hatchsub

See to me the manual trans is a plus. I wouldnt want an auto. I am also contemplating a 91 turbo legacy locally but he wants a bit much for it. It is also fairly clean but at 123k miles and with an auto trans (blah!). So if i were to get that it would have to be for less than hes asking and then i would swap a stick into it.

Good to know. Thanks for the info. I was wondering what the general life of syncros was anyways. I cant see this trans shifting very well at this point unless someone already swapped it out before this owner got it. From the sound of it, all the high dollar items were done before he took ownership. Would 800 be a fair price for both sides or a slap in his face?

Ok ive been around the block a few times with vintage subarus and old cars in general so i know the basics but are there any real problem areas rustwise that i need to take special note of? Anything i should know about this car going in? All i know is it has 237k on it and he wants 1500 bucks which he wont see from me lol. It is fairly clean from the pictures he sent me however. Its 2wd 5 speed. It has a bit of rust behind the drivers side rear wheel and rust hole in the middle of the hood (odd?) but otherwise the body looks fairly nice for a 93. He also has a mountain of receipts for it including timing belt, water pump, full reseal and new clutch at around 220k. So....what should i realistically be paying. I was thinking of looking at it and if it was anything good...offering 800 bucks. The mileage does worry me some but he says it runs great and i know the EJ22 was fantastic motor. So much for a EA81 sedan or coupe lol.

Well not looking at rock auto im going to say that either its the difference between 4x4 and 4x2 or that you need both part numbers since there are two wheel bearings per side...inner and outer. I cant remember if they are both the same inner and outer. Could also be the difference between EA82 cars and EA81 cars. What year car do you have?

WOW. That engine carnage shot is just awesome! I cant tell but is that a EA71 or 81? If its a 71 id be using now as an excuse to drop an 81 in there for a bit more oommpphh.

yea you can fit a modern stereo in the stock dash if you move it down below. I did it and got it to look factoryish. I just moved the stock package tray up to where the radio used to be and moved the radio down and it worked out nice. There is a picture of it floating around here somewhere from years ago.

You read my mind.

I think i mis-remembered about the coil thing. Its aftermarket coils that kill the factory distributors. Thats what it was. I had that happen to me once upon a time.

If your hearing bearing noises from the front end then chances are that is what it is...a worn wheel bearing. As for rebuilt hitachis, i bought one once upon a time and the car still ran like garbage. It was either a bad rebuild or something else. The reason everyone says weber is because of how simple it makes everything under the hood. You go from having 10-20 vacuum lines going all over the place to just three (pcv system, vacuum advance, and egr should you decide to keep it). That and you will be getting a brand new carb if you go new. Yes its 400 but trust me its worth it for the drivability and simplifying an already simple motor. In fact i wont drive another ea81 with a weber on it.

You really cant mix and match coils and distributors though...or so i heard. If you do a nippo...make sure to get the coil too. In the end you wont be really gaining anything going nippo. If the advance is faster you wont notice it.

For some reason the hitachi intake that i used when i did my weber swap ages ago had a different mounting hole for the throttle cable than ive seen on here requiring me to get fancy with a cable mount. I dont have pictures but my former coupes current owner might see this post and give you another idea in the form of a picture. I had a local machine shop make me the bracket out of 1/8 steel. All i did was make a template out of cardboard of what i needed and told him to make it out of steel. 25 dollars later i had the throttle cable mounted.

Are you sure your calculating it right? WIth 15 inch tires, your tires are going to be turning much slower than they were with the stock 13 inchers. This means that you will have a lower odometer reading than original. So...lets say you really drove 350 miles between fill-ups. Your odometer might only show 200 or 250. So with that said if you have a GPS you might do well to set it for a known trip of maybe 200 miles roundtrip after you fill-up and then fill it up again and calculate it again. With that said if your mileage is really that bad then you will be running like absolute crap. You should be seeing something like 25-29mpg possible better if you drive mostly highway. Rain-man-rich is right though. I get 10mpg with my 1991 dodge ram and even that is a bit lower than it should be. Thats a 4000+ pound 318 v8 though. Just to put it into perspective. All i can say is the ordinary stuff to start you off. Check your timing. Should be 8 degrees BTDC. Advance it to 10 for a bit more oomph. Tune up? When was that last done. Wheel bearings? Are you needing some? Thats overlooked but if you do a lot of offroading like you say you might have a few screwed up bearings and that will lower your mileage. Just trying to get you started off.

The only EA81 series car that i remember having a different windshield is a coupe. You should be all set to swap windshields.

