RallyJusty

The next phase of project justy is the front frame and suspension. As with my need to complete the engine/tranny bit (Done!) to design the forward/backward aspect of my double wishbone, I also need to know what I can expect in the up/down range of motion for the stock XT axles. I am not interested in working at max ride height. I am designing a very durable suspension that can take the punishment of "how fast can I take this corner" driving that may involve a ditch or sagebrush, and if I'm lucky, the occasional jump. I want to work inside the range of motion, saving the maximums for those zero gravity experiments. I can measure the travel, and predict angles and bump steer, but I have no practical experience with the axles full range of motion. That's where you all come in. Help me land Leroy safely, or at least in one piece. I have a rollcage for safety. Troy

Pics should be at my web site tomorrow evening, adapter instructions when I get a chance.

Thanks! I want to be conservative at first, and then move on to more racey tuning and boost levels. Even still I will be staying about 7lbs max. Troy

I went with the EA Flywheel and clutch because the EA tranny flywheel housing is a smaller diameter that the EJ flywheel. It wouldn't fit. Actually It did fit, but then the starter didn't. Just remembered, someone asked about elongating the holes. If you are carefull when elongating the holes on the EA flywheel, you shouldn't compromise the strength. You only eliminate one adjacent hole face. but the holes are only about a half a hole off. Mine went on tight as a drum. No shifting whatsover because the elongations are directional, the flywheel can't slip.

Don't use steel. It is too heavy and too damn hard to work with. The Aluminium I used is very light, very strong, and very easy to work with. I used a sabre saw, a drill press, a hand drill, a couple of different drill bits, a mill end (wouldn't use it again, now that I am done), and a 10x1.25 tap. No fancy blades or bits, A lot of oil and wood blades will cut the aluminium like butter, almost. I found that I needed to mount the adapter to the engine, and then the tranny to the engine and apdapter. I could have left out that step, in hind sight, by changing a few things. The process is very easy. The hardest part was taking the tranny off, and putting it back on about a dozen times (easily!) to make the template, and measure and drill all of the holes. With a decent set of instructions and some simple tools, this process is quick. Someone mentioned going with the stronger EJ clutch. I wanted to do that, but the car in the end will be so small compared to what the EA pushed around that the trade off seemed fine to me. Someone also mentioned cutting and welding the housing off of one to make the other work. I also thought of doing that, but I have never welded aluminium. Cutting and drilling I can do. Last, I have no space or body restrictions. I can make what ever I need to mount this. It seems to me that there would be no conflicts, but I don't know what would happen when it came to mounting the EA tranny in an EJ body. Troy

The justy will be AWD, and I am feeling only slightly less crazy now that I know the engine and tranny are done.

I am done. The final solution for the top two bolts was simple in the end. I had to drill through the tranny bolt hole, through the adapter plate, and into the EJ flywheel housing. the hole came out just inside and under the EJ bolt holes, still in the flanges. There is not as much material for the bolts as at the actual EJ locations, but enough to get the tranny secured at the top. I counter sunk the bolt holes in the adapter at the stock EJ bolt locations, and used bolts without shoulders to attach the adapter to the engine. At the EA location, adjacent to EJ bolts, the tranny ties through the new holes into the flywheel housing itself. The spacing was too tight to thread into the adapter, but had enough room (just) to pass a bolt into the engine itself. I threaded the new holes in the block to accept standard Subaru 10x1.25 bolts. To add strength I opened the stud ears on the tranny and tapped holes into the adapter to accept two more 10x1.25 bolts instead of the studs. At the EJ stud locations, I drilled holes through the adapter and used a nut and bolt at each to tie the adapter to the block. In the end both the adapter and the trany have 6 bolts holding them in position. The adapter is dead simple to build. I will sit down and write a more detailed descrition, and improve on what I have done in the process. My adapter should be very strong, but someone elses could be even stronger.

I am usually on the older site, but my question is about my EJ 1.8l. Can I turbo charge it? I have the turbos and all of the plumbing. My concern is that the compression will not be trubo compatible. On the otherhand, When I turbo charged the Justy, the book put it at a 9:1 ratio as I recall, and it loved the turbo, at about 6 to 7 lbs. Not afraid to do the work, just don't want to kill the engine. Troy

I ask myself that question occasionally. I have a Justy that will have an EJ 1.8l engine, an EA dual range tranny, and the rear end out of an XT. I am keeping the Justy length, and the XT width. I am building a tube frame from the firewall forward, that will tie to the rollcage already in place. I am building a double wishbone type front suspension, and have gone with coilovers in the rear. The pictures at my web page show the basic damage. http://petersontroylynda.home.comcast.net/wsb.html

I will update the photo section on the Leroy page in the next couple of days. I have to take the tranny off 1 more time, so I should be able to get a couple of pics with the adapter in place. The photos I have up are at my web page One look will show just how insane this project is. Troy http://petersontroylynda.home.comcast.net/wsb.html

They're together. the fit is great, and the adapter appears to be doing it's job. Next comes the frame and front suspension.

