bratman2

It is the main fuel filter. The second one under the hood is a secondary filter/separator. They don't cost very much, well under $10.00 the last time I purchased one.

You all suck to have Brats until 94! Just kidding but we can be jealous as 87 was the last year for the US. Which is what I have. I think what some of our US friends are saying is that when in the US you try to get parts for a Brat you are better off looking for parts for an 84. This eliminates the confusion with EA82 parts that so many parts places will cross reference by mistake. Been through it a few times myself. Sounds as if it may be the same problem world wide.

I think you two are talking about two different uses for seafoam. Your pour seafoam into the carb slowly at first until the last bit "does" choke the engine off. Then you let it set for a few minutes and crank it up, smokes like crazy. Cleans the carbon out of the combustion chamber. Heavy dosages in fuel will help keep carbs clean. I usually wait until I have an 1/8th of a tank of gas or less and then add enough to make 3-4 oz. per gallon of gas. Usually I drive it 20 miles or so then top the fuel off. That is the way I have always used it for many years and it does have its benefits. For instance with my 87 Brat I used to run premium gas because of spark knock. With two dosages straight down the carb I have been able to run 87 octane every since. I use about 10 ozs. in the gas tank and dump the remaining down the carb choking it off once a year. The next day I service the engine, oil/filter change. I have been doing so for the last 15 years of the 17 years I have owned this 87 brat. I use pure gas which I think helps also. Like Spazomatic stated water will work just as well for cleaning the top end of a motor of combustion deposits. I think Seafoam is safer to use. Plus Seafoam can clean the carb if dosed high enough in the fuel. Water will not of course. My oldest daughter use to live in Castle Rock.

I see a big part of the differences between our Brats in your post. Mine is an 87 with the .769 overdrive fourth gear. You have an earlier 4-speed with the lower top gear. Early 80's Brat? I guess we both should have clarified that at the start. The 5-speed would be a big help for what you are trying to achieve plus it has a lower low range also for offroad work. I don't think 185/80-13 tires were ever stock on a Subaru. Stock should be 185/70-13 unless I am confused or they were on an 87. I have used two sets of 185/80-13 tires on my 87. One day my wife pulled up to the house behind me laughing her butt off. I asked her what was so funny, she said it looked like bicycle tires on my Brat from behind because they were so skinny, lol! The 5-speed and some 195/75 tires would have you in pretty good shape. Don't worry to much about the rpm. Many used these same motors in experimental aircraft running under pretty heavy loads in the mid to upper 3k range. Many make it to 1000 hours before tear down and still pass spec. A good turbo EA81 I would love to have. Mine seems to have more rump roast in the idle to 3.5k range, pulls redline okay but not a ball of fire. When corrected for speedometer error I get around 29.5 average mpg. I live in the sticks so mostly putter around at 60 mph actual with little traffic. I lucked up on some 14" steel pugs years ago, so glad I got them now as 185/80 tires are nearly impossible to find. To skinny too! Every now and then a set of Pugs shows up in the classifieds. You could also keep running an Ebay search. Talk to several local salvage yards even if they are in neighboring cities. Mine came off an old diesel turbo. You will need the lugnuts also as they are special. The 27" tires will require a lift. They are not that expensive and they show up sometimes too in the classifieds. Good luck on your search.

If the circumference is within 1/4" and the wear rating on the tire is the same you should have no problems. Buy you a good air pressure gauge and a decent 12v portable air pump and stay on top of pressure in your tires. This also gives you a chance to watch tire wear. Ideally you would want 4 tires of the same wear, manufacture and size.

Can't help you with the part numbers off the top of my head but give me a little and I could look them up for you. I think I used Rock Auto looking up parts for a 84 Brat to save confusion with EA82 parts. Then I searched Ebay over a couple of months getting everything together. Some parts I did get from Rock Auto. I replaced control arm and strut rod bushings. Also replaced a ball joint, a tierod end, front/rear wheel bearings, and all brake lines. Installed my second set of front struts and new high pressure shocks. This is what I have seen with my Brat on the larger tires. The 195/75-14 tires give me 60 mph around 51-52 mph indicated, the 185/75-14 tires give me 60 mph at around 53 mph indicated and last a set of 185/80-13 tires gave me 60 mph at around 55 mph indicated. I don't know how accurate the speedometer was with stock tires because I went up in size on the very first set I bought 17 years ago. I guess what I am saying is I don't think you will have to go as big as a 26.5" tire to get what you want unless you want the extra ground clearance. I checked the speedometer and tires of different sizes against radar trailers and speedometers on wife's car with stock tires. Her cars ( a Mustang, Legacy and last a Forester XT) all check within 1 mph with GPS. I would say my numbers are accurate for my Brat when tires were fairly new.

