November 3, 201510 yr Now that I finally upgraded my OS on my computer I can post pics, so I am going to start a journal of my Brat. So, I have been into "Old School for awhile and have always wanted a Brat. They are just hard to come by where I used to live in the North East. after almost 16 years of searching for a good one (I hate rust), my buddy found one for sale on NAS**C and he hit me up. It was located about 40 miles North East of Sacramento....430 miles from me. I figured I only had a couple more years here in SoCal so Friday after work a friend and I made the trip to get it over the weekend. What a trip it was. Long story short I bought it after a 5 mile test drive and drove it that day all 430 miles back home at a comfortable 60 mph (LOL). The seller was a great guy and owns a small Subaru shop. He was nice enough upon hearing of my plan to give it a good run through and even replaced a few parts on it for me to ensure it would make the trip. I became the 3rd owner of this 82 Brat DL. This is the day I got it home.
November 3, 201510 yr Author Now that I had it home I had to start right away fixing her up. I pulled all of the badges off and repainted them by hand. Along with the grill and side louvers. I also used a Mothers 3 step buffing wax to try and restore some luster into her paint. Here she was after that I also cleaned the interior (which took a gallon on simple green) and installed my old Hurst shift knob. Its been in every car I have owned the past 20 years. I did have to get some adapters for it though since the last car it was in was a Toyota Truck.
November 3, 201510 yr Author Now that she was somewhat clean, it was time to focus on the other things. The brakes were horrible. I changed all of the lines, the pads, rotors, shoes, and gave her some Lucas synthetic DOT 5 brake fluid. I also turned to getting the car running better. The crappy 1 brl carb and all of the emissions stuff was really robbing her of power so I sourced an old weber from a member on here and rebuilt it. After some extensive searching for weber parts, and me trying to remember how to tune a carb engine I finally got her running good enough. I also replaced both rear shocks, the springs, struts, strut mounts with all new Sachs parts, and replaced both front CV axles with EMPI ones as well as all of the bearings and seals. I kept the original axles to rebuild later. I also changed the distributor to a new A1 Cardone one, all the plugs, wires, cap and rotor, coil, and fuel filters. The rebuilt Weber 32/36
November 3, 201510 yr Author I relaxed for a bit and took her to some car shows. It blended right in!!!
November 3, 201510 yr Author Later I realized the 4 speed can't handle the speeds of California traffic, so I opted for the 5 speed conversion. I just happened to find one at my local junk yard still in a GL wagon for $150, so I pulled everything I needed, contacted Jerry for a Jerry's kit, and went at it. During that time I noticed the water pump was leaking, so I ordered a new water pump. I figured why stop there, so I also decided to pull the motor and reseal/ clean it. I also went ahead and ordered a Redline Fuel pump, Summit fuel gauge, Holley fuel pressure regulator, and decided to degrease/ wire tuck the engine bay. I always chase holes with a tap, and the bolts with a Die. Cleaned and painted
November 3, 201510 yr Author Ready for install The filthy engine bay Clean engine bay. After it dried, I touched up all of the paint. 5 speed install!!! Installing the shifters Jerry made. His workmanship and help with this were top notch! He helped me a lot over the phone. New custom driveshaft. It uses 1 ton Spicer 1460 U-joints and is rated to 600 HP LMAO! I also ordered a Magnaflow header too
November 3, 201510 yr Wonderful work so far! I though the car show pic was pretty funny. There is a cars and coffee that I go to and there is everything from turn of the (last) century cars, lots of pre war stuff, all the way up to the latest exotics. I took my 82 Brat before tearing it down for the paint and such and it was a huge hit! Lot of "I haven't seen one of these in years!" and "Can I sit in the back?"
November 3, 201510 yr Author Engine is back in and everything is ready to go! Since I had the interior out, I figured I would update it a bit too. Plastidipped some stuff and installed a JVC MP3 player, kenwood speakers, and some lights inside....just like the 80's!! I decided to rhino line the back too And do the control arm bushing since it squeaked.
November 3, 201510 yr Author Subiefest was coming up, so I decided to enter the Brat into the car show with my Brat SCX-10 RC Crawler I made too Close up of the RC in case youre curious Anyways, back to Subiefest. Lots of tough competitors there My beautiful wife of 24 years (total time together) supporting my crazy habbit lol And.......I WON!!! Good cruise home That's it so far. I bought a ADF 4" lift for it so Ill be doing that soon, but funds are a little tight since I also bought this a couple months ago And I still have this for wheeling Edited November 3, 201510 yr by iluvdrt
November 3, 201510 yr Author Beautiful engine too! Where did you find the Magnaflow? Thank you. I got it from Summit. It cost me a fortune because it isn't Cali legal so I had to ship it from Cali to my dads house when I bought it, and then he shipped it to me since Summit wouldn't ship it here. It sounds beautiful, and Im trying to load a sound clip. It is stainless steel and JET coated.
November 3, 201510 yr That is a very nice Brat, and you've done an Awesome Job with it. Congratulations! So, you want to Lift it 4" + add bigger Tires, isn't it? Keep us updated, Kind Regards.
