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Drove up to Z's house last Thursday and stole his truck so we could pick up slammo at the airport. By the time we got back Z was home and had a cam position trouble code on the FXT. Sounded like the root cause was probably plugged filter screens at the turbo and cam phaser acuators. They didn't seem super dirty but we removed them all. Just to be safe B drove down to the only Oreillys that had the phasers and sensors and bought those. In the meantime A and I went to the grocery store to buy food. Then we finished loading up and headed north. By the time we got close to the UP it was getting dark so we were just looking for a place to camp. Saw a trail in WI but it was of course ATV/UTV only. As soon as we got in the UP we went down some trails and found a spot to camp next to a small lake. The next morning we trail rode up to the Baraga pipeline grade. Hit a couple sandy stunt areas on the southern end. The best jump we found was actually one farther north than we normally go on the grade. Hit some powerline grade near there next and started heading east. We were on a lot of trails we'd never seen before and covered about 200 miles mostly off pavement. Camped in a clearing along a side trail. We found a small scrap metal pile so we started looking through that and found a pair of Subaru CV axles and control arms! Drove through Dukes/Upper Peninsula experimental forest which we'd never seen before. Near the end of the day we drove to Laughing Whitefish falls to do the little hike. Just before we got there we started getting splashed with water from the rear floor of the Outback. About a square foot of sheet metal had almost torn off. I was able to tuck it back up and safety wire it. Falls was pretty cool, one of the best in the UP. We took a whooped out railroad grade to the Forest Lake campground. Along the way we saw another scrap metal pile so we grabbed a piece of roofing material for the floor. Near the end of the whoops was a big one A hit at about 45mph that launched the car in the air and we cleared the next four or five whoops. At camp A cut the roofing material to fit and screwed it to the floor. The next day we hit some more trails and stunt areas and saw a couple snapping turtles on the way to the bluff campsite. The slightly better site was taken so we camped at the one slightly to the west. Rained a little and was super buggy but the view was great as always and had a good nights sleep. Monday morning we did a little trail riding on the way home. Slammo found a long trail along a river on the map so we followed that past where it ended on the map and just kept getting narrower and rougher and we eventually turned around. On that trail the Outback started running a little hot even with the fans on. We stopped and didn't hear them running, then the next time we stopped one of them was running and the temps were solid the rest of the day. Went to the opposite end of the trail we couldn't get to the end of from the between the lakes campsite and every option we could find had very long stretches of standing water. Went down and back up the rutted out climb to a river. Got to the campsite between the lakes and then started heading home. Hit a couple more good jumps. Drove home with no other issues. Outback had a very worn/beat inner tie rod, which seemed fine right before the trip. It's like one of the races for the ball joint got pressed in/out. Had to replace one of the fan fuses. Z had a leak in his LR tire that he had to plug a few times. His cam codes eventually went away but then he started getting an O2/cat code. No major problems, weather was decent, covered a lot of miles. Struts are almost ready for my Impreza, will probably start lifting that and installing suspension soon.

Thanks ! Let’s see what the week brings. I share your philosophy. Our newest car is an 06. Colorado is where it’s at. Plenty of old Subarus Did the Continental Divide, currently in Aspen. Working west , looking like we are going to just relax and cruise. Any pressure to get back East quickly is removed. To a degree.

what did you use for these items? plugs should be NGK copper core wires should be OEM or NGK ONLY - parts store wires are known to be problematic coil - unless there was an obvious problem with the stock one, probably should have left it alone... aftermarket units are not the greatest here, either. used OE is better than aftermarket Next question - is it throwing a check engine light at all? if so, get the codes read and post here, in the order they show up. if you dont have a code reader, most chain auto parts places will read them for free. they wont clear them, but they will read them for you