GeneralDisorder

I personally don't like the phase II EJ22 - it's prone to massive oil consumption due to ring issues. Wouldn't be my choice. On the positive side you can install an EJ25 in it's place easily. GD

The engines are not compatible and neither are the transmissions. Both are totally different generations. GD

Seal on the transmission side of the cable has failed and it is pumping gear oil into the speedo head. GD

Run a tap through to clean the threads. Full thread bolt is fine. Put the nut on the extra threads for added security and to protect them from corrosion. Use anti-seize on everything. GD

In my personal opinion, ASE papers don't mean squat. In over a decade of being the face of my business - the guy you see at the counter and the guy that answers the phone - I have been asked a grand total of THREE times if I have ASE certifications, etc. In each case I explained what that really means and the customer brought me their car anyway. It's a waste of time and effort - much like college. I can get the same or better education for $12 in late fees at the public library and as regards "auto mechanics" - which isn't really a term I like - I prefer "machinist" - as in someone that is involved in building, understanding, and repairing machines in general - I don't really limit myself to automotive...... Oil viscosity and additive package is chosen by the manufacturer based on emissions, fuel economy, emissions, bearing loads, emissions, longevity, emissions, maintenance cost and interval, emissions...... oh and did I mention emissions? If you want the best protection then you really only need to consider the load on the engine. Higher viscosity resists being squeezed out of the bearings. That's why the higher power engines (turbo and H6) specified 5w30 rather than the 5w20 used in the newer NA engines. The construction of the engine internally - oil pump sizing, bearing clearances, etc - is no different between engines that "recommend" different viscosities. In general the manufacturer chooses the thinnest oil they can "get away with" that has the lowest additive package they can "get away with" and thus have the lowest emissions and least damage to emissions equipment (which has a federally mandated extended warranty). If you look at many of the high powered factory cars.... BMW for example ran 10w60 on many of their high powered turbo engines from the factory. We use exclusively 5w40 and higher viscosity in all our oil changes unless there is specific concern about voiding a warranty, etc. Anything above about 400 HP we use 5w50. I have been using this policy on EVERY car we service - probably about 1000 oil changes a year - for about 8 years at this point. We are an Amsoil dealer and our go-to oil is the 5w40 Euro Full SAPS formula (black lid). The high power cars get the 5w50 Signature Series. We use WIX filters. We set all the oil change intervals for 6,000 miles and we always remind people to check their oil level regularly. I have lots of customers making 500+ WHP on Amsoil and I have torn down a LOT of engines - I have never seen a single failure of one of our engine builds that could be logically linked to a failure of the oil to prevent metal-to-metal contact. And for that matter - 99.999% of every engine failure I have seen has been related to the engine running low on oil, or being starved of oil. The type of oil matters very little when it's littered with debris from bearings that are starved of oil every time you take a hard corner (low oil level) and from people starting and driving with the engine cold and the bearing clearances half what they are at operating temp and the oil filter in bypass just shoving all that oil and debris through the bearings like a lapping compound. You want the engine to last? Run a high quality synthetic and a filter with an up-front bypass design. Don't drive it hard when it's cold - you'll just put the filter in bypass and main bearing clearances are tight when cold. Keep it topped off. Change it on a regular schedule. The Brand of the oil is pretty much irrelevant. Amsoil, Redline, Royal Purple, Lubri-Moly, Motul, etc..... it's pretty much all just marketing. They will all do the same job if you keep it full and clean. Do this and the engine will live plenty long enough to leak from everywhere and lose the HG's and end up being junk since it's cheaper to just get a JDM replacement. Timing components aren't a concern and none of them can read the label on the bottle of oil you pour in. GD

Many of the older models didn't have them. Only higher end models usually. Forester for example - early L models were not equipped while the S model was. You will likely need mounts and end links. GD

