GeneralDisorder

It's done with the distributor - not with the timing belt. Timing belt is for valve timing - distributor is for ignition timing. In short - don't touch it. Stock timing is set to 20 degrees and is managed by the computer. It's already a 9.5:1 engine and the engine has no knock detection so can't pull timing if it's too advanced. You might get away with another 5 degree's if you run premium but it's really not worth it. This is a bad idea for a number of reasons. First and foremost the stock intake is 100% sufficient for a stock engine. Changing the intake can introduce unwanted resonance effects and eliminates the snorkel under the fender which is very effective at preventing you from sucking water into the engine and hydro-locking it. Again - no benefits other than a bunch of noise, worse filtration with a non-stock filter, and potential for engine damage. Leave it be. It is not done. They are hydraulic and no adjustment can be made. If you have valve ticking (tick of death, or TOD as it is refered to ) then you have oil delivery issues, bad pump/seals, or worn out lifters. GD

www.rockauto.com has the complete header for $265 Frankly - if he's doing a whole new exhaust from the engine to the muffler for $350 - that's a good deal. While he's at it tell him to use 2" from the cat back . You can patch holes a number of ways if that's all you want. But sooner or later the rust is going to take out the whole thing and it's not going to be worth fixing. If it's already got holes in it you are probably just borrowing time and maybe not that much time either. $350 for a complete exhaust is peanuts. $90 is likely for 1 or 2 hours of labor and he's buying a new header like those availible online (but you don't pay shipping which is a win), etc. It sounds like his prices are good and you are cheap - which is pretty typical of old Subaru owners in general - especially those of us that do all our own work. You could get into an entry level 110v MIG welding setup for $350 or just a little more. Then you could have the pleasure of doing it yourself. Which really isn't that much fun actually :-\. GD

I just pickup the $3 one's that advertise that "Slime" tire sealant. They are small and have a magnet on the stem - I stick them to my tool box and rolling cart so they are handy. Not a big $ item but I wouldn't really want an expensive one that I might lose or break. I just look for something easy to read with a metal casing and a decent magnet that's not going to fall off my box. Huge improvement over the pen style one's though and well worth having a couple of them so you can always locate one. If I did a lot of tire work I would pickup a high-quality inflation chuck with a built in pressure indicator. But it's not on the top of my list. GD

Green = 40 amps Red = 50 amps Black = 80 amps But fuses are not directly compatible with fusible links. Fusible links are designed to allow short bursts of higher amperage draw - it will take many seconds for a fusible link to blow - the higher the amperage draw the shorter the delay. For example - the Red link is a 50 amp continuous draw unit. At 130 amps it will still take up to 15 seconds to burn out per spec. They are not standard fuses that will blow quickly. You need to figure out what went wrong with the original fusible link and fix the problem. You have a serious fire hazzard if you don't. Replacing links with inline fuses is incompetant and dangerous. GD

Right.... but then you haven't really swapped the ECU at all . Basically it's a no-win situation because faking out the AT switches and sensors is probably harder than fixing the EGR issue. :-\ It's pretty much a huge s**t sandwitch no matter how you slice it. GD

I like the mechanical gauges with a dial gauge on them. I've got a couple of them with magnets that I have stuck around the shop. Much more accurate than the old stick style. I haven't used the digitals but upgradeing to the dial gauges was a big improvement for me. I don't need another battery powered device in the shop - I have enough flashlights and head-lamps and such as it is GD

I just meant that a non-rusty hatch is worth more than a wagon - they are desireable for off-road conversions. The wagons are desireable for.... hauling. But a newer OBW can do that and has more room. Most people would pick an EJ for a wagon. GD

Yikes! Uh..... punctuation man. That's a run-on.... paragraph I think. Makes it really hard to follow your thoughts. Just saying..... I say turn it down. Sounds like you have enough already and a 2WD '81 is pretty much worth nothing - not even your time. If it were a hatch.... maybe. But not a wagon. Dime a dozen. GD

There is a high-idle cam on the linkage side that operates in conjunction with the choke - when the choke is on there is a cam with three steps in it that a linkage peice contacts with an adjustable screw - that sets the high idle speed by forcing the throttle open when the choke is engaged. Verify that when the choke is closed the throttle is slightly open (the idle speed screw is not touching it's stop). GD

The valves can interfere with each other - but the forces availible to rotate the cams under valve tensioner are insufficient to cause damage. FSM's are for parts hanging monkeys and are written in a very rigid manner. They want no possibility of someone screwing something up due to misinterpretation of the procedure. They are overly cautious with stuff like this. GD

Yeah - line it up and take the belt off. If you don't touch the cams they should sit right where you put them. If one does snap to one side you can just move it back. You aren't going to bend a valve with valve spring tension . The pistons are nowhere near the valves with the crank at the timing mark, and the force of the valve springs is not going to be enough to bend a valve with another valve just from the cam falling over to the side. This just isn't going to happen - if the valve's stem was that weak they would just snap off from smacking closed against the seat . The problem with interferance engines comes when the belt breaks while the engine is running - then you have momentum and when things with momentum collide - stuff gets broken. Without the engine running you would have to be really jerking stuff around with a breaker bar to harm anything even with a piston strike on a valve face - it is common practice on interferance designs to roll the engine over by hand after timing it just to double-check that it doesn't stop somewhere due to a collision. Trust us - you aren't going to break anything. Valves are not toothpicks. GD

