carfreak85

Well, when you are near the Bellingham, WA area I would recommend taking Chuckanut Drive. It is the original highway for the area and parallels the freeway for several miles until you get to Bellingham. Once you are in Canada, the only thing I can suggest would be NOT to drive through Vancouver. One highway will take you around (The one you want to take) while the other dumps you into downtown Vancouver and the signage and traffic lights will make it nearly impossible to navigate during most hours of the day (What do you think of when you see a flashing green traffic light in a busy intersection, hint: they use the same 3 color system we use down here...) Have fun up there! I prefer hiking up to the top of Blackcomb Glacier and riding round the backside on the cat-track, but whichever mountain has the best snow/shortest lines will be a hoot on a top-to-bottom run!

Front or rear? I'm rocking RX front springs on my hatch and they are quite a bit stiffer and a bit taller than normal EA81 4WD springs. Had to take off my front anti-roll bar b/c the front end was TOO stiff over one wheel bumps, overwhelming the old, probably OEM struts and making the car pogo a little bit.

There is a thread out there that discusses this. Some sort of Frankenstein transmission. A quick search should find it, its several pages long.

I'm enjoying this build a lot! Great looking color, btw.

Great kit, we have it on our WRX, but I swapped the Axxis front pads for some Hawk ones...

Cross-drilled rotors? I hope those were included with your 5-lug parts... Bad, bad, bad for rotor longevity.

Are you a board member?

I'm surprised your under fender area is so solid, nice update too, keep them coming!

Do a Google search on oil filters. There is a mountain of information on this subject.

I have two different compounds for my wagon, one for street use and one for the track. HPS pads I got new and were sorta spendy, but not bad and the track pads I just got on ebay for under $20 new.

You mean besides the lift and wheel/tire combo? Are those STI rims?

Listens quietly...

+1. Only thing I had to do was massage the Jeep shock's top mount to accept the larger Subaru bolts. Additionally the lower mount's insert/bushing bore is too large for the EA81 bolt. I think having the rear torsion bars on an EA81 would be detrimental if you were trying to air bag the car. To get the height adjustment you could some how connect an electric motor to the OEM rear suspension adjustment bolt in the torsion bar housing. Or just remove the torsion bars but keep the semi-trailing arms in place, using universal air bags with custom mounts to control ride height. The possibilities of adjustable-on-the-fly ride height used off road could prove useful in certain conditions...

I ran across a pretty gnarly lifted Gen 1 BRAT in the Lynnwood PAP years ago that apparently once belonged to a member of the Hatch Patrol. Don't know his name, but I grabbed a few of its parts, all of which have been lost. I think one of Zap's old Subaru Fun videos featured it once or twice, but I could be wrong. Maybe one of the vets could speak up on this? Not many people have lifted a Gen 1 BRAT or any Gen 1 for that matter and all are basically custom one-offs, not a production type kit. There are several fabricators who are members here who would probably be glad to help.

I have pics somewhere of an EA81 with rear air shocks fitted on a wagon in Oz, so it is possible, I would imagine a Jeep application would work since those are the equivalent shocks that I have installed on my 4 inch lifted hatch. If you're looking to put these on a stocker, I think you're gonna have to look long and hard...

I was reading an article on this subject and it appears that VW is also building each TDI powered vehicle at a several thousand dollar loss per vehicle in an effort to corner the U.S. diesel market. Plus we have tons more sulfer in our gas than they do in Europe. I think the 2.0TD would be a hit in this market (I would buy one, after a year to let Fuji work all the bugs out) but it is sad they aren't bringing it. On the other hand, they have responded to our complaints in the past, 2002 WRX=too ugly2008 WRX=too soft, etc. So there is still hope.

Found them. For future reference, they are under "Engine", "Engine Mounts", "Rear with M/T", and yes they are cheap, approx $11 per mount.

I'm at the point where they need to be replaced if I want to drive the car. Does anyone have a good lead or price on these little buggers? I just wan the car back on the road, not suggestions on some kind of swap of fix, I just want the problem gone.

Great looking coupe, I'm glad someone stepped up to save another turbo! Until you find a replacement hardline or get the original one brazed, just don't drive the car. More pics please!!!

Any updates? Were you able to find parts to rebuild the steering rack/pump?

I have an EA82 flywheel and clutch between my EA81T and 5 speed DR. I needed shims for the bolt holes because the EA82 bolt holes are larger than on the EA81 flywheel.

Super cool thread Rob! Must be fast as all get out versus the stock RX. Makes me jealous and curious at the same time to see what my pathetic EA81T can spin out.

Siiiiiiiiiiick!!! Probably one of the only non-GC/GD based vehicles to have operational DCCD, period... Very cool stuff. Any more insights into the benefits of this new tool of mayhem?

After going through my own digi-dash dilemma and had to weigh my options. I could repair my original dash, source a used pre-owned unit, build my own gauge panel or swap to the analog cluster. I decided to keep my car as original as possible and that meant using as many factory parts as possible. I swapped in the analog cluster from a lower trim EA81T wagon and in doing so, was forced to install the matching analog dash harness. While it wasn't truly "plug-and-play" all the swap required was unplugging a bunch of electrical connectors and snaking the harness out from behind a sharp, metal dashboard while keeping my fingers and my harness intact. I also had to manufacture a few jumper harnesses to connect a few components. (Brake switches, found a spare power source for some aftermarket parts, etc.) I just went to the junkyard and harvested a few sets of OEM male/female connectors to use, in case I ever had an oppourtunity to swap back to the digi set up. The swap took me a few weeks of working on it, along with a ton of other related projects for last year's WCSS. I wouldn't recomment it to the novice mechanic, but it is by no means an impossible task. If you're sick of swapping in new digi-dashes as each old one finally croaks, take a look into finding the space and the parts, after mine was done, it looked great! It was more functional, easier to read and more reliable than the digi dash. I did lose the dual trip meters and the timer, but being able to read the engine RPM and vehicle speed over a long trip were more important to me, given the questionable durability of the originally installed digital dash. Still have all the old parts too, and another vehichle to potentially swap over. If I do, I promise to do a better job documenting it than with the first conversion... http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=89603&highlight=digi+analog+harness&page=3

Chuck the digi in the rubbish bin and throw and analog harness and gauges in its place. That's what I did, and besides the fuel level being off, everything works just fine.