Hodaka Rider

I'm sure you're well aware of the fact that R-12 is far more damaging than a properly maintained, cat - equipped small car engine. Plus, I'm well aware that electric cars have a very large ecological footprint. Nope, any real change could only be effected by everyone stopping use of IC engines and other pollutants. That being said, I do think we should all make a contibution by not needlessly polluting. So, don't vent R-12 to the atmophere, please.

And remind yourself that the you just put a hole in the ozone layer.

5spd: the reason the EA-81's suck on hills is the tranny. You are either redlining it in 3rd, or running below optimum power in 4th. The 5spd ads a gear in the middle there, which makes hills a little easier. Plus, low range is lower. Win/Win.

Tee hee hee. You guys are funny. I like when old posts get dug up by the noobers.

Yes, I prefer the Brat "shortbed" myself.

Actually, he posted off-road/muddy pics at one point.

Lay off the sauce, nipper! Pushbutton 4WD was an option on the Justy, and they had a 3cyl engine, not 4! Should not be too involved to convert to 4WD if you have a parts car available.

Has your disty ever been rebuilt? I gained some mileage and drivability after rebuilding mine. Do you have the feedback carb? Any codes? How about the O2 sensor? Also, there is nothing weird about the way the brakes work. Have you done brakes on other cars?

Subaru= check Subaru= check (depending on which engine, of course. BTW: motor=electric) Subaru= add a roll cage, just like everything else. Well, I guess the fact that it's a 4X4 to start with gives it an advantage over all of the other vehicles you mentioned. But I digress. I realize that the original intent of this thread was to find more power in the EA-82 SPFI and that I kinda sidetracked that. The obvious things have pretty much been said. You could always pull the heads and mill them a little, clean the ports/chambers a bit, etc. The exhaust can help, but keep it to 2" or 2 1/4". The big limiting factor on these engines is the port design and the long intake runners. Good for low RPM torque, not so good for HP.

We already tried to tell him that, Rob. He doesn't get it.

Again, I'm not saying build a buggy. Just build the best darn offroad Subaru anyone has seen. Maybe it won't crawl like a buggy, but neither will most offroad machines out there. Heck, if a 4" lifted Brat can run the Rubicon with nothing more than that, a warmed-over engine, and a welded rear end, imagine what you could do if you really built one.

FI is better overall for offroad. Try a heavier flywheel. This won't give you more torque, but will give the engine more inertia, so it will crawl a bit better and stall less.

I dare you to try. There's a lot of things that no-one has tried yet with the Subaru. Someone like you, who's built a competition crawler the traditional way, should try building a Subaru. Seriously, there are so many possibilites. No-one has put the time and $ into better components in the suspension (mostly meaning the axle department, guys). We have factory LSD diffs, but no lockers. We have weak stubs (which Rooinator is working on right now). Maybe you should make a Soob your next offroad project. If you put the goods into it like you did with your Buggy, where do you think you'd end up with it? Why not make the most hardcore offroad Soob around, and maybe even keep it streetable? On that note, I'm sure you know that several buggies have used Soob power to keep weight down, while still having lots of power.

Where do you get the DRL's disabled for your other Law Enforcement vehicles? I know GM in particular has been using DRL in the USA since '97 or so. Or are they delivered to you with the DRL disabled/disable-able? In any case, I think a toggle can be set up to tie the e-brake indicator light low, which should do what you need. Or what ferret said.

Geez. I didn't think Hi-Rise even shipped to North America. Was there a reason you thought they were "the only thing out there at the time"? Should have been pretty obvious by searching the board here that no-one in North America was using their kit, and we were using PK, SJR, and AA (although apparantly no longer available).

Do you have hi-res copies of those pics? The last one and the one two up from it would make great desktop pics. Maybe email 'em to me if you can? I've got another use for them too. miked <at> subarubrat <dot> com

Nothing new, really. :-\

http://www.writerguy.com/primitive/nwrallyschool.htm Extremely cheap for what you get out of it. May even get you out of a "Stunting" ticket at Fred's parking lot (do they ticket people for stunting down there?)

I heard there's already lots of footage on video. Maybe a DVD would be cool, too?

First snow driving I did this year was over a foot. Came up to almost the top of the bumper on my '02 Forester. No prob with winter tires.

I'd say winter tires would be a better idea if you're that concerned. I have never used chains during the winter on front- rear- 4- or All- Wheel drive cars. I have always lived in snow and ice country, and have found that winter tires (without studs) work great. Of course, that's just my experience speaking. I'm sure people who aren't used to driving in snow/ice conditions would disagree.

I haven't looked at a Niva for awhile, but . . . I think they are a full-time AWD box, with reduction in high range. (presumably because the engine/trans came from a car, and they had to compensate for bigger tires). It's possible the other lever is to lock the center diff. In fact, look here. If you click on "General Specs", it'll give you a .pdf: the high range is 1.2:1, low is 2.135:1. The "Niva Transmission" link gives you another .pdf showing the two levers: one for selecting hi/lo, the other for locking the center diff.

IIRC, the problem that he had was a broken t-case mount, due to bashing the t-case into a rock (maybe a skid plate would have helped? dunno). In any case, you are not likely to find a Niva t-case anywhere south of the 49th parallel. There are a few, but not many.

Thanks, WJM. bgd73: if your teeth are in fact alligned, IT'S TIME TO FIX IT!!!

Wow, somebody needs to re-read everything that has been posted on this.