Uberoo

So I was cleaning my garage and after looking at the rear EJ struts and the front EA81 struts I think I came up with an idea on how to mate the EJ rear struts to the EA81 knuckle.I cut off the bottom of the EA81 strut just after the bracket that bolts the strut to the knuckle.Then after cleaning out all the oil that was left and also cleaning the bottom of the EJ rear strut I rotated the EJ strut so when it was mounted up the spring perch went AWAY from the tire so I shouldn't have any clearance problems.Then I positioned the EA81 strut bottom on the Ej rear strut and eye balled it until it was straight.Tacked it on,liked what I saw and then I burned it in good and solid with the strut upside down so all the oil was at the top of the strut.Hopefully it will work.Last time I tried making a long travel strut I couldn't burn it in good and solid and it failed in short order but this time its solid.However no pics,let me mock up the front crossmember back into the car,and then mock the strut in place to see if it works before I post pictures.Completed strut looks to be 7" longer than stock which oddly enough is how much I dropped the original strut top mounts.

You dont need heim joints if you revise the radius rod mounting. The biggest problem with the stock suspension is a geometry problem rather than a component problem.First the radius rods pivot point is not linear with the control arm so the only amount of flex possible is what you can get by deforming the rubber bushings.Once you fix that the strut only has 4-6" of travel with most that being down travel.After that the next issue is the fact that the control arms mount outboard of the inner Cv axle joint centerline,this causes axle plunge.With EA81 suspension 1.5-2" of suspension lift causes the CV balls to be rammed into the back of the inner DOJ cup,at max up travel the Balls are at the very outer edge of the DOJ cup.The CV axle being under compression is what kills EA81 CV axles with suspension lift.Ideally the control arms should pivot on an imaginary line that goes from the top of the strut through the middle of the inner DOJ,As long as the control arm pivots are on that line below the axles you wont have much axle plunge (+/- .25" vs +/-2"). Finally after all that is sorted out the steering rack pivots are also outboard of that ideal imaginary line so they induce alot of bumpsteer and toe as the suspension cycles after the narrow factory travel range.Finally,the tie rod and control arm ball joints will bind up at the extremes of travel.Once you fix all of that the CV axle is the problem,but by that point you will have over 12" of suspension travel. I have been trying to address all those issues in the brat I am building but between work and plain old lazyiness its taking a while.

When your in tight trees there is no such thing as too tight of turning radius.Rear steer also helps in deep snow.

So I was thinking an interesting idea to implement into the brat would be rear steer.In my head it sounds great, rear wheels are locked straight ahead, hit a lever and the rear wheels turn opposite the front wheels with the steering wheel.Problem is I have no idea how to set up the hydraulics to do that.Still right now its just an interesting idea and with a wheelbase of 100" I'm not even sure it would be needed.

What limits the front suspension in this order: Sway bar(if still installed) Radius Rod bushings Strut CV axle The CV axle by its self has enough flex for 10-14" of travel depending on steering angle.

Your going to need to convert to a carb or go with megasquirt or some other stand alone computer because the stock computer kills the fun at 6200 rpm.

How much to lengthen steering shaft, no idea I've just cut it in half and added enough tube to make the ends meet.Or you could measure the angle of the steering at stock height then do a little trig to find the hypotenuse of the triangle that is formed when you lower the subframe X inches. actually everything in your question can be fixed by the above methods.You can either drop the shifter with the transmission or you can lengthen the shifting rods on the transmission-cut and splice or trig. Unless you already have some brand new 215's go bigger because 215's with 4" of lift will look like you have stock sized tires.

If you can find a 89-94 legacy and use the intake manifold and wiring harness your life will alot easier rather than messing with the OBD2 BS.OR you could have the computer reflashed so that it doesn't care about all the fuel evap system.

you should turn that into the race car.

