86hatchback

In the spirit of old bus/med duty truck engines. Would running an ej18 intake and heads with a 2.5 short block with heavy flywheel produce lots of low end torque via long stroke and small valves?

Never know, had thoughts like that for mini sand rails and such. On the flip side wonder if you could use a trooper diff cut down and centered up under tcased subi since deeper gear ratios are available, looked for lockers but couldn't find any for 88 down eight bolt diff. Looks like a killer project can't wait to see what you do with it.

Just for curiosity sake is the inner side of the trooper axle splines the same as the subarus?

Keep in mind all the aftermarket low range ratios for the Suzuki case. I've seen them used on Craigslist when guys go for an even lower set.

That's good to know. I thought the hatch was killer would love to see what you can do with a brat.

Have you ever given much consideration to the samurai transfercase? With its 1.409 high range would make your diffs act like 5.79's instead of 4.11's. not to mention the low range gear options. They're pretty close to the same size as the Nissan with the same offset outputs. If ya already knew sorry about that.

I've got a theory as to why, since the torsion bar pivot point and the inner arm attachment point are on to different arcs it eventually binds

I deal with Ken at six states on 60th and Columbia in NE Portland. usually $90-100 to shorten and rebalance.

Another one to look up is sidekick toyota cv axle swap as the run a McPherson front as well.

Keep in mind Toyota's run an offset diff. you take out the nine inches that that driver side stub axle takes up, center the diff (like a Subaru) and add the long travel axles (T100 axles) your still three inches shorter then stock. Modify the cv cups an!d you can get 28° of flex. Adapt that to a Subaru and your in business.

Here's my take on what you could do. Have you thought about mounting the tire like the baja truck guys with the tire at an angle so you could put your tool box under the high side of the tire and access it by either hinge point or front from the front seat. Put the wiper fluid in the back driver side corner. With building a tire mount you can expand the frame to tie into your winch mount plate and rear suspension mounts. I love all the work you put into your hatch it's pretty sweet. Another thought I'll throw in that I've been kicking around. Using Toyota truck ifs front diffs as the gears and carriers are the same as the 2wd trucks So lockers and gear selection goes way up. The only thing I haven't verified is if 2wd axles are thick enough to be cut down and splined to Subaru axle stubs. You could also use supra rear diffs Here's an awesome link to what a guy has done with his 4runner ifs and 37 14.50's http://www.yotatech.com/f199/ccraviottos-1987-4runner-long-travel-build-up-thread-223750/ Page 4 show's how he modifies the stock cv's to run a max droop angle of 28 degrees.

The longer ones I'm pretty sure are 71-73 the other ones are late 73 up. The late ones have a strut connection like the ej struts . The early ones bolt to the spindle and the ball joint.

Uberoo what part of the five lug stuff has less travel the stuts or axles? hadn't heard that before so good to know.

Food for thought on the locking hubs. looking over Rockford cv's online catalogs show that the Isuzu trooper and Subaru Loyale share the same outer cv race. so if you had a knuckle you could mount the Isuzu hardware to you'd be in business.

Right on, thanks for all the info on your wagon. Pretty cool to see something I've been designing in my head already road tested and proven. Now to figure out how to compensate for extra castor maybe with top hat from a different make of car.

Nice, silly question but did you spin the strut top hat around? Gives it you a 1/2" of adjustment. Are you running powersteering?

Nice so what tire size lift combo are you running with that set up? Also hows the handling with the adjusted camber caster angle? I dig the white pugs I've got a set on my hatch now. When I go five lug i want keep the wheels white good look on these cars.

