WoodsWagon

The heads really suck. Poor combustion chamber design, shrouded valves, tortuous ports, ect. Even with a turbo on them to assist in the breathing they didn't improve much. So that's the main problem with the performance. Best performance mod is to alter your driving style. Give the engine no mercy, wind the ************ out of it all the time and let it scream. They hold up fine. Redline is at 6.5k, valve float isn't till 8k, so don't worry about over-revving it. I've held one wide open for an hour straight on the highway, and while it blew out the exhaust gaskets and set an o2 sensor code, it ran great.

If you're going to make a canyon carver out of it, use the whole EJ transmission. The full-time 4wd with center diff lock sucks on the street because you are effectively 1wd. Whatever wheel has the least weight on it will spin and all the power will go to it. So then you lock the center diff, and it binds just like a 4x4 and handles unpredictably on the pavement. The AWD center diff with the viscous limited slip that the EJ trannys have in them is the best setup for pavement and gravel.

If it's clunking when doing tight turns in parking lots, it's probably the center diff. You can replace the center diff without removing the transmission. A decent independent shop should be able to do it without much hassle. Putting a brand new center diff in shouldn't run much more than $1200. Mismatched tires will not hurt the front or rear diffs, it's the center that takes the strain and overheats it's limited slip component, the viscous coupler. If it gets overheated enough, the plates warp and it binds and releases making a clunking during turns.

They make such a thing for retrofitting cars that get towed behind RV's. Remco Axle-lock:

Throw some lucas bearing fix in a bottle in it and never change the oil again. Worked to get another year out of a mitusbishi 3.0l v6 a friend had. Car was a POS so it wasn't worth fixing, but it paid for itself by limping along.

Just installed one in my dad's legacy. One of the spring clips had broken on his throw out bearing and it had rattled for the past 60k miles. The throwout bearing had worn an 1/8th inch groove into the snout of the transmission, put the snout kit in while I did the clutch and it works great. The new retainer spring that comes with the kit is a different style, and better in my opinion. I'd say it's a non-issue, and how Subaru should have done it in the first place (and did on the older 4x4 transmissions).

No, that's the bushings in the shifter being worn and loose and letting it rattle. You can probably put it in 3rd gear and swing the shifter side to side the same distance as the width of the radio face, right?

It's not a broken wrist pin, I can tell you that. Rods or pistons go before wristpins do. Before you pull the engine and tear it down, tell us exactly what it's doing or not doing, and we'll do a much better job diagnosing it than the shop you took it to. It may be something simple and straightforward to fix, or not a problem at all.

The 4spd has a crappy shift linkage that tends to lead to people trashing synchros and grinding up reverse. I think it has a smaller clutch than a 5spd d/r too. What is this single rotor 13b? 13b's were all twin rotors.

A 13b is the equivalent of a 1300cc 6 cyl engine, each rotor displaces 650cc's on it's 3 combustion chambers and there's 2 of them in there. Having ripped around in a 84 GSL-SE in highschool, I wouldn't be too worried about lack of torque. Be more worried about a good oil cooler and watching oil consumption. They're old engines at this point and most were abused ruthlessly. Are you trying to keep 4wd or do you plan on going Rwd? You could probably use the RX7 transmission and make a custom driveshaft to the rear. Someone else on here is doing a rotary swap, with just RWD.

Mudrat79 used to make them, and may still, but he was banned on here for scamming people out of their money and not delivering parts. He delivered a lot of excuses though.

Rockford driveline sells retrofit ujoints for the staked in style joints that EA82 and newer cars use. Look them up on the net.

Mechanically, it should be one of the easiest EJ swaps done if you get the Loyale 4eat crossmembers and driveshaft. The wiring will be a bit more work, but worth it I think. You can try de-pinning the connector and soldering the wires back to the pins if you can find the break. Easier to just swap the connector and pigtail, but it's an alternative if you can't find one.

Ok, so you had the engine replaced and the problem cropped up after that. You said the wiring looked strained where the TPS connector is? I bet some tech in a hurry swapping the engine was yanking on the wiring while they were trying to get the connector to pop off. There's probably a break right at the crimp on one of the pins in the connector, or the pin is pulled back. The problem fixes its self each time you clean, adjust, replace or otherwise wongleflute with the TPS because you move the wiring and connector around at the same time. This gives you a temporary connection, until the vibration of the engine causes the wire to lose connection again. Easiest would be to chop the TPS connector and the longest amount of pigtail you can with it off a junkyard car, then use weathertight butt connector crimps to splice it into your harness. Or solder and weathertight shrinktubing. Weathertight connections have a hot glue like substance inside them that seals the connection when you melt the shrink tubing on the outside. Replacing the connector and 4" or so of wire connected to it should fix a strained wiring problem. When undoing connectors, you only pull or pry on the body of the connector while holding the release tab down. Never pull on the wiring or this kind of problem develops, and they are a pain to diagnose. Looks like you're most of the way there already though. A failing TPS signal will really confuse a transmission, as that's it's main input from you on what you want it to do. It doesn't know if you're trying to accelerate, cruise, or coast, so it can't decide what gear to go in or to lock up the torque converter clutch or not.