Corky, The 2 lower studs in the block and lower holes on the tranny line up well. When I put those together the input shaft slides right into the flywheel and clutch without any problem. I have done it several times in order to make the template for my adapter plate. In fact I am nearly done with my adapter plate. The problem I am having with holes is for the 2 upper bolt holes. The EA tranny flywheel housing does not match the EJ engine flywheel housing. The 2 upper bolt holes on the tranny, and on the engine, are not spaced far enough apart for me to do a side by side. That is drill and thread some holes, and mount studs in the adapter. SO I am taking a break to mull this one over. I had expected the problem. But that didn't make it go away. damn... off to the shop. Troy

It's like the night before Christmas, I can't wait for tomorrow. I just wanted to post what I have done, and what I will be doing tomorrow. I am just a bit excited, and I need to vent. My wife has asked me kindly not to talk to her about cars or racing. What I've done... Flywheel and clutch-- Easy breezy, just dropped a 3/8" end mill in my drillpress and elongated the holes to match the EJ crank. A bit more to it than that, but not much. The EA clutch went back on the EA flywheel, which is all now on the EJ engine. Maybe 3 hours. Adapter-- Much much easier than I thought. I went to the local aluminium supplier, told him what I was building and he hooked me up with some BEAUTIFUL aluminium. The spacer should be 10 to 11mm, and the aluminium 1/2" thick, about 12.7mm. The difference in thickness is about 2.0mm. I don't see any problems. The adapter is already cut out. Making template and cutting out adapter, about 5 hours. What I will do next... Tomorrow the adapter gets some holes. This will be the trickiest part, but I am quite conifident that tomorrow the engine and tranny will be one, and I will be building the new subframe. If anyone is interested... Like I said, I have a template made for the adapter. If it all works, I will put together a more detailed set of instructions for the whole process, a picture of the template and how I made it, and put all of it on my web page. Sad as it is (the page that is), It's a great way for me to chroncle the whole silly project. Till tomorrow Troy

Anyone who is interested... I think I have the page working. It is not a fancy page. It is not a pretty page. But then neither my car or myself are fancy or pretty, so this is what you get. Please post here and let me know that the link works, the photos and history all show up, and then you can express horror at what you see. that is if the damn thing works. UPDATE: the adapter plate for the EJ engine to the EA dual range tranny is going to be a breeze to build and will be on the car this saturday. I am using some type of aluminium that the aluminium guy says will do the trick. I already have the template made. the rest is easy. Will post photos. Dimensions are not easily given, but I can figure out a way to make copies if it turns out, and anyone is interested. Now, here's the link http://petersontroylynda.home.comcast.net/wsb.html

I got the page done, and posted. Only problem is that the photos page and diary page aren't working. Also, I can't get to them to edit them because the personal web page administration server is down, and "will be repaired as quickly as possible". So you can see what I have up for now, which is the history, of Leroy. All of the changes he has gone through up to this point. It will probably help focus any questions you may have about doctoring a Justy, by seeing what I have done. Troy http://petersontroylynda.home.comcast.net

I have posted I short version of the turbo Justy story on my soon to be posted website (as in hours, not days) The ECVT basically could not handle the power, and went south, but not before my friend rolled it, and put it out of it's missery (the ECVT that is). I'll be back on in a bit to let you know the web address. I just got back from pressure washing the EJ engine and EA tranny. I felt some pressure after a resent post made me embarrassed about how dirty my bits were. Now they are wonderfully shiney. I can't wait to get them dirty again, as a team in the new and improved Justy. Later Troy

I worked last night on the page, and should finish it tonight. Look for another post with the address later. Troy

Well I told you all here that the web page would be done on Monday. I worked over the weekend to write the basic story of the justy, and specific details of my process. Then some how when inserting the pictures on seperate pages, I deleted the main page! I don't build web pages (this is my first) and have never used Front Page. I was pissed! The result is that I have about 50 pictures of the car and various bits of the car, but no home page giving the data and background of the pictures, and at present no desire to re-write that damn page. I am going to calm down for a couple of days, and try again. That's the story on the web site. Meanwhile I am building a jig to construct the subframe for the engine, tranny, and suspension. THAT's the kind of building I can get into! I am collecting the steel, upper and lower ball joints, and rod ends I will need to finish the suspension. Troy

Mike, I do have access to a mill, But I am working on a design that will give torsional strength, the spacer, and a solid connection, without milling an adapter. The tranny and engine will be mounted directly to common rails. The two lower bolts coming out of the EJ flywheel housing line up with the two lower bolt holes on the EA tranny. My current thinking is making the bracket common to both the engine and tranny, by being mounted to the rails as a solid mounting point for both. Rather than milling a seperate spacer, just for the engine/tranny connection, the mount may then be part of the new double A-arm front suspension I am building. I can pass the engine side lower bolts throught the bracket/spacer into the tranny's lower bolt holes, and have the bracket traverse around the tranny, supplying hard tie points and the spacer required for the offset upper tranny bolts. Then just build a nice shroud out of sheet metal to keep debris out of the flywheel housing. The solution may help resolve some hard point issures I am working out for the suspension. I want the whole thing to drop as a unit for ease in repairing the front suspension, engine, and tranny. Everytime I write more about my project on this site, I think more people are going to assume I'm nuts. Troy

