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1980 Subaru GLF-5


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Nice ride man, always nice seeing someone else still rocking one of these. Here's my 84 wagon. 

 

 

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I put fuel injection off from a loyale on mine, it helped a bit with how gutless it was. 
 
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Any fi ea82 subaru will work as long as it is not turbo, or MPFI. Any 87-94 throttle body car will work. There is a whole write up on USMB, I'll see if I can find it. The intake bolts on. You have to modify the loyale distributor to work in your engine (cut a tab off it, and swap gears on the bottom) Other than that it is just wiring (a lot of cutting is involved in the loyale harness, but there is only like 10+/- wires you actually connect to your car), and swapping fuel pumps, and hoses over, its best to get a whole car to take parts off from that way you aren't looking for that one 25 year old impossible to find part. You will have to swap clusters with a newer one, as the 80-82 clusters do not have a speed sensor built into them. You will also need to put an 02 sensor in your Y-pipe. Right now the car is up for the winter, but I get 31mpg with it, and it has ok power for what it is. I also have a brat that has full outback drivetrain swapped into it... That one has even more power  :thumbup:

 

*Edit

You can also drill holes in the shocks for the bumpers, if the early ones had them. Afterword you can push the bumpers in tucking them. I then welded mine in place to keep them from moving out again. Gives it a much nicer look. I did it with my wagon. 

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What year Loyale? We were wondering what could donate some EFI that is older/simpler...

Actually, I was thinking of replacing the whole engine and gearbox with a 2wd Impreza Brighton 1.6 affair.  My drivetrain has 155,000 miles on it.  

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I wouldn't worry about the milage on your car these early ea engines go forever, they just aren't powerhouses. Brightons are a 1.8 that would make a great transplant power and MPG wise and should be a pretty straight forward swap. The wiring is the hardest part to deal with. If you don't want to use the FI, there are ways of carbureting an EJ as well, but I think injection is the way to go if you are swapping everything over in the first place. OBDII harnesses are much easier to deal with, look for a 96-97, 95 is a one year only harness, and can be a pain to deal with. I think your axels may even hook up to a fwd impreza transmission I think they both are 23 spline, but don't hold me to that...

 

The sohc ej engines fit nicely in the ea engine bays too! I'm using a 2.5 block, with 1.8/2.2 heads for higher compression in my brat. You can't use a brighton harness to do this, due to the brightons not having a knock sensor, it is way to high compression for the non knock sensor management to deal with. 

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I wouldn't worry about the milage on your car these early ea engines go forever, they just aren't powerhouses. Brightons are a 1.8 that would make a great transplant power and MPG wise and should be a pretty straight forward swap. The wiring is the hardest part to deal with. If you don't want to use the FI, there are ways of carbureting an EJ as well, but I think injection is the way to go if you are swapping everything over in the first place. OBDII harnesses are much easier to deal with, look for a 96-97, 95 is a one year only harness, and can be a pain to deal with. I think your axels may even hook up to a fwd impreza transmission I think they both are 23 spline, but don't hold me to that...

 

The sohc ej engines fit nicely in the ea engine bays too! I'm using a 2.5 block, with 1.8/2.2 heads for higher compression in my brat. You can't use a brighton harness to do this, due to the brightons not having a knock sensor, it is way to high compression for the non knock sensor management to deal with. 

 

Cool!  That is some great info.  I would go the FI route with probably a Megasquirt or Simple Digital Systems standalone ECU.  Y'know, since I'm apparently made of money and stuff!

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Installed an inline electric heater in the lower heater hose...

 

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Routed the cord to where it drops down behind the license plate...

 

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It has a tendency to make the radiator puke a little fluid while running, so we installed a proper coolant recovery bottle...

 

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Happen to have the bottle from a 280ZX we are parting out, and we welded the Datsun bracket to the Subaru bracket.

 

Came out fairly good for my first time with the MIG welder!  :thumbup:

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MIG welder... and it wasn't even MIG either, it was FCAW (Flux-Core Arc Welding).  But he did do a damn fine job with it.  But I'm afeared I might have lost myself a job by showing him how to run the thing!

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Drove it to work today to show off to this little Vietnamese girl who's also into Hello Kitty.  Yeah, that radio sitting by the front door really need to be installed tomorrow!  I may take John up on his offer after all.

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And a working choke!  Apparently someone, it may have been me... ok, it was me, adjusted the choke open when the choke-heater thing was still warming up.  When the heated coil thingy got up to temp, it "jammed" the choke blades open.  When I loosened the adjuster today and gave it a twist, they wouldn't budge.  I gave them a poke with the old booger-hook and they flipped shut.  I readjusted the electric choke-heater thingy so's that they were just shut and holding the fast idle up and now it works!  I can give it a couple stomps on the loud-ish pedal and just bump the key to fire it up from cold now.  It'll drive off in five minutes now rather than ten!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hee hee, I took my 85yo mother to dinner last night in the Subaru.  She got a kick out of it and said she'd ride in it again, just not once the weather gets hot.  Y'know, since the A/C has been removed and all!

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Tim now has tunes...

 

Except when... well, let me tell another tale of woe.  I was sitting in the McDonald's drive through after ordering two sausage burritos and a large diet Coke, $3.25, when I noticed the music went away every time I stepped on the brake.  I tried a different channel thinking the weak-signal, public-radio, college-music station was to blame.  Nope, the mega-wattage, ad-funded, classic-rock station next door cut out as well.  I was just about to compose my rant against $25.00 Amazon radios when I noticed the volt meter... as in it was only reading about a volt!  I began shutting off accessories and stepped on the gas pedal to see if it would come back up.  With nothing but the ignition going, and a few revs, the voltage came back up to 12-13 or so.  By the time I'd driven the last five blocks to the shop, all was well in electricity town... well, except that I still need a voltage regulator.  While a Subaru VR LOOKS like a regular old Hitachi regulator seen on any number of Dattos, It has a round plug.  That round plug, apparently, is the one thing that keeps ANY parts store from stocking the damned thing!  We tried an internally regulated alternator but the voltage went through the roof.  We're talking 16 volts AT IDLE... with everything on!  Nope, going to have to suck up and wait for Chocolate Santa to deliver a regulator.  I was planning to drive this car to work Tuesday since we're expecting "Wintry Mix" weather and that was this car's whole "raison d'etre."  We'll see how that goes, I guess.

 

 

LOOK DOWN HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

For all you "TL;DR" types: I need to replace the voltage regulator.

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