So Ive been slowly cleaning my garage,and in a round a bout way cleaning the garage involves fixing the pin holes in the fenders and un warping the hood. Round about because the corner and marker lights were inside the brat,while the fenders were just kinda strewn about the place.So by fixing my mistakes, I was able to paint the fenders,install the lights,and bolt the fenders to the car,thus taking up *Less* space... The fenders were straight forward enough I welded them from the back side using the string o tacks method to keep the heat down.Then I ground down the welds from the shiny side of the fenders using a flapdisk. Then I painted the fenders,the only thing I had on hand was some OLD flat brown paint so I used that,I had to stop a couple times to clear out the the tip by spraying the gun upside down.I think the fenders turned out fairly well. The hood took abit more work.I cut out the weld where it caused all the warping.Then I bent the hood the other way and tacked the supports first.Then I tacked the top skin in a few places.I welded the the supports first,then welded as much of the seam from the underside of the hood as possible.Then welded the hood from the top in the areas that I couldn't weld it from underneath.Then ground down the welds and painted the new weld seams just to keep them from rusting.Eventually the whole thing will get painted, after all the fab work is done and a figure out what color it should be. heres the hood.You can still see the weld seams in the hood and fenders but it doesn't look like a tree fell on it. I also did some welding underneath but that was just finishing tieing in the tube frame into the floor panels so nothing that changed the appearance of anything so no pictars. I also bolted the seat adapter to the rails so my recaro seat can now be bolted into the car. If I work on the interior a bit more I will be able to mount the seats,the steering column, and the dash inside the car and that will help with cleaning up the garage.

Clearing out my garage of clutter so I am selling a few Gen 1 brat parts: instrument cluster with 43,XXX miles instrument cluster with 51,XXX miles "Wooden" dash trim red fuel door blue fuel door If you want anything PM me,I want these parts gone,so I am giving you guys the chance to use them before they get thrown away.

A manual seat will be lighter,simpler,and faster to use.All good things especially on a race car.However,a non powered leather seat will be hard to find,you might have to grab the manual rails from another seat and bolt them to your leather seat.Also,Leather sucks on really hot days,maybe cloth seats would be better for race car.

Another thing you can do is use a dremel with a cut off wheel and carefully cut new splines further up the steering shaft,then cut off the original splines. You will still need a longer steering extension but it will reduce the operating angle of the steering shaft so it will be less prone to failure in the future.

your swaybar needs to be off or disconnected to get enough room,just putting that out there in case its still connected.Gotta remember that not everyone tosses the swaybar in the scrap bin every time they get a new vehicle...

IIRC webers only like 2-4 psi.

Typically you don't give up displacement if your goal is to make power naturally aspirated.

Best upgrade is the 2.5 block+ 2.2 heads, or just the complete 2.5 engine,Better still is the turbo versions if rules allow.

Same,except without the bedliner. Although, I do spray off the mud inside and out with a garden hose just to remove the large chunks... Bedliner in the interior works great as a non slip surface but will always look dirty even after pressure washing it. Bedliner on the outside is a non slip surface that will always look messy. I just hose my stuff down afterwards for two reasons: 1.to slow the formation of rust 2. its alot easier to see how messy your vehicle is after your done playing if it was somewhat clean before you started.

Have you ever tried to clean ANYTHING off bedliner before?Bedliner has a rough surface finish by design,because of that roughness mud,grease,oil,grime,etc get trapped in the low spots,and unless you attack it with a Qtip its staying in there.Look at ANY truck that has a bedliner that the bed is actually used and you will see tons of stains in the bedliner anything from a couple drops of used engine oil to greasy mud will stain it.So like I said, your car will never ever be clean again because the car will ALWAYS look like you went mudding. Experience with bedliner: 3 trucks with properly applied bedliner 1 geo tracker that the PO put bedliner on the fenders and 1/4 panels to make it look tougher. That geo tracker is black and I haven't found a way to remove mud stains from its bedliner,the painted sections I can wash and scrub and they look good,the bedliner ALWAYS looks like muddy black. Besides, bedliner can get scratched just like paint,only difference is bedliner takes alot more effort to repair than cheap paint.Rattle can offroaders, then every once in a while spray paint the trail pinstriping and body damage and then go wheeling to get more dents and scratches.

Yea, but those powerwheels don't rely on air being in the tires to function.

I would just run a dedicated set of snows for the winter rather than fusing with adding/pulling studs .I've pulled studs out of tires and it sucked to put it mildly.I used dikes and it was a long and painful process that took about an hour per tire,to say nothing of the cuts,scrapes,and pinched skin that happened along the way.

Why?It adds alot of weight,and will never be clean ever again.

My most recent off road bumper.

Yes, and so will the rear diff from an EA71 car. Subarus really are just giant lego sets.

Will you take a case of your favorite beer to avoid crushing them?