it as an EJ22. GD

They are for the air inejction system - which you may or may not have had. The only engines made with non-AIS spacers were feedback carb models and they had an AIS spacer on only one side - the other side had a "blank" spacer. Good luck finding one. You are better off welding the port closed on the one's he's offering you. GD

Synthetic is great stuff - if you need it. The question then becomes - who needs it and why? Synthetic's are superb at handling high heat loads for a significantly longer period of time than non synthetic oils. Beyond that - right up to the point that the conventional oil begins to break down - there are no significant differences. Also one must consider the possilbility that switching to synthetics will adversely affect the seals and gaskets in your 20+ year old engine. Synthetics have a larger quantity of additives as well as different additives entirely than conventional oils - this is needed to allow them to go 10's of thousands of miles before oil changes (with top-offs and filter changes of course). This radical difference in additives will not likely be friendly to the old seals and gaskets in your engine. Personally, synthetics aren't my choice for older engines - for one the 5,000 mile oil change is a good time to look everything else over and check other fluid levels. I don't use synthetics in my engines - even in the cases where I have rebuilt them completely. The reason? I don't have the time nor the inclination to do oil analysis testing - which is important to both maximize the value of synthetics, and to pinpoint when filters and oil should be changed over the life of the engine. Any industry that uses synthetics, as well as every single branch of the military has recognized this - there is no shortcut around it - if you run synthetics you SHOULD be doing oil analysis as well. I would rather just change my conventional oil every 5k and not bother with the added work of analysis and tracking every single aspect of my various engine's. Once again - this isn't rocket science and we don't build swiss watches here. This is a Subaru - not the military, not NASA..... Further, I would sugest that 90% of the people that run synthtic in their vehicles do so for no good reason at all. "it's more expensive, so it must be better!" The same reason that a LOT of people buy the cars they do. I could go on, but you get the idea.... GD

Very possible for it to be wireing connection issues. Often suspected alternator failure's on EA81's are really the result of bad connections. Either it taxes the alternator too much and causes repeated alternator failures or it results in strange readings at the gauge that really aren't indicative of what's really happeneing. GD

I would make sure you can even remove them before promising to sell them. A lot of the time they will not come off without a fight and you need a large torx socket to fit the bolts that hold them on. GD

Ditch the Carb and put the SPFI back on. It's a far better system and whoever pulled it for that damn Hitachi should be shown the bottom of your boot. There is NOTHING on an older Subaru more frustrating than those Hitachi's, and I'm probably one of the most knowledgable around here about them and carbs in general. The ports on the bottom of the carb that are dumping fuel are the access holes for removing the main jets. You forgot the put the plugs back in. GD

Most likely the legacy radiator. Number of cores is only one factor. Dimensions and construction techniques are just as important. Without having actual thermal rejection specifications it's really impossible to tell. But being that the EJ22 uses larger radiator hoses, more coolant, and is a larger, more powerful engine, it's a safe bet that it is designed to reject more BTU's than the EA81 radiator. GD

Find out where you are losing power. It's a pretty simple matter to look at the MPFI wireing diagram and trace all the power leads and which pins they connect to. You have an ignition relay that provides main power to the ECU when the key is turned on - I would start there. GD

Maybe - not much though. The stock EA82 NA y-pipe is already unequal and the performance losses of making it *more* unequal are pretty slim. Probably not enough to notice. Might pick it up on a dyno but we are talking about an engine that delivers 84 to 90 HP here..... it's not going to make enough difference to talk about and if it gives the desired exhaust note then it's a viable option. Pointless IMO, but to each their own eh? GD

No - I don't think it's causing his issue. But it could be a problem down the line. It is, as you say, a matter of the "right way"...... although technically it's not even a "PCV" system right now as there is no positive flow through the crankcase with it using equally sized lines on either side of the engine like that. GD

