GeneralDisorder

Wish I knew more about it. When in doubt - check the FSM wireing diagrams! On carbed engines, I think the coil and the tach use the same signal..... since there's only two wires running from the disty..... GD

The fuel pump is somehow driven off the tach signal from the disty I think. There is a fuel pump control unit somewhere in the car on a carbed model that uses that signal to determine if the pump should run or not. It will shut the pump down if the engine is not turning over.... at least that's the theory. In the case of a turbo model, then I think the ECU probably does that job, as the engine was MPFI. Personally, I would find an aftermaket safety switch that runs from the tach signal, and rewire the thing. GD

Ask soobme about pricing - he's quite reasonable. My front bumper was $100, and the rear was $160. Now of course I picked mine up because he's only about 300 miles from me, but shipping isn't as bad as you think. GD

For one thing, you can't use the stock EA81T pump for a weber without a serious pressure regulator. The turbo pump is like 40 psi, and the carbed one is 2 psi.... GD

For an RX - all you need is some knarly tires, and your set. GD

Do you mean rally-x? Or just messing around in the woods and trails? For rally-x, I haven't seen anyone that's done any more than beat the ridge down in the front fender wells. The courses are generally pretty flat, and soobs already have decent clearance for a little mud and stuff. For real off-roading, a lift is really the answer. The 3" seems to be the most popular, and what I am running right now. I have 28" tires on my wagon, but even with 3.5" blocks on the front, I had to beat the fenders quite a bit, and do some cutting as well. Had to cut a bit on the rear too - in front of the tires. If you want to almost completely cut the fenders and such out you can fit 27" or so without a lift, but you'll beat the underside of the car up like a soda can. It's best to just get a lift, and save the frame of the car from too much damage. GD

Well - I was thinking about using it for the wagon, but then the bumper woudn't match the grill angle and such anymore..... looks like I'll have to get a hatch to put those on! GD

Soobme did me up some *very* custom bumpers. With a bit of input from him, and some from myself, we came up with a unique design, and he implemented it quite well. I am very pleased. The quality of the work, and the attention to detail is without question some of the best I've seen. He tells me that he will be getting a bender up and running here shortly.... you should all RUN - don't walk - to get a new set of bumpers from him. This is his first Subaru swing out tire rack.... I'll let the pictures tell the story..... GD

Find a cheap muffler shop, and have them make you one. You should be able to get a cat from ebay for pretty cheap with the O2 sensor thing in it.... I know I have seen magnaflow's on there... GD

Keep the EA81 - you can get more power from it more easily than an EA82. Also no timing belts... Use the 5 speed D/R with the EA81. Deck the heads, get a delta cam from WA, and put on a weber. Easily more power than an EA82T, and a LOT less trouble to do it. Figureing out the wireing harness, and trying to plumb in a turbo is a lot more work than rebuilding an engine with a bigger cam, and decked heads.... ask Qman for details on the engine - he's running one that's about 150 HP or so.... GD

Your description of it steering with the gas pedal was what lead me to the ball joints. I had this same problem when I first bought my Brat from Zapar - he was kind enough to tell me what the problem was, and after checking, it was indeed the ball joint on the passemger side. It would steer to the right on accel, and steer to the left on decel..... it's easy enough to check, just jack the car up, and have a look at them - if the boots are ripped they are bad, or if you can feel any movement with a prybar between the lower control arm and the knuckle they are bad. That said, I agree with others that a binding axle could cause it to want to transfer more or less power to one wheel. But I have never personally experienced that. Also could be bad front wheel bearings - these will usually make lots of noise tho, indicating they are bad. Steering play is generally indicative of bad tie rod ends, or a bad rack. Sometimes on lifted rigs it's a bad linkage enxtension..... GD

Ball joints GD

That listing is very confusing - it doesn't seem to have a listing for the 4WD tranny's - except the Brat. And to my knowledge, 82 trans were the same as 83+ except for 3rd and 4th gear - which are more like the 5 speed 3rd and 4th. I have both - an 82 in my lifted 84 wagon with 28's, and an 85 in my stock Brat. The difference is pretty noticeable in 3rd and 4th - for off-road it doesn't seem to matter much. 1st gear should be the same on all 4 spd D/R tranny's.... and if that chart is correct, then the listing for the Brat should be about right - 3.636. But there's no listing of 5 speed D/R tranny's in that chart, since they weren't availible till 85..... Also - you should note that the 82 4WD cars use the 2WD clutch. So you will want to be replacing that with the bigger 4WD one, as big tires don't get along with the 200mm clutch disc. I found this out the hard way...... GD

If you have the original trans, then I would keep it. The 81 and 82 D/R have better gearing in 3rd and 4th for a lifted rig. Basically, if you swap to a 5 speed, you will have the same thing, but with a useless 5th gear that you would not use. If your's was an 83 or later model, then I would have said go for it, but you have a rare year, and a slight advantage in gearing already. You'll be just fine with a lift, and big tires. The owners manual's do not list the gear ratio's BTW. At least none of the 5 or 6 I have lying around do.... GD

Yes - rotate the pump while removeing it rather than prying. Be careful..... the crank pulley is 22mm, also a 13/16" will do the trick. I seccond the oil pan and valve cover gaskets. If you gonna be in there - might want to do a valve adjustment too. Pretty easy, and should be done every 15k anyway. GD

