Adam N.D.J.

A lot of us tend to call those 3-doors, to set them apart from the EA81 Hatchbacks (which look like a shortened 2 door 84 wagon).

When I was running an EA81, never had any problems with the axles. They were one of the few things that were still origonal on my Brat, untill the motor upgrade. I think that if your pushing anything over 130 ponies into them axles, they prolly ain't going to be happy. I can rebuild a rear axle in a matter of minutes, on the trail, in the mud. Here is a picture of my latest axle death. At the same time I did this I shredded the inner cage on the other axle, and toasted the gears in the tranny: Jes remember, the more stuff you build stronger, the more stuff your going to break. And the axles on a Soob are the weakest links in the drivetrain.

Ohkay, here are some comparisons. We'll go with the Baja Sport, to my Brat. The Baja weighs in at 3400 pounds, stock, no add-ons. My Brat weighs in at 3000 pounds, fully loaded for the trail, with me and a full tank of gas and 2 3liters of Dew, thats with a 6" lift, T-case, extra diff and an H6. The Baja puts out about 160 horsepower and 166 Lb/ft of torque, my Brat has about pretty close to 190hp, and 220 Lb/ft. The Baja has a 5spd single range AWD tranny, I have a 5spd dual range tranny with an external T-case making it a 20 speed tranny, 4WD. You can get a used Baja for about 10-15K, I have about 4K into my Brat with all the upgrades, including the initial cost of the vehicle. The Baja is about 195 inches long, my brat is 152 inches long. (The bed on a Baja is 41.5 inches long, so I would have to cut the entire bed off to make it the same length, then whats the point without a bed?) The Baja has about 9" of clearance, I have 18" of clearance. The Baja is a 4 door (=not cool), the Brat is a 2 door (= cool) The Baja's bed is 41.5x49" (but of course I would have to cut it off, so thats a moot point), mine is 48x50", and thats after cutting 17" out of it. All in all, I would end of spending about 30K just to get a vehicle that is even close to being as capable as my 4K Brat, and it still wouldn't be as kewl. I won't go into the Legacy thing, some people are wagon people, I'm not one of them. Thats just my jist on why EA's are better. This is not the opinion of the USMB, USC, or any of it's affiliates, just mine.

I just wet myself!

The pushbutton tranny's use the same output as the D/r. It just has a vacume actuated cable that pulls the lever that moves the shift fork to engage the rear syncro. The full-time also uses the same type of outpu although in a slightly different manner, still gear to gear though.

They get power from the relay. It is located under the drivers seat.

I would go as far as saying that case number 3 is an example of SEVERE ABUSE... I've seen that guy drive. Can you believe that he actually dropped the clutch at 5K RPMS in second gear to get the wheels spinning fast enough in a short span of land to make it up a really slick muddy slope!

YOu can refer to the following post for how things are going: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=49835 Proll won't happen for me for a while. If I even stick with independant suspension. As for useing the Nissan axles, not a problem, all you have to do is take the stub shaft out of the Nissan diff and install it into yours. Don't even have to remove your diff. The stubs bolt in just like ours do, but have a 6 bolt flange that the axle bolts too, instead of sliding on with a roll pin. Lotsa luck to ya. Remember you have to make a new lateral link to connect to the torsion housing thats welded to the "adapter plate" cause the stock spindle is part of that.

I would not put so little faith in the trannies. Mine blew because of me. If any of you have seen the paces that I have put my truck through, then you can testify to the amount of abuse that they can take. When I took mine apart I found that the bearing that hold the rear output shaft had A LOT of slop in it. From what I can figure the age of the tranny and the bearings in it caused movement in the rear driven gear, this in turn caused it to come in and out of contact with the drive gear. The replacement tailhousing that I put in came out of the tranny that I was building for my 84, has a new bearing, I also replaced the rear carrier needle bearing for the mainshaft. While I didn't split the case on the gear section of the tranny, the rearend (transfere assembly) is pretty much rebuilt. I did use old gears (try finding new gears for our tranny's), don't worry, they are a match set. Again, going back to Ken's point on the age of our trannies, I had a Mustang with a 30 year old muncie in it that munched 4th gear, can happen to anything. 3 cases out of the dozen or couple dozen of us running this set up is not a reason to condemn something.

