GeneralDisorder

Yes one of my guys has a an EA81 with SPFI pistons and a Weber. It's really quite a large performance increase over stock. The area under the torque curve is a gigantic improvement. It probably makes 80-85 peak HP but the lift to the torque curve on the low end is substantial. I wouldn't be surprised if it close to doubled it. More than that - get an EJ. Unless you are prepared to spend years of your life learning about forced induction. Not even kidding. And doing forced induction with a carb..... besides being a waste of time, it's a whole different critter. You'll want to lookup such things as the Maserati Biturbo.....LoL GD

Besides the obvious carb icing issues in cold climates, reducing intake temps will yield performance gains that likely would not be measurable on a dyno or at most generous may show a 1 HP gain. Yes the intake gets hot, but the air flowing through it at WOT will not heat up very much as its transit time is quite short. On an engine already making 300 HP with a turbocharger (exhaust driven induction heater) this might be worth 5 HP. On an EA81 it will just cause carb icing in the winter which will reduce performance by enriching the mixture till the exhaust catches fire..... B36 bomber style. GD

Ridiculous. An EJ swap would be far less expensive than the fuel management needed to run N2O. You'll melt the engine before you figure out how to use it correctly. You would need thousands in fuel management, and instrumentation just other get it running and then probably several engines to sacrifice. Even the highly modified EJ crowd steers clear of N2O for the most part. Subaru engines are too weak for that amount of cylinder pressure. You'll take out the mains and rods from crank flex and blow the thick graphite head gaskets right out of her. I've contemplated doing N2O on a large turbo EJ in a "nitrous spool" configuration but my tuner (one of the best in the country) is sketched out by it. GD

Your comments are based on your wallet. The EJ is the only viable Subaru based power plant going forward (and frankly even the early EJ's are getting tough to find in reasonable condition). The parts to rebuild them are already disappearing. Try to find 83+ intake/exhaust valves for example. It's a dying platform. This situation is getting worse by the day and it will never get better. For those that want to keep a nice EA body on the road as a daily the EJ is one way to do it. Further - an engine rebuild on an EA81 (for example) is nearly as expensive as an EJ. Labor is expensive. As far as the engine being some amazing feat of engineering - they arent bad. But power to weight and longevity are easily surpassed by the EJ22. The engines can be had for pretty cheap. $250 - $500 private party used. Hell you can buy a whole car for that. If you look hard enough you could get or make a carb manifold and run a Weber on it. Ford escort distributor,etc. There is not much modification actually required to install the engine. You could get the job done for less than $1k if you shop right. I've done or been closely associated with around a dozen or more swaps. Your problem is the paralysis of learned helplessness. Sitting around justifing why not to do it and ranting on here to us about it just proves what you already know deep inside. You want it and think you can't have it. Many kids have done it and had a lot of fun doing it and playing with the results. Life is too short to stay stock. Turbo? Who said anything about swapping that? They (EJ22T) are uncommon and also troublesome to find parts for. Wouldn't recommend that. Turbos are lot more efficient than superchargers but that's a completely different discussion. Come up here and I'll give ya a ride in one of our STI or EVO builds. LoL. We will be dyno tuning an EVO build next Wednesday that will likely hit 400 AWHP. Just the Cosworth pistons and rods were $2400. Dream big my friend - I wouldn't be doing what I am now without taking on some "learning experiences" in the process. GD

Loctite 545 and most of them have aluminum crush washers. There are 7 on the block that I can think of plus the two on the bottom of the oil pump. Torque is not important. Tighten till you hear the crack and back it off 1/4 turn. GD

That would be spider gear backlash added to ring and pinion which is typically a pretty loose situation. You can't tell anything from that. Ring gear backlash alone would be in the .010" range but spider gears in the diff are often pretty loose. GD

You could do it but you will also need the ECU. Since the automatic models in 90/91 had the three wire units the manifold harness probably has all three wires. I should think that the chassis harness probably does as well but that is the one wildcard I'm not sure about. You may have to run the third wire but I doubt it. The 90/91 manual trans IAC is NLA (No Longer Available). You can still get the later ones though - they are $355 from the dealer. Worth it though. I have had very mixed results cleaning them - I think the sealed coolant chamber/bimetal shutter actuator system goes out on them and I haven't investigated fixing that. Not really worth the effort. Used ones are a crapshoot. GD

Just pull the valve covers and check the valve lash. If any of them have a really big gap then the valve is bent and not closing. Valve lash is an often neglected maintenance item on that engine anyway so it should probably be done regardless of the belt slipping or not. Typically the #2 and #4 exhaust valve get tight and need to be reshimmed. GD

Nippon Reinz is Subaru's OEM. Not the same as Victor. GD

Sent you a PM mike. GD

You can make it work if you have some intake adaptors made or make some yourself. It's not that difficult to do really. The reason the injectors won't fire is because you would need to swap the cam and crank sprockets because the 99 uses different trigger points and it's computer can't even tell the engine is turning without them. There's a difference in the width of the timing belt between phase 1 and 2 so the cam sprocket would technically by a little narrow.... but it would probably work anyway. Wear in before it wears out eh? The direct swap is actually a 99 to 04 2.5L engine. Have one in our 99 Legacy. Runs great. 165 HP. GD

Junkyard (not u-pull-it style yards) can be great source for late model axles. We needed a set for a 2013 Forester. I made sure my contact understood I only wanted factory original axles with green painted cups. I got a real nice set - $200 for the pair. For that application Subaru does not have reman axles yet so it would have cost him $800 for them from the dealer. There is not a one size fits all rule for this stuff. What applies to the guy with the 1990 Legacy that smells like he lives in it doesn't apply to the elderly retired couple with the Outback that's recently out of warranty. GD

