Dream Subie

[the_bard]

Since I'm looking around to replace my rusted Loyale, I've been drawing up plans, researching options, and dreaming of my "perfect" Subie. What I want is:

1. Reliability. First and foremost. I want the option of working on my car when I want, not when I have to. Besides, this'll impress the wife, and the more she's impressed, the less I have to fight to get my way .

 

2. A daily driver. Whatever I do to it, I don't want to make it a pain to be able to drive back and forth from work. A four hour drive... well, that'll make anybody uncomfortable.

 

3. Mild to moderate "off-road-ability". If there's six inches of snow on the ground in Troy, and I need to get out, I want to be able to, albeit slowly (if the City figures the snow may melt even partially within the next couple days, they'll wait. They'll even wait a couple days to decide :-p ). Besides, I want to be able to take it camping, hunting, etc... or just have an excuse to go offroading .

 

To meet this criteria, I figured I'd do the following:

 

1. Find an EA82 wagon without much rust on it. I think I've got one lined up... I'll know Saturday. One with a 5spd 4wd d/r tranny in it would be great, so I don't have to put one in, and it ought to be easy enough to find.

 

2. Get whatever rust is on the vehicle cut & welded. Got this nailed down, too... a buddy down at work does body work on the side, and can cut me a deal.

 

3. Retreat the underbody. Maybe this means getting it cleaned up and respraying that underbody rubber stuff. Or maybe it means taking off all the underbody stuff, applying POR-15, and then reapplying new rubber stuff. I hate rust... and if I'm gonna be putting this much time & effort into a car, I don't want to toss it away in a couple years because of rust.

 

4. Pull out the EA82, and drop in a pre '97 EJ22. Not a turbo, since I don't want to deal with the extra complexity. Wouldn't be good for the off-roading, either. This amounts to finding a good engine (with wiring), getting an adapter kit, figuring out the wiring (God, I hope it comes with the kit), and all the other miscellaneous things that would come into play ("reengineering" mounts, upgrading fuel pump, gauges, etc.) When I'm done, I get a more "reliable" (in the eyes of the wife) and powerful engine.

 

5. New custom exhaust, treated with the high temp POR-15. I figure this'll fit in with #4, as I imagine the exhaust will have to be modified to fit that EJ22 in there. If the OEM exhaust is awful restrictive with respect to the EA82, I imagine it'll be worse with the EJ22.

 

6. Ozified's 4"/3" lift. 15" Pug's. 27" or 28" tires. The EJ22 should guarantee that I won't be as gutless running this setup as I would with the EA82. Depending on what issues I run into, I might be willing to increase the size of the tires, but I doubt I'll need it.

 

7. Incidental, "cosmetic" things, like brushguard, custom bumpers, a roof rack (TWE?).

 

Cost: Well, rust-proofing it will probably take more time than money. The adapter kit runs around $500. I have no idea how much a good EJ22 + wiring will run me at the junkyard. The lift kit is about $450. A new exhaust... figure $300-$400 (including cats, and if I replace all of it), maybe more if I can't weld it myself. Maybe $2,000-$2,500 total? Sound abotut right? That's not bad, if I can get the car to last a bit, spread it out over a year or two, and the wife doesn't flip a lid .

 

Anybody see any holes in my theory?

[calebz]

Only one..

 

getting an adapter kit, figuring out the wiring (God, I hope it comes with the kit),

HAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!...no

[bushbasher]

who sells the adapter kit now? mudrat?

 

It seems to me you should just find a legacy and do a small lift on that, with some good AT tires. the legacys are more luxurious, safer, and come with awd which is great because with the loyale you don't get any kind of traction aid on the pavement. AWD is still enough to let you play in the mud, do awesome in the snow, and get to that camping spot.

 

you could just get the legacy, keep it stock and drive it. With a little downtime every once 'n awhile to put on your mods one at a time.

[SuBaRiNo]

If there is one thing i have learnt from modifying Subarus it's that... the more you modify them... the less reliable they are. If you want reliability you will have to go with something that requires very little or no modifications.

 

After going through some of the modifications you are considering it can take years to get it running good enough to trust it again.

 

When my subi was a standard 2wd ea81 i felt i could trust it to drive very long distances. But since converting it to 4wd... lifting it 3 inches... and adding the ej22 engine adapted to an L-series gear box, i get rather worried taking it too far from home.

 

Im sure others may disagree...maybe i just have trust issues.

 

Dave

[the_bard]

Only one.. HAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!...no

 

Ya know, that's why I shouldn't post things like this at 1:40 AM, when I can't sleep. I meant, "Figuring out the wiring (God I hope a diagram comes with the kit)." Funny how well that preview button works the next morning, versus the night before.

 

The Legacy idea would probably be simpler... haven't seen the interior of one yet, but I can't see why it wouldn't be more plush. The wife would probably agree to the Legacy before she'd agree to the EA82. Still wouldn't be as fun as playing around with the EA82 wagon, though.

