88HatchMonster

Yeah, I just went ahead blindly and did it. Now even looking at the old EA81 cable it looks like it would fit... Should I nix that one off the list?

PROBLEM: Using longer struts up front will result in a disasterous amount of positive camber. Strut top extensions are absolutely necessary in the front as they are offset to return camber to normal after adding a lift. Don't bother trying to get anymore more travel out of your struts, you're limited by the maximum angle of your CVs, which is not much. No way around it. It's your sube's Achille's heal... live it, love it... or go solid axle

Hey, that actually came out as a pretty good primer on the subject... Any other EJ-EA gurus want to add to it? At some point we could edit all the info together and it might warrant a sticky for the retrofitting forum. One thing I didn't add is the possibility of doing a full drivetrain swap. That's not my specialty, though... Snowman?

As one of the vendors that makes and sells adapter plates, I feel like I've really been slacking off in not compiling a full how-to... but anyway until I do, here are some things to get you started: 1. The EJ engine bellhousing is 1/2" shallower than the EA engine bellhousing. An adapter plate (available from me, mudrat, AA, or build your own) will make up this difference and allow you to bolt your EA82 tranny right up. 2. You will need to modify your EA82 flywheel to match your EJ crank as the bolt pattern is different. Best way(what I do): weld in all of the old holes and precisely drill new ones. Other options: have a machine shop mill out the old holes to match the EJ pattern or take to it yourself with a dremel tool (actually works). 3. Use an XT6 clutch and PP to hold the added horsepower. 4. Use the EJ motor mounts and simply widen the slots in your EA82 crossmember 1/2" toward the outside of the vehicle. 5. Use a fuel pump from a turbo EA82, or suitable aftermarket inline pump. 6. If upgrading from a carbed motor, replace fuel hoses with EFI grade hose. 7. If upgrading from a carbed EA81, a surge tank may be necessary to avoid fuel starvation when cornering with under 1/4 tank of fuel. 8. EA82 radiator is adequate for cooling an EJ22. The inlets on your EA82 rad are smaller diameter than those on your EJ motor. Solution 1: have a rad shop braze larger inlets onto your rad. Solution 2: use a muffler pipe reducer and two different size sections of hose. Solution 3: use smaller size hose to match your rad. and try like hell to get it over the fittings on your EJ engine. Addition by ShawnW: "Point #8 can be solved by using flex radiator hose available from Napa. They sell hose that has 1 1/2 to 1 1/4 on each end so your existing radiator will work. I did the lower end pretty stock shaped but the upper radiator hose I had to loop around and use a long hose so it did a 'loopdy loop'". 9. You might not have enough room to keep your stock fan on the engine side of the radiator. Buy one or maybe two aftermarket ones and put them on the grille side of the radiator. If you're keeping your A/C you'll have get creative as your A/C condensor will be in the way. (hint: chuck the A/C) 10. Use the throttle pedal and cable from the EJ series vehicle. Edit: Your original cable and pedal will likely work fine, making this step totally optional/unnecessary. 11. Oil Pressure is an idiot light on EJ cars so to have an oil pressure gauge you will need to plumb in your EA82 oil pressure sender. This is doable with about $50 worth of adapters and lines available from Paragon Performance in CA. I can get part #'s for anyone who is interested. 12. Temp. Sender on the EJ motor will read like half temp on your EA gauge. It's readable and doesn't really bother most people. If you want it to read like stock then weld a bung for an EA82 temp sender into a sleeve, and put it inline in your upper rad hose. 13. Wiring: Most intimidating to most people. It is a big job but it is quite doable by joe average subie modder. You can do it one of two ways: If you're really skiddish about wiring, then pull the whole vehicle wiring harness, ecu, relays, fusebox, headlight wiring etc. Hook up power, ground, starting, charging, and fuel pump. Bundle the extra 20 feet of wiring up in a massive ball of black tape and forget about it. Um, better way: Pull the engine and chassis wiring harnesses. Pull the ECU, and relays. Strip off all of the wire loom and black tape. Identify the funtion of each and every wire coming out of the ECU. Many of these wires take detours through the enormous chassis wiring harness to get to your relays and fuel pump and ign switch etc. The goal is to reroute all of those wires directly to the proper componentry until you've eliminated said massive ball of chassis wiring. The wiring is not hard. It will take a lot of brain racking and double checking, but you can do it. Either way, you'll need to get a chilton's manual. Tip 1: Blow up the tiny engine wiring diagram they give you until it fills up a whole sheet of paper. Tip 2: These diagrams often have up to 10-15 incorrectly color-coded wires. Go through wire by wire and fix these errors before you start work. Suggested searches: Subarino + EJ22 My website (for ordering the adapter plate + flywheel work): mroseusa.com

Sounds like a plan. Get ahold of me when it's about 45 degrees warmer out

Thanks a lot. Means a lot coming from the man with THE brat! Actually, I did do the frame up with POR15 and chassicoat. Gonna stay nice and purdy even up here in rusty NY!