The holes are the correct size for an 8mm x 1.25 tap. NOT 7mm. GD

New engine and transmission mounts will mitigate the violence and rubber band effects of on and off throttle. One thing older Subaru's have is TERRIBLE engine/trans mount designs. Replacing them with new ones will help. That said, it is normal to get engine braking on a manual. GD

That's entirely possible. You will probably want to replace the oil cooler gasket then see if it still leaks from there. It almost certainly will be the head gasket but it could be both. The chances of the head gasket being completely dry on the passenger front and drivers rear (long term - past say 80k) are virtually zero. GD

I agree probably the fluid was low prior to the clutch job and now the full fluid level is leaking from the shifter shaft seal. Nothing goes in those holes on your model. On the really early models those had some exhaust heat shields bolted in that region. GD

We use Subaru reman or new axles quite often. STI's only get brand new dealer axles. Same for other high power turbo applications. Subaru has a reman program for many of its axles but newer stuff isn't supported nor are STI models, etc. For run of the mill non turbo axles we do have a "new" Chinese axle that we have had good luck with. Been using them for 5-6 years with only a handful of problems. From what I have been told by my suppliers there are three primary driveshaft manufacturers in China and none of them have a full catalog covering all models so every brand you see on a box buys from probably all three of those factories. One of those factories makes decent Subaru axles but because they get rebranded you can't tell where the thing in the box came from. Our supplier switched at one point and we got EIGHT bad axles in a row. We had speaks with our supplier and they fixed the problem but it took about 9 months we only recently started getting the "good" ones again. Problem is I can't point you to where to get some because my supplier is wholesale only and I don't know any retail sources of this particular brand. We actually at one point put in a brand new set and load tested them on the lift. You can watch and feel the joints binding and popping as you drive the car on the lift with the brake applying a load (abs bypassed). It is not an installation related problem. It's a poor manufacturing problem. The axles just really, really suck. It is ABSOLUTELY reasonable to consider it to be the axles fault in almost all cases that I have seen. It's also really hard to screw up an axle install. If you don't get the nut tight the wheel bearing will fail. Axle will be fine. GD

There are holes in the sprocket that are exactly the correct size for tapping to 8x1.25mm thread. Use a steering wheel puller to remove the sprocket. The key will come right out once the sprocket is removed. GD

Check fuses and relays. GD

Die grinder with a cut off wheel. You'll have to grind it down till you can get the sprocket off the crank. Destroy the sprocket if you have to. They are only about $35 from the dealer. Key is cheap too. GD

Portland, Oregon. www.superiorsoobie.com www.facebook.com/superiorsoobie/ GD

Yes if the car is rusted up that changes the entire conversation. You do only what will get it over the finish line at that point. We have no rust here. I mean absolutely zero. The only rusted cars I see are from the east/mid-west, and a few that have lived in our coastal towns, etc. I have a 69 GMC truck that hasn't ever seen the inside of a garage and it's solid. So is our 56 roadmaster and my 86 Trans Am that sat in a field for over 10 years. Ours is different environment for cars. People keep them till they get wrecked or till its cheaper to buy something quite a bit newer. We actually have to crush cars when they can't be efficiently repaired due to parts availability, etc. GD

For sure. Stop by anytime. GD

The knurling is done not for the same reasons it was invented. Not only do I do this about twice a week but I also own the Cadillac of knurlers (Perfect Circle Knurlizer). We started doing this because the factory piston skirts become scuffed and lose their Teflon coating. The knurling stabilizes the rings for better oil control by preventing the piston from rocking and it provides indentations to hold oil and act as a hydraulic buffer against the slapping - which will cause the knock sensing system to pull timing. Most of the knurling is actually filed off leaving only a slight increase on the barrel of the skirt and indentations to hold oil. It works very, very well. After we do this, piston slap never returns, and oil consumption is typically 0.25 to 0.50 quarts in 6k miles running full synthetic. You can speculating without real world results all you like but we have hundreds of very happy customers and this process is very popular. I'm sure you also believe in honing cylinders for ring seating because that's what everyone believes. It isn't true and hasn't been for 40 years. I have technical books from the 80s that state this emphatically - it should ONLY be done if using chrome rings or as a final stage in the boring process. As for spending more than 50% of the cars value being a basis on which you judge the vehicle no longer economically feasible.... that's laughable. Sure the car may be worth 5-6k but what repairs will be needed on the next car you buy for 5-6k? The old adage states "The cheapest car is almost always the one you already own". Someone is likely selling the next one you will buy for similar or worse reasons. There are very few out there for sale that have had the repairs done correctly and aren't hiding some ugly issue that will again be costly to repair at some point. Also you are saying throw away the car over a $3k bill and buy a car for $5k? Ok so you are obviously factoring in selling the broken car which you will get almost nothing for unless you do not disclose the needed repairs.... that's pretty shady and dishonest to do to the next guy. And if you sell it for it's real value and disclose that it has bad head gaskets you will get less than $1k (probably way less) and have to deal with people who buy cars at that price coming to your home or place of business..... it's a terrible situation. For most people it's better to just have a place like ours do the correct and lasting repair and just keep the car. We charge $2750 for a full re-ring job. That includes all 105k maintenance, etc. For just shy of $3k I can make than engine go another 250k with a 10mm oil pump, and a re-ring. And quite frankly - a LOT of people have the money to do this. We do approximately two or three a week... every week. For years now. And not a single one has come back with a head gasket failure or oil consumption issue. We do this day in and day out for a living. Trust me we know what works and what doesn't work. GD

They aren't that expensive. Typically less than $75. And for sure they are still available. Aftermarket will last a few months at most. Factory will last 30 years. GD