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if you're mechanically interested and not novelty driven, stick around and you'll see this forum is waaaaaay different than others and for it's faults has some massive upside. yes - if you're the more automotively social type and want to tinker and hard data doesn't matter as much as the parallel play - another forum would be a better fit. this forum is practical to a fault. it's the most practical and helpful, mechanically literate subaru specific forum by far. but that also means it doesn't really tolerate typical forum banter and diatribe. some of the people on here run highly successful Subaru businesses, are enormously well respected and I owe them about 142 lunches for all they've taught me over the years. i try to respect their time and hope that in some ways we are all making it easy for them to continue to contribute with high demands and in a situation where most of their subaru talk/engagement is making them money but this is not. a lot of people are used to other forums and 13 page mundane, mechanically/data/physically illiterate discussions or tossing around 8 bad ideas and hoping one of them is right....that's cool too, most people seem to like that, and any other subaru forum can do that. i would try to identify the 8% of the posters who know what they're talking about - and be careful taking anyone elses advice - check it/google it/etc. this forum isn't like that. I'm on those forums though recently have been distancing myself, because it gets old seeing responses that aren't helpful or flat out wrong. it's hard to help the original poster because three other posts are low grade ideas from uncle larry, the 1970's, or they're anecdotal 3 Subaru experience - yet they post and defend their posts without learning/data being the focus. this forum doesn't tolerate that at all. which has both bad and good sides to it.

The "factory" filters are junk. Made by Honeywell (Fram) for the US market because SOA is too cheap (or too greedy) to buy the Japanese Tokyo-Roki filters. We use WIX because they have an up-front bypass valve design. The "blue" filters are just cheap rebranded parts store filters sold at a huge margin. We put all our filters on hand tight only. NO TOOLS!! Trust me they will come back and you will need pliers to get them off even with this much torque. Mind you we are all MEN and we don't limp-wrist them on either. But using a filter wrench or strap wrench is just asking for trouble removing it later. GD

Decalcification? This would imply (I assume) a source of calcium. Now I'm no chemist or even metallurgist, but this seems unlikely. I call BullSh1t. Show us a picture. GD

Well we took the car into a mechanic that specializes in Subarus to get this car sorted out. They said it was a weird interesting case. After a couple hours of labor they determined that it was an electrical problem. They surmise there is corrosion between the transmission and the engine causing a voltage drop. The ground cable from the battery goes to the transmission. So they put on a “bandaid” short ground cable from the transmission to the engine. My daughter reports the car is now behaving normally and appears ready her upcoming road trip from Fairbanks to Anchorage in about a week. Thanks everyone for the advice and suggestions on diagnosing this. I learned a lot more about working on our five elderly Subarus (95-98) as a result of this frustrating problem. It should help me in the future keeping them all going.

The last car in here I had to do an ignition upgrade on was an EVO and we had to go to a CDI box because the plug gap was intolerably small (0.020") to get us to 500 WHP. We were blowing the spark right off the plug at 35 psi. After the CDI box we got it up to 620 WHP. Now he needs more turbo..... The factory ignition systems on modern cars are quite good is our point here. If the factory COP ignition could support a full 250 HP over stock I think it's plenty over-engineered for the stock application. And waste spark systems are already very high voltage - this is because their secondary circuit is just a coil around the primary with either end connected to a spark plug. So every firing event they are required to fire two plugs. GD

The same stock coil type was used on 2.2 and 2.5 engines also. So I don't think there is any reason to think it's NOT working just fine igniting 20~40% less cylinder volumes worth of fuel in your engine. If it needs replaced (they can fail, seen it twice in like 1000 cars), replace it with a good, OE japanese original either new or used. Used is fine they fail so seldom. People like to bolt on goodies, and then feel like it's been a "performance" upgrade that they've accomplished. Most of these types of "upgrades" are worth little or even worse than nothing. "Cold air" intakes, "hi-Flow air filters" and "Performance" coils are among the 3 worst ideas to do to a car in general, and definitely to subaru. The "stock" setup already provides, cold, well filtered, water separated air and a nice hot, japanese made, Transistor driven coil pack provides the spark reliably. There is nothing to be gained other than spending money on "feels". Generic coil won't perform better and won't last as long...they never do. People used to want to put MSD yellows and silvers into EA cars and they crapped after a few years, while the stock hitachi's in the 80's cars mostly all still work great 30+ years. And don't even get me started on "hi flow" filters.....might as well throw a handful of dirt right down the throttle body. None of that stuff is necessary for a non-biuilt engine. If you've put high lift/duration cams, ported the heads, added forced induction, and addded larger injectors AND have the engine management to support all that, you might maybe see some gain from a true coil upgrade and opening up the intake and filtration. Even then, that's at the expense of long term wear on the engine. That stuff is for racing where engines get torn down and serviced or replaced regularly. Hope that sounds pragmatic, not personal. That's a damn good Loyale you got.

easy for confusion to happen so, be sure to get IMpreza-chassis parts and not legacy Outback stuff. use the VIN if possible. many folks have received wrong parts due to the whole 'outback' part of the model's name.

Well, whoda thunk! I took my 'new to me' '87' out for a spin, (aye, the one with the wobbly front wheels that I fixed) and found that it made a similar sound as the'86'. I replaced the axles and struts in it and one or both solved the problem. I just got another set of axles and I'm waiting for new struts and I'll go to work on the '86'. Thanks for the help and suggestions.

Update- so i bought it and drove it over the mountain home tonight. Car runs and drives well on the road. I do sense a little vibration at highway speeds (at first in the wheel) and a little bit in the whole body after the mountain (when the brakes were undoubtedly hotter). The brake rotors are a bit warped and could use replacing. Once at home I examined the tires and found the front two are a matched pair and there are two altogether different tires on the back. All are the same size and tread depth ranges from 3/32" to 4.5/32" so that may have saved it from developing torque bind (I tested it again on my cul-de-sac and no torque bind at all). I was already planning on a set of new tires and a four wheel alignment anyway. I do notice the steering wheel is a bit off center and and some of the tires are wearing on the inside. I'm hoping the new tires and alignment will give it a smoother ride on the highway. I put the front of the car up on stands and took a look under there. Some minor oil seepage from the headgaskets but not bad yet. Unfortunately I found that both inner CV boots are split (they are the original axles and i assume the outer CV boots were replaced at some point). The other concern I have is that it doesn't appear anything but the timing belt was replaced when the engine was swapped in, so apparently the tensioner and idlers have 139K miles on them. Since I know of someone who can do headgaskets and complete timing belt job for around $800, I might just that route and not worry about the engine after that.

Got the maxima alt installed! Sweet upgrade. Too bad i didn't actually need one. The charge fuse was showing good when I checked with my power probe, but I didn't actually pull it out to look at it. Dumb mistake, but it did look good until I checked it with the dvom and found it was burnt. Thanks again for the help guys. A nice reminder to keep it simple!

Not too surprised if both of them are bad. I wasn't too sure how those lights were grounded, but if it is through the brushes then that makes sense. The one on the car definitely has something bad inside it. After removing it, I noticed a rattling noise when shaking it. The spare replacement is pretty crusty so I'm assuming corrosion may have killed something in that one as well. I will report back after the new maxima alt shows up and is installed. Thanks for the help fellas!