musubk

Awesome, that's exactly what I was looking for! Now I can start ordering parts.

Hi folks. I think I want to lower my 1977 4WD wagon. In the rear I can get where I want with just the torsion bar reclocking. I've been reading and I found this post, that car is roughly how low I'd like to be, so I think I'm going to follow that example and use EA82 struts with cut springs, or possibly some cheap adjustable coilover sleeves. I think I can use FWD struts instead of 4WD struts to lose a little height before I even begin cutting the springs, is that right? My other question is, what kind of wheel width and offset can I get away with, on a car that low? I'm thinking of a 6 lug conversion with some 15x6" trailer wheels. Has anyone done aftermarket wheels on a lowered car, and can give some idea of what will fit?

My new 77 wagon 1977 Subaru Wagon by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr

Okay, that's good to know about the ECU flashes. I was worried that I had wired something up really wrong. I thought about fuel pump and fuel filter, but I wasn't sure if that could cause the off/on nature of the problem. I'll swap in a new filter anyway, they're cheap enough and it couldn't hurt. I guess I'm kind of dancing around the fuel pump because it's a nice Walbro inline pump and I don't want it to be going bad, lol. But if the filter doesn't fix it I'll get a fuel pressure gauge and see what kind of pressures I'm getting. Thanks for the ideas.

Well I decided to bring the wagon home! Now to see what it takes to get it back on the road. Also I now realize there's another forum for older-than-1980 Subarus. Sorry for posting in the wrong one, I'll move future posts on this car into there.

Okay here is my current theory. One of the sensors is bad - maybe the throttle position, maybe another. I'm leaning towards the TPS because of the resistances I just measured plus the fact that the car acts fine as long as I stay off the throttle. When you first start the car it runs in (I think...) a preset fuel map until it warms up. It's fine in that mode, and that's why the problem goes away for a bit if I shut the engine off and restart. Once it warms up enough, it switches over to a more dynamic 'learning' mode where it tries to lean out for better fuel economy, but that's where it starts screwing up because it's basing the 'learning' off bad data from one of the sensors. Does this make sense?

testing the resistance on my throttle position sensor by the procedure detailed here: I find that between pin 2 and 3 I have 9.5kOhm, when this says I should have 12kOhm, and between pin 2 and 4 it varies from 0.1kOhm to 9.8kOhm where this page says it should vary from 1kOhm to 4.3kOhm. It does vary smoothly with throttle position, though. Am I doing something wrong with the testing or is this the problem?

Subarus on the tundra by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr

I''m having trouble with my EJ22 swapped BRAT that I can't seem to figure out. The engine is from either a 1990 or 1991 FWD automatic Legacy. It has ran great for a couple of years, but when I brought it out of winter storage this year it had this new problem. Upon first starting it for the day, it will drive normally for anywhere from 10-30 minutes, then suddenly it will start 'stumbling' heavily if I give it any more than around 1/4 throttle. It happens out of the blue, and feels like it's running out of gas or pulling a bunch of timing or something. It can barely make enough power to run 10mph when it's happening. If I stop and put it in neutral, if I put the gas pedal to the floor it revs to around 3000rpm then bucks and starts dying, drops to 1000 rpm then seems to bounce off a 'floor' there. The moment I let off the throttle it returns to a normal smooth idle. If I turn the car off and back on, the problem is gone, but will come back in a few minutes of driving. I first thought the MAF sensor might be going bad, but I tried a different MAF and it hasn't solved the problem. The car has never has a check engine light hooked up, but I went and jumped an LED bulb off the proper ECU pin to see if it would give me a code. With the black 'read connector' connected, ignition on, engine off, the light just flashes seemingly forever, about one flash a second, always the 'short' blink that's supposed to be the 'ones' position in a trouble code. I counted more than 100 flashes with no changes in length or frequency before I gave up. I'm kind of running out of ideas. Does anyone have a suggestion for what I should check?

Okay cool, since the EA81 swap is a little more involved than I thought, I'll start with trying to bring the EA71 around. Going to look at it and make a final decision this evening!

