Offroading Subarus

The J or JJ signifies the dimensions of the beads lip, or you could also call it the shape of the flange.  The difference between a J and a JJ rim is mostly only in the radius of the flange. JJ = 18.0mm high x 13.0mm wide, with a 13.0mm radius J = 17.5mm high x 13.0mm wide, with a 9.0mm radius A diagram of the flange dimensions as shown in the text related to… Read More

10 Years ago I started my EJ conversion on my first car, a red Subaru Brumby. I documented my conversion on UltimateSubaru. I figure it’s about time this website gets the famed Brumby that started the gearbox mix/match revolution. What is below is basically a transcript of the post on the Ultimate Subaru site. Thank you for visiting and reading! http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/68441-brumby-conversion Posted 06 February 2007 – 08:27 PM Alright.. I’ve been keeping pretty quite on… Read More

  Not wanting a protruding CD player I opted for the new style Digital Media Player, it’s a radio/usb/aux, basically a headunit without a CD player. I bought the Kenwood KMM U256. It’s a fairly capable player with plenty of customisable settings and equalizer. Also it is only 120mm deep! Since this car was fitted with a spacer already, and they did a bit of a hack job at it I decided I needed to… Read More

          I’ve got a 87 Brumby/BRAT which has gone 430,000km. With this distance obviously the seats took a beating. The drivers seat was half colapsed and you could feel it was broken on the edge as well as the rails having severe wear. I had an 01 Outback wreck so I pulled it’s seats, few cuts and welds and in they go. Comparison of the seat rails. Due to the design… Read More

If you’re suffering from losing coolant or coolant mixed into the oil then most likely you have a leaking head gasket. In this case the coolant loss was pretty minimal, about 5 litres over 800km. The car had been looked over by a mechanic and had all the hoses and clamps replaced. But it still was losing coolant. From what I could see it was losing a fair bit of coolant out of the overflow… Read More

Subaru’s usually have a negative or upright caster angle. This causes the wheel to tuck under (increase in positive camber) when turned in turn causing bad tyre wear on the outside edge of the tyre when turning (especially when driven hard). I touched on this topic back in 09 with the 83 Leone. Have a read here. In that post you can see I changed the radius rods for modified Toytoa Crown rods. This gave… Read More

I had battled with a very sensitive throttle in the BH Outback for 2 years. What the issue is, is you only need the top 10 to 15mm of the pedal for normal driving. This is plenty to accelerate you to 100kph in a respectable time. You may think this is great, the car has so much power! But in reality this makes it extraordinarily hard to keep a constant speed. My first thought was… Read More

My Dad Purchased This Subaru Wagon New from a Dealer in Hollywood, CA (USA) in 1985 and the Subie Came Runnin’ new, from there to my Country, Honduras, at the caribbean central america… I Can’t imagine any Better Way to Break New an Engine!    This Subaru wagon is a GL and came with white paint, EA82 carburated engine and 5 speed manual transmission. Since child, I learned Automotive Mechanics with my Father, then with time… Read More

Just a quick disclaimer… I would do many things differently if I were to do it again. Mainly I would make a completely custom wishbone instead of using one from another car. The standard control arm and MacPherson strut design on the older Subaru’s is too weak for the racing we compete in. To remedy this problem I decided on converting the front suspension to double wishbone. All this work was done without a lift… Read More

We had done a lot of work to the car this year, building up stronger front suspension, placing the radiator in the rear on a roll bar. Race seats, and more. We were told the track would be mostly dry, in hindsight probably shouldn’t of taken advice from competition or the event coordinator! It got very wet and we just had no traction at all out there by heat 3. On the Sunday heats 5… Read More

In August we decided it was time to race the “new” (old) racewagon. With limited time and a very busy October we only just managed to get the racewagon ready for racing at the Loveday 2012 Riverland Challenge which was on the last weekend in October. Our support team on the sidelines. TOSSERS (Team Offroading Subarus Super Enthusiast Racing Specialists) Lining up for our first race of the weekend. The weekend of racing didn’t start… Read More

PART 1 – PART 2 At this stage you want to clean all the casings, remove old gaskets, wipe out oil. I find a sharp blade can be useful for cleaning off the silicone and gaskets from the mating surfaces. Make sure you clean off any swarf or tiny bits of contaminants that are on the gears or in the casing. Assembly the main shaft with the input shaft and low range synchro. Ensure the… Read More

PART 1 – PART 3 You may have noticed by now the EA82’s bearing is smaller than the Outback’s. To be precise the the EA82’s bearing is 62 OD, 25 ID and 17mm wide; while the Outback bearing is 68 OD, 28 ID and 18mm wide. The inside diameter is the problem here, as you need to use the Outbacks input shaft casing but also the EA82’s input shaft, You could either make a sleeve… Read More

PART 2 – PART 3 If you are looking for more offroad gearing in your Outback or Forester this might be for you. You will need experience and access to a lathe (preferable a decent one) and tungsten carbide tools, or you will need to take a few parts to get machined to your local machine shop! You will also need a bench grinder. This page is for 8 bolt Subaru EJ D/R gearboxes with… Read More