 

Anyway, I'll look into that Legacy, and keep it as an option. Thanks, bushbasher.

[wingnwing]

if you want to do it...do it. forget the naysayers (though they are all right in their own perspective).

just make sure you have the dough to finish what you sttarted or you will be real unhappy about the whole thing. I drive an 85 wagon that is heavily modified and it has been reliable for the last 50K or so 26 mpg to boot!

but if you want a trick car a new one will never do in its place.

 

peace.

[ezapar]

I'm with the idea of a small lift on a legacy wagon.

Reliable as Soobs get.

Comfortable and powerful for a long ride to work.

With the lift comes a little bigger tires and a formidable rig for the snow.

Should do fine for lite off roading.

Wagons make great camp rigs, legacys are no exception.

 

 

As for the more you build the less reliable. . . I don't agree.

I haven't done the ej22 swap yet, but all of my lifted, weber'd ea81s are pretty friggin reliable. The last one (86 hatch) made a 500 mile round trip to the WCSS6, then a week later drove 1200 miles to Colorado from Seattle. All said and done, David had to change the wheel bearings on one corner when he got there.

Shoot, we drove Ken's Brat 900 miles+ home from the Rubicon after he did several miles of it.

Depends on how well you set it up.

i'd trust my current hatch to go anywhere in the USA I point it.

 

But I do indeed like your idea. If you have the know how to hook up a 2.2, I say go!! As for pre 97, how come? I have a 2.2 in my 97 impreza, it kicks rump roast!

[TomRhere]

If you get the car, and plan to do mods to it, be sure to have yourself another daily driver. Mods can run into problems, and leave you with a vehicle sitting on jackstands. Which even for a day, could cause you a problem if you can't get to work.

 

I have 95% of the needed things to do a 12" lift, ER-27 & D/R 5spd, Nissan T-case, 'Yota 15" rims, yada, yada, yada. The problem here is, hardly any time to work on the thing. Pulled the engine and tranny back in April this year. BRAT's still sitting in the garage on jackstands. I've dropped the front suspension since then, and got the interior pretty much gutted, (rust repair and Rhino-lining there). But that's just about it.

 

The Company I work for, has kicked into full blown, (Turboed with NOS even), production. I've been putting in 60 - 70 + a week, and I'm "on-call", 24/7. Don't leave much time for exta-carricular(sp) activities. Wasn't in the plans when I started this endeavor, so I have to work around it. Also have Family members wanting me to wrench on their vehicles. They come before me.

[baccaruda]

i'd say a pre *96* 2.2 liter. in 96 they upped the compression ratio a little. giving a small HP increase, but the pistons thereafter were large enough that those are no longer non-interference engines! so if you bust a timing belt, you're looking at a dead engine. stick with 95 or earlier.

[ezapar]

You could just change the timing belt ahead of time. . . That's my approach.

[bajavwnsoobnut]

that's what Preventitive Maintenance is all about....... keeping it from destroying itself from something stupid

[Rooinater]

if he's only putting an azified lift on. he doesn't need to get another daily driver. they are no where near as complicated as a tcase lift. a tcase lift takes a lot of fabrication. ozified's are bolt on lifts. and take afew hours to put on. i wouldn't say the ea82's are gutless at all with the 27" tires. just put a weber on it if it has a carb. if it's fuel injected leave it be. they have enough to go anywhere you are planning on going. mine was a daily driver for a long time. till i starte hitting the more hardcore trails i didn't have any problems.

 

reliability... the lift don't affect that much of any. hell my car drove from gig harbor, wa to the clearwater national forest in idaho about 800 miles one way. it made it there and back with no problems full of camping gear. then it made a trip from marysville, wa to yuma arizona,1500 miles. with a trailer loaded with about 1500 or so pounds of my junk. the only thing that had a problem was the trailer's wheel bearing. then it also made a return trip up to eugene oregon to get the new mods. it made it there just fine. and the only problem was on the way back about a 1000 miles down the road back to yuma. a bearing i had suspected of slowly becoming bad went out. so if they aren't reliable.... i don't know what to tell you. i take that thing on long trips all teh time. and the time the bearing went out it had 31" tall tires that were not balanced... oops...

[ezapar]

My lifted hatch is my daily driver. The lifted hatch I had before it was my daily driver. Bob the lifted Brat was my daily driver before that. . . .and the brat before that and the brat before that and the hatch before that and the hatch before that. . .

 

Why would making your Soob an offroader make it unreliable? Who thinks so and why?

[bajavwnsoobnut]

My lifted hatch is my daily driver. The lifted hatch I had before it was my daily driver. Bob the lifted Brat was my daily driver before that. . . .and the brat before that and the brat before that and the hatch before that and the hatch before that. . .

umm zap do I see a pattern going on here? is your next rig gonna be a brat?