zyewdall

A coworker of mine has an '05 Saab Aero, which except for the headlights and the grill is essentially the same car as the WRX. He's running Hankook Icebear tires on there I believe, and says they are a world of diference better than the all seasons, which he described as distinctly squirmy and not fun to drive on the snowy highway. He said that he can notice they are not quite as much a performance tire as whatever he's running in the summer, but it's still better than something like the Ipike that I usually run on my cars in the winter (which doesn't really pretend to be a performance snow tire -- but on an '80s subaru, performance usually isn't in the equation anyway. As for studs... for glazed ice, they sure are nice. I can lock up all four wheels and slide through one of the stop signs in town even with four wheel studs on really bad days though.... even they have their limits. They do perform rather poorly on dry roads, or on wet roads, and are quite noisy (my diesel truck has studded tires, which on dry pavement are actually slightly louder than the diesel engine), so it depends on whether you want to have reduced performance there, but have the studs when you get on the ice layers, or better performance in most conditions, but still slide around when you get on the clear ice.

Dunno... but I just bought a '97 OBS with 230k on it, that is missing 4th gear entirely (make some grindy noises, but no power transfer). It will pop out of 3rd sometime, and out of 5th rarely, but if you hold it in, both those gears are still useable. Howls fairly bad in all gears though. And, the clutch slips if you really give it gas in 5th gear. I have no idea what was done to this car (the rest of it seems great). Previous owner said it's been going out for the past 4 years, and she never did anything (and it got worse -- suprised?... ) It's getting a 5MT dual range from an '87 GL. Z

I've never done much sand driving, but a friend of mine had an '88 GL wagon he said was gutless in the sand. And it had the dual range. I have done alot of snow driving, and sometimes you get the snow that acts alot like sand -- dense, granular, and no structure, kind of like a big pile of sugar. My GL did okay in that, but lack of low range could be bad if you stop... then you just have to slowly churn your way through. But... if you've got someone to pull you out, why not. Remember to air down the tires.

I think that refers to whether it's the hatch, sedan, wagon, etc... because for a while they used both the EA81 and the EA82 in the same years, but in different cars, so just going with the 1800cc engine doesn't help...

You could do what my friend did to the coil on his VW bus -- it happens to fit right inside the shell of a can of PBR, all shiny and blue and silver and red now. I'm sure that's doing something

90 legacy wagon, 5MT AWD. Gets around 23mpg around town, 30 to 31mpg on the highway at 55-65mph. Drops to 27mpg or so at 75+mph. Increases to 34mpg at 45 to 50mph (following a VW bus...)

Will it push start? That might rule out a bad ignition switch that is killing the ignition or something while the starter motor is running. Not turning off the rest of the electronics in the start position shouldn't be a problem in of itself, but if it's not turning those off, but IS turning the ignition off... it won't start, and I've had that happen before (not on a subaru). Is there any sort of anti-theft stuff on it? I had one that I had to rewire around virtually the entire ignition circuit because the aftermarket antitheft stuff had gone haywire and would not let a signal get to the starter motor.

Sometime in '82 I thought.... because I had trouble getting the right parts for my '82 GL wagon, and they claimed that it was because they switched rotors in the middle of the year (or they were just making excuses). Z

It's usually not that bad -- I've run for several miles in 4wd in my old GL, on pavement (for various odd reasons, none of which are normal). If you turn very tight at all (like more than 10-2 on the steering wheel) you'll lock and hop the tires. But in a straight line, it behaved fine (nice matched set of tires) and came right out of 4wd afterwards. Sometimes I find that skidding the tires with the brakes while on some slightly loose stuff, while pushing down on the 4wd lever, will get it back to 2wd if it does bind. I've never had to resort to jacking it up.

They never made any awd loyales.... they were all part time four wheel drive. There is no center differential at all... just a solid lock, that is activated when it's in 4wd. So... you only want to activate 4wd on surfaces where the wheels can spin, just like in a 4wd truck. AWD was only in the legacies and newer, and the RX's and XT6's and such. Loyales were 4wd. Z

So... I'm getting votes that the EA82 flywheel is best (which is what SJR provides), but use the XT6 clutch and pressure plate for higher clamping force. Another question.... any idea what front axles I'll need to go from the part time 4wd dual range tranny, to the front hubs of the impreza? There's some guys from CCR working on the swap, so they can probably figure it out, but I thought I'd ask. If anyone's wondering why the heck I'm doing this... it's because I like the EJ engines, and alot of the stuff about the newer subarus (highway speed even on hills, working A/C, air bags, working radio, coworkers don't laugh (as much) that someone with the title of "chief engineer" seems to be driving a $100 parts car turned commuter. But I still use the low range on the old GL almost every day in the winter snow or rocky driveways here, or end up beating up the clutch in the Justy because it doesn't have low range. Not for serious off roading (I have two other solid front axle rigs -- a '76 ford sasquatch and a '67 landrover -- for that). And I got this OBS with a toasted manual tranny for cheap.