For those that haven't seen the bushguard thread, here is what they look like. Shawn jig is for the one without the upper bar if'n I remember correctly. Should be able to add that bar on there without too much work though. This is a good strong guard, I have pushed over a number of bushes/small trees, hit a couple of deer, and an 89 honda accord with mine. Hasn't bent, deformed or anything. Although your results may vary. Installation is also a breeze, drill two holes and bolt it up. Only thing is that if you live in a state that requires a front license plate, they may pull up over for not being able to see it unless you relocate it to the front of the bar. I got in trouble a few times, and finally broke down and zip tied it on, as you can see in the pic:

When I'm out muddin I usually end up up to the valve covers in water. Last tie I went out (before this one, where I broke the tranny) I had a problem with my vent line (all vents connect to a common) and ended up with water in all my gear oil. It's not a whole lot, but enough to turn it brown and milkshakey.

Grrrr..... Looks like it's back to the drawing board. Time to start from scratch once again. The friggin frame is tweaked!!I could only get 3 of the bolt holes to line up!!!!! AAARRRGGGG!!!!! And as thing would have it, I'm completely out of money.... grrr, looks like the Brat is going to go into storage for a while, a long while, I don't get back from Afganistan until mid 2007, and I leave in 3 months...

Almost, I did have to pull the gear off the mainshaft, and replace it. That was the one that was really bad, only half the teeth were left on it.

Took the Brat out wheelin yesterday, a little last run on 05. Played in the mud for a while, and started headin home. Got about half way there, and something locked up, I was gettin this awful grinding and clunking sound coming from under me. I'm thinking that it's prolly the T-case. Boy was I wrong. Found out a 92 Legacy can pull a 3000 pound Brat fairly well. Got it into the shop today, and started taking stuff apart. Pulled the input shaft from the tranny to the T-case. Fired up the motor and put it in gear, same sound came from under me, crap, it's the tranny. Now come the interesting part. With the engineering of my lift, there is only two ways to take out the tranny, pull the motor, and then the tranny, or take off the body. I opted for the latter of the two. This presented me with a kewlness factor. I could tear into the tranny, without having to take it out! So I pull off the tail housing, and find my problem. The gears that drive the output for the rear of the tranny are gone! Luck be with me, I've got a 5spd torn apart in my bench. So I take off the transfere housing, and start fixin it. I've got some pics up in my gallery of the repair process. This also gives everyone a good look at my frame. You can see them here: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/photos/showgallery.php?cat=797

Having a T-case in my offroad rig, I have the option of runing low or high 2WD, I tell you what, it's very nice to have. When driving in town I use low, then switch to high for the open road. Makes people look at ya kinda funny when you shift 4 times to get up to 30 though. Helps save on gas too, cause when you not lugging the engine with the big tires and added weight (not that I have the problem), it tends to chug the go juice a little quicker. A second stick in a non-tcased lifted rig would be a good ting indeed.

YOur going to find that what you want to do is next to impossible without the manufacture of special pieces. The two transfere assemblies are completely different. The input to the transfere on the P/t comes into the transfere from the top, and is fed to the rear from a straight through syncro assembly. The P/t tranny is fed into the transfere from the bottom, and feeds the center diff, where it is sent to the rear. I don't have all the components in the pictures cause most of it is lost in a box and don't want to dig through it to find everything. But the pics will give you a good idea of what is going on. The pictures are pretty big, so I won't post them, but here is a link to them, the good thing about the size, is that there is a lot of detail in them. The F/t is on the top. Here's the pic: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/photos/showgallery.php?cat=794

I've got a set in my 92 Leg that have been in there for a month and half. No problems with them, and the light output is awsome. Would reccommend them to anyone.

