GeneralDisorder

The parts to rebuild an EA81 are basically no longer available. These engine nearly always need replacement oil pumps and they went out of production many years ago and are now essentially unobtainable. Along with intake valves for the 83+ heads, bearings and rings from reputable suppliers, lifters (especially the hydro ones), and no one really has the proper tooling or setup to do line honing, boring, etc. Even decent gaskets and seals are becoming very difficult. The EA81 cars have long since left the domain of daily driving status because of the replacement parts logistics, and lack of service knowledge in the repair industry. It will be a huge fight to daily drive one. As someone that has daily driven them and other 80's cars. Have plenty of long term backup plans in place for when it's out of service for months at a time or longer. GD

Plugs and wires. GD

It's an inductive pickup. It doesn't require any input power. You need an oscilloscope to monitor the waveform and also the cam angle sensor and then check for correlation. A multimeter is useless for testing this sensor. GD

Well there's always the Nintendo Switch. It's a pretty sweet handheld and converts to a console for motels and home. GD

No. You can't use any EJ era parts. You need a trans from an 85 to 89 GL wagon. GD

Sloppy linkage. If that doesn't fix it then toss the 4 speed in the scrap bin and get a 5 speed dual range instead. The 4MT was a giant POS anyway and in any case you can't get parts for them anymore. GD

Cut open the oil filter and check for metal. Look in the pan also. Likely the cogged idler was the problem as you surmise. GD

Half a day for a $5 part. Congratulations on accomplishing nothing. GD

Buy a new bung. They are cheap.

The problem isn't the rust. It's the lack of metal. GD

You can't change the thread size. There are not oversized head bolts available nor would the torque values of the sequence allow for this.... usually if the block is weak in this way and the threads are crumbling then you either need to do them all or replace the block. If you do a thread repair you either need 33mm (3x diameter) long inserts, or you need to stack three 11mm inserts (1x diameter) to get proper thread engagement. Also you need custom made tooling to create the threads at the proper depth and install the inserts. Standard screw thread insert taps, and install tools are not long enough to reach the depth required. I charge $200 for the first hole, and $100 for each additional. It's a pain in the neck. GD

I LOVE turbo cars. Those fools bought me a dyno. All the money is in the turbo world and making more power. About 75% of our work is turbo cars. After you do a few hundred you get the process down. We turn them out like an assembly line. If we go in that far, we do forged pistons. Period. You can't judge the condition of the pistons visually. The ring landings can fail from fatigue at any time. It's a $hitty casting and the are weak. My cost on a JE set is like $450 and they come with rings. With that much labor on the line how does it pencil out to NOT have forged pistons and increase the value of the car when doing this invasive of a job? And the pickup tubes are $37 from Subaru - in stock. Not even worth cleaning or checking for cracks. Labor is $100+ per hour everywhere..... How much time can we spend on such a part? And why take the risk? I have several in my graveyard that are broken off at the flange. Killer-B or new Subaru. No way I'm reusing that junk. I still think you will find some kind of camshaft issue which isn't really a turbo thing per-se. Could happen to anything. I've seen broken cams, seized cams, and everything in between. Never happened in 20 seconds on a startup..... so I'm going to say either it's a freak component failure, or an assembly error/journal contamination, etc. GD

Absolutely no reason to go in that far without doing forged pistons. Almost criminal not to in fact with how prevalent ring land failures are. That and a Killer-B pickup tube. But that's besides the point. Kinda sounds like a partially seized camshaft. In my experience 2 teeth is borderline. Sometimes you get bent intake valves, and sometimes you don't. 3 teeth is a guarantee on the dual cam engines. That said..... I have never had what you describe happen but if the DS intake cam should momentarily seize up the crank could pull enough slack to make the belt skip I'm sure. GD

Unfortunately Subaru doesn't sell replacement sockets or wiring connectors or even repair kits. They have always only sold entire wiring harnesses which is honestly completely unacceptable IMO. GD

Yeah the SKF seems to be the most common choice with brass race: https://www.amazon.com/SKF-Universal-Mounting-Precision-Clearance/dp/B007VGKVFU GD

Anything Japanese. I like the ones with the bronze races. GD

From the factory service manual. Download it from Subaru Techinfo. That said. You can't diagnose it. You don't have the proper tools (diagnostic smoke machine, special diagnostic harnesses, select monitor to perform bi-directional control of valves and solenoids..... all this stuff costs thousands of $$$$$). GD

It would run. But that's pretty bad. Either bore it oversize (unlikely) or EJ swap it. That's scrap metal from my perspective. GD

It's just what we use for pretty much everything. Never failed me yet. It's $9.50 a tube. Grease is cheap no matter what you buy so..... https://www.amsoil.com/shop/by-product/grease/synthetic-water-resistant-grease/ Being an Amsoil dealer it's easy for me to get. EA wheel bearings are prone to water intrusion in my experience - especially in off-road environments. GD

I would do open race 7207's. They are available in much higher quality. I would use Amsoil synthetic waterproof grease. The open races allow more grease in the knuckle and you can control what grease gets used. GD

Don't do oversized pistons. Just install new rings. If the block is damaged get another. GD

Belly pans, skid plates, and there are plenty of Subaru's that are too low for access without lifting and often too low to easily be ramped. The USDM Subaru filter is a $hit piece from the parent company that makes Fram (Honeywell). The bypass is high because A: it's a $hit filter -cellulose element with small surface area, and B: Subaru's run extremely high oil pressure and volume - especially on cold start so they are pretty much always in bypass for a good while. Thus the higher bypass rating to attempt to minimize this.... though it's pretty much a lost cause. USDM probably changed the part number when the SOA contracted the blue filters. If you want to do some REAL testing - get a differential pressure gauge and show how long each type of filter is in bypass mode and under what conditions (WOT, cold starts, etc) this occurs. I have been meaning to for some time but I get distracted by shiny thing like my DynoJet. GD

There is unlikely to be any damage to the heads. The valves can run with residual oil for far longer than the rod bearings. The main and rod bearings live or die by oil pressure and volume - they are high load. The valve train is much lower load - the valves guides are splash lubricated. The cam journals are pressure fed but under much lower stress and will take a lot longer for damage to occur. 95% of rod knock engines exhibit no damage to the heads. Make sure the shop has the skills to install heads, and pay for the heads to be sent to a machine shop for cleaning, surfacing, inspection, and lash adjustment. GD

Have the codes cleared with a pro tool. GD

They will pump back up in operation. Replace the o-rings on the OD of the lifters. The hole being half plugged limits the flow of oil to the entire engine. Including the lifters. GD