+2. If this is your daily im going to go with no. You shouldnt take it apart and expect it to fly together effortlessly. There will be problems you run into and it will take longer than expected. I dont mean to sound negative but thats just my take on projects like that. If it was your backup car id say go for it.

Your not going to be able to run a modern stereo with the single wire ground of the factory harness. Your best bet is to use the 12v constant, Acc 12v and main ground from the factory harness and run brand new speaker wires to each of the speakers. Yes its a bit more work but you'll thank me when the stereo actually sounds good.

Doesnt really surprise me honestly. To anyone else who is not a subaru fanatic its just an old subaru. When stuff gets dented or broken on it and they cant find any parts in their computer databases then they say "oh well" and total it. Its really too bad since it probably is very repairable. But then again im not looking at a picture of it. For all i know the unibody is tweaked enough to send it to the crusher.

If you do a search on PCV and weber on here you will find some pretty old posts with General Disorder and myself going over how to properly plumb the PCV system with a weber. Its not as straightforward as everyone thinks.

All good advice from above. Basically from the factory the EA81 is going to struggle going up hills. You can minimize it by doing a few things that have already been suggested above. I will just put my list on here as well as to what i would do to check for things. -Full tuneup. I didnt see if you had done that or not. -check vacuum advance on distributor. Easiest way is to pull the cap off the distributor and pull the rubber line off as well and suck on it (no jokes!). If it moves your good. If not find another vacuum advance canister or full distributor. -Timing. When i had a webered EA81 i set my timing at 10 degrees instead of the factory 8. It gave it a bit more oomfff but you would have to run decent gas...as in anything equal to or better than 90. -Valves. You have solid lifters so time to whip out the HTKYSA book and read up on adjusting valves. If you havent done it would be good practice to do it. Should take you about 45 minutes or less depending on your ability. -On the carb you should be running the fuel return line from the hitachi so no need for a fuel pressure regulator. I never needed one running it like this. If this still is not to your liking and you would not mind spending a bit more money and pulling the motor apart a bit i have some suggestions that will not involve splitting the case.

The reason everyone says it is the weber is much more simple to begin with. If he goes about rebuilding the hitachi he will still have a 27 year old carb at the end...meaning the wear on the throttle shafts and all. Its not less work to just pull the hitachi and replace with a weber. It can be done in a hour or two if you know what your up against. A hitachi rebuild is not something most on here would want to do however. With a weber you will get a new carb for right under 400 dollars. New everything. They are easy to tune and very simple to rebuild. I had one on my former coupe and honestly would not have a carbed subaru without a weber. I went overboard however and used a wideband O2 sensor to tune the carb. That car would run as smooth as a fuel injected car.

If found long ago if i wanted a quality exhaust gasket it was either dealer or napa but if i went to napa i would have to ask for a 85 or 86 turbo EA82. Those gaskets were really nice and are still in my former subaru doing fine im sure. They will fit the EA81s perfectly.

If you do a search on here you can find out more and probably some pictures as well but basically you get to delete your ASV valves and everything associated with them. The quarter goes in place of the metal tube down at the bottom of the head and you tighten it back into place with the original nut. I did this on my former coupe and before that my sedan and never looked back. Those reed valves never really work right at this point in life. I believe they have something similar with the EA82 cars too but its been a long time since ive ventured under the hood of one of those.

Forgive me but i just scanned through this really fast. I did the swap from one barrel carter-weber to two barrel hitachi and then to the two barrel 32/36 weber and i can say if i did it all over again i would just skip the hitachi and go right to the two barrel weber. Much better carb and easier to tune not to mention its not 30 years old in most cases. You will still need the hitachi manifold but once you have that your golden.

Ive used the factory style oil pan gasket in resealing my EA81s in the past and never ran into a oil leak after. Clean both the engine and the oil pan very well. Apply RTV black or grey to both sides of the oil pan gasket and let it tack up a bit. Assemble. You will be golden for leaks. The RTV helps to keep the gasket from drying out. The same procedure can be used for the valve cover gaskets which are also cork.

Probably one of them is a GL and the other is a GL-10 with the digi dash. You didnt need a turbo to get the digi-dash.

Yea call the dealer. I rebuilt the shifter in my former coupe with all new bushings from Subaru and the GD shifter fix (bolt instead of roll pins) and it firmed it up a ton. You could have also broken the rubber mount that attaches the shifter to the trans tunnel. You wont know until you get under there and see. Btw is this 2wd or 4wd? The setup is slightly different between the two but generally speaking the same idea.