WoodsWagon

Green connectors are test mode. Two single pin black connectors nearby are code retrieval. Close, but wrong connectors. Unhook the green ones, hook up the black ones and it should flash the code. Automatic has nothing to do with it, that would flash the "power" light.

Yes, the harness will work but you won't have spots in your harness for the MAP sensor, the MAF will be different, and you won't have a knock sensor plug. If you 1.8 has EGR, there won't be anything for that on the 2.2. Half-assing the swap doesn't make sense when you have a whole donor car. Swap the front crossmember, pull both dashboards, and do the wiring right. The EJ18 ecu also has pretty agressive timing maps and no knock sensor so it's not going to end well on a turbo engine. Everything bolts in. You can either merge the dash harness or you can run the legacy harness for the whole front of the car and rewire for the rear. You can get very respectable power out of the EJ22 in stock form, but you need the right computer to go with it. Running the turbo motor with your 1.8 harness doesn't make sense.

Usually you don't need to do any hammering, they look tight and may rub a bit at full extension when you put them in, but once everythings toghether and settled they work fine without rubbing. With the drop in gas milage, you are taking into account the odometer reads lower than actual miles drivin due to the larger circumference in the bigger tires, right? You have to multiply the odometer reading by the percentage of increase in circumference before dividing it by the gallons to refill the tank. If you swap out the brackets that the trailing arms bolt to the body with ones out of a legacy outback, that will re-center the rear wheels in the wheel well. They move the front attachment point down 3/4" of an inch and it helps level out the trailing arm.

Oh for cripes sake, another oil argument! And a 4 year old one too!

The rear crossmember has rotted out. The crossmember is a pipe that provides attachment points for the two rear control arms and the nose of the rear differential. Salt and dirt can build up in the tube and rot it from the inside out. It then starts shearing in the middle over where the differential attaches to it. They can also start folding where the outer mount of the control arms attach. It's not that hard to replace, though you need to be careful not to shear off the 4 bolts that go into the body. Do not drive the car like this, it will break all the way. It's a job anyone with basic tools can do in a driveway. Support the car on jackstands, remove the 4 control arm bolts, the 4 driveshaft bolts, the one differential mount bolt, and the 4 body bolts. The crossmember drops out and you install a fresh one.

Impreza Outback sport struts are not the same as Legacy Outback struts. If you put Legacy Outback struts on it, then you wouldn't have a tire clearance issue. Or, you have aftermarket rims with a weird offset.

We don't need the heads, our EJ18's and 22's have the same cover plates as your fuel injected models, so that's like $60 US for the carb/manifold and distributor w/ wires. Plus shipping and you pulling it at the yard. What's the specs on the carb that the EJ18's use? I have friends that fly back through NZ from Antartica, I wonder if they could smuggle a couple setups out and save shipping?

The EJ18 will be a big improvement over the EA82 that came in the Leone. Once you have the adapter plate made and the flywheel redrilled, you can swap in any EJ motor. You could put an EJ25 block with EJ22 heads with the EJ18 distributor and manifolds on it. That would be the most carburtated power you could get out of an EJ motor. Might need a bigger carb going from a 1.8l to a 2.5l though. Do you have some pictures of the EJ18 intake manifold and carburator? Do you have access to spare distributors you could ship?

The SOHC EJ22 heads have a plug on the back of the head where your distributor should plug in. The manifold should bolt up as well, so pretty much take the whole EJ22 block and heads and put the EJ18 manifolds and distributor on it and you should be good. If you can get EJ series distributors and manifolds for cheap, shipping some over here might be appreciated. The North american market never got EJ's with distributors, so we use ford escort distributors with the mounting tabs ground to fit.

You have to have the intake valves opening to let air into the cylinder to compress, then close on the compression stroke. If the cam's are in a relaxed position, the piston will pull a partial vacuum against the closed valves, then come back to atmospheric pressure at TDC, so no pressure will be read on the gauge. A test you can do, which tells you more than a compression test will, is a leakdown test. The basics of it are you hook compressed air up to the cylinder and see where it's escaping. Listen at the throttle body for hissing, listen at the oil fill cap for hissing, and listen at the exhaust ports for hissing. A leakdown tester tool will tell you % of leakdown, but you don't really need that as with bent valves it will be obvious where it's leaking from.

Hate to ask this, but do you have the front swaybar still hooked up? That will limit flex in the front end.

Yup, it's normal. Lots of cars with manual transaxles that have transversely mounted engines like most FWD's run automatic transmssion fluid, which is really thin. They can do that because the ring and pinion gears on the differential are helical gears. Subaru transaxles have to have hypoid gears on the differntial, and they need hypoid gear oil or they would burn up pretty quick. So you have to use 80/90 gear oil and the like. The gear oil is really thick and sticky on cold mornings, so it will try to transfer power. My pickup truck will actually creep forward on flat ground if I don't have the e-brake on if it's cold. Most manufacturers have switched to ATF style fluids so that people don't have hard shiftin on cold mornings. Unfortunately due to the design of subaru transmissions, they can't. Unless they separate the front diff out of the transmission case like they did in the automatic transmission subarus, they have to run hypoid gear oil in the whole transmission.

