GeneralDisorder

You don't want the '96 block - effectively the compression is actually higher than the 251 or the 253 variants. The pistons have an 8 to 10cc smaller dish in them and it knocks the compression up to crazy levels with 2.2 heads. '99 is the best 25D block because it's actually a 253 with 25D pistons. 8 bolt bell-housing, 52mm rod journals, and #5 thrust bearing. It's the ultimate 25D. '97/'98 are just plain 25D's. Good for frankenmotor's. GD

C - you will have to "retune" your idle air control valve (IACV) by rotating the thermostatic air inlet valve inside it to give the engine more air at idle. The larger displacement and duration of the torque cams causes problems with the engine needing more idle air than the 2.2 valve was setup for. 25D compression is about 10.5:1. It's actually the lowest of the frankenmotor combo's. There are quite a few people running a lot higher though without any problems - there's a guy on NASIOC running 12:1 on 89 octane and he says his monitoring software indicates no knock and his ECU isn't pulling his timing at all. It will still be a little lumpy with the torque cam - especially when cold. But it's not terrible. And the '92 harness/ECU is fine. Not as sophisticated as the later stuff but you don't need to rewire it just because of that. If you do rewire it I would go with Mega-Squirt. The frankenmotor is big on torque - max NA HP on the EJ22 heads is around 185 to 190 - they just don't flow for beans up high. But the torque curve is INSANE - it hops up to about 200 ft/lbs of torque at 1200 - 1500 RPM, then climbs a bit more to around 220 and stays pretty much flat all the way to 5500. GD

I had an EGT gauge and a wideband 02 on my EA81 (stock) hatch with a Weber just for giggles and to see how accurate the "base" Weber jetting was for the EA81's. I found it to be quite good actually - my mixture was perfect and my EGT's were about 1100 to 1200* F. Didn't have to change a thing about the jetting - probably why the Weber is such a popular upgrade for the EA's - if much rejetting had to be done it would be beyond a lot of people's abilities and would be much less popular. I have also used both gauges on a custom turbo-charged Suzuki Samuria with an o-ringed 8:1 block running 10 psi from a VF-7..... the EGT's on that are about 1600* F. Our plan is to convert it to Mega-Squirt.... right now it's running a blow-through setup with a DGV Weber. :-p GD

Cool - If this didn't work with seafoam I was going to say to try the ATF/Acetone that I have mixed up here. It seemed to do the trick on that rear cylinder with an overnight soak. Glad to hear it's running smoother. Remember that the compression rings are the first to get cleaned up - that's almost always the case. The oil burning could take multiple treatments to solve and may even be from the cylinders we haven't treated yet because good compression doesn't mean the oil control rings aren't plugged up. Also - the Seafoam might have thinned the oil.... GD

EGR doesn't do anything at WOT - it is only in operation at part throttle cruise (to reduce NOx emissions durring cruise) so it can't affect max cylinder temps under WOT pulls. If it were in effect durring WOT it would displace valuable mixture in the cylinders and rob performance. If you need to drive cylinder temps down you need more fuel or meth injection. What are your EGT temps now? Do you have an accurate EGT temp gauge setup? GD

They should have 35 ohms of resistance. You can replace them with 5 watt resistors of similar value GD

I'm glad she's going to be getting it fixed for a better price - as long as she's happy with the price then I'm sure Russ/AWD Auto will do a quality job for her. GD

I highly doubt that NED has a compression leak in addition to the oil leak from the HG - those are probably just the numbers from the rings. It's likely a combination of things - first the torque cams are going to contribute to some roughness at idle - that's certainly true. Second - NED has a carb that can be tuned to mask much of the roughness caused by a lean miss - the SPFI system can't compensate for that - you can't raise the idle speed and you can't adjust the mixture and richen it up to rid yourself of the "lean stumbles". My (little) hatch has 3 cylinders at about 150 and one at 110. The Weber's tune masks it completely. One of the problems with a (stock) fuel injection system is that it has no tuneability - even when you want a little bit. If you went to MegaSquirt you could most likely tune out a large amount of the rough idle on both Stuart's EA82 here as well as Jacob's frankenbrat with the stock '92 ECU. GD