November 3, 201510 yr Love your attention to detail. Great work so far. I've been a supporter of you installing the lift since you got it lol. Glad you've decided to. Doesn't mean you need to wheel it! I look forward to seeing progress!
November 4, 201510 yr Author That is a very nice Brat, and you've done an Awesome Job with it. Congratulations! So, you want to Lift it 4" + add bigger Tires, isn't it? Keep us updated, Kind Regards. Love your attention to detail. Great work so far. I've been a supporter of you installing the lift since you got it lol. Glad you've decided to. Doesn't mean you need to wheel it! I look forward to seeing progress! Yeah I decided to lift it. It probably will never go off road, or at least anything serious. I also plan to add power steering as well. Ill do the 6 lug conversion and runs some 14's with probably a 215/ 70/ 14 AT tire. I don't want anything too big that will hurt the power of the engine as right now it runs great.
November 5, 201510 yr Nice. I think I ran a 205 75 14 on mine with a 3" lift. I had to slightly trim ehind the front tires, but that was it. Can't wait too see yours lifted!
January 11, 201610 yr Author Well, I finally decided to lift the Brat. I used a ADF 4" lift which seems to bolt in almost flawlessly. Originally I installed the strut mounts backwards but that has since been sorted. I still have lots to do which includes extending the brake lines, fixing the shifters, getting EA82 hubs for the 6 lug conversion, longer shocks for the rear and extending the bump stops, extending the steering, fixing my brush guard mounts and adding a skid plate, getting 15" rims and 27" super swampers, and fixing the lower radiator hose. I'm also going to get a custom exhaust made that tucks up under neath. I am super happy with the outcome so far!
January 11, 201610 yr Superb job gunny, you can convert EA81 hubs to 6 bolt no problem. Just bolt on the wheel with two studs opposite to each other remaining and then drill out the other four.
March 9, 201610 yr Author Well time for an update. I ended up just drilling the EA81 hubs and welding in new studs. The wheels I ordered are Method Race wheels in a 15". I also ended up going with 215/75/15 BFG AT KO 2's. Slightly larger than the swampers I was wanting, but the swampers weren't available. The 215's measure in at 28.6". I did have to trim some of the fender and do some hammer work on the inside of the fender well where the body seam was. I still have some slight rubbing inside th fender well, but not enough to be concerned about. The rear was perfect. I ordered the Rancho 5241 Shocks and they are the perfect length. It rides beautifully. I also got my brushgaurd refitted with an aluminum skid plate made. My exhaust was all custom from the header back. It is 2.5" OD and has a stainless steel turbo muffler. Its a little quieter than I would have liked, but I am also enjoying how quiet it is the more I drive it. My MPG's dropped from 28 to 25 overall and my speedo is off about 18%. I can still do 75-80 on the highway and even go up hills without downshifting, but I really feel the old engine is being overworked so I am looking into regearing the trans and diff with 4.11's or 4.44's from Subieworks. Anyways, here are a couple pics, if you follow me on FB or Instagram, you've probably already seen it. Method Racing even posted it on their Instagram site which received over 3,000 likes lol. The RC car in the second pic is a custom Axial SCX-10 rock crawler I built.
March 15, 201610 yr Well time for an update... Your Brat really looks Awesome! The wheels looks pretty good; Maybe you might feel better engine response downshifting and keepin' the engine a little Higher on the RPM's than what you used to drive; in my case, I only went to 25" tires to keep the Balance between Daily Driver and Offroader, plus the MPG closer to stock; but still I use the Subie pretty High on RPM's, downshifting more often, and seems like these good ol' EA engines likes that. Kind Regards.
March 15, 201610 yr Author Your Brat really looks Awesome! The wheels looks pretty good; Maybe you might feel better engine response downshifting and keepin' the engine a little Higher on the RPM's than what you used to drive; in my case, I only went to 25" tires to keep the Balance between Daily Driver and Offroader, plus the MPG closer to stock; but still I use the Subie pretty High on RPM's, downshifting more often, and seems like these good ol' EA engines likes that. Kind Regards. Thanks. Yeah it definitely has to be down shifted more, but that is OK. Originally I wanted a smaller tire like a 26, but this size was the only size that was available to me at the time. I didn't want to get into having to trim the fenders or anything, but unfortunately I had too. I'm still getting around 25 MPG at 65-70 mph, so I guess that's not too bad.
March 23, 201610 yr awesome build so far! i just picked up an 86 gl hatch and want to do a 5speed and 4" lift as well. i talked to jerry about his conversion kit today and he said its totally different setup for a lifted rig. did you have to rework the mods he did for your 5 speed conversion originally? cheers!
March 23, 201610 yr Author No, his kit is still un use. I used a small spacer for the 4WD shaft on the transmission so that shifter would sit normal and a 2" drop down bracket to mount the 5 speed shifter too instead of mounting it to the body. It did lower the shifter a bit into the body, but with a few careful bends everything worked perfect.
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