I'll preface this by saying I have an 86 BRAT with an EJ22 swap, 5 speed D/R, and the crossmember and front/rear suspension from an EA82 car. I'm no stranger to older Subarus, but I've never had a 1st gen. I have the opportunity to pick up a 1977 wagon this weekend. It doesn't run but the body is straight, the interior is good, and there's minimal rust, so I think I'm going to go for it. I don't want to do anything crazy like I have with my BRAT, I'd just like to make it a nice clean driver / weekend car. I'm thinking an EA81 with the Weber carb would be a good route for me to go, engine wise. Does that just drop in to this chassis? I still have the original 4 speed from my BRAT, is there any sense in using that instead of the 1977 4-speed? I have all the parts to do a rear disc brake conversion, I was collecting it for my BRAT but I might put it on the wagon instead. Can I do that on the 1st gen car as easily as the 2nd gen, where you basically just unbolt the old hubs and bolt on the new hubs and rotors? I figure I'll do new ball joints, tie rods, and struts/shocks. Is there any simple upgrade I can do here or should I just order basic replacement shocks? Any other common upgrades for the 1st gen that I may want to think about while I have it apart?

Yes, it's the 5 speed trans levers just sticking up through the hole in the floor. It's far enough aft that I had to put a small notch in the hole because the 4wd lever was right against the metal.

I have an 86 BRAT with the 5 speed D/R from an 88 GL, and I'm wondering what those of you with similar swaps did for a shifter boot? Currently I have the original 4 speed rubber boot stretched and zip-tied into place, but it doesn't fit right which leaves a lot of places for air to pass through, and I end up with a whirlwind of dust in my car whenever I drive down a dirt road. I'm looking for simple ideas to seal that hole around the shifter.

I used these fiberglass flares, I got off eBay meant for a Datsun 240z, along with an inch or two of metal trimmed back from the edge of the wheel arches to remove my wheel arch rust and make room for big tires. http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/22129087410/ They looked good but the fiberglass was too fragile for me beating up the car offroad, so now I'm using a set of mountain bike tires cut in half and bolted on to make knobby rubber flares. They look kind of weird but they're cheap and tough.

The EA82 outer tie rods, or 'tie rod ends', will thread onto the EA81 inner tie rods, but they still weren't long enough to reach from my EA81 manual rack to the steering knuckle. I ended up cutting the EA81 inner tie rods and welding a sleeve in the middle to lengthen them about an inch. Swapping the EA82 outer+inner tie rods looks like it would be long enough, but the inner won't thread on at all. The EA82 tie rod uses a 'male' tie rod and the EA81 uses a 'female' tie rod. I have documentation of that particular problem I was working with EA82 power steering tie rods and EA81 manual tie rods, just like Uberoo

Good info! This is what I was hoping to find. I have around a 4 inch lift with the crossmember dropped 3 inches, so hopefully that's enough extra space to fit the transmission. If not, I'm not opposed to banging the tunnel out with a big hammer, or even cutting a section out and re-boxing it in with some steel plate. And yeah, I have the complete EA82 front end with 2 inches wider track. I think I know someone with a spare set of EA82t axles and probably a driveshaft I could try out, so that's great news. I guess it's mainly the wiring I need to figure out, but I have all winter to work on that. My EJ22 wiring harness still has the original TCU wiring on it, and I still have that TCU, so I figured it would just plug in and all I'd have to do was run a few wires to the transmission, but I guess we'll see.

Alright guys, I have a BRAT with an EJ22 swap and a 5 speed D/R transmission. For a while, I've been kind of toying around with the idea of swapping to the EJ 4EAT transmission - I lose low range but I think the torque converter will make up for a lot of that, plus I gain gearing and I won't have to mess with the clutch in low speed offroad situations. I mentioned this idea to my friend, and it turned out he had a 4EAT drivetrain he wanted out of his way, so I ended up with a trans, driveshaft, diff, and torque converter for free. So... I'm going to go through with this idea Since I already have an EJ22 swap, the trans will bolt right up to the engine. I retained the TCU wiring on the harness and I still have the TCU from the donor car. I don't drive the car in winter so I think I'll take the time to mod the TCU to work with paddle shifters and mod the trans to give me control of the torque split. I'll I figure I'll have to fabricate a trans support. Pretty much the only things I'm not sure about are the driveshaft and axles. For the driveshaft, I can always have one custom made to length, but I was hoping someone out there has already done this and found an off-the-shelf driveshaft that works. As for the axles, I assume I'll need some kind of hybrid axle that works for the EJ transmission side but EA82 hub side (I'm running a complete EA82 front suspension under my BRAT). I'm sure I've read about people doing this swap before, but I can't find anything right now when I search for it. If anyone can point me to a thread with a similar swap or good discussion, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I'm tired of having a gaping hole in the floor where the shifter sticks through, so I'm going to make a shift boot soon. I'd like to see what some other people have done for this.

