Speedwagon

Well, it's oval to triangle. I had him make the blocks switch over to EA82 tops. So yeah, I need to swap sides.

If there is a wrong way to put strut lift blocks on, I seem to have done it. I have serious positive camber now.

I'm running 15" wheels (6 lug). The Brat brackets do NOT fit the EA82 knuckles. The holes spacing where the bracket bolts to the knuckle is very different. So I need to get EA82 brackets. But will the caliper from the Brat bolt onto the EA82 bracket?

Thanks. Just hit a snag... '87 Brat and '88 GL: Ball joints are the same, hubs are the same, brake pads are the same... rotors and bracket are NOT the same. Are the calipers the same? I appear to have made too many assumptions, and tossed the brackets and rotors a long time ago. Stupid me.

I drove from Denver to Colorado Springs the other day in the Brat, going around 75mph to/from, and hit some traffic on the way home. I calculated 27mpg, after accounting for the larger tires(215/75/15). No lift though, SPFI EA81.

Since the "kit" I paid for, was not exactly what it should have been, I'm having to modify things a bit. While lifting the Brat 4", I am also swapping in an EA82 front end. To make up for the change in width, I opted to weld the lift blocks to the crossmember, fully commiting myself to a 3" lift at the xmember. 3" at the cross member... how much drop at the trans xmember/radius rod mounts? 3"? 4"?

Yeah. While climbing tonight, I realized there is a built in test for the radiator... the heater core! Turn it on full blast, and if the car gets cooler, most likely it's the radiator.

It's what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.

'87 Brat with SPFI swap, brand new Subaru thermostat didn't fix the problem. The temp gauge is always above half, and climbing the mountains will make it go just below the red. It doesn't get that hot when sitting idle, only under load. If I stop the car, I can hear the fan turned on, so both the computer and dash gauge believe the car is hot. Water pump? Radiator? Really bad contacts on my sensors?

That depends on if you want to do work. Mine came with modified XT seats. I'm in the process of replaced those with SVX seats.

The oil leaking onto the IAC: PCV routing:

Or a Ranger pump(though they are technically the same thing I believe). I got one off Rockauto for $40. It was for a 1987 Ranger 2.3 FI. They had in tank low pressure, and frame rail high pressure pumps. The hose size is 5/16 on both sides I believe. Search Rockauto.com for P37

87 Brat, EA81 with SPFI conversion. There is a fair amount of oil always sitting on my IAC. My guess is that it is coming from the intake, and leaking down. But the question here would be why is this much in the intake? Can the PCV valve somehow cause this? Or am I looking at a more serious problem?

To my knowledge, those parts only come as a complete assembly from Subaru (the whole driveshaft). I'd suggest you try a driveshaft shop. There is one by me that I inquired about this with, and he told me he can get and replace just the carrier bearing if it is necessary.

That is the temp sensor for the computer, not the dash.

Well, problem solved. Turns out the oil passage plug, when turned in too much, will cause the HLAs to not compress enough, and keep the valves open.

I pull bolts from the junkyard too, but we haven't much rust here in Colorado. Also, there is a AAA Metric in Denver. Good source for new metric, but I don't know if they do online/mail order sales.

Yes, DOHC. I think I may have found the problem. One of the oil passage plugs was loose before, and I think I somehow tightened it too much. I backed it out tonight, and I was getting good leakdown results after that. I'll button it up tomorrow, and see if I'm correct. I also pulled a few HLAs, and didn't see any difference between them. So I think they are universal to this engine.

This EJ20G is the one I brought back with me from Japan in 2003. It has been sitting around since then, and I just put it in my Legacy last week. No turbo or anything, I simply bolted the stock 2.5NA manifold to it. Problem is, it's not firing on all 4. When I pulled the plugs, cyl 1 was wet. So I put a leakdown tester on it, and I can hear air escaping out the exhaust. If I remove the cam, the cylinder holds pressure. So there seems to be an issue with the HLAs then? Or is there something else I am missing? The engine was torn down, and put back together by me. But I never removed the valves (had about 100k km on it when I pulled it from my working Legacy in Japan).

If they fit, they are right. The left/right sides are identical in Subarus, though the front/back are different. There are certain axles with different spline counts out there. But again, if it fits together fine, all is good.

You could also throw a bicycle computer in the setup. A lot of motorcycle guys have done such a thing. There are bicycle computers that go up to 180mph accurately.

Well shucks! I just ordered shims earlier today from Heuberger Subaru. I'll keep it in mind for next time though! Ordered my timing belt kit from ebay.

Well, I have my answers. Pulled the engine today to check the valves and mess with the clutch. What I found, was valves that weren't super tight(but tight on a few no less), a timing belt tensioner that was screwed, and a timing belt that has jumped teeth and is somewhat chewed up. I can at least explain why it was running so poorly now when it got hot. The only plus here, is that the timing belt was getting close to the next service interval anyways, as the car has 206k on it now.

My apologies, I meant 2 different things there. Climbing I-70 it heats up, and creeping along a 4x4 trail it heats up. Yes, normal at idle. But normal for this car, is at or slightly above half way up the gauge. At least, that's where it's been since I got the car 18 months ago.

Today, I decided to see why the volt meter always wants to read low. I figure if it is reading low, other gauges might be off too. But after spending a good hour on it, I'm not really any farther ahead than I was. Took the cluster out, traces the lines, and put a 12V power supply on the 2 pins. Volt meter read dead on 12V. Dropped it to 10V, meter read 10V. Up to 15V, meter read 15V. Ok, so the meter works great, back to the car. Find the appropriate pins, and check the voltage. Right around 11.8V(battery terminals read 12.7V). Great, all should be fine, but it's not. When the ignition and ground wires show 11.8V, the volt meter shows less than 10V, it looks like it is seeing somewhere around 8-9V, and the low voltage light comes on. When the car is running, the volt meter usually reads right at 12V, though it should be showing me 14V. Why is it doing this? What piece of the puzzle am I missing, that is causing the volt meter to read so low? I even put the DMM across the 2 posts that the volt meter is bolted to, and got around 11.8V, while the VM was reading under 10V.