Plugs look good - might be a bit of oil on that #2 cylinder - valve stem seals perhaps. But nothing to worry about really. The carb looks fine - that boss on the back is for a second accelerator pump - they are not equipped with them in progressive linkage format - that is just a casting artifact that isn't used on your's. You need to change the PCV a bit - the line between the PCV valve/drivers side valve cover and the T going into the filter needs to be reduced to 1/4" ID - that is a vacuum breaker line that should only be large enough to prevent the PCV valve from sucking oil out of the drivers side valve cover but not large enough to interrupt the directional flow through the crankcase. With all the lines the same size like that you won't get any flow through the crankcase. Otherwise I don't see many issues. You have the HH disconnected so you should add a clutch fork return spring to keep from wearing out the TO bearing..... And there's a chance you could damage the ignitor in the disty with that hot MSD coil. It's not neccesary and the stock coil's are amazingly reliable. You gain nothing but the potential for failure using that coil. GD

EA82's are a damn sight easier to work on than any transverse engine setup you could conjur up, but still a royal pain in comparison to the EA81.... no timing belts - I can change a water pump in 15 minutes. Try that with an EA82 The problem is that there aren't many shops around that still have people with the knowledge to work on them, and so there's a lot of sub-standard timing belt jobs done anymore. That and people cheap out on the parts and skip replacing items that really need to be replaced (water pump when you are doing t-belts, etc) - and you end up with the situation you are in now. I got a 94 legacy a while back on the cheap because of the exact same situation - water pump failure due to an improper 120k service. Figure on spending about $200 in parts to get it back up to snuff. You should also replace all the radiator hoses, and the heater core hoses since you are doing the bypass hose anyway. Flush the radiator and heater core and replace the coolant while you are at it - EA82 cooling systems were not designed with a lot of overhead capacity wise and it is neccesary to keep them in top condition to prevent overheating and potential head gasket failure. GD

The key to bringing out the low, deep, grumble is to use resonating chambers. This does not require any exhaust restriction. It is merely an expansion chamber (a section of pipe that is larger diameter for a distance, then returns to normal diameter). This allows destrutive interference to eliminate the unwanted high-picthed tone's. When done correctly and properly tuned it results in a very nice sound. The system on my 91 SS started out life as a $400 ebay special (for a WRX) - 3" stainless, straight through, catless, turbo-back. It has no mufflers - only a single mid-pipe resonator, and a straight through cherry-bomb style tip. The tip section is a resonator with a mesh core that further dampens high pitched tone. It sounds very nice, is completely without restrictions, and it definately has the "rumble". My headers are completely stock so the rumble is quite pronounced. In fact if you wanted to increase the rumble of the non-turbo engine, fab up a turbo header to it. It is a LOT more unequal than the standard NA y-pipe's. GD

There is nothing particularly challenging about the job - the thing that gives people the most trouble is getting the timing belts on correctly. Unlike almost all other engines out there, the EA82 uses two seperate timing belts. The engine is non-interferance though so the most that will happen is not running at all or running incorrectly. There are some good walk-through's of the procedure around here - do a search for EA82 timing belt guide or procedure, etc. Pull the radiator to get room to work on the front of the engine. It is not uncommon for the outer belt cover bolts to be frozen in their capture nuts and for them to spin in the plastic - many of us just ditch the covers as they are more of a pain then they are worth. Sadly, with an EA82, unless you do the maintenance yourself - the price of having a t-belt/water pump job done at a shop is usually more than the value of the car. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 to $750. GD

Lets get some facts straight here. 1. The sound an engine makes - as it pertains to the "smoothness" or "roughness" is determined by the number of cylinders, and how evenly the exhaust pulses are emitted from the tail-pipe. 2. The one and only *reason* that Subaru engines and other boxer's have a "rumble" to them is that they have a small number of cylinders (more widely spaced exhaust pulses) and as Carfreak pointed out - almost all of them have unequal length headers due to the cost and complexity of producing EL headers for such an engine design. The gains are small from EL header design's (on the order of 25 HP for a 300 HP turbocharged engine for example - gains are much smaller even for NA engines). 3. Conversely, the reason you *don't* hear this on other engines is that they either have more cylinders, or they have nearly equal length headers - which is trivial to produce for inline engines. Accross the board in other vehicles out there you either have more cylinders, or you have an inline engine design that has EL factory headers simply because it was easy and inexpensive. GD

