GeneralDisorder

Their nuts. $1000 tops if you really want it. I wouldn't give more than $500 for one around here but your area might have less Subaru's. GD

The struts are never straight up and down - the casting of the knuckle sets them at an angle and that angle has to be preserved. 15 degrees is about right considering only the strut was moved. I understand your confusion. The caster *did not* change with the lift. The problem is that the caster *is* present to insure that the wheels return to straight after a turn. Normally it's no issue because the stock camber is set for stock sized tires. But when you change the diameter of the tire the problem is magnified as you push the center of rotation further away from the contact patch of the tire. The tire tends to roll more on it's edge than on it's tread because the downward force of the vehicle is over the edge of the tire and not over the tread. To correct this you have to reduce the caster of the strut to move the center of gravity of the wheel back over the tread and not over the edge. I don't know how I can explain it any better without drawing you a picture. GD

Best way to do it is to have them sandblasted and powder coated. It's not as expensive as you think. About $100 for sandblasting and $100 for powder coating. Anyone local can just bring their wheels to me and I'll sandblast them for $50... does wonders even if you are going to paint them. There is NO rust when I'm done. GD

When you want to move metal - you need a BIG hammer. Get a 4 lb sledge and a steel drift punch - drive the caliper up from the botom edge - it should swing up - rotating on the upper slide pin. As gary stated - you may break something doing this - it's just the nature of frozen rusted parts. I recently had to resort to a sawzall to remove a rusted inner control arm bolt. Mostly because I wasn't interested in trying to save the control arm and I wanted it off NOW. The nut wouldn't turn.... the bolt wouldn't turn.... both rouned off.... I cut the head off the bolt with a die grinder and then BENT a brass drift trying to pound it through....finally threw up my hands and pulled out the sawzall and die grinder. It was easier to just find another control arm. GD

His blocks *correct* the static camber by moving the top of the stut inward by 15 degrees - at least so he claims (looks that way in the pictures too). Looking at the pics you can see that the camber when the wheel is straight isn't the problem. It's the camber when the wheel is turned to full lock that is the problem - thus you have to change the CASTER to effect a change. Doing this would require moving the strut top forward or backward - not in or out. Changing the length of the control arm or dropping the engine cross-member will screw up his static camber - making it ride on the inner edge of the tire when he isn't turning. GD

Order one for an '84 4WD wagon. GD

Dangerous. You don't want to make it to 25 do you? At least wire in a FPCU from a carbed rig or something. So when you are unconcious at the scene you won't burn to death when the wreckage catches fire. GD

Ok - I got you pictures - so all you people that are running your PCV wrong GO FIX IT! I'm tired of trying to explain it anyhow... Overview of the system: This shows the "special" EA71 (gen 1, round air filter type) hose and special T fitting that makes this setup easy and clean - if you can find one. I suppose there are part numbers associated with them and you could order a set - I don't have any extra so don't ask! The blue T-fitting from the filter is from an EA82 SPFI. Hey look..... I guess I do recycle! And here's another angle: Re-read my last post and then look at these pictures. I'm sure it will make sense to you if you stare at it for a while. Any questions? GD

I would take pictures with the wheel off of the strut lift block if you can get them. As the other's have said - perhaps your problem is being made worse by how it's put together.... but you aren't going to totally eliminate the problem. You can most likely get it back under control either by moving the strut forward/backward to adjust the caster, or by changing the angle (forward or backward) of the lower control arm. GD

No - your issue is *not* a camber issue. It's a caster issue and you aren't going to fix it by changing the length of the lower control arm. You will have to move the top of the strut forward or backward (not side to side - that would be camber) to affect the angle of the tire when it's turned. I'm not sure on the EA82's, but on the EA81's you can change the caster to some extent by turning the strut cap 180 degrees as the mounting studs are not centered on the axis of rotation. GD

1200 eh? You have a mess on your hands. First you probably have vacuum leaks, and you clearly have a severe miss at idle (vacuum leak related most likely). You are dumping entire cylinders of gasoline that haven't burnt - thus the enormous amount of HC from the idle test. You have to fix the carb and the vac leaks and get the idle down to around 800 - 1000 or you just aren't going to pass Also your cat has had it - that much fuel dumping into the cat will straight burn it out. Get another y-pipe with a good cat or add one to the mid-pipe. Alcohol will not help you with numbers that high. You can expect at most a 50% reduction from denatured alcohol as you can't run more than 1/2 your tank with the stuff - it will also run like total crap and you won't get the idle down unless you fix the carb/vac leaks you have. Pretty much, with what you are telling me, there is no way around it - you are going to have to make some serious repair efforts if you want that thing to pass. I would do a leak-down test and see what you are working with for compression - you may have a couple low cylinders or one really bad one - in which case it will never pass till it's rebuilt. GD

