GeneralDisorder

I have been known to put things in the dishwasher as well - usually interior plastic parts do well with that method (and it's often spilled food/coffee/soda that I'm trying to get off anyway ). GD

The purple stuff is Sodium Hydroxide (look at the label) and it's very alkaline - the soapy feel gives it away. It eats metal like crazy (aluminium dissolves in alkaline chemicals) and discolors plastics in a big way. Yes it does eat grease and oil very well - but it's not the chemical I would use for automotive parts cleaning as much of the stuff in modern cars is either plastics or aluminium - both of which react poorly to that type of chemical bath. When used in small quantities it's ok - but it also must be thouroughly washed off to prevent discoloration, etc...... the light petroleum based solvents such as the Breakthrough I use do not require a rinsing stage - you shake the part off and dry it with a towel or compressed air - even interior plastics, etc are not harmed and no residue is left behind. Read up on the harmful effects of lye exposure - that's basically what the purple stuff is. Heavily alkaline chemical. It's biodegradeable in a sense because it will break down in the environment - but it will kill animals, etc just from it's PH alone. As for injector cleaning - I would be using some form of carb cleaner - which is a heavily controlled substance in most places (the good stuff anyway). It's about the only thing that will touch carbon deposits. GD

Quite frankly I would leave both to rot in the yard. Neither is really worth messing with if the body's are shot like that.... The dual-range is over-rated off road. Anything it can do you can also do with an EJ22 and an automatic (built in low-range via automatic transmission's T/C). Get yourself a nice first-gen Legacy auto, drop in some torque cams, Outback struts/spring, and do the paddle shifter mod. GD

Pretty much all the EJ seats will interchange without issue. WRX seats will bolt right into a Legacy. No worries there. GD

I'm thinking the same thing. And the cost of the hoses is going to add up to more than the cost of changing the gaskets. The water pump might last for a bit since it uses a mechanical shaft seal on the inside..... but eventually that will get destroyed also I think because the brake fluid will attack something in there GD

1. Harbor Freight 20 gallon parts washer ~$80 on sale. 2. Lightly used Inland Technology "Breakthrough" solvent: http://www.inlandtech.com/catalog/products/breakthroughsupsup The solvent was free (normally it's about $80 per 5 gallon can so free is a helluva deal!) because it was lightly used and the customer wanted their parts washer switched to some other product. The Inland Tech service guy that maintains the parts washer at my old work gave me two 5 gallon cans for free. And I needed a replacement pump because the crappy plastic unit in the HF parts washer ate itself - he came through again with a used pump from a high-end parts washer which I retro-fitted to my Chinese unit. I must say the Breakthrough is GREAT stuff. Easy on the hands, no obnoxious odors, dry's without any oily residue, etc. I'm very satisfied with the $80 I've spent on my parts washer. Could it be better? Sure it could. But unlikely for the little money I've spent. As far as a "good" cleaner - I can only reccomend the Inland stuff and the Zep products. Everything else I've tried that was "water based" and availible through retail channels has been a WASTE OF MONEY. Either it's so nasty that it eats everything in sight including your hands (such is the case with that purple crap you have - it will etch aluminium, eat the flesh from your hands, and is rather toxic to have on your skin), or it doesn't work at all. GD

Well - you're thinking outside the box - that's good. My biggest worry would be the rubber in the hoses, etc - brake line rubber is special stuff and "normal" rubber will swell and soften around brake fluid. I don't know how different the formulations are for brake line vs. coolant line but that would be my biggest concern for sure. I think I would have tried one of the block sealer products first, but this is an innovative idea. I'm curious about why this works at all - what effect is the brake fluid having on the "leak" that's causing it to not longer be an issue. Being that your failure is one where the combustion gasses are entering the cooling system.... how does the brake fluid prevent this? Also - if you can scrape together the funds for the head gaskets, intake gaskets, and exhaust gaskets - the rest is pretty much labor. There's a lot of other stuff that you *should* replace while you are in there but it's not neccesary if you are broke. But having a place to do it and the tools is also a concern...... I'm just saying the job could be done for about $100 in gaskets (the head gaskets are $35 each) if you are careful and smart about it. Maybe even that's too much for you right now ? GD

It's a gasket - I do not know if it's availible at the dealer or not. It's a metal gasket with a rubber seal molded and glued to it - I just clean them up, cover them in Loctite 518, and put them back in. GD

There are two styles used - one for male plug coil packs and one for female plug coil packs. The wires you received are neither - they don't fit the EJ25D heads (I can tell by the length and by the shape of the well "cover") so they aren't for anything made in '97. Frankly I'm not sure what those would fit since they don't have female coil pack ends which is what all the phase-II engines use..... They don't look like Subaru wires to me. GD

Nice! I'll pass that along to my friend that's using one of those poor pathetic things on his 1.3L Samurai It actually works pretty well on a 1.3..... he first tried the VF-11 from a USDM EJ22T but it was too big. Wouldn't spool till 3800:dead:. GD

Hhhmmm - I'm going to check this out immediately and post pictures if that's the case. I thought they were the same also. I happen to have an EJ25D flywheel in the garage from a recent clutch job as well as a '96 OBW with the transmission removed for replacement (and clutch job as well). I will compare and measure. Stay tuned. GD

I looked but my search-fu must not be the equal of your's. I was unable to find an applicable kit for a VF-7. Lots of them for the newer stuff but nothing that I could see for the older. GD

