WoodsWagon

Make up a new thread with pictures when you do. Idasho: Not sure why you would need aftermarket support? You can find them with the right ratios, and the locker is as good as anything the aftermarket could turn out. The rear diff is supposed to be good for 250hp on its own, so it should be stronger than the subaru one to start with. With a little fabrication, it's a selectable locker for a subaru for <$150. People offroading Subarus are cheap bastards, so that's the right price range.

Comparison pics: This diff is out of a Quantum Syncro Wagon, so it has a CV attaching the driveshaft to the pinion rather than a flange like the Audi 5000's have. The VW/Audi axles are hollow, so it should be pretty easy to sleeve the subaru axles into the inside of them and weld. Notice the Audi CV cups are actually a bit closer together than the Subaru ones, so there's no problem with axle length being too short. The diff is a bit taller than the subaru one, but a lifted subaru puts more space between the diff and the gastank normally, so it shouldn't be a problem. Here's an explanation of the locking lever, it moves about an inch from side to side to lock and unlock. There is no detents, so you need to make sure your actuator/cable/lever holds it all the way in each position. There is a light switch to turn on an indicator that it's locked. Yes, my drawing skills suck using a touchpad laptop mouse and Paint.

Are you installing that in your car? The QSW (quantum syncro wagon) rear diff has a shorter pinion extension, but the rear half of the case looks the same. Here's a good reference site for looking up the quattro rear diff ratios: http://www.audiworld.com/model/ Looks like 3.7, 3.9, and 4.11 ratios are all used in different years and models of Audi's, so that's the most common subaru ratios covered. With some junkyard hunting, turning up the right ratio locking rear diff should be possible.

Here's all you need to know: http://www.highaltitudeimports.com/threads/78683-The-Impreza-is-gone.? I'll also add that it's incredibly irresponsible to abandon a car after you're done beating it. Dumping cars on trails is what gets trails closed. Don't ruin it for everyone else, pick up your trash! I have finished a bunch of cars and trucks the same way, but I dragged them out and scrapped them when I was done.

I haven't paid for it yet, the yard owner is a friend. Probably $20-40. He junks cars for the scrap metal weight, not the parts. The Quantum came in yesterday, and it's been crushed and headed out to the shredder tomorrow morning. Any money he makes off parts is tax free and play money, not part of the business. Even so, finding a rear diff in a U-pull-it yard should be pretty cheap. I used the torch, so it was pretty quick to pull out, but you could do it with wrenches and a cordless sawzall in an afternoon. I will take comparison pictures tomorrow, it's too dark to get them tonight. It should be an easy fit in a lifted subaru because that buys you more clearance to the gas tank for the bigger diff.

I burnt a valve on my EJ22 swapped lifted wagon, so I unplugged the injector to that cylinder. It could still do 90 on the highway with 29" tires on it in 3 cyl mode. I never tested to see how high it would go with a healthy engine. The powering out of the EA engine on steep climbs was always a complaint of mine. If you don't have the gearing, you need the torque to make up for it and an EA can't deliver. A 2.5l should help massively.

Carb is 9 to 1, spfi is 9.5 to 1. It's not a big difference, and you won't notice it driving. It does help make the carb shortblock a better donor for a turbo car than a spfi/mpfi shortblock.

And there we have it folks, the solution. A VW Quantum Synchro Wagon came in to the junkyard yesterday, so I did a bit of research on it, and ripped the rear diff out of it today. You will need to build mounts for it, and splice the VW driveshaft and inner axles to the subaru outer axles and driveshaft, but none of that is too difficult with the moustache bar mounting system in the old subarus. It would be a bit harder in the legacy/imp gen subarus, but I'm sure it could be done. The Quantum Synchro's have 4.11 rear diffs in them with a locker run by a vacuum acutator that hooks to a lever sticking out of the diff. Easy to replace the vacuum canister with a cable to the center console. Or, you could use the shifter/button, vacuum solenoids and wiring setup out of a pushbutton 4x4 subaru to run the rear diff lock. Would be pretty swanky to lock the rear diff with a push of a button on the top of the shifter. Audi 5000 quattro's have 3.89 rear diffs with the same locking system. I'll get some pictures of the audi/vw rear diff in comparison to a subaru rear diff, but it is a bit bulkier in height and width than the subaru one owing to it's aluminum case rather than the r160 cast iron one. But it's a relatively compact independent suspension rear diff with the right ratios and a locker. Here's what you're looking for in a junkyard: http://www.audiworld.com/model/5000/86-5000.shtml