It's an expression - it means throwing parts at the problem when you really don't know what you are doing or why. You can say "Troubleshooting with cash" - it just doesn't have the same comedic value here in the US. Price of the car is irrelevant to the price of the repair. You bought a *broken car*.... so one could say you overspent on a $500 "lawn ornament".... it's all in the way you express it isn't it? In no way should the LINK or the factory ECU be considered "simple" electronics. They are full fledged computers - more than capable of landing a rocket on the moon with the right software. Many hundreds of times more powerful than the Apollo guidance computer in fact. Calling it "simple" belies the fact that YOU clearly don't know how it works. So if that's simple what does that say about the mush between your ears? Follow the tests I outlined in my first post - have you ruled out any of those items I listed? You can't prove a bad ECU till you do. Ultimately you bought a vehicle with very poor support for diagnostic electronics - the tools needed to connect to that ancient ECU are difficult to obtain and operate at this point which will make the entire endeavor that much more difficult. I wish I could be more helpful but I can't imbue you with my 20 years of experience diagnosing and repairing old Subaru fuel injection in a few minutes and a few sentences. It's not that simple. GD

Well you can keep fighting it with Visa - at some point the current parts purchases and future parts purchases will probably eclipse just putting a LINK on it and having the ability to delete the MAF and O2 and have proper diagnostic abilities to determine what else is wrong. Sounds like it's a $500 car that has the usual problems associated with such species. Which is to say MANY. The WRX2X ECU that's applicable to your model is $1095 Not $1599 GD

I keep shouting this and no one is listening. And people wonder why the guy on the front lines working on this shite doesn't personally own or recommend anything made after 2004? My parts guy at the dealer just sold his 2014 - went back to a pre-2005. GD

No, not really. The stock ECU needs the TPS and the MAF to calculate load and thus calculate timing. LINK makes a plug and play stand-alone ECU that's compatible with the 90 to 94 ECU connectors. I have several running everything from 1990 Legacy's to VW swaps to sand rails: https://dealers.linkecu.com/WRX2X_2 A carb is possible, but takes a lot of mechanical changes and the parts to do this and maintain it going forward aren't all that available either. GD

That's normal. Anyone that says they should turn freely is flat out wrong. Check fuel pressure. Check the ECU for shorted injector drivers. Check the wiring for shorts to ground on the injector control wires. Could easily be a bad ECU - solder joints and capacitors fail on these. It's 30 years old. Could be erroneous data being given to the ECU by MAF or O2 sensors - without the right cable and software for a laptop or a Subaru Select Monitor this will be somewhat difficult to tell though much can be done with a DVOM if you know what you are looking at. A bad misfire will drive the O2 sensor lean and cause the ECU to add a lot of fuel to compensate. MANY possibilities. This is not an OBD-II vehicle that will be easy to diagnose. You will need to start up that steep learning curve to understanding modern fuel injection. One thing is for sure - troubleshooting with Visa - as you have been doing thus far - will get you nowhere. And it might introduce additional faults due to poor quality aftermarket junk parts where there was no issue with the stock one's you took off. Test, Verify, THEN Replace. GD

Other than it will be painfully hard to get parts for and it would be a shame to use for those purposes in the salt air of Hawaii being somewhat of a collectors item - looks like a nice piece. You do understand what repairs cost on 30 year old JDM cars where parts (if they can be found at all) must be imported from Japan? STUPID amounts of money. I would know since I'm the guy writing the invoices when we work on them - which is a lot. R32 Skyline on the dyno today along with a Cressida. Another R32 coming next week for turbo and fuel system upgrades..... GD

Take it to a shop and have it discharged, resealed with new o-rings/hoses as needed, and charged. It might need a compressor but you won't know till it's properly charged. The compressor will make noise if the system is low on refrigerant. If you do end up needing a compressor - buy it from Subaru ONLY. Don't buy any aftermarket crap. They had enough problems in stock form and if there were any design changes required Subaru will have already done that with a supersession - the aftermarket may be selling the dated design that had the problem in the first place or just Chinese crap that will fail and fill your system with metal. Don't be that chump. GD

Nope. All OEM axles through 2004 are now discontinued and NLA. 2005+ use bolt-in wheel bearing/hub assemblies and are also stub-in on the transmission side so are entirely incompatible. Used OEM EJ axles are still out there of course. But are declining in number and condition. There's a *slight* possibility that Baja axles might still be available. Not sure. They held onto the pre-05 design till end of production. GD