Used turbo's or rebuild kits? GD

It's not going to hurt anything - might even prolong the life of the bearings a bit. The 5MT's tend to last about 250k give or take - doesn't really matter if you change the fluid or not. Being as there is no contaminates other than what the transmission makes on it's own from gear wear (wihch gear oil does a great job of suspending) it's not really going to matter. I know of 5MT that have died at 200k with fairly regular gear oil changes and I know other's that have lasted (and are still going) at 270k without ever being changed. Luck of the draw mostly. So yeah - it's probably a waste of money but if it makes you feel better go right ahead. You might be very alarmed by the amount of metal that comes out of a manual tranny..... so that's one reason to not touch it. If you don't see it you might not worry about it so much. If you are not used to draining MT's and seeing that much ground up steel I mean..... GD

If you are talking about the mechanical seals inside the turbine - good luck. I doubt you will be able to purchase a rebuild kit for a VF-7 and if you could it would be more cost effective to just find a used one. GD

That's all well and good but does not apply to a carb setup - also removing the knock sensor after tuning would be a bad idea simply because if something should fail (an injector going lean, etc) then the system will not have the ability to retard the timing to compensate - there is also the issue of summer vs. winter fuel formulations, altitude, etc - you cannot forsee all possible running conditions or failure modes so leaving it as a fail-safe is always wise. GD

The knock sensor detects "knock" (cylinder detonation) and retards the timing till it goes away. Without that you will have no choice but to set the timing at a very low initial advance with a high-compression engine - thus robbing power. You can do it but it's not ideal and you will lose performance through a large portion of the power band over a knock control ignition system that can advance and retard the timing in repsponse to detonation. GD

Yeah - my '91 Turbo had 205's on it when I got it and I had to replace the rear's because the strut spring perch had cut a groove in the sidewall..... be very careful with tires that wide unless you go to an OB strut that has a higher spring perch. I put 195's on my SS and the handling improved from the lower center of gravity. Traction was not changed much if at all. GD

Will I run into anything other than the 8 bolt vs. 4 bolt bell? I have solved that before.... will it have the threaded boss for moving the fork pivot in order to use the cable clutch fork on the '96 OBW? Anything else I might run into? I know there are some differences in the castings but will all the exhaust brackets bolt up, etc? I've done pre-'99 5MT's (a '97 OBW tranny) into a '99 8-bolt car which worked out very well but I haven't messed with one this new. GD

A carbed setup would not have knock control (unless you added it with one of the spendy MSD setup's) - which would be bad for a high-comp. engine. GD

That's an Outback sized tire - I wouldn't bet on them fitting without rubbing in turns, etc. You would do well to get some outback struts and springs to go with. GD

Water in the air cleaner wouldn't be a carb gasket - sounds like it's comming from something else - perhaps spraying from a hose leak? Run it with the top of the air cleaner removed and see if you can spot anything - rev it up a bit as sometimes pinhole leaks in hoses won't show till the water pump starts moving more volume and pressure, etc. GD

You may have to jack up one end of the car and manually actuate the vacuum servo on the side of the tranny. Without vacuum it will not work and that requires the engine running or for you to apply vacuum to the accumulator tank...... GD

I have not done specifically what you are doing but consider that the engine/tranny combo *can* sit at a different angle to the body than stock if you wish - this affords you the ability to bring the shift linkage closer to the floor pan by tilting the entire power train forward. Part of accomplishing this change will be to make the lift blocks for the transmission shorter than those for the engine cross-member. Changes to the pitching stopper (or better - an adjustable pitching stopper) will likely be required as well. GD

HF tools are a crap-shoot. Though I have noticed they are carrying more and more stuff from Taiwan instead of just China. Taiwan has been industrialized much longer and much of the Chinese stuff is actually based off designs from Taiwan - with cheaper parts and molds made from the parts without proper accounting for casting shrinkages . Anyway I have a couple die grinders and I also have their 1/4" and 3/8" "professional" (red "Earthquake" models) air ratchets and those perform adequately. I don't see anything wrong with your setup - should easily run the ratchets and the impact. The main drawback with small compressors is the small tank. You are never going to have enough air with a tiny pump and motor but you *can* run bigger tools for a short time if you have a large enough tank and waiting for it to fill up is not a concern to you. When that pump dies - and it may not be the pump - it will probably be the cheap chinese electric motor - find a used compressor on craigslist. I have found some great deals in the sub-$100 catagory. I got a machine a few months ago for $20 because the guy thought it was "seized up". Pullled off the head, wiped out a tiny bit of surface rust keeping it from turning - sprayed some yeild down in the cylinder and worked it free by hand. After cleaning the cylinders looked fine and I reassembled it and fired it up - runs like a champ. Just needed some TLC and a belt . It's a decent machine with a US made motor and pump and a 20 gallon tank. Can't beat the price. Compressors are looked at like appliances and most people - even self-proclaimed "mechanics" can't or won't try to fix one. Thus when something goes haywire they just stand there with a stupid look on their face and then go buy another one. I got my "little" 30 gallon unit for $75 because it wouldn't run - just slowely turned. They idiot had wired the motor for 230v with a 110v plug. I changed the jumper settings on the motor, plugged it in, and have been using it as my portable compressor ever since. A comparable unit from Sears (same B&S pump and 2 HP motor) is $400. An interesting side-note - compressor manufacturers have recently been hit with some excelent legislation. They are no longer allowed to advertise their machines using "peak" or "break" HP figures - my 30 gallon compressor claims it's a 5 HP motor . They used to be able to do this because the motor *can* produce 5 HP for a fraction of a second (till it stalls) on a dyno. But they have finally stopped them from being able to publish these numbers in the marketing and advertising materials. They are only allowed to quote the continuous HP rating of the motor. So the same pump as mine at Sears with the same motor and tank are now being sold as "1.6" HP where they were originally claimed to be 5 HP units :lol:. Soooo awesome...... GD