Having the actual code would help, but yeah, there's a problem with the wiring, computer, or sensors if it's throwing a code. It's not the transmissions fault if it's getting the wrong signals from the engine. Should be easily fixable, esp with the harness all taken apart for the swap. Even with mild offroad, the auto is much better than a manual. Not having to slip the clutch or get abusive with speed to make it over things is a huge advantage. Being able to use a wiring mod to lock it in true 4wd is a big advantage over the AWD manual transmissions, where you can get stuck with one wheel in the air and the other 3 with good traction. Plus, the auto is way stronger than any 5spd subaru put out.

Did you make sure the o-ring gasket came off with the old filter? They can stick to the block surface and if you don't check to make sure the block surface is clean and smooth aluminum, the new filter tries to seal to the old gasket stuck there. Sometimes it lasts until the first time the car is revved up, then blows out and dumps all the oil in seconds. Other times it just weeps oil all the time. The filter and drainbolt were wicked tight from the dealership because of this thing called comebacks. Tightening them more than spec'd will ensure they never come off during use. If they did, the dealership gets to put a new engine in on their dime. We all use filter sockets or pliers to take the old filters off, so it's not an issue on that end.

Well your first problem is that you're trying to replace a phase 2 Single Overhead Cam (SOHC) 2.5l with a Phase 1 EJ22, so the bellhousing bolt pattern is different and the wiring/sensors/injectors are different. The EJ22 swap is for 96-99 EJ25d's which is the Dual Overhead cam (DOHC) 2.5l. These are the ones that blow the headgaskets internally and have a lot of problems. SOHC EJ25's blow the headgaskets externally, so coolant leaks out of the engine onto the ground, and this can often be fixed with a bottle of stop leak. Subaru sells it as "coolant conditioner" in small blue bottles. What's broken with your engine? It may be easier to fix it than swap the EJ22 you got into it.

I have a 9k winch on my Loyale, I built a bumper that uses the stock mounting points, plus has a pair of braces that run down to an angle iron bolted into the lower radiator support. The winch, being mounted on top of the bumper, will try to rotate the bumper down as it pulls. Bracing into the radiator support prevents that. I have watched the headlight protector loops move an inch forward from the hood as the body flexes under full pull. I have used it to pull fullsize trucks out in the snow. I'd put it in 2wd, spin the wheels to sink the front end, and put the parking brake on. After pulling that lines worth, chuck it in 4wd and it would back right out. The truck owner was a bit embarrassed that my wagon was able to maneuver to any point I needed to get a line on him. 9k is really too much winch for a subaru. For the amount it got used vs the weight it put on the nose of the car it wasn't worth it. A 3.5k with a snatch block should do you fine.

You'll have the harness apart when your stripping it for the swap. It would be easiest to fix the throttle input between the ECU and the TCU at that point. I can't recommend an automatic enough for off-road. It's a better setup, and you won't be breaking it all the time. I can send you a pile of broken d/r 5mt parts if that would help change your mind. Loyales also had the 4eat as an optional transmission, so all the factory parts to bolt it in are available.

Quite honestly, I'd think about putting the 4eat in with the EJ swap. The loyale transmission tunnel should be big enough to fit it, loyale 4eat crossmembers, driveshaft/axles and mounts should be pretty easy to find, and you have all the wiring and such you need in your donor car. The torque converter in an automatic will go a long way towards making up not having low-range off road. Plus you have 4.44 final drive instead of 3.9 in the D/R trans. A good transmission cooler in front of the radiator and a skid plate under the trans pan and you should be able to beat the snots out of that trans without worry. A 5spd not so much, I trashed a bunch of them with an EJ22. That also eliminates the clutch problem and the adapter plate. EJ251's are ok engines, it's the EJ25d's that blow the headgaskets internally. The SOHC EJ25 heads are huge though, and they take up a lot of real estate between the frame rails. It may be a snug fit.

Bronco wheel base was actually lengthened to match the brat body with the big tires. Brat- 97" wheel base Early Bronco- 92" wheel base

Faith based automotive repair has never worked for me. It's a machine with no spirit/soul so only the laws of physics and not spirituality apply to it. I have a HHO generator I can sell you though... double your gas mileage using power from your alternator to make fuel from water.

No. I'm a lowly mechanic and I agree with the aerospace engineer a few posts up. You can't have a "holistic" healing approach to a car, the yin and yang of different fluids in completely unrelated components will not create sympathetic vibrations. Sorry, but no. The power steering system consists of the rack, a pair of hoses, the pump, and a belt to the crank. There is no electrical interaction with any other part, it's a purely hydraulic system and is isolated from any other system on the car. Oh, and racks don't squeal, pumps or belts do. Pumps usually whine, and belts usually squeal, but no matter. Changing power steering fluid won't get rid of AWD binding problems on tight turns.

I switched my mom's out after the stupid plastic pivot ball sockets for the aiming adjust kept braking. I used the one piece headlight/side marker assembly's out of a 95 or 96. Had to splice the older style headlight connectors on to the harness, but they work well, don't wobble all over the place, and the brightness is about the same.

Rust is what kills most of the cars up here, so the loads of 2.2's in the yards where the car fell apart around them. You can also overheat the ************ out of 2.2's without damaging them, have the timing belts break without damaging them, and beat the piss out of them without damaging them. Pretty much the only way to kill one is to run it out of oil. So the chances that it's a decent engine in a junk car are pretty high. The last one I did was $320 for a waranteed engine already pulled from the car and on a pallet from the junkyard.