presslab

You need to use the signals from the ignitor. Get two 1N4004 diodes from Radio Shack. Connect the anode of one to the blue wire. Connect the anode of the other diode to the red/green wire. Connect the cathodes together and drive the tach with that. That should work. It works for us Vanagon guys.

Thanks for chiming in Gloyale. I appreciate your threads with the bellhousing info. I'd need the bellhousing, high-stall TC (from a Legacy Turbo $$), flex plate, possibly starter too? Then I'd need to pull the tranny, pull the bellhousing, swap the diff, set-up the diff (no small feat), etc. EJ turbo tranny $$$ will require rewiring and changing the selector for the added gear setting, changing out the rear diff (putting my LSD chunk in), set-up rear diff, etc. Adapter plate is $100, hog out the flex plate holes, put a fork in it, it's done. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks guys, sounds like the adapter plate should work. I'm guessing the EJ flex plate is larger (as is the torque converter) but redrilling the EA flex plate should be easy on the mill. Anyone have a spare EJ205 for sale?

I have a GL-10 with the 4EAT. I'm considering an engine swap but I'd like to keep the old transaxle. Has anyone used an adapter plate with the 4EAT? I also see that Gloyale has swapped the 4EAT bellhousing. I'd prefer an adapter plate because it seems the easiest. How about the flex plate? Can I use the EJ flex plate with my EA torque converter? Another likely option is to redrill the EA flex plate for the EJ crank. Any input is appreciated.

Oh yeah, I am cleaning the connections and putting some silicone grease down before I put it back together.

I took apart the distributor and had a look inside. It uses an optical sensor with a perforated spinning wheel. There are two signal outputs, one that outputs 360 counts per revolution, and another output that has 4 counts per revolution with one of them having a longer duty cycle. The MSD box I was looking at is the 5462. It looks like they go for around $150 on eBay. This would be connected to the ignition coil itself. I would be running it at the limit as it can only handle 15 PSI of boost.

Zombie thread here... I have my dash torn apart for the temp gauge problem and I figured I'd get to the bottom of this. A lot of the play was in the quick-release for the column. This is the lever that lets you pop the column up, I guess it helps if you have a large belly. I blobbed some welds up top near where that pin goes through, and it's solid now. The quick release does't work now, but the tilt function still works. Another source of compliance was where the two tubes meet near the bottom for the collapsable column. The outer tube would pivot a little at that joint. I fixed this by putting a small hose clamp around the outer tube. The hose clamp screw part wegdes up against the bracket for the brake pedal. The collapsing function is not changed, it's just a little more secure. It's much better now!

Well the two black ground wires going to the digidash aren't the same ground. One of them (the larger wire) has the constant 0.07 V regardless of loads, and the other smaller wire changes from 0.005 V to 0.1 V when I turn on the headlights. I checked the ground to body connections in the dash I could find and they were fine. So I decided to just add another fatty ground wire to the body on the smaller black wire. This seems to have solved the headlight related problem; on/off has no noticable effect on the gauge! The gauge still changes one notch when I turn on the interior fan, but it's not near as bad now. I might attach the other black wire to my new fatty ground wire to see if that fixes the slight fan problem.

I measured from body ground to the large black wire going into the digidash, and it measured 0.07 V regardless of what was turned on. Hmm. Next I will test from the black wire to battery ground and the black wire to the thermostat housing, but I ran out of daylight tonight. I also need to find the actual ground screw for the digidash. No need for a wiring diagram, I found one. A curious difference between the '88 XT and my '88 GL-10: The XT has a dedicated ground for the temp sensor that connects to engine ground - a brown wire. My GL-10 does not have a dedicated ground wire, it uses the two black wires for everything. Hmm.

I still think it's a ground issue, or something related to electrical noise. The current from the headlamps doesn't flow through the insturment cluster so I don't see how it could be something inside it that's bad. I've even taken it apart and replaced the electrolytic caps, to no effect. I have the '88 XT diagram, and it looks like there is a different ground path for the temp sensor. Unfortunately the connectors are different than mine, so I don't know which ground wire is used. If anyone could scan the instrument panel wiring diagram for my '88 GL10 I would really appreciate it!

Well the gauge is in the red, but it's not really overheating. The IR thermometer on the top rad hose shows 180F, so that's fine. I don't see how the engine could really go from in the red overheating temperature back to normal in two seconds either, just sitting in my driveway idling... And the gauge reading is directly related to the electrical loads. The radiator and cap are about 5 years old.

The alternator at 1800 RPM is 14.12 V. The electric radiator fan is easy to spin by hand, and it does come on when it's hot out and idling with the AC on, like I would expect. I see this gauge issue even when the radiator fan is not on. The engine grounds seem pretty good, I checked/cleaned them before and added another for good measure. Where is the ground for the digidash located? The digidash display change is not "instant" but there is some delay in the digidash. But it doesn't slowly move down: The gauge will be in the red, I turn off the loads, and then after a couple seconds the gauge will jump from red to the middle.