Valve covers, and the oil pan gasket. Same as EA81's actually.... do em up with high temp RTV, and they won't leak..... for a while. As for the drain plug - get a new metal crush gasket every few times you change the oil. They are cheap, and I usually buy 10 or 20 at a time.... GD

I already know mine - it's 19.2% It's not hard to figure out on your own with a little math. Basic percentages, and a little geometry is all that is needed. GD

Zap mentions their removal technique on one of Unhatched's stubs here: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3157&highlight=rubicon GD

If you don't remove a rear axle for pavement travel, a sharp turn can litterally blow the axle apart. At the very least, it will almost certainly break. The axles are not very strong. The stub axles can break too, and with the higher crawl ratios of the t-case modded folk out there, these seem to be a weak point. I think Jared said he has broken 4 now. It's not *as much* of a problem for us without the t-case, but they can still break. I saw one that Qman broke - twisted it right in half. GD

Bugaru and I have found some wonderful trails down here about 1.5 hours from hood river..... we would love to show you all around up in there. We can go in search of closer stuff to the event location, and have a good knowledge of what's around that area too. Since hood river is so close for us, we would be happy to assist in any way we can. On another note - Bugaru and I are planning to go mudding this next weekend - if you guys are comming down anyway - maybe you would like to play too? Maybe we could organize something.... GD

Thanks Zap! I think I'll get one. Ok - as for welding the diff, I just did that, and my research sugested that welding the side gears together is the best approach. Some people have welded the side gears to the carrier, but this is less strong as the gears are tool-steel, and the carrier is cast I think. At any rate, it's best to weld similar metals for strength, and gear to gear will get you that. Basically, we (Bugaru and I) just decided to weld the thing at each place where the gears come together - so four welds on each side. We removed the diff from my car (20 minutes if that), and drained the gear oil. Inspected the diff to make sure we were welding something that was in good shape in the first place, and then gave it a good cleaning with brake cleaner. Brake cleaner leaves no residue, so that was our reasoning for using it - we wanted the metal as clean as possible. I didn't have my compressor up and running, but I would sugest using compressed air to get it all dry and ready for welding. We just let is sit overnight to make sure it was throughly dry. The welding process itself was pretty quick, and we found that we got great penetration on the welds, so I have no fear of my diff ever breaking. We used a Lincoln 220 volt Mig setup, with 100% CO2. I think the 100% CO2 mixture gave us more penetration, but a little bit more splatter to clean up. We conjectured that a mixture with more argon would result in less splatter, but after seeing the results, I think I would rather go with the 100% CO2, as the welds seem insanely strong. After that, I filled the diff with motor oil, and worked it around till I got all the splatter ground up, and drained out. Filled it with gear oil, and installed it in the car. I've taken it out on some rough stuff twice now, and it's been awesome so far. I'm not a welder, so if anything I said was incorrect, please feel free to correct me. Bugaru did the actual welding - I just helped with the prep work, and such. Just reporting what I have experienced.... GD

Just a quick question on this topic - anyone know a good place to get the special socket for the stub bolt? Do you just unbolt it, and slide the stub out? Or do you have to remove the side seal and what not to get to it? GD

My mileage went in the toilet, and I can tell you that Bugaru had the same effect. My car was 2WD, with stock tires of 175/70r13's. I have a brand new weber, and before the lift and tires I got 32 MPG on the freeway. Now with 215/75r15's I get about 17 MPG. Bugaru with his 205/75r15's gets a little less than me at about 16.... mostly due to his crappy hitachi, and 84 4 speed trans. I have bigger tires and more wieght, and I still get better mileage with my weber. There's really not much you can do about it, except build a higher compression engine, putting out more power. The tires are tough for the little 1.8 to push down the freeway, and your mileage is going to suck. That's just how it is. It's still better than most big trucks tho. GD

As I recall, Audi had AWD long before subaru did. The 1981 quattro rally cars had AWD, and 200 HP 5 cylinder turbo's.... in fact, till Audi got out of the sport, Subaru didn't stand a chance. Not that I like Audi's, but I do have to admit they were first. GD

Right - being a STD model, it would be a 4 speed, 2WD, EA71, with an EA81 bell-housing. It's still considered an EA81 car tho. And as sucker king noted, you will have to see what fitment issues you have with your particular tunnel. There was different tunnel sheet metal not only for each type of tranny, but they even changed it from year to year. I can tell you that Automatic 4WD tunnels are plenty big enough.... and that 2WD 5 speed tunnels are not - without cutting or beating, it's not even possible to install the tranny really - it won't slide onto the engine. You WILL have to install the 4WD lever mount, as it isn't present on your tunnel. Also - your clutch is different, and so is the size of the throw out bearing in the flywheel. You will want to swap over to the 4WD 225mm clutch instead of the 200mm 2WD clutch. You need the flywheel, clutch and PP plus new throw out bearing and release bearing. Believe me on this one - the 2WD clutch isn't even driveable on the street with big tires, let alone off-road. 2WD's don't have the front skid plate - so remember to get that too. For off-road, the EA71 isn't going to cut it - hell, even the EA81 is barely enough with a weber. You will want an EA81 engine. Also - your struts will have to be replaced with adjustable ones from a 4WD, as you will want that extra 1" of clearance they give you. If I were you, I would get that 88..... GD