subarubrat

Interested in chrome trim pieces for the upper Left and Right corners of the windshield!

BRAVO, First class work!

Grab the larger soda blasting kit from Harbor Freight, it will let you clean up the block/heads to look like they did the day the car was sold.

Nice! I bet it climbs like a monkey in a tree! I always liked the Cruisemaster, their best looking effort. Yep, superchargers! I am using a twin Vortech's with the cylinder head mount and direct drive, no friggin belts!

I cannot wait to see the end result of this build, should handle like a cat on carpet!

Plenty of room up front for the superchargers, intercooler, radiator and oil cooler!

A bit closer look.

The engine is in! It is far from complete and the big work lies ahead but it is a huge step. The front cross member had to be notched about 2 inches and the oil pan pretty much matches the contour of the bottom of the cross member. I am linking the two halves together and connecting the cross member to the firewall and front radiator support to stiffen the front end for the increased power. The bottom of the oil pan is the same as the frame rails so no problem there, the motor mounts, headers, and intake all clear and the hood closes nicely with over an inch of clearance to the hood fire blanket. The trans tunnel will need to be enlarged and that is next, then once the trans is in I will tackle the rear end suspension and driveline.

codswallop them if they can't take a joke

On my 82 I have the following combo: 30 off the heads and port/polish EA82 SPFI pistons Delta torque grind cam EA82 intake manifold Weber carb New valves / rod + main bearings Emissions delete / EGR / aux air etc. Felpro permatorque head gaskets / OEM gaskets elsewhere There is a little more info if you look through the thread about my Brat below. My motor is an 82 solid lifter motor. It outputs right at about 110Hp and everything clears internally, you will need 93 octane, you will want to run traditional copper core plugs with standard gap, the intake manifold will need to be ported to match the head alignment and the bolt holes will need to be slotted slightly, and you will need to manage the timing and advance curve to get the most from it. I should also say if you are building a solid lifter motor be sure to find a hydro motor cam and get that ground instead of your original solid lifter cam for proper geometry. And if you want to really port the heads (which have the most awkward flow ever) you will need to use extrusion honing which is where they pump a goo full of abrasive through the passageways to enlarge them, and then finish with traditional intake manifold to intake port matching by hand as well as the valve pocket. Now my question is are you talking about SPFI pistons or using SPFI (Single Port Fuel Injection) in place of the carburetor? If you are talking about the SPFI pistons, then yes they will work with the specific combination I listed. If your talking about using SPFI in place of a carb, I don't know I never tried. SPFI has been proven to work great on relatively stock motors but I don't know if it has been tried on a more aggressive build and how it behaved. If I was going EFI on a build like this I would go haltech or mega so it could be easily tuned, I chose to stick with a carb to keep it period correct so the problem never came up. And to quote General Disorder from a few years back he said; "Of course - all of this will cost more than doing an EJ22 swap - which is 135 HP without changing anything on the engine. And a frankenmotor (EJ25 with EJ22 heads) is about 180 HP. You'll never come close to the performance-per-dollar that you will find in the EJ's with a modified EA."

Posting high res pics here seems pretty much impossible now, I will post updates here, if you want to see pics check out the FB XT group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SUBARUXT/ The engine and trans are out and the measurements look good for the new engine, some crossmember mods will be needed.

After a month of idiocy and incompetent trucking companies the thing was finally delivered! It ran great and I drove it a few miles before starting the tear down. The previous owner reported he had overheating issues and the cause was pretty obvious, the radiator inlet was cracked wide open. The engine is ready to come out, I had a delay when I went to my hangar and found that my engine hoist had been borrowed without anyone telling me so I had to get one from my neighbor. So sometime this coming week I should have the driveline out and ready to get the LSA in place and start figuring out what my front crossmember will look like, and if I will have to modify the trans tunnel.

True, but the ECU is easily open source tuned and with minor changes you can use an STi ECU and have low hanging fruit ECU tuning.

First off, great price! They are selling for more than that in my area. The rear window is fixed, below is a pass-through hatch that can fold down onto the rear seat when it is folded down, handy for hauling 2x4s, ladders, etc. There isn't anything special about the Baja problem wise, my best advice is to run it hard and get it up to temp then pull over and look for problems like leaks, steam, smells etc. Check the oil and water for any contamination, metal flake, sludge etc. Are you leaving it stock or wanting to modify it? The 2.5/auto combo isn't a jaw dropper but it is OK for stock, if your considering a lift and bigger tires I would strongly suggest buying a turbo version with auto.

I would love to see the end result, 242Hp and 220Tq would make for a quick car!

