GeneralDisorder

No - your issue is *not* a camber issue. It's a caster issue and you aren't going to fix it by changing the length of the lower control arm. You will have to move the top of the strut forward or backward (not side to side - that would be camber) to affect the angle of the tire when it's turned. I'm not sure on the EA82's, but on the EA81's you can change the caster to some extent by turning the strut cap 180 degrees as the mounting studs are not centered on the axis of rotation. GD

1200 eh? You have a mess on your hands. First you probably have vacuum leaks, and you clearly have a severe miss at idle (vacuum leak related most likely). You are dumping entire cylinders of gasoline that haven't burnt - thus the enormous amount of HC from the idle test. You have to fix the carb and the vac leaks and get the idle down to around 800 - 1000 or you just aren't going to pass Also your cat has had it - that much fuel dumping into the cat will straight burn it out. Get another y-pipe with a good cat or add one to the mid-pipe. Alcohol will not help you with numbers that high. You can expect at most a 50% reduction from denatured alcohol as you can't run more than 1/2 your tank with the stuff - it will also run like total crap and you won't get the idle down unless you fix the carb/vac leaks you have. Pretty much, with what you are telling me, there is no way around it - you are going to have to make some serious repair efforts if you want that thing to pass. I would do a leak-down test and see what you are working with for compression - you may have a couple low cylinders or one really bad one - in which case it will never pass till it's rebuilt. GD

Use an EA81 distributor - they are self-contained and rarely fail. The Hitachi units electronic ignitor is easily replaced as well. They have two wires that go to the coil just like a points style unit. GD

It can still be done - I have one in my completely stock height Brat. You just need to modify the cross-member or buy one from Jerry. GD

Melt it down and have it recast as an EJ22. It's more expensive than it's worth to do much of anything beyond a carb swap or SPFI swap. Punch out the cat and saw off the muffler. Call it a day. Spend your pennies on an EJ22 and an adaptor plate. GD

You aren't going to easily fix the camber when the wheel is turned. It's an artifact of the suspension design - you can make them straight when the wheel is straight but even with a stock suspension the camber is way out when the wheel is turned. It has to do with the caster of the strut - I'm not even sure it can be fixed due to clearance issues with the axle shaft but if it can it's going to require compound angle lift blocks and custom lower control arms. This is somewhat of a problem with stock sized tires, but as you increase the tire diameter you increase the angle at the outside of the tire radius - the larger the diameter of the tire, the farther from center the edge will be when the wheel is turned completely to lock. So larger tires are only going to compound the issue. And if you correct the caster of the strut, you now have to deal with a car that is (probably) near undriveable at high speed - the wheels are set to the caster they are to keep them easily aligned to straight when the car is rolling forward. If you remove all the caster from the strut the tires will not realign to straight after making a turn. Think - driving backwards at 50 mph without your hands on the wheel Alignment is a tricky, tricky problem with independant suspension. And without haveing an upper control arm to keep things level you are limted to the design abilities of the macpherson strut system. Most of us just try to go slow around corners and we buy a lot of tires. GD

No. A bit. You most definately need a 5 speed. You said it yourself - 5th gear is the same as 4th on your tranny. But 4th(5th) is basically unusable. The 5 speed gives you BACK the 4th gear you lost on your 4 speed. It makes 25 mph actually decent in 3rd gear. It gives you more gears on the low end (1 and 2) and better gear spacing on the high end (3, 4, 5), it has better low range, better linkage, and stronger syncro's. And it's not too much work - it requires mods only to the cross-member and since you are already lifted it will fit no problem. I saw one made from a cheap water filter housing from home depot. PVC pipe would work I'm sure. GD

You actually would have a hard time getting rid of the lumpy boxer sound. It has to do with the manifolds not having equal length headers and thus the exhaust pulses are leaving the tail-pipe in a non-uniform pattern. Thus the wacky sound they make. It's not a problem on the non-turbo engines but actually does reduce performance by a slight percentage on the turbo's as the exhaust turbine doesn't receive evenly spaced pressure waves and thus doesn't spin up as fast. There are some headers out there that fix this *problem* on the turbo's and they sounds just like.... a Honda! GD

It's been done. It's really not that difficult either. Once you convert to the XT6 5 lug stuff and swap out the engine cross-member with one from a turbo EA82 it's just a matter of wireing and some exhaust/cooling system mods. GD