Do you need see an assembled one? Or will the pieces do? I've got one scattered in my bench at work, but it's all in pieces. I'm sure I could lay out the guys as they would look if inside the case for ya.

I've got an ER27 feeding a 5spd D/r, and that thing puts out some serious torque, haven't had any problems with the tranny. Shifts great, doesn't pop out of gear or anything. I think that even if I boosted the 6 that is would still take the power. Manual tranny's are inherently stronger than auto's. There are less moving parts, and pretty dang simple in design. The only thing that may have problems at the top end of it's power limit are the syncro's. I know for sure that the 4spd D/r can't handle the power of the 2.7, popped the high range syncro set the first time I tried to take off in it. The 5spd has a larger syncro set though, more beef in there, the 4spd is puny in comparison.

Here's my Steely Del prototype push-bar deer guard. This is the best deer protection I've ever had. Not to mention people tend not to cut me off when they see it.

Ya know what us Left coasters should do? Pool our money together and get Paul a flight out here for a couple of days. Ya, we could have a Moose World Tour!!!! Only real problem that I see with the whole idea is what are the guys on the east coast going to do what he doesn't go home?

4spd diff is different. It's smaller than the 5spds. As WJM said, as long as you have a 5spd, your good, 4's won't work. The pinion in the old school tranny's isn't different from 3.900 to 3.700, I've torn apart 3 tranny's now, two 3.900 and a 3.700 all three had a 10 tooth pinion gear, the difference was in the ring gear the 3.700 has 37 teeth, and the 3.900 has 39. I've never torn into a new tranny. But if they hold true to the EA's then we are in luck. Cause if the Legacy has a 10 tooth pinion gear, and 41 tooth ring gear, we can drop that bad boy into an EA 5spd D/r and lower gears for the offroad world. However I have not personally had the pleasure of taking apart an EJ tranny, so I'm not entirely sure of this. I am thinking that the pinion gear's would have to be different for a 4.111 or 4.444, cause if you have a 9 tooth pinion on a 37 tooth ring gear you get 4.111, and a 40 tooth ring you get 4.444. But the difference in that one tooth would make the rings useless in our diffs, as they wouldn't mesh. on the other hand. . . hmmm. . . . back to the lab!

I would like to list out everyone I've met, but I can't remember that many people. With 2 WCSS's and all the driving up and down the West Coast for the heck of it (putting the Ozified kit in Ken's Brat was fun, and hangin out at John's shop). I've tried to meet up with others outside the west coast, but everytime I'm out somewhere else, there never seems to be around. Been to the CCR shop, but it was closed, been to Swings shop. I really liked meeting Hassey, and riding around Denver in his 6" lifted Brat, the major inspiration for doing mine. The people that I would like to meet?? I would have to say Moose, then the Skipper, then SubaruBrat, and Miles

Very slow. It the holiday season, way too much to do, not enough time to do it. The way thing are right now, I'll prolly get to drive the Brat once with this set-up on it before I go to Afgan. I will be sure to let everyone know how it's coming along.

The Brat: Leaving home, filling up the 10 gallon tank, wheeling all day with "big rigs" and coming home with half a tank, while everyone else is on empty. It's a small kind of big, I can stuff it into some tight places. The looks on people's faces when they see it for the first time, then the look when they see it wheel. The stereo. The easy of parts replacement. The only down side is blowing axles every 10-50 miles. The Turbo: Having a car thats 21 years old and still romps on newer honda's. The handling, nothing like it compares, even the WRX's I've driven don't hold the road quite the same. POWER!! Down side is that it leaks water into the passenger compartment, don't know from where, then during the day it condenses on the inside glass, and at night it freezes, so I have to scrape the ice off the inside and outside in the morning. The Legacy: AWD!!! Power, comfort. I can drive it all day long and still feel great when I get where I'm going. And for a big ol wagon, it handles really well. Not as great as some cars I've driven, but still good. Reliable!!