I was curious about that super high price tag that she got from Smart Service so I did a little thinking and then some googleing (googling? :-p) concerning the cost of living between PDX and Seattle.... I was horrified to learn that a good rule of thumb is that Seattle is about 25% more expensive . Check out this page: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&city1=Seattle%2C+WA&country2=United+States&city2=Portland%2C+OR So there's $1000 accounted for - or thereabouts. I could see a shop down here quoteing somewhere around $2500 to $2800 considering the machine work or replacement head. I'm independant and my labor rate is about half or less what the shops *here* charge so I generally come in around $1200 for a simple HG job with parts and labor that other shops charge $2000 to $2500 for. Thus at the end of the day I am 1/3 or less the price of a Seattle shop that's on the high/normal end of the spectrum for that area. Just goes to show - deals can be found if you are willing to do the leg-work or travel a few hours. Which is not a huge inconvienence to save several thousand $$$. :-p GD

Blow through the passages - if it has flow in only one direction (check valve) then you should hook it so that engine vacuum is pulling air out of the bottle. If it has flow in both directions then it doesn't matter and you will need an inline check valve to maintain vacuum inside the accumulator bottle. GD

If getting it to Portland is an issue for her I can pick it up - I have a trailer and a van that gets about 16 mpg. It would be about $80 plus gas to pull it down here. Probably cheaper than a tow though. GD

That's insane - she should bring it to me here in Portland. I could do it for probably 1/3 of that price including all new timing components, both head gaskets, valve job, etc. I just did an '06 Forester HG job for about $1300. And that included the clutch. :-p. PM me if she's interested. GD

I understand it - don't get me wrong. My mom ran a (profitable) antique business for 30 years. I grew up with it. I have a lot of very rare and unique things - both in my home and my garage. The problem is - the whole industry is taking a dive. Things that were worth $500 to $1000 a few years ago - you practically can't give away today. Part of it is that people found out this stuff wasn't as rare as they thought - lots of people died and guess what - they were hanging on to that stuff because they thought it would be valueable or because they simply liked it - which is what made it popular and valuable for a few years in the antique market. EA82's are not in any way, shape, or form an endangered species around here. Not yet anyway. You have to go a lot farther back to find rarity in the Subaru world. I can lay may hands on a very nice '78 wagon tomorrow for $400.... for example. That's considerably older and still has virtually no value. I'm a mechanic - I understand repairing something because it's functional. But I actually despise (car) museums because while they preserve the item itself - it has lost some of what it was because it doesn't get used anymore. I would much rather see something modified and used than collected and preserved in a bottle. A car isn't just a pretty thing - it's a purpose built machine and unless it serves that purpose it's meaning isn't whole. GD

On the other hand - my dealer is a bit of strange duck I guess - they still do occasionally work on the EA's - there's a couple people that have their EA81's serviced there. Here in the NW we still have a lot of them - a couple years ago I would see at least a couple a week. Now it's fewer and they are being crushed - mostly because they stop running and people just throw them away - straight and rust free but people toss em anyway . We probably have the best EA parts guy in the country - till a couple years ago he drove an '82 wagon (gave it to his son and now drive's a first-gen Legacy) and has worked there for 31 years. The other two parts department ladies are both very helpful. They still have all the old paper manuals and I have never had a single problem with locating a part or part numbers. They give me wholesale pricing which is comparable to the online dealers. If you need something that another dealer can't locate or won't help with - call Paul at Lithia Subaru of Oregon City: http://www.ocsubaru.net/contact-form.htm GD

You dumped a bunch of oil into the driver's side valve cover and it's sucking it straight into the intake via the PCV valve. It's partially because of the "long, sweeping right hand turn" PCV fix that your car probably doesn't have being a '91 and partially because it was never intended to operate at the extreem angle you have it at. For off-road purposes you would need a catch-can, etc to prevent that. The PCV hose re-route kit is availible from the dealer for cheap - it just modifies some of the hoses and fittings on the intake snorkus to dampen the amount of suction the PCV valve puts on the driver's side valve cover. GD