Sorry, sort of using this as a scratch pad now but really cool pics will appear once the car arrives. And on that topic the shipping company is saying pickup Jan 6th so I might have it by the end of the month and within 24 hours it will be down to the shell. I have access to some pretty cool sim tools for aerodynamics and since the XT was a rock star for drag back in the day it is fairly easy to evaluate. Once I have the car on the rotisserie I will do some laser scans and run the sims but I am willing to bet it will be real close to what I am thinking. My target top end for this car based on available gearing is about 230Mph, and I don't want to resort to caveman era aero with a giant wing and such so the bottom of the car will get the most attention. The plan is a full composite front splitter and undertray, as well as closing up the driveshaft tunnel, and the rear will get a tray and diffuser. Not trying to re-invent the wheel I am going to steal the F355 front tray and the Lotus Elise/Exige rear diffuser since they are brilliant. Once I see how it all plays together I will adjust as needed. And more thinking on the above topic has me leaning toward a full interior and Lambo style doors, I am normally really against those, I had a 1999 Diablo VT and hated seeing them on Honda Civics, at one point even Lamborghini abandoned them because they were played out. But, with the XT's funky exotic interior and exterior looks I think it fits the era and phuckit I am probably going to do that. Anyway, I am bouncing off the walls until this thing shows up. I will probably take it on a drive as-is then tear down.

Another topic I am wrestling with, the interior. I could tuck the cage and hard points into the existing frame and drop it off an have someone roll in alcantara dash, carpet, and some STi V7 seats like I have in my Baja, a nice stereo etc. OR...... bare metal painted to match the exterior and a functional interior. Either way, my goal is to get in to Guinness book as the fastest Subaru on Earth.

Anyone have a complete or partial Kaminari body kit for the XT that they want to part with?

Wonderful work! Brats are so rare these days it is time to start preserving excellent examples for the future. Your spending the time and money to do it the right way!

The first two are the XT I bought as it sits now, a super clean body! This is a pic of the test mule that Subaru used for the EG33 development. I am looking for any info on those front fenders! They could have been one-offs done in house or sourced from who knows where. Their solution for the rear is functional but ugly, and wouldn't be near wide enough for my needs.

Awesome on the FSM link, PM sent and thanks! The bezel I need is the one around the instrument panel itself, not the stereo. The one on this car is broken off. I will post a pic when I am home tomorrow. I need to get my hands on the dash to see exactly how I am going to drive it. My initial thought is to use a Pi with a can bus module to gather the data from the ECU, other than fuel level it should all be there, then drive the dash with a LED driver on that same Pi, using the Pi to translate RPM/ speed etc. into turning on/off the segments on the dash. Although there are tons of can bus digital dash units I could use re-purposing the original Subaru one is too cool to pass up. Similar approaches have been used to drive other digital dash units: I am working some contacts to get more info on the XT6 test bed that Subaru used for the SVX engine testing, it had some amazing front fenders. The rears are going to be something similar to the widebody flares like the E30 BMWs use. I want something that blends in with the XT's lines. I have been going back and forth on the exhaust for this thing. One thought is a semi straight pipe system so that as soon as you start it up it sounds evil. The other thought is to repurpose something like the Corvette Z06 exhaust where it is fairly quiet at idle and cruise but when you get on it the butterflys open up and it sends chills up the spine of anyone behind it.

Its time for a new project! Pics to follow soon. This week I bought an 89 XT6 out of Washington state and am getting it shipped to my place in VA. I have had two in the past and I thought about replicating the build I did in the 90's with a turbo'd EG33 swap but I decided to go a bit more exotic with a V8 swap. I liked the idea of staying with Subaru for the power plant but the practical HP limit is lower than I want for this project. I looked at two engines initially, the V10 out of the BMW M5 and an LSA based build and the LS quickly won out as being much more practical and offering more power for less effort and money. I am shooting for around 1,200Hp which is easy to do and the whole car is going to see work to support that power. So here is my roadmap: Driveline: LSA 6.2L supercharged - TR3160 6pd trans - G35 rear diff - 350z based rear axles and hubs Brakes: Brembo STi all around Front suspension: Custom crossmember - current gen Impreza based coil-overs Rear suspension: Custom rear subframe for G35 diff and current gen Impreza suspension with about 10 inch wider track width Wheels/tires: F: 225/40R18 R: 315/35/R18 Body: 6inch flare at rear wheel wells, front splitter, rear diffuser, side skirts, ground hugging ride height. I am still brainstorming this bit in terms of wing or not and other changes. THINGS I NEED!!!!!!! Help! If you happen to have any of these parts please PM me. -Digital dash -Dash surround bezel -Shop manual

Isnt it possible to lift it 4" without issues? Yes, I drive mine all the time.

BC racing makes an awesome set! If you call them they will offer you the off the shelf ones that are stock or lower, if you pester them enough you can get ones that are +1in taller than stock so you can go stock or stock plus or minus 1 inch. And if you negotiate hard enough you can get longer travel and alternate valving but they just don't offer the stuff up front. The BC ones are super adjustable and have taken an amazing beating in my use. You would not want to consider doing the rear only due to the spring rates, you want both front and rear and the good news is that it allows for much wider tires as well. Oh, and they also offer a premium progressive spring and it is worth the extra cost. And awesome to hear your baja is lifted as well, and pics? Which kit?

That is nearly the same way I bought my first one in 89! Awesome job getting one! The seats turn up on ebay often enough.