There isn't 1:1 high gears. The shift collar just locks the two halfs of the input shaft together, rather than re-routing the power through the reduction gears.

Outbacks have lower bumpers than legacys, and they have the subframe drops too, so they don't have that much of a height gain over a legacy. You can put in strut spacers the same height as the subframe spacers are without a problem.

You will have slightly less power because the carbed pistons have a lower compression ratio than the SPFI pistons, but it will run fine and everything will bolt right up.

DOHC fits fine in a EA82 engine bay, as will the 2.5l SOCH, which is right about as big as a DOHC head anyway. The small SOHC heads are the phase one 2.2l and 1.8l EJ heads, and have the headbolts external to the valvecover. They are the only heads that fit between EA81 (early 80's) subaru framerails without notching. EA82 (later 80's) frame rails are wide enough to stuff any subaru engine between.

There are still a lot of EA81's rusting away in the woods around you, it shouldn't be too hard to find a good donor engine. Moosens is in CT, and I know he would be able to turn one up at a moment's notice. You could try PMing him? You could also put a WTB post up in the classifieds section here for an EA81 in Eastern PA and see what turns up.

Well, it's a 1995 Legacy, and the trim level is Brighton, not Briton. So that may be part of your problem finding subarus listed at junkyards. The center diff out of any manual trans AWD 90-98 Subaru Legacy, Impreza, or Forester will work for what you need. That gives you a pretty broad base of cars to pull a center diff from. You can also order just the viscous coupler from a dealer for the phase1 5mt's. The hardest part of the job is usually getting the shift yoke to come off the shifter shaft on the back of the transmission. What do you mean by "twitchy"? Does it hop and bind when you make tight turns? Or does it spin just one front wheel when you try to accelerate on a loose surface?

I got a 1968 VW with fuel injection that had sat since 78. Put new fuel hoses on it, poured gas in the tank, and put a battery in it and it fired right up. Fuel injection can stand the test of time. My EJ swap saw 2' deep water and mud, ice blocks from bashing through brooks in winter, engine temps so high the gauge was pegged and the engine was loosing power doing snow hillclimbing, dust, filth, vibration, ect. The only problem I ever had with it was the wires getting ripped off the fuel pump by a stick, and that would have happened on a carbed car too. The guy I'm loaning my drivetrain too followed me around some trails with his ea81 brat a couple months ago. We had to build a ductape shield around his distributor because it kept filling up with water and shorting out. I used to have my wagon sunk in water up to the seats (sometimes you had to wait for it to sink to the bottom to grab traction) and it never hiccuped. It's the coolest thing ever lighting up a pond from underneath the water at night, the whole pond glows. So the weatherpack connectors and coilpack ignition work well in wet environments. Fuel injection gives good drivability day in and out, good gas mileage and good power at the same time, and required less dicking with than any other carbed piece of equipment I've owned. The initial setup is more work, but from then on it's a breeze.