By the way, thanks for the hook-up on that ausubaru site! That is exactly what I am doing, and it appears that they do it quite a bit. In fact they had a pic of the adapter plate. Let me know when you get the data, although I don't think I am patient enough to wait. THANKS! Troy

Last night I finished mounting the EA82 flywheel onto the impreza engine. I used an end mill bit in my drill press and elongated the holes. I only had a 3/8" bit, which is smaller than the original hole, so I had to work each hole a few times to get the elongation and hole size I needed. The process I used was to elongate one hole, press the fly wheel on and bolt through that 1 hole to the crank. Then I used a sharpie to mark the pattern I would need to use to correctly elongate the remaining holes. Since half the hole on the crank was visible through the holes on the flywheel, it was easy to do the marking. The elongation cut was slightly more that 1/2 the original hole diameter. As a result the pattern wasn't directly out , but rather a semi spiral effect. This is because the same number of holes were used on the crank, and equally spaced, but at a slightly larger radius. The work took me a few hours to do, but the result was very tight. Today I will begin the process of building the spacer. Also I did a quick bit of writing on a web page that I will use to document the progress, post current photos, and give a bit of history for the project. I still think I should have that up and going by tomorrow. Troy

Success with the whole flywheel issue. The bolt holes for mounting the flywheel to the crank are the same in number and size, but slightly further out radially. The flywheel fit perfect on the centering bushing on the crank flange . I will machine each hole on the flywheel ,at the same width, going out radially to meet with the Impreza mounting hole locations. The next bit of creativity will be making a 16mm spacer to accomdate the difference in flywheel thickness and engine bellhousing differences. That same spacer will give secure mounting locations and protection for the area of the flywheel housing exposed by the smaller EA transmission. The engine and tranny for my design were always going to be directly mounted on rails that run parrallel down the long axis of the engine/tranny, to a tie point behind the driver in the roll cage. That design should allow me to take the torsional stress off of the spacer, making the spacer easier to design and build. In fact the whole suspension and drivetrain are tied to the roll cage, giving me a very sturdy little car. All in all I think today should prove very exciting in the Justy shop. Just couldn't wait to share Troy

I appreciate the response to what my neighbor did. The sad fact is that I had moved to our new place (with my own 3 car garage!) before I discovered it. Good news, garage. Bad news, dirty trick. Reguardless, I have the impreza engine, and I plan on making it work if I can. I do have the Impreza tranny, but it isn't as much fun. Pictures are coming. For real this time. I am creating a web page for the project, and I have already set up a web cam in my garage, but the pictures are coming out so crappy that I asked my wife for a little digital camera to keep in the garage just for the project. I can go ahead and post what I got, but it may not be too clear. Give me a couple of days to finish the web page, and it should be going by Monday. I have also taken out the struts up front, and I am building a double A-arm suspension. The engine needs to be in it's final location to finish that project. Troy

Actually it never left. it just took a summer vacation while I worked. ----The following is a long post---- OK--- The car has taken a serious turn to the insane. I had finished the whole drive train swap from 3 cylinder (turbo'd) with the ECVT, to an EA82 drive train from an 89 turbo sedan (can't remember the model). Front to back '89 drive train with a shortened driveline to fit the justy's original wheelbase, at the sedans stock width, 8 inches wider than the justy's. Discovered that an evil neighbor, that had complained about how ugly the car is, had filled the engine with water. They were thorough enough that water eventually found it's way into the turbo. It was parked inside a secure garage we shared under our building. TODAY--- I took the 1.8l engine out of my 1993 impreza to put into the beast. The tranny in the justy is the dual range with the vacuum engaged transfer case. I want to keep that tranny, but... The flywheel housing is larger on the impreza engine than the EA82. the 2 lower bolts on the engine and the bolt holes in the tranny, and the tranny input shaft all line up, and the splines of the tranny and the impreza clutch all slide together nicely. HOWEVER, the rest of the tranny case and the impreza engine flywheel housing are not the same, and the impreza flywheel is larger than the EA82 flywheel. The flywheels don't swap (crankshaft bolt pattern is slightly larger on the impreza). The starter becomes a real buggar, and I am not sure about clutch clearance. Has anyone done this swap? I did a search of posts on all open forums, written several different ways, and saw nothing that answered this particular dilema. The impreza engine modernizes the drivetrain nicely, while the older tranny gives me some fun options to try out. I am greatful for any advise, or even smarty-pants remarks if they make me laugh. Troy