Thanks nipper. Yeah I thought alternator too, and it had some AC ripple. Not a lot but some, voltage was ok. So I thought what the heck and I did GD's 90 amp Maxima alternator upgrade, and the digidash problem remained the same, but now I have a 90 amp alternator.

I have an 88 GL10 with the digidash. It works fine, except the temperature gauge has been acting up. The temp gauge works fine until I load down the electrical system with headlights, interior fan, etc., and then it shoots up into the red. When I turn off the load, it jumps back down to normal. This points to a grounding issue, but I've checked the engine grounds and even added another fat ground cable so I don't think the engine ground is the problem. Has anyone else tackled this problem? I suspect it's some ground in the dash. I have the 88 XT diagram, but the wiring is different. If someone could scan the FSM wiring diagram page for the instrument cluster wiring/grounds that would be great!

The two piece shaft is used for the mechanical advance I guess? I don't want that. The vacuum advance moves the plate the pickup is on I think? I need to find a pic of the older ones. I think I can make something work. A little lathe work sounds easier than all that wiring for MS. I actually have an MS from an old project. I wish it had WbO2 and boost control.

I want to remap the timing on my EA82T a bit. My boost of 1 BAR requires quite a bit of timing retard, but if I set the static timing back then the off-boost suffers. My idea is to use a vac advance disty with the guts from my hotwire MAF disty. I can then repurpose the vac advance to be a boost retard. Has anyone tried this? Is there a chance the guts of an '88 disty would fit an '86 disty, and allow the vacuum advance diaphram to be mounted?

Anyone make their own oil catch can? I'm thinking of welding one up on my EA82T. I have a bit of oil on cold start and I think it's blowby that's accumulating in the intercooler. Could be the turbo seal too but the catch can is probably not a bad idea with my 170k miles. Let's see some pics.

The rotor mounts to the back side of the hub and not the front like most cars.

If one wheel is at a different height than the rest, then the computer will not engage the leveling. Kind of a catch-22. What I do is jack up the body near the low wheel until the air compressor kicks on. Or, if you deflate all the bags then they will all be at the same height and the compressor pump up and level it out. This is assuming your only problem is a low bag. I recently bought some air suspension parts and the dealer still had stock! I was impressed.

I have replaced the fluid in my stock EA82 struts, maybe you can do the same to get more damping. Here is my thread here: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=94388

If you have a lot of oil blow-by then keeping it could help with oil consumption. Otherwise you don't really need it. Oddly my EA82T w/ 160k mi uses less oil than my '92 EJ22 in the other car.

These boost threads are all the same. I've got a stock long block with 160k mi on the original bottom end. TD04L, WRX TMIC, custom header/3" exhaust, and 370cc/min injectors. I'm running 17 PSI on 91 octane pump gas. I've been at around 14 PSI for a couple years now, with the even larger injectors a few months ago and I bumped it up a bit more. The EA82T long block is strong enough as long as you keep coolant in it and don't let it go lean under boost. A 20+ year old car has a lot of old hoses, radiator, etc. Fix all that stuff first. Of course you should know what you're doing if you attempt mods. I've been chewed out a few times here for stating that to those that don't have the knowledge necessary. Most seem like kids that want to make a broken down old car go fast without much work. Ain't gonna happen. No use arguing with GD, he'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience! Just kidding GD! Read some stuff, try some stuff, blow some stuff up. Sounds like fun!

Back from the dead! Anyway I put the new Whiteline Com C mounts in a few months back. Very nice. They are slightly too large to fit through the hole in the body, but I just put them on and snugged the nuts down. It's about 10mm from sitting flat. They haven't loosened up. I also drilled the subframe to move the lower control arm outward.

Occasionally my power steering assist would "cut out" when making sharp, fast turns or worse when correcting for oversteer. Not the time I want the steering to cut out! My Vanagon w/ EJ22 has always had minor problems with the power steering and I set about to fix that a month ago. The stock Vanagon pump put out 1500 PSI and the EJ22 pump only 1100 PSI or so. There is a spool valve inside the pump that controls the pressure. This valve is easily removed by unscrewing everything at the pressure port on the pump and gently pulling out the valve with some pliers. This spool valve has an internal ball and spring, and by shimming the spring I bumped up the pressure and my steering was great! So with that experience I decided to fix the Subaru's pump. The EA82 pump is a bit different, the spool valve is in the same place but of a slightly different design. It does not have a ball and it looks like a less precise design. But in any case it has a spring that controls the pressure, it's behind the spool valve. I pulled out the valve and the spring and measured the free length. It was about 28mm long; I stretched it out to about 38mm and put it all back together. All the o-rings were hardened so I put new ones in too. The pump does not need to be removed to do this, but the pulley nut needs to be loosened to get the socket wrench over the pump outlet port. Well now it's great too! So if you have problems with your power steering when making quick turns, like auto-x or playing around on wet roads, you should give this a try.

They blow a lot of hot air at high boost / high RPM. I upgraded mine to a TD04L and it is much, much better.