Well if I left the wheel in its original location then yes it would look lopsided, but I want to use ea82 arms in the stock location. So it would move the balljoint forward about 2.5" and 1.5" out there by fixing the negative camber and the positve caster set by the factory. I didn't think it would move it that far forward but since the blazer wheel opening is 30" and the subarus is 25" at the bumper line. It should be pretty easy to center up. The ea81 arm is on the bottom the ea82 is laid across the top. So numbers are pretty close. My biggest goal with this is to minimize the lift need for the bigger tires. I always look at the hardcore cars the have six or eight inches of lift and think if you just moved the wheel forward you wouldn't have to go as high. Problem had been if you moved it forward and cut the fender you could see it in the change of body line. I like this flare because you can hide that and make it look clean. That's the plan anyways. Once funds allow i'll see how it works out.

I had way to much time to kill at the pick n pull today. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out a flare that i could use if I put ea82 arms on my hatch without moving the mounting ears, so i can do a five lug swap and fix the bad caster angle at the same time. Looks like mid 80's s10 4x4's fit the bill pretty sweet. The are flexable easy to trim and could mount with sheet metal screws. They move the opening about 3" forward and an inch or two higher depending where you Place it. Luckily where the bottom doesnt quite match in the front I'd plan on trimming the lower part of the fender off and building a custom bumper. In the back some creative trimming and the mudflap covers it

I know his bellhousing would bolt up only possible concern would be input shaft length. If that was different the geartrain from a g series pickup could be swapped over pretty easy. Main difference is the front case and the shift rail mechanisms. Granted mainshaft and tailhousing are specific to the van. Cool thing about the g series transmissions is the interchange with the jeep ax5 so with a jeep mainshft and tail you could run new process transfercases.

Sorry to be a keyboard crawler here, but one thing you guys might look into for your remote shifter is using the g series transmission from the toyota van's from the 80's I haven't gotten a chance to see how exactly works but I'm assuming it's cable operated by a couple pictures I could find. so in theory you could use the whole assembly out of the van maybe with custom cables if need be. I hope this might help somebody. what is the price on these bellhousings I keep looking but never found a hard number?

Yeah there is always more to it. I looked at empi axles on rockauto since they show lengths and compared legacy and tribeca of the same year and the spline counts are the same both inboard and outboard. That's what got this whole idea started. Also that they use the same outter tierod part numbers only the inners where different. Now i just need the cash to start experimenting. Figured if i through this out there somebody with time and money might try it first.

In my defense all my measurements i came up with was from getting under the cars and looking and getting out the tape. I wasn't sure about the crossmember combo is why i asked since i have the parts laying around, and in my head it sounded like it would solve a lot of suspension geometry problems. The main question I was trying to find out is if people thought the tribeca axles could handle a 4" lift.

So in the process of wanting to do a five lug swap on my hatch I've come across the idea of using Tribeca axles to get four inches of lift with just the struts. So my logic is this EA81 axles can't take extra lift. EA82's take about an inch. EJ axles seem to easily take two inches as they're at least two inches longer then ea81 axles. So since Tribeca axles are four inches longer then the EA81 axles could you in theory lift a rig 4" using Forester springs Outback struts and ea81 top hats or a lift block to adapt EJ top hats to ea81 cars. The lower half would be handled by an EJ cross member with ea82 control arms. Seeing as EJ control arms are about a 1/4" longer then ea81 arms and the pivot points are moved two inches out on each side. Since you can put EJ axles on an ea82 car if you move each side out two inches it would accommodate the Tribeca axles. This would also correct the negative caster built into these cars.Just eye balling it the radius rods would be able to just be extended and use factory mounts. Best I can research you could use Tribeca inner tierods to soak up the extra length. Two things I haven't been able to figure out are: How big the bolts are on EJ control arms vs the EA cars, and if The xt6' s have the same size bolt as the EJ cars? The second is since Tribeca's have male axle ends can you just pop the stubs out of the diff and slide in the Tribeca axles? Yes I know you'd have to split the cases. Oh this is a five speed not the stock four speed. All this is just a theory a lot of it is based around how SK'o had his bobbed brat suspension set up, although I wasn't able to find much on that. Thoughts and input would be appreciated.