Use an EA81 distributor - they are self-contained and rarely fail. The Hitachi units electronic ignitor is easily replaced as well. They have two wires that go to the coil just like a points style unit. GD

It can still be done - I have one in my completely stock height Brat. You just need to modify the cross-member or buy one from Jerry. GD

Melt it down and have it recast as an EJ22. It's more expensive than it's worth to do much of anything beyond a carb swap or SPFI swap. Punch out the cat and saw off the muffler. Call it a day. Spend your pennies on an EJ22 and an adaptor plate. GD

You aren't going to easily fix the camber when the wheel is turned. It's an artifact of the suspension design - you can make them straight when the wheel is straight but even with a stock suspension the camber is way out when the wheel is turned. It has to do with the caster of the strut - I'm not even sure it can be fixed due to clearance issues with the axle shaft but if it can it's going to require compound angle lift blocks and custom lower control arms. This is somewhat of a problem with stock sized tires, but as you increase the tire diameter you increase the angle at the outside of the tire radius - the larger the diameter of the tire, the farther from center the edge will be when the wheel is turned completely to lock. So larger tires are only going to compound the issue. And if you correct the caster of the strut, you now have to deal with a car that is (probably) near undriveable at high speed - the wheels are set to the caster they are to keep them easily aligned to straight when the car is rolling forward. If you remove all the caster from the strut the tires will not realign to straight after making a turn. Think - driving backwards at 50 mph without your hands on the wheel Alignment is a tricky, tricky problem with independant suspension. And without haveing an upper control arm to keep things level you are limted to the design abilities of the macpherson strut system. Most of us just try to go slow around corners and we buy a lot of tires. GD

No. A bit. You most definately need a 5 speed. You said it yourself - 5th gear is the same as 4th on your tranny. But 4th(5th) is basically unusable. The 5 speed gives you BACK the 4th gear you lost on your 4 speed. It makes 25 mph actually decent in 3rd gear. It gives you more gears on the low end (1 and 2) and better gear spacing on the high end (3, 4, 5), it has better low range, better linkage, and stronger syncro's. And it's not too much work - it requires mods only to the cross-member and since you are already lifted it will fit no problem. I saw one made from a cheap water filter housing from home depot. PVC pipe would work I'm sure. GD

You actually would have a hard time getting rid of the lumpy boxer sound. It has to do with the manifolds not having equal length headers and thus the exhaust pulses are leaving the tail-pipe in a non-uniform pattern. Thus the wacky sound they make. It's not a problem on the non-turbo engines but actually does reduce performance by a slight percentage on the turbo's as the exhaust turbine doesn't receive evenly spaced pressure waves and thus doesn't spin up as fast. There are some headers out there that fix this *problem* on the turbo's and they sounds just like.... a Honda! GD

It's been done. It's really not that difficult either. Once you convert to the XT6 5 lug stuff and swap out the engine cross-member with one from a turbo EA82 it's just a matter of wireing and some exhaust/cooling system mods. GD

Absolutely! I've seen vids of what things like Lucas do - it's not pretty. I work with some specialized machinery and the things you learn about oil and grease are just astounding. Lets just say that I probably wouldn't have a job if it weren't for people NOT understanding the lubrication requirements of their equipment. 90% of the problems I encounter are a direct result of improper lubrication maintenance - including using the wrong oil, mixing incompatible types, not fully draining old lubricants when changing, and flat-out not changing it before it turns to honey or roofing tar (or is more water than oil )...... I have a grease compatibility matrix that would make you cry - I think they TRY to design the stuff so you can only use their brand.... GD

3/16" pin punch. It's actually a 5mm roll pin, but a 3/16" is close enough. Snap-On and Mac, etc sell true 5mm roll pin punches. DO NOT try to use a drill bit - they will shatter. GD

FWIW, my experience has been that the roll pin will go in from either side. Often there is an end to a used roll pin that is more tapered than the other - but only sometimes and only on used pins. The beveled hole is easier to get the pin started in though. GD

Pegged out means the wireing is shorted to ground. Check the resistance of the sender by itself - if it's a dead short to ground then the sender is bad. If not then you have a short in the wireing somewhere. You'll have to trace it back to the gauge. GD

I did all of what you are describing and more with my first EA81 wheeling motor. It died when a rod came out the top of the block - too much overheating and not enough oil pressure. I would rebuild the whole thing if I were you - it's likely that it doesn't have enough life left in the bottom end to warrant a HG replacement. You should go through it and do rod/main bearings and a set of rings at least. GD

Interesting - I wouldn't have though the stock system to be so restrictive on the newer cars. I suppose it ties in with the emissions and noise requirements. GD

So what have you found out about the 5 lug swap - have you called your driveline guy yet? Checked out ball joint interface issue? This is something I want to do with my Brat at some point but I haven't worked on lining up any of the sources or researching it beyond knowing some of the issues. GD