ferox

Nice Work

HF sells a much better ground clamp made of steel with copper contacts. I would recommend it over the one you have just because of quality and performance. The metallic lead content is those cast pieces from China is unknown. Your main concern is leachability. Lead hazard gets down-played a lot because it's an element, it's not volatile, an doesn't have a smell or taste per se, but it is bad news if you get poisoned. Most likely anything cast like that is also going to have other heavy metals like cadmium and chromium, so you may not get lead poisoning you may get heavy metal poisoning. It's one of those things that isn't an immediate threat to human health and safety. It's an underlying hazardous condition that will get you once you are acustomed to the clamp and quit thinking about it. I deal with this at work everyday, so that's my little PSA. I don't mean to sound dramatic or alarmist, but I would just get a better clamp and never have to think about it again. I am always surprised at how quickly and easily hand-to-mouth or hand-to-eye contact can occur.

Sounds like you haven't checked it out in person. If you do, listen for rod knock. I own an '88 and really like the car, but I rebuilt the engine. I would not bother with a non-4WD Justy. In my opinion the 4WD is the only reason to buy a Justy. Without 4WD, I would go for a subcompact from a different make. The Justy is a reliable car if the engine is in good condition and you pay attention to maintenance. The design life of the engine seems to be around 150K, after that you should plan on just rebuilding it instead of trying to fix it part by part. If you are not into working on cars, then the Justy is probably not a good fit. If you are into working on cars, the engine is really simple. Expect 32-38 mpg with a good '93 FWD Justy.

I think last time I looked into this the difference in price between autoparts store and dealer was almost nothing. You might at least call to check.

Convert your ea81 to SPFI.

The ea81 came with a 1bbl and a 2bbl. The 2bbl is better and more common. You can pull one at a junkyard for $25-$35, and I think you will want to grab the intake manifold as well. It takes switched 12v, but it would be easy to install. It's got lots of vacuum ports, but you could just cap them. So you could get the Carter 1 bbl to work or Get a Hitachi 2bbl and manifold and gaskets ~$100 or Get a Weber conversion ~$200-$300 Based on what you have told us it sounds like you don't want to put much money into it, so I would probably disassemble, clean, and reseal the 1 bbl. Most of us just get rid of the 1bbl, so not many people can tell you much about it, but I bet most if not all of the electric is switched 12v.

On earlier models it connects to the back of the intake manifold near the center. Reading through your original post I did not see where you plugged the vacuum source for the EGR. Based on your description it sounds like it is still connected to a a thermo-valve that opens after warm-up.

I don't know about the vac can for and '88 SPFI, but earlier models have a purge line that goes directly to the intake manifold and has an inline check valve. How many barbs are on your canister?

+1 If you want direct bolt on 14s just keep your eye on the for sale section. They come up all the time. I will be posting a couple sets here soon, but I am not going to ship. Since you only put West in your location description I have no idea if that helps you.

+1 I did it recently with an '84 wagon and passed with flying colors. The car did run really well in the first place, so don't expect to do this with a pos and expect it to pass...though it could happen. I just ran the tank down to about 1/3 and poured in a gallon of denatured alcohol. It definitely affected my fuel filter and vapor separator. I filled the tank immediately afterward and changed out the fuel filter and vapor separator.

'85-'89 EA82 engine...the boxy looking wagons and sedans. Later versions of that car had a single range 5MT. I believe '88-'89 would be easiest. Jerry aka Bratsrus1 sells a kit to make the swap easier in case someone didn't already mention it, at least I hope he still makes them.

Your "speed screw" is not supposed to be screwed in so far. The throttle is that way because of this. You have now bypassed the idle circuit and that is why the engine is not responding to adjustment of the mixture screw. Set you idle mixture screw out 2 turns, then unscrew the air/fuel mixture screw, aka speed screw, some. Start you car and adjust the idle speed using the a/f mixture screw. In the future, adjust your carb with the car running and don't change more than one thing at a time. Read up on setting lean best idle before you try optimizing for fuel economy.

First I would take it to an experienced member on this board to verify what you are really dealing with. GeneralDisorder would be top choice, but there are plenty of other people here that can ID the situation with your Brat. It may be the case that it is not as bad as you think. Since it has a rear disc brake conversion it leads me to believe that the PO had some knowledge about upgrading subies but may have lacked in the execution of detailed installation of things like electrical. If you do keep it, you are in luck that a full engine/transmission transplant is well documented on this site that will greatly improve the power and reliability of the Brat. But as 92_rugby_subie mentioned forget about getting money back from resale, of course this is true of just about any car less than $2,000 unless you buy it for less than $500.

Like you said it is a little difficult to tell whats going on there from the photos, but it looks to me like an automatic to manual transmission conversion or FWD to 4WD conversion. I have honestly never heard of a FWD Brat, so I'll go with auto to manual.

Hence the suggestion to check your alternator. The idea being that your bad ECM is more likely a symptom rather than a cause. A bad regulator in the alternator may make it charge with excessive voltage. A bad rectifier in the alternator may make it charge with a percentage of AC current rather than DC. Both conditions can and will fry components and cause other electical gremlins, and you won't necessarily have a dead battery. You dash gauge should read ~14.7 volts.

If EJing the Loyale is not an option (which is too bad because EJ'd Loyales are badass), then go for option 3. I stage my projects so that I always have at least one solid DD and preferrably two while I am doing major work on another vehicle. One nice thing about having a thrashed car, such as you describe the Lego, is that your not afraid to do major customizations for fear of screwing up the niceness. However, if it's trashed I would go for a lift rather than lowering. The 98-2001 legos look really nice lowered with tint, but that style only looks good when the car is super straight. With major dents and scratches and a thrashed interior you could put on a small lift, cut the fenders, throw on some bigger high traction tires, and have a fun DD rally beast in short order. Any customization to older Subarus in the PNW will only help resale value by a matter of hundreds of dollars at best. I know we are all coming from different financial situations, but I wouldn't bother thinking about resale value but rather, what is the vehicle that you want to be driving at the end of the project. Older subies value are in what they can do for you, not what you can sell them for afterward.

In conjunction with proper heat from a fully functional cooling system they will help quite a bit. It's still a band-aid as others have pointed out, but that is what you were asking for. Without heat you are s.o.l. in the winter. A couple notorious places to check for leaks are the lower corners of the windsheild, of course around the main windows, and sometimes the rubber body plugs in the floor get popped out or pushed in leaving a gaping hole in the floor of the car. If you get your car up on jackstands and see any perfect 1"-1.5" holes in the underside with no plug in them you know you are soaking your carpet and leaving unseen puddles in your car everytime you drive in the rain.

You'll probably have better results with a couple small 12V fans. I have tried the electric heaters that plug into the cigarette lighter socket and they were junk. They draw a lot of power porportional to their meager heat and fan output. A fairly small fan can produce a decent air flow (I am thinking of fans like ones for cooling high power audio equipment or computers). If you mount a fan pointing at the front windshield from the drivers side and one toward the rear window on the passenger side you will create a bit of a circular current too. Just make sure to supply the fans you choose with proper power requirements.