Maybe I'm describing it wrong. I did the swap and wiring, but someone had previously hacked the wiring harness in the EJ22 donor car and someone else had previously hacked the BRAT headlight wiring, so I had to work around both of those. Let me see if I can describe it better. All the relays have a low current 'signal in' (pin 86 by Bosch terminology), a ground (pin 85), and a high current 'power in' (pin 30) that gets connected to a high current 'power out' (pin 87) when the 'signal in' is powered. My ignition relay has 'signal in' coming from the toggle switch on the dash, 'power in' has fused power from the battery, and 'power out' goes to the engine/ECU. The dash ignition switch also goes to 'signal in' on the first of two headlight relays, which ensures the headlights are only on when the ignition is on. I did this just because that's how it works in my Outback and I prefer it that way, using the low beams as daytime running lights that automatically turn off when I kill the ignition. This headlight relay gets 'power in' from headlight switch on the dash (this is really still a low current signal wire), and 'power out' goes to 'signal in' on a second headlight relay. The second headlight relay has 'power in' from fused battery and 'power out' to the headlights. The stereo and fuel pump are on their own (non-relayed) circuits. So one relay carries the engine/ECU, one carries the lights, a third circuit for the stereo, and a fourth circuit for the fuel pump.

"Almost all cars from like '85 down were powered switched by the ignition switch. After that is when they started to go to relays." Okay, I'm not really familiar with the OE wiring. I assumed OPs was wired similarly to mine because it's also EJ swapped. I have to admit I'm not even totally sure how the EJ ignition is wired from the factory, as someone had already hacked into the harness I used for the swap.

It's a wire that goes straight from fused power to the relay, there isn't anything else on the circuit. Battery -> fuse -> switch -> tee with one wire to ignition relay signal, the other through the push button to the starter relay signal. Everything else is powered from the high power out on the ignition relay.

I start mine with a toggle switch and push button, see here at 5:59 It would have been easier to wire into my perfectly functional key cylinder, but I prefer it this way; I will eventually be moving all of my controls into the switch panel. It's not 'wrong', it just depends on how you want to control your car. Electrically it's identical to the factory setup. It's also incorrect that you need 'high current' switches, because there is no high current going through here. The switch/button go into relays, and the high current goes through the relay instead of the button/switch. That's the whole point of a relay.

Is it possible? I don't see a way, other than bending the trailing arm a bit. Has anyone done this? My BRAT has an EA82 crossmember and complete front suspension; I have slight negative front camber even with 4 inches of lift, and the front end feels great. If only I could do something about the rear.

Just get a multimeter in there and test continuity between pins in that harness with the headlight switch in various states. I did this last fall to integrate the stock headlight switches into my H4 conversion with added relays, I can't remember which pin does what exactly but it's easy to figure out by testing - don't worry about what each pin is 'supposed to do', just find pins that do what you want them to do. For example if you find two pins that have no continuity when the switch is rotated all the way back to 'off', but have continuity when rotated forward once and twice, use those pins for parking lights. If you find two pins that only have connectivity when the switch is rotated forward twice and not when rotated once, use those pins to turn the headlights on and off. IIRC the high beam switch is not in that same harness, look for the wires coming out of the steering column and test connectivity across pins while flipping the high beam lever forward and backward. I ended up wiring mine with two underhood relays; relay #1 is turned on from the rotating switch on the dash that turns the headlights on, and that sends power from its 'pin 87' to 'pin 30' on relay #2. Relay #2 is turned on by the high beam lever, with pin 87a (connected to pin 30 when relay is off) to my low beams only, and pin 87 (connected to pin 30 when relay is on) to the high beam circuit in all 4 lamps. So the behavior with respect to the dash switches is like this: Rotating the headlight switch forward only once turns the parking lights on but not the headlights. Rotating the headlight switch forward twice sends power into the low beams if the high beam lever is back, or to the high beams if the lever is forward. Rotating the headlight switch to off turns all the lamps off regardless of if the high beam lever is forward or not.

Can anyone who's done the complete EA82 crossmember/suspension swap comment on the radius rods? I bolted an EA82 crossmember into my BRAT today, using 3" lift blocks with offset holes, but my radius rods are about an inch too short to reach the holes in the controls arms. It is possible that I just have the crossmember positioned too far forward...