Just 2. My '88 is the 4" lifted offroader, and my '87 is bone stock (at least until said project plans commence. )

Took me a couple of weekends and about $125 in steel. I had a couple of friends help me roll an old junk hatch on it's side and then I assembled it on that. Pretty easy build. Now about your project, it's funny cause I've been cooking up practically the same exact idea for another hatchback I have. I have a subie motor which shall remain nameless (hint: it's a turbo and it's a 2.0). So I want to drop that in and upgrade the whole suspension and running gear to a 5 lug XT6 setup. My idea was to incorporate a 2" lift to bridge the gap between the hatch body and the new crossmembers, pretty much like you're doing. I'm waiting till I get the hatch stripped and all of the parts laid out in front of me before I start on my design. The only advice I can give you is to remember "KISS" and don't underestimate the strength of 3/16" box section. For a Subie frame it is plently strong enough almost any way you put it together. My frame may look like it is structurally compromised at the open lift blocks, and well, to a certain extent it is. But in terms of the forces that will ever possibly be exerted on it, it is still total overkill in terms of strength.

Here are some pics of the 4" lift/frame I made for my 88 hatchback. Many people have made similar frames, generally to allow for the mounting of a transfer case and/or solid axles, also generally with 6" or more of lift. Personally I just wanted the rigidity of a full frame and ultimate insurance against a rusty body ever compromising the suspension. Note that in this style of lift the rectangular lift blocks are bolted first up into the body and then down into your subframe components with two bolts, rather than one long bolt like the BYB/PK, AA, Scorpion etc.

Those tube bumpers are looking great! Are you making any to fit EA81 hatchbacks? Are they going to be powdercoated? what color? Thanks

Here's one way to "recalibrate" your speedo for larger tire sizes. I scanned the face panel of my speedo, and using an online tire size/speedo calculator for reference, remade the face with Adobe Illustrator so the needle would show the correct speed with my larger tires. I printed it out with my laser printer and attatched it to the old face with double-sided tape. Should do the trick...

You can by all means use a stock EA81 flywheel and clutch setup on an EJ. However, I doubt it will hold the power of the new EJ motor. Apparently Archimetis ran a stock EA81 flywheel/clutch/PP on his ER27 (XT6) powered hatch, and he had a lot of slippage going on. His solution was to run an XT6 flywheel and PP with an EA81 clutch disc. A custom Throwout bearing was needed to match both the EA81 input shaft and the XT6 PP. He used one from either a mid-80s or early 90s Nissan truck, he couldn't recall exactly which model, he just took the parts to NAPA and found one that worked. When I get my hatch together I will be doing a clutch setup like this and I will make note of the exact components necessary for everyone's benefit.

No offense, but I dunno, I think he's stuck pretty good there. My OBS is amazing in the snow, but I turn around when it's higher than the front bumper. Shoveling it out or calling a friend with a truck isn't my idea of fun... but I'm sure some would disagree... Take it easy, 97OBW, your car does have it's limitations.

I think it's f-ing sweet! nice color...

You can't rely on AWD like you would a big locked 4x4. Just focus on keeping your momentum through the tough stuff, and don't bite off more than you can chew. You'll figure out what you can and can't do with a little bit of practice.

No year EJ motor will bolt up to an EA tranny without an adapter plate. I make and sell the adapter plate. Check out my website for more info: mroseusa.com

Word is FWD Impreza axles do the trick.

I don't know the length difference you would have to compensate for in the driveshaft but I have heard that a Legacy/Impreza shaft will sleeve right over an EA82 shaft. You can cut it, put it in, tack it and then take it out again and finish welding. Some slight shimming would be necessary to get it perfect. Heard of several people doing it on the AUSubaru forums. Yes it's roughneck, but I think it would work fine if you were careful about it. You could have it balanced afterword too.

The best way to go is to pick up a whole 90-94 legacy. That way you have all the parts you need right there and you can pull them at your leisure. Bide your time and wait for a deal. I got a totalled '93 for $100. I got lucky, but still, I wouldn't pay more than $400 for your average running 130-150K donor car, cuz there's always a deal out there if you're willing to wait it out.

Right now you can do an EJ swap in a couple of weekends. I build and sell the adapter plate, and I've got plenty in stock right now. Check out my website if you haven't already: mroseusa.com Yes it's been done in EA81s, EA71s and EA82s. One of the first EJ swaps was done on an EA81 hatch in Australia. Search for subarino and ej22. There are a couple of extra considerations with doing an EJ swap into an EA81, you may want to put in a 5 spd D/R at the same time, you may want to run a surge tank, you'll need a high pressure inline fuel pump and EFI hoses. There are a couple of other little things... We'll all help along the way.

My 87 hatchback has a 1 wire sender and my 88 hatchback has a 2 wire one. Never tried to find a replacement for either. If you find a source for the two wire sender let us know...

2.5 heads on a 2.2 block will result in lower compression. The mod that I guess really works great is 2.2 heads on the 2.5 block. Good flow, higher compression, beastly motor.

PnP + valve job = way more money than I want to spend. I may PnP myself but I the valves are still going to be a bottleneck. My point is that lugging around at lower RPM I'll still have a power increase even if the engine gets choked up at higher RPM/More throttle. So the swap might work for me in my offroad hatch, whereas I would not want to run it in my impreza...

I read a bunch of his posts, Matt Monson is vehemently against using the EJ18 heads on an EJ22 because he says they "flow like crap." But... he's never done it I don't think, and as far as I know no one else has, either. At least no one who has posted the results to a forum. I've been debating the same issues you have, but I'm leaning toward doing the head swap anyway. For me, the power increase over the full RPM range from a boosted CR should outway the downfalls of limited flow, since it's going into an offroader and not a street screamer.

Sorry for the confusion guys, everythings totally legit, I'm sure Shady will have things cleared up soon. Would have chimed in sooner but I've been making adapter plates all day... just checking the board now