GeneralDisorder

Yeah - probably bent some stuff. It's tight in there but it should be fixable. The track and rollers and stuff just bolts to the window and the inside of the door. Yep - just discard it if you rip it up or it's rotten. Not entirely neccesary in my experience......actually I've never noticed a lick of difference without them. GD

Just buy a cheap/wrecked gen 1 legacy - that gives you all the parts you need except the drilled EA82 flywheel, adaptor plate, and misc. hoses, etc. There's a couple members that can make one or both for you. You can mod the flywheel yourself with a die grinder or dremel and a carbide bit. GD

Um - he's talking about the proportioning valve - not sure how that article relates.... EA81's didn't have a p-valve at all for the rear so it's definitely not required for any mechanical reasons. GD

You just bend the hard line into a "pig tail" and connect the EA82 soft line. No special tools are required. You should use the proportion valve. I can tell you from experience it makes a difference. If you are running lifted it probably won't matter as much, but since the EA81's have no valve at all (EA82's all have them, and the disc valve is very little different from the drum valve) there's good reasons to install one, and no reasons that I know of not to - other than not wanting to do the extra labor. The cost of the valve is negligible GD

No Subaru ever made has had "locking hubs". Even a '75 4WD wagon (the first 4WD Subaru) was shift on the go, and no stopping, getting out, or locking of anything besides the flip of a lever was required. That has nothing to do with Subaru's unless you are talking about those of us with Welded diffs. Even then it's not an informed comment of any kind of worth. I say AWD for you as well..... but not for ^those^ reasons. GD

It was bored? Well that's interesting. Questions to ask: 1. Was it bored with a bore plate? If not you run a very high risk of the cylinder sleeves spinning. I'm sure you can imagine how bad that would be. The head gaskets will unseat, and dissasembling the engine (well - it would be pointless anyway) would be difficult as the wrist pins can't be accessed. 2. 9.0:1 pistons would be from a carbed block - were they original to the engine? What type of rings were used? They really aren't up to turbo pressure - you run a high risk of collapsed ring lands, and ANY amount of detonation could easily punch a hole in one. As for the spider intake - the only thing that will work with respect to that is a harness from a later XT Turbo that came with the spider intake. The TPS is different and won't be understood by the non-spider turbo ECU. A non-turbo MPFI ECU from an N/A XT won't understand boost conditions. So your choices are XT Turbo ECU and harness, or aftermarket. Aftermarket would be BY FAR the best as you could control things much better and possibly avoid killing those pistons (for a while). Your turbo and exhaust won't fit unless you also get an engine cross-member from a turbo EA82 car. The N/A cross member has no spot for the downpipe. Basically this is a bad idea - especially for the measly 25 HP you would gain. Sell that stuff to a board member that can use it and put in an EJ22 - it will be easier, 100 times more reliable, and will give you 40 more HP. There's members at legacycentral that have made 170 AWHP from N/A EJ22's without any turbo at all. You'll spend twice as much and get half as far with the EA82T. GD

I own a 94 LGT, and it definately doesn't have a subwoofer . Could have been an option I suppose - I'll have to look in my owners manual. GD

Well - at least you tried. It's not easy to ressurect something that has been abused for 24 years. But look at it this way - it was STILL on the road. That's an acheivment for an 83 these days. I see mostly EA82's in the junk yards because most of the EA81's have gone to the crusher by now. The cost to keep them on the road has exceeded their value in the marketplace for all except the Brat's. It's best to not tackle something on the far side of 20 years old if it's your only car. Heck - I've got three aging 20+ year old Subaru's and NONE of them are my daily drivers. They could be of course, but for various reasons they don't fit the bill - either too costly to drive daily (lifted, etc), or too valuable to rack up miles on (Brat's). And my Legacy is just more comfortable, has better commuting drivability, better heat, better power, better sound system (bone stock I mean), and all around it's nicer to pick up friends in, and nicer to be seen in. Not that I mind driving my Brat, but it's got no room for passengers, and it's a "rough" ride without power steering or AC, etc. With the cost of early gen Legacy's now easily under $1000..... I just don't see a reason to torture myself with the driveability of the EA series. They have their place, and their purpose, but for a commuter?.... not in my book. I commend you for your efforts, but an 83 wagon at this point has no real value other than for parts or to off-road till it turns into parts. Sounds like you got a decent trade in (as long as they didn't just stick that $700 onto the loan ) GD

EA81 D/R is a 4 speed and they suck (well - their linkage, and their mounts suck, but I digress). All EA82's had 5 speed's - the transmissions are phisically different and modifications are required to swap them around. For example - I have an EA82 5 speed D/R in my EA81 Brat. Because the 5MT's are better. Just trust me on this. The manual could either be a push-button or a D/R for 88 - there's no way to tell. GD

I say AWD. You can modulate the brakes to stop a tire from spinning too much, and if most of your driving is "on-road" without a lift or anything, then AWD is the way to go. Makes wet pavement a lot easier. GD

I have a nice set of taps, but no set of bottoming taps. I just buy a "cheap" tap for my bottoming tap and cut the end off. Works great and doesn't cost a lot like genuine bottoming taps. GD