To what end? It is unlikely the car will be worth much of anything in your lifetime. I think you underestimate how many of these were made. People find all kinds of random stuff - There has been two EA81's found in just the Portland area in the last few years with less than 20k miles on them. All original and garaged their entire life. EA82's are even more plentiful. To "restore" one at this point is really not a money-making proposition. There simply is no collectible market for them and there may never really be. The problem with collectibles and antiques is they are fast becoming obsolete - in 20 or 30 years when we make the switch to all-electric vehicles there will not be nearly the market for collectible cars that there is today because they won't be functional. They will be about as collectible as horse carts. Antique and collectible markets are dropping rapidly - China is reproducing anything that was once desireable and the car companies are seeing profits in reproducing body styles from the 60's. Just wait - soon you will be able to order a '56 Chev reproduction from China I bet. No joke - it's destroying the antique industry in the US. I can buy a replica 1950's coke machine for 1/4 the price - it looks the same and it actually functions and I can use it without fear of breaking it and not being able to get parts. With the internet they can sell items that once had a miniscule market because there might have only been one person in each town/city that wanted one. Now with the internet you can reach each of those people with a single web site and together they create a market that's worth exploiting for profit. That means you can sell 1000 or 10,000 of them and it becomes profitable to reproduce the item. Thus anything and everything is being reproduced because there's a market for it. At any rate Earl would not need one for a template - take a picture for him and measure it. He can find/make the font and create you a nearly exact replica from just a picture and the size. GD

Not really a good deal - the EA82 is a nightmare and being an '87 it may be fuel injected (which you don't want to mess with if you are going to an EJ). Further the EA82 requires a bunch of modifications to the hill holder, master cylinder, and brake lines as well as notching the driver's side frame rail to accomidate the widest engine Subaru ever made.... the EJ22 doesn't require any of that work as it is narrower than the EA82. $500 for a tranny is not a good deal. GD

Sorry. It is 100% bolt-in. You use the EJ25 head gaskets (must have the correct diameter fire ring). Instant 50 HP increase. GD

It probably did say unleaded only when it was new.... but since they don't sell leaded gas anymore at the pumps and your car is unlikely to be mistaken for a diesel or LPG powered unit.... I would say paint the fuel door some color of your choosing that complements the exterior color. I'm sure Pooparu (Earl) could reproduce the Unleaded Only sticker if you really must have one. There is probably also a dealer part number for it somewhere... not sure how you would obtain it though. GD

Just cut the hose and get an air-hose repair kit that has a 3/8" (or 1/4") hose barb to 1/4" NPT and a hose clamp - they have them at Harbor Frieght in the air fittings section. GD

http://www.gearhack.com/myink/ViewPage.php?file=docs/Subaru%20Transmission%20Chart According to this chart - the Imp. tranny is a 3.9 unit so it will not work on the Forester unless you also change the rear diff. GD

Toss it in the scrap metal bin and drop in a 2.5 under your existing heads. We call this the frankenmotor - makes about 180 - 190 HP. No point rebuilding a 2.2. They are cheap to buy used. If you are going to rebuild one get a 2.5 in need of a rebuild for $100 and spend your money on that. GD

I routinely steam clean all my engines and most engines prior to removal - so far I've never had a problem. The worst I've had happen is the distributor get wet inside and have to be sprayed out with WD-40. One thing you can do to mitigate any problems is have an air compressor ready to dry out everything. I steam clean for sometimes 20 or 30 minutes - I follow by immediately drying out the whole engine bay with compressed air and then (if possible) I start and run them till the radiator drys out, etc. If you can - spray the whole thing down with simple green and allow it to sit for 15 minutes or so prior to the steam clean. Works wonders. I worked for an industrial machine manufacturer/rebuilder - we would open up 480v electric motors, steam clean the windings (useing soap even!) and then allow them to air dry before reassembly. This was common and accepted practice - we did Meg-Ohm the windings prior to running them but typically they were dry by the following day. Avoid spraying the Weber air filter directly. Otherwise - go to town. GD

No such animal as a '92 Outback. And as mentioned there are no EGR equipped EJ's prior to '95. GD

Yeah that little gear is plastic and runs off the pinion shaft.... I'm sorry to inform you that you have to split the case to replace it. It is impossible to change the driven gear from outside of the transmission. It can be done on the auto's - but the 5MT is a different animal and that little $10 gear requires about $800 in labor to replace GD