AdventureSubaru

Yes. If you want to follow in the footsteps of what's commonly affordable and been done with great success, that would be the way to go. The one successful WRX swap into an 80s subaru ended up destroying axles and such in short order. It would take a lot of further work to make it practical. For a small, lightweight car like the brat, an EJ22 makes plenty of power. With an adapter kit, it can be mated to a 3at transmission just fine. Or - with a little more fabbing and parts shopping, you can switch it over to EJ (4EAT or 5mt) transmission and running gear. You would trade 4WD for AWD, or possibly FWD only if desired.

Looks great. I second the zip ties. Put them in yourself and save some $$$. You have to use a little muscle and creativity when bolting the spindle in. I used a steel pipe as a pry bar and knelt on it to slowly move the control arm where I needed it to go last time. Your stock tires will look little afterwards. I put 225 70 15s under my legacy and they work great. had that size on my old lifted impreza. Put AT 215 75 15s under another legacy.

We can remedy that once the weather gets nice. I know there are some trails in the area to explore. Seems to be a good number of Subaru enthusiasts in the area. The Western PA Subaru facebook group is pretty active.

http://testdrivejunkie.com/1983-subaru-gl-4x4-wagon-test-drive/ Is this contained in the thread yet? I'll have to swing down there and see the car sometime now that I'm back in the area.

05 Forester will bolt right in. The exception may be that the rear tophats from your legacy may need to be swapped onto the rear struts like an Impreza. But I don't think so. 1998-2008 Forester struts are all the same essentially. 04+ is slightly taller I think. This is easy as a DIY job. Just make sure to disconnect the swaybars. Or if you're sure you need a shop to do it, find another shop. I have a 98 Legacy sitting on Forester suspension in my driveway right now. It was all a direct bolt in affair. Took me 2 hours.

I fixed one up for a coworker of mine. 99 outback that had thrown a rod. The outback had about 90k on it. I swapped an EJ22 from a 95 with about 235k on it. That was 3 years ago and he drives a lot. Probably closing on 300k at this point.

Easy peasy. Don't let that one die.

Bump. Anyone? I have some leads on a couple so it's not pressing. Mostly curious at this point as this generation is now old enough that used motor/trans etc. compatibility is more relevant. Saw my first one in a junk yard last fall.

Wish we had brush bars like that in the states. Welcome!

Usually there's a corresponding diff drop to go with a lift. If you have 2 inches of lift, you want to drop the diff 2 inches and you'll be golden.

My wife nearly took out our mailbox with her 2011 Outback due to ABS. About 4 inches of powdered snow. She was making a left turn and slowing down. ABS took over and the car way overshot. We had about 6 inches to spare. I may just pull the fuse for ABS and just run the switch for airbags. We do enough highway driving where I wouldn't mind airbags, but ABS will only be necessary for inspection time.

EJ22 is less than 200lbs dry. one of the few times a HF tool will be plenty overkill.

car-part.com for a used motor. Far better option.

Lol. We might be onto something here. Can we organize an USMB advertising campaign to spread the word on how terrible Subarus are? Maybe once they no longer are known as the most versatile and durable cars with the highest brand loyalty ever, they will also no longer hold the highest resale value and we can buy ours for the price of a dodge neon or chevy cavalier or tin can korean product. That way everyone else loses and we win

Sounds good. In my home state they have safety inspections so removing them is not an option. If a vehicle came equipped with air bags, they need to be present and functional. Ditto to ABS - though I hate it and feel safer without it.

Bummer. I scrapped about 3 sets of used ones before we moved cross country last fall. I'd have sent them to you for the cost of shipping. Maybe put a want ad in the classifieds here. Someone may have some leftover as I did.

I bought the cheapo $15 unit on ebay. I pull the codes and then google searches to follow up usually lead me right where I need to go for a repair.

Great ideas here. Any plans for structural bracing in the front? With all the weight in the rear and no motor etc. up front it would crumple like a tin can in a front collision.

Yes. I would rephrase that they don't seem to be a common issue. Seen several over 200k on original head gaskets. Only seen a few turn up on the boards that request help for head gasket related issues. So far it seems like there was a heat related issue prompting the HG failure.

FYI - "Car flipping business" = Unlicensed/Illegal dealing in cars. Known a few people who have lost a lot of good money getting suckered by curb stompers. Not saying that's you, but there are laws on the books for a reason. Please follow said laws. Lots of folks will sell a car for a profit now and again. Some of us can make a quick buck by fixing one ourselves. The limit in my state is 5 per year. But if this is your business, there's a lot of national crackdown and you're looking at huge fines, jail time and the IRS sifting through your life's history when they find you. Wont matter whether you scam people or sell top quality cars. You either need a dealers license or you're guilty as sin.

What he said. Subaru did their job very well. You wont really improve much. Best you can do as is would be to reduce weight. Clean out your trunk, delete the AC etc. A turbo on your existing motor means brief HP gains up until you blow the motor. Not a realistic option. Simple way is to sell this car and buy a turbo model. If you're stuck on this car the realistic way to gain power is a motor swap.

Apart from the TCU code, there are 2 questions that beg to be answered. 1. Why are you randomly unplugging things with the motor running if you don't know what they are? 2. Why are you driving on bald tires? I'm not trying to bash you. But on both respects you are asking for trouble. Do your research first and then go mess with the car within the scope of your knowledge. For the car's sake and your safety's sake. Also - Get some tires! Tires are the literal rubber meets the road. One of the most critical safety pieces of your vehicle. Driving them bald is asking for a blowout, hydroplane etc. You are a danger to yourself and others if you're driving spent tires.

The FB and EZ motors are not known for this. EZ motors are already known to hit 300k and head gaskets were not an issue. The first couple years the FB motors had an oil consumption issue, but that has been resolved. I've not heard of there being any head gasket issues with FB motors yet. Especially as they're only a few years old.

You can often recoup some cost by parting out the old motor. I have gotten 200-300 on average for good short blocks on craigslist.

It happens. Luck of the draw sometimes. On the head gaskets there were some known flaws for certain motors/years that have factory upgraded parts to fix the issue. My Subarus in the driveway are at 243,000 and 276,000 miles and no complaints. My wife drives a newer one now but her old outback was sold still running well at 382,000 miles. My old impreza was sold due to rust at about 280,000 miles but still mechanically sound. Sounds like you had some bad luck on your subarus if your driving habits were normal and you kept up on maintenance. Honda and Toyota also put out plenty of models capable of 300,000 miles and beyond. The difference that makes this forum what it is comes from the versatility of the car itself (AWD/4wd etc.) and the ease of maintenance. I've swapped motors from 1979 Subarus through 2006 and the job is all basically the same. Subarus are ideal for the Do-it-yourselfers because there is more parts interchange, a simpler platform to work with, more space, and fewer special tools to maintain them. In my experience, mechanical work on a subaru takes about half the time of most other cars. if you're not a DIYer, you wont notice any large difference in maintaining a Subaru over the years vs. Honda/Toyota and other good brands other than a little bit higher cost of labor for the "other guys" Honda Accord Crosstrek and the newer Toyota Rav4s are both designed to compete with Subarus market space. If you like what Subaru has to offer, but want to pursue other brands, those might be the happy medium.