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Feast your eyes on my 1988 Subaru GL wagon, sporting a 1.8 liter horizontally opposed engine making a thundering 90hp which is mated to a 5 speed dual range part time 4WD gearbox. I bought it on Craigslist from some guy out by Joshua Tree National Park for $400 back in March of 2020. Here's the story on this car so far. When I bought the car I made a pretty big assumption. The previous owner told me that it wasn’t running and explained that it might be better as a parts car. Having owned another Subaru with the EA82 engine, I knew they had a bit of a reputation for timing belt issues. I removed the timing covers as my first step in diagnosing the engine failure. Lo and behold, the timing belt had snapped. With the timing belt trouble confirmed, I ordered a kit on RockAuto. The timing belt on the old EA82 engine is thankfully a very simple job (especially with this forum as a resource). Two evenings of leisurely after work wrenching and the fresh timing belt kit was installed. The battery was flat, but a jump was all she needed to crank over and fire up! Any old Subie needs maintenance, but this car in particular was badly neglected. I started with an oil change, air filter, spark plugs, distributor cap and rotor, and plug wires. I also had to replace the MAF sensor to fix a stalling issue. Maintenance and mods go hand in hand: so far I've outfitted her with 14″ Peugeot alloys wrapped in 195/70/14 tires which give the car a more aggressive stance and additional ground clearance. Underneath, she now rides on new struts at all 4 corners and I have started replacing bushings and mounts to make the car feel more solid. The hot summers in the California desert provided quite a challenge to the car’s 32 year old cooling system, so the radiator, hoses, and thermostat were all replaced (the previous owner had removed the thermostat to prevent overheating rather than replacing the clogged radiator like he should have). While the EA82 engine was underpowered from the factory, my butt-dyno said it was producing even less than its advertised 90 horsepower, so next I replaced the oxygen sensor and gutted the clogged rear catalytic converter that was plugging up the exhaust. The rear brakes were also rebuilt with new drums, shoes, wheel cylinders, and hardware after they fell apart on a trip to California City. A few junkyard scores such as an OEM skid plate, a replacement headlight, and replacement corner lights have helped get her back in shape. Looking ahead, I have a two inch lift from Anderson Design & Fabrication that I will be installing soon, as well as a set of poly bushings for the front control arms from SuperPro. This car has been a lot of fun, and I look forward to sharing more of its progress with you all!

Kinda depends. Yes in many ways they are better - but for raw low end torque the Weber still wins. GD

The distributor contains the crank and cam optical pickups that the ECM uses to sync up and fire the ignition and injection. Make sure it had power, ground, and check the square wave output with a scope. Likely a power or ground issue. Check all the power and ground circuits for the ECM. GD

The best bet for fluid is the Subaru HPGO. It's about $12 a quart. Shifts excellent. Motul Gear 300 is better but at $25 per liter - it's fairly expensive and unless you are throwing your STI around a track you are unlikely to notice the difference. GD

That's as far as they go. The snap ring is there to keep them at the proper height. GD

Pulley is ordered. Thanks for that tip about car-part! Although my account is new to the forum, I've been a lurker on here for a few years and I think I remember seeing that site dropped on a few other threads. I just never ordered anything for myself until now because the site looks like it hasn't been updated since 2004 so it kinda sketched me out.

Why not just fix the EFI? They are quite reliable and simple systems. GD

im okay with lower boost for now while i still sort the car out. there was a ton of bad air leaks and corroded sensors, it was not treated well by the PO. so far all you've done is criticize, though that's helpful in its own way, its still not very nice. its basically going to be stock parts, good sensors, no leaks, cold air, and heat management. keeping it light and keeping all the fluids clean, i don't see the problem

now what to do with the hood scoop.... i kinda went ocd with how many fins were damaged and bent so i went over the whole top and bottom and removed the damaged fins and straightened the rest... oof bout 6 hours total, lol

finnaly got some parts in, finished up the intake manifold and its ready to go on the car now! hopefully that will keep intake temps slightly lower, we shall see!

Yeah mate, I’m at 530,000km from memory. Y pipe rusted out so dad shoved a Gen3 equal length unit on and she sounds like spoob so I’m failing at building a set of UELs for her. Exhaust shops make it look easy! And I have a leak in the front somewhere, dunno if it’s doors or Subi gods forbid, from the windscreen ;( Long live the L’s! Cheers Bennie