Don't. Drive the car first with the engine set up the way it is. Don't be fixated on a #, focus on how the car is to drive. The combo you've got should generate more than enough power to be fun to drive. Especially if you want a daily driver, you don't want a high compression turbo motor. You'll be buying premium gas as it is, you'd have to run race gas or a methanol injection system all the time.

Could be a bad strut top bearing, but usually you will hear the spring "twang" when it pops out of it's stuck spot in the bearing. The other thing it could be is the steering coupler, but they will usually cause return-to-center issues after a turn. If the bolts that hold the knuckle to the strut aren't tight, your camber will change based on conditions and will cause a pull.

If you're not hearing growling from the rear of the car, the wheel bearings are probably fine. If the temperature gauge is staying stable with the car under load, like a long hill, then I wouldn't worry about it. Have the coolant changed out the next time you have the oil changed. Keep an eye on the level and check for black oily residue in the overflow tank. Don't run to the dealership just because you read some things online about potential problems. I mean they'll take your money no problem, but if it aint broke, don't fix it.

I drove my 4" lifted wagon like it needed sway bars. I always left my swaybar on, but I don't think it did much honestly. The body roll would just flop over and fully compress the suspension on the outside of the turn anyway. Once it was set over, it was stable. It was a bit unnerving when you'd switch directions and it would roll over the other direction. Scared the bejusus out of my friends but it never was unstable. Even like that it was way more stable than my stock suspension toyota tacoma is. Better in the woods than my truck too.

That's a nice setup, and the only way to do it with a subaru tranny, but $1650 could buy you an adapter plate and a few VW transmissions.

The only problem with them is the headgaskets on the DOHC 2.5l. Oh, and the rear wheel bearings, but if you upgrade them to legacy bearings when you replace them it fixes the problem. The rest of the car is good quality. Dumping the car because the headgaskets might blow at some point in the future is like refusing to drive a car on new tires because you might get a puncture at some point and you don't want to waste the money. Drive the car, make sure to change out the coolant every 30k, and don't worry about it. If it blows, it blows, you either replace the headgaskets or swap in a 2.2l.

Oh, and there's no relation between smells and the AWD system. The center diff is contained within the transmission so there's no way for a smell to get out. Not that it would create a smell anyway. And the AWD is "engaged" all the time in the manual transmission cars. If it smells like clutch, it's either the clutch or burning brakes. The TCS uses the brakes I belive so if you're doing a lot of spinning you may get a hot brakes smell. The clutch is operator error if it's smelling, you're slipping it too much. Don't use the handbrake while moving either, that's not good for the center diff or the e-brake, which isn't really designed to stop a moving wheel. It's meant to hold a stopped wheel.

If the exhaust needs replacing because of the flanges being rotted off at the back of the catalyic converter, you can get 2 piece flange replacement kits for <$20. If it needs replacing because the pipe has rotted out, I've had good luck with Bosal brand exhaust stuff from http://www.thepartsbin.com. After you put in the information for your car, click the tab for "stock replacement parts", that will filter out the unbelievable amount of crap they sell on that site.

One other thing to think of is if you're putting a 2.2l engine in where a 2.5l was, you need to use the 2.5l flexplate on the 2.2l crank. The torque converters are different depths 2.2 to 2.5, so a 2.2l flexplate will hold the motor out from seating. But yeah, torque converter in the tranny first ALWAYS. If you don't you break the pump when you tighten down the bellhousing bolts. Doesn't matter what manufacturer.

Yup, gives a nice firm pedal feel. You need to find the right nail, there's some out there that fit perfect, the head diameter is the right size for the widest part of the flare and the nail is the right diameter to fit down inside the tube. I use this trick for my woods beaters. One ford truck I had the rear lines blew out, so I used a nail up at the master cyl. Front brakes only, you could do burnouts all day long. Welded rear diff too so it left nice double stripes. It's of course retarded to do this for a road going vehicle, as the speeds you're stopping from are higher so you need all your brakes. Plus, when you do hit someone, the accident investigation will turn it up and you will be done.

If you're using it offroad... not such a good application for a rotary. Screaming at high RPM's, great application for a rotary. They don't make much torque down low, but damn they're great when wound out.

Yup, abuse breaks the 5spds at stock power levels, so upgrading to a 6spd is a good plan. You will need more than the tranny to do the swap. My best advise would be to go over to forums.nasioc.com/forums and search for some threads on 6spd swaps.

Actually, a fully dressed ford 302 fits between the framerails of a gen2 brat with the stock exhaust manifolds. I know a guy that's putting a brat body on an early bronco frame, one of the 66-78 broncos. He's mounted the body down tight to the frame, so the engine is sitting up in the engine bay. Fits fine. He has piles of Early Broncos in his yard and piles of brats too so it's a natural combo.