So.... I'm putting a dual range 5MT into a impreza outback, and am buying the adaptor kit/drilled flywheel from SJR. However... what clutch kit do I need? I notice that the regular EA82 4wd clutch and the XT6 clutch are the same diameter and spline count, however the EA82 clutch kit says Flywheel Spec: -0.827 and the XT6 clutch kit says Flywheel Spec: -0.815. Slightly different. I'm not actually sure what this even refers to, or if that's close enough to make a difference or not... SJR did not know. What do you think? It's only about $20 price difference. Z

Technically, I've only owned it for 7 hours so far

No... this one's in Nederland, CO. it is a green one too though

1997 Impreza Outback 5MT, 4th gear is pretty much unuseable, 3rd gear pops out unless you hold it in, howls in all gears. 230k, which I don't consider much for a subaru transmission. Apparently it's been going out for 4 years now, and the dealer said it needed a new transmission 3 years ago. Just wondering, because I've got 240k and 260k on two 5MT D/R's, and no issues like this, and even a few 4MT D/R's that weren't anywhere near this bad at around 220k. I'm actually going to put a 5MT D/R in it, since I still use the low range on my car almost every day, but other than that one feature (and the styling) I like the EJ22 and other "new car" features of the impreza better than the old EA82.

I grew up in eastern washington, and it's still not nearly as bad as the south -- the humidity there is awful. It doesn't even cool off at night. I have no idea why anyone would voluntarily live in such a climate. Then again...there are people who find getting 2 feet of snow overnight, along with 60mph winds and zero degree temps to be a bad experience and want to avoid that I don't really care about that. Z

I hate to say it, but why get a subaru at all if you are in Atlanta? It rarely snows, and when they got 2" last February, the city shut down for a day -- it was pretty funny for me, coming from a place where 2" of snow doesn't register that it actually snowed. A FWD honda or toyota would probably be alot better mileage, though I don't really know alot about how reliable the different models are (I had a honda accord that, though it broke less than than the EA82's, tended to break in ways that stranded me worse)... Z

Another thing to test. Throw it in 4wd and see if it reduces the vibration. I had an odd similar (speed sensitive, but only under hard throttle) vibration in mine that mostly went away if I put in 4wd, and it turned out to be a front CV/axle going bad. I guess in 4wd it has less torque on the bad axle, and it didn't vibrate, but in 2wd, all the torque was on the front axles and it showed up. Z

It depends on whether the potential issue is with the engine, or the driver -- engine issues are more likely to be found by the per-tank mileage, but problems with the driver (lead foot, etc...) are more easily narrowed down by the instantaneous mlieage.

Hmmm... Subaru made alot more than just the Xt and the Sedan in '89. There was also the wagon, hatch, coupe, and Justy, and maybe an RX and an XT6 too...... silly parts store I THINK that the 3/4" is for the EA82 (wagons, coupes and sedans) and the 11/16" is for the EA81 (brats, hatchs). But I am not 100% sure about that...

Yeah, chumps. I've tried ordering by the engine code (EA81 or EA82, and that really throws most parts stores off... Make sure you get a whole set that includes a new idler pulley and tensioners when you replace the timing belt. On a car this old, those are probably worn out too, and will shred a perfectly good timing belt (BTDT...)

What kind of car do you have? Without that, WE can't narrow it down either :-p

Sounds like something in the drive shaft -- either a u-joint or a carrier bearing. The carrier bearing went out in mine, and it seriously felt like a rear wheel was about to fly off when I was below 10mph. Above that, it was only a little vibration.

Duh.... I should know that I've only owned like 5 of them....

Can usually find a non-running car with a 5d/r in it for around $100 to $200.... so, that's about where I'd put the top end. I've never gotten one from a junkyard.