A good 1/2" impact usually will crack them loose. They are torqued to 150 Ft/Lbs and there is a spring washer and a taper-lock behind the nut so they can be tough to get loose. If all else fails, the best method is to get a 36mm "VW Axle Nut Tool". It's a primitive peice of cast steel and will break loose even the most difficult axle nuts. They are about $10 to $15 and are very handy to own (and the ONLY way to roll if you are a junk yard rat). With a largish hammer and one of these, no axle nut stands a chance. Even with no way to keep the wheel/hub from rotating. One of these: https://www.vwparts.net/BP7023.html GD

Yeah - I've done it with quarters too. But I hate looking at all that crap so what I do (on the EA82's) is cut the head flange off of the pipe with about 3/4" of pipe left on it. I hammer the end of the pipe flat and run a weld bead across it then bolt it back on. The rest of the stuff I just toss. Quick and dirty - not as quick as the quarters but it cleans up the engine bay which is one of the reasons I like the Weber upgrade GD

If you have never done one..... probably half a day anyway. But you have to figure a trip or two to the auto parts store in there somewhere unless you have a large stock of stuff on hand. Depends a lot on your skill with carbs - tuning them can be troublesome for the uninitiated. If you have lots of experience with carbs and tuning them as well as hoses, fitting, spare parts, and all the other little details laying around your shop then it can easily be done in 4 hours. It also depends on how far you take it - there is the ASV issue to deal with as well as the AAV and carbon canistor to eliminate, power steering reservoir to modify, etc. A big part of the install is removal of equipment that you won't be using with the Weber and basically "setting up" the engine and engine bay for the Weber. It takes time to do it right. GD

It's an automatic/manual thing and you just end up with a bunch of other codes instead of the EGR code if you do that. If you can live with the EGR code you can just block off the port on the manifold and drive on - it's still going to run just fine without the EGR. Just pops a code and a CEL. Changing the ECU pops more than one code and results in wiring changes, and other cludge filled issues in order to get rid of those codes. So it's not really a good solution. GD

You can drill/tap the hole into the exhaust port. Or bend up a new tube and route it to the exhaust pipe under the head.... etc. There's all kinds of solutions that could work. If it were me (and I've thought about this problem) then I would remove the stock tube and get some fittings to adapt to a braided SS line and run that to a female port welded into the header. It's easier than messing with the head unless you pull the engine out of the car - if the engine is out just drill and tap the port for the EGR. It's not that hard. GD

You should run it for a couple oil changes with one quart of ATF or Rislone in the oil to loosen up the lifters in their buckets. You might still have to pry them out, etc. That happens sometimes. Some people have good luck with doing a reseal and a new oil pump, but I've found that generally if the lifters have been ticking for a while the only permanent solution is to replace them. Ticking = wear, and ticking accelerates the wear that's already there. If you catch the bad seals/pump in time you may be able to effect a lasting change, but when allowed to tick for long periods before anything is done then the damage to the lifters is too great. GD

Other EA82's - GL's and Loyale's built from '85 to '94. But watch out that you get the right one's. '87 is right in the middle and the early (85/86) are slightly different from the later (88 through 94) in the way the grill mounts to the headlight bucket. I have a brand new OEM headlight and bucket assembly for one side or the other - can't recall which. If you are interested send me a PM, etc. I'm in West Linn so not far if you wanted to pick it up, etc. I probably have a used one to match that I would throw in. Say $75 for the pair? The assembly is VERY expensive from the dealer - I just happen to have this one.... GD

Yes - changing the thermostat to a lower temp one is of dubious performance potential. You are talking fractions of a HP on an engine of this size. The potential for damage due to the engine not reaching it's proper temperature is not worth the benefits. Especially on an engine with 100k+ on it. The components are used to running at a specific temp - if you change that then metals don't expand as much as before, tollerances change, and oil viscocities change - making the probability of damage that much higher. That page has a lot of poor performance sugestions. It should be taken down or changed. GD

Usually with that engine people repeatedly overheat them due to the head gasket flaw without realizeing that every time they do that they damage the oil. This usually results in bottom end failure down the line. If you care about the engine change the oil IMMEDIATELY after any severe overheat. It is not likely you have damaged the heads in any significant way. Maybe slightly warped but nothing that won't come out when they are resurfaced for the head gasket job. The bottom end is the thing you must protect and that requires that you change the oil at the first signs of an overheat. If it's an automatic transmission you should change the ATF as well since it's temp is loosely associated with the radiator temp. Better safe than sorry. GD

Spring side is always toward the engine. GD

Carbed EJ with a v-belt/multi-rib hybrid crank pulley . How much to ship me one of those manifolds and a distributor? GD

If you want an axle that's going to last more than 25k (and boots that last more than 10k ) you need to get new OEM axles from the dealer. You can expect 100k from OEM (NTN is the OEM manufacturer) units. Others are typically very inferior - even new ones. They may have a warantee but that doesn't compensate you for replacement labor, etc. I have had decent results with the EMPI axles (new, no core charge, etc) but even with them the boots aren't great quality so expect to do boot jobs every couple years at least - especially on the passenger side where the cat is located. Or you could gut the cat and install a non-fouler in the secondary O2 sensor to eliminate the ECU code as well as the heat that kills the axle boots. Seriously though - if it were mine I would totally gut the cat just to save the axle boots. GD

Have you checked the heater core bypass hose under the water pump? Could be a bad aftermarket water pump gasket (they are paper). You need to do more investigation. White smoke out the exhaust is very possibly head gaskets. Especially on that engine. You might want to just tear it down and replace them. The updated gaskets are much better. GD

At this point you need to pull the outer belt covers and check the timing belt. Pull the crank pulley bolt and pull the center cover too if you can and check the water pump, etc. What you are doing is just wasting time. The engine's valve timing is likely incorrect due to a broken/slipped belt and no amount of tinkering with the ignition system will make it work. GD