Reading the post you linked it looks as if they are moving the tire 1-inch forward. I can see it helping with what the author claims but at the same time I believe it would ruin your control arm bushings also. The scrapping I had with the 195/75-14 tires was at the rear of the front fender, mostly on the mud flap, so that may help trimming them like I did. For much over 25" your going to need a proper lift. I just went through all the bushings in the front of my Brat. I would like to keep them intact as they were hell to replace. Mainly why my new tires are 185/75-14. There is still two that I know of 195/75-14 all terrain tires available, Goodyear and B.F. Goodrich. Removing the mud flap all together on the front may get you by. If your control arm bushings and radius arm bushings are worn they will allow the tire to drift further to the rear. Replacing those may also help you run a 195/75. With the horsepower of an EA81 I decided to stay one size smaller. Plus I rarely offroad my Brat anymore. Just my thoughts on it.

Should be a nut to adjust the struts up. One in front and one in back when facing the struts at the base of the springs. Some replacement struts do not have this adjustment so it depends on what struts are on your Subaru if it is an EA81.

I don't know how a turbo effects the exhaust myself. On my 87 Brat one of the very first things I did was add a 2" turbo muffler same length as the stock. To turn into my drive way you are exiting a fairly decent right hand curve on an incline taking a left hand turn up hill and cutting back slightly to enter. Originally my Brat did not like going into first gear unless you were practically stopped. Making that turn into my driveway in second would cause it to lug. After the muffler change it seemed to lug a lot less when making that same turn in second. That muffler rusted out at the inlet along with the mid-section of the original exhaust. I had it replaced from the Y-pipe back with 2" and added a Magnaflow SS muffler. Making that same turn now in second causes really no issues at all now, (though I have added a Webber and several other minor things)! I really like this combination as it has plenty of bottom end, is not obnoxiously loud and sounds pretty good to me. The original exhaust was 1 7/8" if my memory is correct with a 1 5/8" tailpipe. I think that design is for utter quietness rather than torque/bottom end performance.

Being fairly new to mechanic work the Weber would be much easier and less hassle to install than FI. Most carb motors start better with a couple of pumps on the pedal if they have sat for a while. What kind of mechanic would rebuild your carb and leave you like that? There is some kind of exhaust gas recirculating valves that come off the bottom of the exhaust side of the heads. They are plumbed up to return to the carb. If those valves get stuck you will have much aggravation on your hands. If it is the same as my 87 Brat your Y-pipe bolts onto them. Maybe try bypassing those first. Mine were deleted when I installed a Weber many years ago. In hindsight I believe they may have been the cause of my crappy running and not the Hitachi. With that said the Weber was an improvement over the Hitachi even when it ran good. Plus it simplified under the hood work by cleaning up a lot of hoses and other mess.

Still could be a sticking caliper. Especially if the slide rails were not greased when the brakes were done.

I have never heard of that brand but have used Rustoleum Road Warrior which is a two part epoxy bedliner with good results. Prep is 95% of the outcome.

Goodyear makes a 195/75-14 all terrain that may be a little cheaper. I think they run 25.5".

The Impreza seats are around 1" wider and have thicker bolster support on the sides. I have Impreza RS seats and there is no way an EA81 seat cover will fit it.

Owned my for 17 years and commuted with it to work daily for nearly 8 years. Only thing that has slowed the mileage down was adding back a motorcycle to the mix. Several things that have improved the driving/riding aspects have are seats out of a 2003 Impreza back in 2004, replaced all the rubber bits underneath along with new struts/shocks and a weber. Upping the tire size to 14" rims and 185 tires helps too. Mine gets just over 29 mpg regularly. I have done a 300 mile round day trip to purchase another bike a few years ago. The Brat did exceptionally well with a 540 lb. bike in back and interstate speeds of 70 mph.