Absolutely! I've seen vids of what things like Lucas do - it's not pretty. I work with some specialized machinery and the things you learn about oil and grease are just astounding. Lets just say that I probably wouldn't have a job if it weren't for people NOT understanding the lubrication requirements of their equipment. 90% of the problems I encounter are a direct result of improper lubrication maintenance - including using the wrong oil, mixing incompatible types, not fully draining old lubricants when changing, and flat-out not changing it before it turns to honey or roofing tar (or is more water than oil )...... I have a grease compatibility matrix that would make you cry - I think they TRY to design the stuff so you can only use their brand.... GD

3/16" pin punch. It's actually a 5mm roll pin, but a 3/16" is close enough. Snap-On and Mac, etc sell true 5mm roll pin punches. DO NOT try to use a drill bit - they will shatter. GD

FWIW, my experience has been that the roll pin will go in from either side. Often there is an end to a used roll pin that is more tapered than the other - but only sometimes and only on used pins. The beveled hole is easier to get the pin started in though. GD

Pegged out means the wireing is shorted to ground. Check the resistance of the sender by itself - if it's a dead short to ground then the sender is bad. If not then you have a short in the wireing somewhere. You'll have to trace it back to the gauge. GD

I did all of what you are describing and more with my first EA81 wheeling motor. It died when a rod came out the top of the block - too much overheating and not enough oil pressure. I would rebuild the whole thing if I were you - it's likely that it doesn't have enough life left in the bottom end to warrant a HG replacement. You should go through it and do rod/main bearings and a set of rings at least. GD

Interesting - I wouldn't have though the stock system to be so restrictive on the newer cars. I suppose it ties in with the emissions and noise requirements. GD

So what have you found out about the 5 lug swap - have you called your driveline guy yet? Checked out ball joint interface issue? This is something I want to do with my Brat at some point but I haven't worked on lining up any of the sources or researching it beyond knowing some of the issues. GD

Likely the head gaskets were already going out the first time the coolant "dissapeared". That should have been a clue. There shouldn't be ANY coolant loss beyond what the EA81 pukes out to get to it's normal running range (no overflow bottle). For example - my 91 SS has a 94 TTW engine in it. I have NOT modded it much yet (I have all the parts to do so) because I first wanted to drive it daily and see what it's tendancies are toward fluids.... turns out it uses about a quart of coolant between an oil change - so guess what I'll be doing BEFORE it blows, and BEFORE I mod the piss out of it? I'm not dogging on you, but you really have to be more mindfull of your fluids and your overall engine condition before you go wheeling, and before you add mods. These situations just don't happen to me or a lot of the other folks around here - the number one rule of wheeling is.... don't wheel your daily, and especially don't wheel your only car - unless you like walking. Hell I won't even wheel with other people who don't have another rig. I'm not interested in feeling guilty about someone breaking their only ride pulling my dumb a$$ out of a huge mess. GD

Full voltage does NOT mean full current. You may still not be passing enough to get it going. The starters are easy to dissasemble and clean the contacts, replace the brushes, etc. But your problem is more likely to be the ignition switch/harness or the battery cables. As far as replacements - Subaru (as far as I know) still hasn't changed their starter design. EA81, EA82, EJ22, and EJ25 are all the same up to at least the late 90's - I know from experience. The really new stuff might be different but I suspect it isn't. GD

The A/C fan is there to cool the A/C compressor - nothing more. They are not designed to cool the engine, but on a 100 degree day in traffic the compressor needs airflow or you WILL be replacing it..... and till you do you'll be the guy with his windows down and sweat beading up in that 5 mph traffic jam. GD

To answer your question - the answer is no. The system could be low on charge and there is a pressure sensor that will not allow the compressor to start if there isn't enough refrigerant in the system. GD

The fuel pump relay on an SPFI rig is just a simple relay - the "pinout" is printed on the side of it. Besides that you should use the EJ fuel pump relay since you ought to be using the EJ fuel pump. The SPFI pump can work as well, but the EJ fuel pump relay can run it without issue. Same for the ignition relay (I'm assuming that's what you are refering to as "main" since there is no part by that name). You should use the EJ relay. GD

You have a single new axle installed amongst a forest of old, sloppy parts.... the results are often unpredictable in such cases. You may have a bad DOJ, or it could just be tight. Depending on how the new axle feels it may be that you need to replace the other axle and possibly some mounts as well. GD

As mentioned it's a 1.8 liter, single overhead cam, 8 valve engine. 9.0:1 compression ratio - they make 84 HP. Best thing you can do at a reasonable cost is replace the carb with either a Weber or the spfi injection used from 86 to 94. GD

If he tells us what body style he has then I can just give him the engine designation as well as the specs ect. You're going to make him go out there with a flashlight after 10 pm? That's kinda mean..... There was no SPFI in 85. It's either carbed, MPFI, or turbo. GD

What body style do you have? Wagon, sedan, etc? GD