Not worth the effort. By the time you were done, to get STi performance from the car (braking, handling, etc) it would cost more than a used STi. If you "cannot" do the wireing, then you "cannot" do the swap. I highly doubt even having someone else "merge" the harnesses would be acceptable unless they had access to both vehicles - essencially "doing the swap for you". The wireing IS the swap - the rest any tractor mechanic with a torch could do....The STi system relies heavily on "fly by wire" technology, and the DCCD 6 speed would be near impossible to swap as it requires input from wheel sensors, etc. You could source a JDM 6 speed, but that's going to run you an additional $3k - $5k or so and they aren't easy to find. This "Armchair" talk is all fun, but if you want to do it then get the parts, learn the wiring and get to work. As has been mentioned you won't get much help here as likely no one here has done such a thing. Once you see the bottom line costs involved you likely won't either. GD

Yeah - tranny from the "u-pull" yards are $80 here - regardless of what they are from. From a "shelf" with a 90 day warrantee.... probably about $250 to $400 depending on the yard. GD

Yes. They are different - 3 pin vs. 4 pin TPS, and other differences. "Normal" MPFI refers to what exactly? 85 2WD GL's? You can do anything you want, but you'll have to be more specific than "GL-10" as that tells us nothing at all about the engine you are thinking of. GL-10's came as turbo's, MPFI, SPFI, etc. GD

Yep -all EA71's made after 82 I think had the offset starter, EA81 bell-housing. They made the EA71 till 89 when the STD Hatch was finally laid to rest. Any of the mid to later 80's EA71's were like this, they are just very rare as they only came in STD Hatchbacks - everything else had the EA81. The "fat case" refers to the later EA71's that had the same case dimensions as the EA81 with regards to the intake manifold. At least that's what I've gleaned on the subject. I think that either of the bell-housings can be bolted to the "fat-case" but it would seem likely that they were side-starter. There were also EA71's made with hydro lifters although I've never been able to confirm if they were imported to the US or not. It's difficult to determine some of this stuff as a single example really doesn't tell much - often the engines have been replaced with the popular "JDM" import engines. I've noticed that the JDM engines have japanese writing on the "do not adjust" valve cover stickers while the USDM ones do not. I've seen an '82 wagon with a hydro lifter engine that had these oddball stickers with the japanese writing, and in smaller english print they said "do not adjust" etc. GD

Yep - and some of them had auto-adjusters too. Weird contraption, and I don't like them since I had one completely eat itself and lock the wheel at freeway speeds. After I beat the drum off with a sledge there were all kinds of little brake "bits" and peices of the adjuster and the master cylinder. It looked like a grenade went off inside there. I have a feeling thats why they stopped using the auto adjusters later in the EA82 line. GD

It's not a warm-up issue at all. It's there to prevent icing of the carb. If the dew point of the air going into the carb is just in the right range the carb will collect moisture from the incomming air and it will form ice on the throttle body and throttle plates due to the "wind chill" effect of air flowing at high speeds through the venturi. This obviously will make it run like complete crap until it shuts down and melts the ice. If you don't live in a really cold, often wet environment you will likely never see a need for the hot air riser. Here in OR it rarely gets below 20 degrees and carb icing isn't really an issue. I've never had a problem with it anyway. I see you are in Nebraska.... might be an issue for you. Just use some bailing wire to hold the hot air riser near the cat till you can have a proper bit of pipe welded to the heat shield. GD

By "bottom end" I suppose I should have said "short block" as I was mostly refering to the pistons and rings - the ring lands have been known to collapse, and holes blown in the piston tops. But yes the bottom end proper is usually fine. GD

Momentary hiss is perfectly normal Loss of power is also normal as most of the settings (defrost especially) run the AC compressor. GD

A 7/16x20 tap will thread right in without drilling and will still allow you to heli-coil or timesert it later. Although I've never had to. The 7/16x20 is larger and so provides better grip than the old 10mm studs did anyway. I've done a number of them this way and never had to go back. I just use regular bolts. The trick is to not allow the weight of the y-pipe to rest on the block threads. As long as you observe this rule carefully the threads should last just fine. Make sure to use a bottoming tap to get the threads all the way to the bottom of the hole. Or you could spend a lot more and get the same results..... at least that's my feeling on it. But I understand the desire to "do it right". I've just never had the money for that route with this particular problem. GD

That grill is from an 83. Probably swapped at some point, but just so you know. Looks hammered - just like the one I have. Better that way IMO as I don't feel bad about hammering it some more. GD

You don't. GD

It's not worth the work involved for 5 HP... unless your plan is to turbo it? Then it's really not worth it - destruction of the bottom end will result in pretty short order with the 9.5:1 comp. You would have to piggy-back the MPFI harness to the existing car's harness, or tear out the dash and frankenstall an XT harness into it. Either way it's a LOT of time and effort for 5 HP. Which is why almost no one has done it. Easier if you start with a turbo car and go *back* to MPFI by installing an SPFI short block and removing the turbo. GD

Coolant runs through the intake, so unless you divert it, thermal coating will just keep the heat IN. A couple machined blocks to divert the coolant flow through a seperate path and to the radiator's upper hose would be cool. GD

Here's the deal: 77 to 85 were imported as "cars" using the bolt-in rear seats as a "loophole" into the passenger car tariff. 86/87 were imported as "trucks". No rear seats. Subaru had a rash of litigation involving the rear seats and fatal roll-over accidents. They removed the seats in 86 and 87 then pulled the Brat from the US market as it was no longer economical for them to sell it here due to the much higher tax on truck imports. They were produced variously in other countries till 94. GD