The early EJ22 is a super reliable engine. Decent fuel economy and horsepower. Yes they are all that. I still have my EA81 because it runs to good to just pull, but if I had to replace it I would be beating the woods for a early EJ22 donor car with decent motor!

I replaced several of the broken plastic pieces on mine with a small wedge shaped block of wood. Marine caulked it in place and they are still there after many years. I sanded mine down and had them shot black with the last paint job. Probably 5 years ago.

Install with the wheel off. Push the little tabs out until they grab the wheel opening firmly. Then tap slightly on the back side pushing the ends of the tabs further out to grab the wheel center opening. I had lost all my plastic pieces and using this method lost zero center caps.

Not totally inclusive but a good starting point. You can also call fuel distributors and they would know since they may deliver it. I get mine from a distributor. http://pure-gas.org/

Sorry you are stuck in Florida. My oldest daughter moved back to Denver last Nov. Beautiful state!! Going to Telluride in Sept.

It is magic, magic in a can, lol! When used like recommended it does work like stated, a cleaner! I think the can says to use on a fully warmed engine, don't have any on hand to read the can right now but that is always how I have used it. Making it stall at the end of a 4 or so oz. feed. Then let set for 10-15 minutes, start and go. Fog them mosquitos out. The first couple of times I used it on the Brat maybe 15 so years ago the smoke was fairly dark and changed to a lighter color a mile or so down the road. I have never noticed it to be that dark again. This may not be a Subaru but gas engines just the same. Chainsaw my son in law borrowed a year or two ago. Left ethanol fuel in it and could not hardly keep it running. Was a bitch to get started also. I dumbed 2 oz. or so of Seafoam in the tank and by the second tank stalling and amounts of pulls to get started have been reduced by 90%. We have a tiller that I could not keep running without the choke 3/4 of the way on. Dumped 3oz. in a half gal. of gas and by the end of that the choke could be left 1/4 on and it would still run. It will not fix broken systems but will clean them. These are my results and yours may be different.

Used it annually for 14-15 years on my 87 Brat. Generally right before I change the oil. Short of dumping the whole can in and hydro locking your motor I don't see how it can hurt anything. I have never noticed any significant change in fuel economy, if anything I would guess it got better. This I did notice after the first time I used it, I didn't have to run premium or mid grade any more to prevent spark knock. I think it cleaned carbon out of the combustion chamber restoring the compression ratio closer to stock. That is just a guess though, but an educated guess. I also high dose the bottom of a tank of gas about once a year too. Like 3-5 ozs. per gallon. I actually learned about it's existence on this forum!

You have an EA81 right? If memory serves me 3.5 gts. for the transmission and around 1 or slightly less for the rear end. You should be good. You made me go check my owner's manual to check my memory, it is 3 qts. for the transmission!!

He said XT which changes things right much. My wife has a 2011 XT so I would assume it similar. With the turbo it is a little more cluttered under the hood compared to any other Subaru I have ever worked on. The motor needs to be lifted about 2" to change the spark plugs if it is the same as a 011. Early turbo 2.5l Forester/Baja/Outback motors came with a oil strainer that was too fine if you coked the oil up much. This caused oil starvation, turbo failures and sometimes engine failure if the strainer became blocked up too much. Maintenance was the key along with replacing the strainer with an upgraded version with larger mesh. Just some food for thoughts. It gets about 4-5 mpg less than the non turbo 5 speed 2003 Legacy we owned before it and requires premium gas. I will add this, the 2011 XT is the first vehicle my wife still claims she loves this far into ownership. We have been married 33 years so that says a lot about how she feels for her XT. Hers is the auto 4 speed as no manual XT come to the US anymore.

Or could be your clutch cable has stretched to the point it is getting ready to break. Every time I have had to make a significant adjustment on my clutch cable it broke not long after, twice that is. The end of the cable is on a fork on top the transmission. Has two nuts on it, lock and adjustment. Loosen the lock nut and try adjusting at a half turn in at a time until you can shift into gear without any trouble. Then lock it back with the double nut.