I'll go one farther and say that I've seen it do so. GD

You have done an excelent job of explaining your problem and what you are seeing - the pulley that you are refering to (the one that also runs the fan) is, in fact, the water pump. It sounds like you have classic syptoms of a water pump seal failure - unfortunately that does mean you will have to replace the pump. Given the location of the pump and what must be done to access it, it is generally best if the maintenance history is unknown or questionable to replace the timing belt, tensioners, idler, cam and crank seals, and the water pump + bypass hose all at the same time. It's also a good idea to remove and inspect the oil pump and reseal it while you are in there. All of these things are ONLY accesible once the timing belt and covers are removed so it is best to do everything and be sure you will have a trouble free 50,000 miles till the next belt change. GD

The "rumble" is not due to the boxer engine design - it's due to the unequal length headers Subaru uses. This also decreases power - so more rumble = less power. You can make it louder - just lose the muffler. I run straight pipe on my lifted wagon - stock exhaust. It's not that loud..... but I don't drive it every day either. GD

Does it act lean or rich when you floor it? Remember that you will always feel a lean condition more than a rich one. Lean will be anything from a light surge to a violent jerking. Rich will just be anything from a nagging power loss to black smoke and refusing to gain RPM's. Try "reading" the plugs. What color are they? - if you have a decent camera and can take a picture of all 4 of them at a nice resolution perhaps we could help read them. It sounds rich from your description - which could be high fuel pressure or a maladjusted float (among a lot of other things - but given you have checked the jets already, etc). The jets are only half the equation - the other half is the fuel level in the bowl - unless it is dead on the jets will not get the proper fuel supply. GD

Probably blew the freeze plugs out of the heads eh? That's what I would be looking for - that's a classic winter problem if there's no anti-freeze or it's not a proper mixture for the climate. GD

The good news is that when you become an old-hand at the EA series cars, and you have a nice supply of parts cars and shelves full of parts it gets a lot cheaper. My '83 hatch has 240k on it and within about a month of bringing it online for a daily driver I replaced both axles (EMPI - $58 each), new water pump, new oil pump, rebuilt a carb for it, new hoses all around, new belt, new clutch and accelertor cables, new engine and tranny mounts, new brakes, and various other misc. items. With the exception of the water pump which started weeping from the shaft seal (replaced before it stranded me of course) - ALL of those items were done as PREVENTATIVE maintenance - none of them outright failed on me. I knew they had to be done and every pay-day a few more items were checked off the list. The car was bought for $250 and I probably still have less than $1000 into it. I has NEVER left me stranded - of course it's not without issues - 3rd gear syncro is almost gone, one cylinder has low comp., etc. It's all about knowing what you can ignore, and what you need to address before it fails. I started with a car that had very high mileage, had been parked for 3 years, and neglected by it's owners prior to that. With care, a trained eye, and proper priorities, it was no problem to bring it online again. GD

If it's not road worthy at 8 degrees, then something is very wrong. Put it back to 8 and start troubleshooting. You shouldn't be running premium gas - that will not help you properly adjust the timing and it's more expensive without giving you any advantages. You should always run the lowest octane that your engine will tollerate without pre-detonation. As you don't have a turbo, that means 87. GD

I've only done EJ's with EA transmissions and EJ turbo's so I figured perhaps it was different. On retrospect though it really wouldn't make sense for it not to have one.... GD

The way that kind of swap is done is to use many newer turbo parts (WRX, etc) along with the EJ22T block. The block is very good and desireable - but you would want to swap over to 2.5 liter heads and many folks also go with 2.5 litre rotating assemblies - the result is a 2.35 litre turbo "stroker" that's easily capable of 800+ HP. The engine is desireable and even valuable to some - but as noted to make it work in a 96+ you are going to have to do a TON of wireing or use a lot of newer turbo parts with the 2.2 short block under them all to interface with the car's electrical. GD

I'm in the (slow) process of building new strut blocks for the front of the wagon so I can (hopefully) take it to the show. I'm doing them similar to what your original's were - slotted for camber adjustment. I suspect though that it's going to end up being similarly screwed up in the camber department to your's. I'm going to try to build in enough offset to adjust the struts flat again but I'm not sure it's going to be that easy. Did you attempt to build new strut blocks that allowed enough adjustment to fix the camber or is the uni-body just totally in the way? GD