Yup. Get yourself some of these: https://www.jwspeaker.com/products/heated-4x6-led-headlights-model-8800-evolution-2/ Have a 7" round set of the Trucklite heated units on my LMTV. Good stuff. GD

Ding, ding, ding! Exactly. It's an impossible situation. A new OEM axle has a chance with that much lift to live a 25% lifespan. Aftermarket has NO chance. And OEM hasn't been produced in 20 years or more. Good luck finding any. These chassis are NOT viable. I keep telling people that.... they don't listen and tow their junk to my shop anyway so I just started taking their money. LOTS of it to make something that works. GD

LED sealed beam replacements have come a LONG way. Even the US military switched all their trucks over to LED's (with defroster grids). You have to get quality one's from TruckLite, JW Speaker, Grote, etc. GD

These vehicles are not designed for this type of modification. Subaru CV's are weak to begin with and really don't do well with lifting at all. This is the same scenario that put every one of us old timers off from the lifted off-road scene with Subaru's. It's just stupid - you have to make way too many compromises and the already pathetic gearing gets worse if you run decently sized tires. You have two choices: 1. Build a complete subframe that allows you to run a Nissan/Suzuki transfer case behind the transmission so you can put a rear diff in the front and run the axles at a greatly reduced angle. The axles on my 86 hatch with an 8" lift and a Nissan T-case run nearly flat and generally aren't a problem if you wheel carefully with it. It has other issues with 30" tires such as very unreliable power steering, but this resolves the axle issues. Still can't get any parts for the thing so it's a lawn ornament in front of my shop that occasionally is rented by a film production company. 2. Go to solid axles - AKA buy an old Toyota or a Chevy. For wheeling I currently rock a K5 Jimmy on 35's. Third option that's sort of in-between is to go to an EJ chassis and keep it REAL MILD. Like an early Forester with a 2" lift. And GET AN AUTOMATIC. The torque converter is all the low range you need. GD

Count the number of teeth between the marks and compare to the specification in the manual. You can only be a WHOLE tooth off, not a partial. Remember that. Ask yourself if moving it would make it closer or farther off? In any case it sounds like it's very close. This would not cause overheating. Don't overlook a possible head gasket failure in progress. Happens all the time. GD

There's literally nothing for old Subaru's. This is not a Toyota FJ or a Chevy truck where you can just hop online and pay exorbitant prices for Chinese reproduction parts that almost fit and kinda work. I know all about that on my 86 Trans Am, 91 Formula, and 84 K5 Jimmy. My hatch is an ornament in front of my shop. It's much too difficult to get parts for to drive it. I can get parts for my M1079 LMTV easier than I can get parts for an 80's Subaru. Also - Justy's were absolute trash. I wouldn't want one in mint condition with a truckload of spare parts. The whole engine design was a solution looking for a problem Just get a Geo Metro if you want such a thing - at least the Suzuki engine in those was pretty good and you only have to baby the transmission on them. GD

All of the problems. You have no idea what you are getting yourself into.

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I never shift an EA81 before 4500 to 5000. The one in my t-cased hatch with 30" tires gets WORKED when I drive it up into the mountains. I've put it through miles of mountain climbing at 4500 RPM steady cruising. They want revs under load - gives them better oil pressure. Lugging them will kill the rod bearings. This is NOT a chevy V8 or a diesel. If you want any power out of it you must get the RPM up. IIRC peak HP on the EA81 is around 3600 to 3800 RPM. GD

The problem isn't the car or the seller - the problem is YOU. You are looking for a daily driver Justy? You have lost your mind. A GL hatch is a 100x better choice but all of them are at least 35 years old and there's no parts available to use one as a daily. GD

Welcome to the state of modern consumer products. Too many computers and too much intellectual property. You don't own your car and it's software. Subaru owns the rights to it and will dictate what you can and cannot do with it. Forever. And no, there is not, nor is there going to be, any "software" to change any of that behavior. GD