Transplants actually: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=111709

I did mine back in 06, and I've heard of a lot of them since then, and a number of them before mine. Mine was a "nightmare that's half f'd up and half incomplete" but it ran great as a daily driver/weekend beater for 3 years. I just scrapped the car, and it drove to its doom without a hitch. The swap is on loan to another local who should be putting it in his brat. He's going to clean up the harness before he puts it in his car. I was stripping down the harness, but I blew up the EA82 and needed the car right then, so I stuffed the partially stripped harness under the dash, held the bundle up there with some zip ties, and ran it. The SMJ slipped down in the way of the accelerator pedal 2 years later, chafed, and caught fire. It hiccuped a few times, I pumped the pedal a couple times and it cleared out and ran fine. It wasn't until later I noticed all the charred wires under there. I thought the burning plastic smell was just a leftover whiff from some welding I had done. Whoops. So that's why you shouldn't half rump roast it. I got lucky that I wasn't standing on the side of the road watching it burn, though I'm sure a lot of the other commuters would have enjoyed that. I drove it like I stole it every day, and since it was a beat up lifted station wagon people kept out of my way. Only ran into one other driver that wouldn't concede a merge in 3 years of commuting in stoplight strip mall hell. My next conversion will be using a OBDii 95-99 harness. They're a lot easier to work with because most of the important wires run in the central bundle that comes out above the bellhousing instead of going around through the fender and back. I already have a 96 one pulled and in a box for when I get ambitious.

The deepest subaru manual gears go is 4.44. 2004 Forester XT turbos have them, among other newer outback turbos. You can order the front ring and pinion for $350 from Subaru. Loads of automatic subarus had 4.44, so the rear diffs are easy to come by in the junkyard. The problem with the 4.44 pinion is that it's an AWD pinion, and a separate piece from the countershaft in the transmission. So you need to hack it up and weld it to make it work in a 4x4 transmission. You also need to grind the 4.44 ring to clear the 1.54 low range reduction gears in the 4x4 transmission. It's a fair bit of custom work. Nothing from a Justy transmission fits any other subaru.

What that gives you is a legacy/impreza style AWD system with an EA bellhousing. I'm assuming what you and most others are looking for is a D/R 4x4 transmission with an EJ bellhousing, and that can't be done with US parts. Europe, Asia/austrailia/nz, and south/central america all got EJ d/r's, so you can import if you find one. It'll cost more than $100 though.

That's your problem then. You need the small tic marks lined up with the valve cover notches and the small tic on the crank sprocket reluctor tooth lined up with the tic on the crank sensor mounting boss. The big arrows are a red herring that has screwed up many t-belt jobs. I've done it myself, once. They're there for a different purpose, possibly adjusting valve lash or something. Ignore them and go by the small tic marks. Get the belt set right and it should fire right up. I would doubt you bent any valves, but the EJ25d pistons do stick higher up than the EJ22 pistons, so there is a chance.

You need the belts and a- and b- pillar trim and you just swap it all over. 86-89 cars all had normal seat belts, the 90-94's US models had stranglers. Do some easy junkyard shopping. The computer for the auto belts is behind the drivers rear interior trim in the trunk/wagon area above and behind the wheel well if you want to unplug it to stop the light flashing after you swap the belts.

You either don't have something plugged in, like a coil, ignitor, or crank/cam sensor, or you didn't line the timing belt marks up right. Did you use the big arrows, or the small tic marks?

Radiator fans plugged in and working? They should both come on when you turn the AC on, which makes it easy to check.

A 95 would be non-interference. So the car doesn't really care if you change the belt or not. It's up to you if you're OK with potentially being stuck on the side of the road for a while as you wait for a tow. Timing belts will last much longer than they are rated for. They're rated conservatively so that they don't have a chance to break and leave people stranded. So, I'd say don't change it. Just keep driving it until it goes. You're just as likely to be left on the side of the road by any of the other 350k mile old parts, so don't worry about it.

Well, if you had stopped when it was slipping to start with, rather than driving it until it wouldn't go anymore, you might have had a chance of saving it. At this point, it's done. If you just keep giving it gas to keep it moving even though it's revving but not keeping speed, all the power from the engine is going into burning up clutch packs. They don't heal from that. It was probably low on fluid to start with, and if you'd stopped and filled it back up it could have saved it. Since you ran it till it cooked, it's done. You check the fluid when it's idling in park. The dipstick is often hard to get an accurate reading, so check it a few times. Did the transmission overheat (AT Temp light flashing) or did the engine overheat (temp gauge in the red)?