edrach

Here's the first link to photos from last weekend. http://www.pdxsports.com/photos/showindex.asp?folder=200606_RallyX Lots of pics of USMB members! A few I can pick out: My Impreza (first time out with this car): 195, 221, 249 Dr. RX: 194, 247 qman: 170, 171, 182, 235 GLCraigGt: 199, 225, 250 Show us your ride if you're in here!

I did have a blast also. The new Imp worked well for the most part. The rallycross school on Saturday gave me some much needed seat time in the new ride. Much easier to go fast that in my Brat. Car is basically stock EJ18 with stock supension except for a hefty 22mm rear swaybar and whiteline bushings. Zap was kind enough to lend me his Goodyear snowtires mounted on 14" wheels for the ride since I wanted to stay in the class I ran with the Brat. Great course from Paul Eklund; pretty much fast and wide open altho you had to think a bit to insure the best line. My first run was after the water truck wet down the course at 1:35 which I thought was respectable; as the course dried out, I posted a 1:25, 1:22 and 1:20. Fastest time in my class was a 1:18 I believe, so I'm not unhappy with the debut. Funny thing happened as I was about to start the 2nd run, the car wouldn't start! Thanks to a push start from qman and a couple of other competitors, I took the 2nd run. I made sure to leave the car running after that finished. When I wanted to start run 3, the engine was off! Another push start! Same thing happened on run 4. I finally discovered the cause when I started to load the car. The previous owner had installed the battery in the rear trunk but it didn't survive the rallycross rigors. Battery had torn loose from it's mountings and actually ripped the negative wire out of the terminal lugs fastened to the body of the car. The reason for the engine stopping even though I kept it running is the remains of an old burgler alarm system; sensing the battery had been disconnected, it cut the ignition after a set number of minutes of running! Qman and Dr. RX were helpful in diagnosing this one and we finally managed to find the black box and unplug it so I could manage the 3 hour drive home without too much trouble. It was great to see so many USMB folks at the event; I would have to guess as a group we had the largest percentage of attendees other than ORG club members.

Sounds like fun; I've been looking to get back there for a while; I'll try to make the weekend.

Try Spalding Auto Wrecking in Spokane; there's an 800# for them on the Board somewhere (try searching for it). They will ship you a new (not used) radiator for just under $100 plus shipping; UPS ground is one day.

Safe trip; we'll be waiting for you.

I was thinking of that; just didn't get around to it. Actually, my pics are milder than the reality. I saw the engine up close and personal.

A friend of my son, managed to trash his engine fording a stream. View the carnage at http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/photos/showgallery.php?cat=864. Sad demise of a 2003 Baja engine.

Thanks for posting this Craig. I was beginning to worry about this. Late publicity never helps.

GD: Wouldn't you need two lists for the EA81 for solid lifter and hydraulic lifter? I would think they'd start counting from 000001 again when the hydraulic engines came out.

Sorry about that; I have a problem correlating boardnames with people. Good luck getting the car titled.

Sorry, I didn't read deep enough into your posts. See my other reply. SOOBOUTLAW: The same certificate might work for you if you never transferred the title.

I take it back; you're in Washington state. Did you ever register it with your name? If not, check with the previous owner (if you know him) and ask him to come to DOL with you and get a certificate in lieu of title and have him sign that over to you. Since you're doing it right there, it will only cost you $10 for the certificate and then whatever you need to do to transfer the title.

It would help to know what state you live in since every state is a bit different in how that problem is handled.

There was a Justy in the newest row to be filled last Thursday. Other than that you're right on.

Depending where on the eastside, I could scoot over there on a weeknight. Looks good, but the mileage would lead me to think it should be a bit less unless it's really cherry. PM me with what you're looking for.

$200 seems to be the going price; bought a set last year without a stitch of curb rash for that price...not tires.

110 says it's a EJ18; acceptable in a manual tranny but I just hate automatics. It looked like a good price until I saw that it was FWD only. Very hard to find a decent Impreza with the 2.2 engine, manual, low miles, and good condition for under $3500 but you might get lucky and find one for around $2500 to $3000. My son found a '96 wagon with manual and 2.2 engine for $3200 about two years ago but he was very lucky. He jumped on it immediately (took time off from work to do it) and had the money in his pocket. I was fortunate to get a nice '94 sedan recently for an even $3000 but it had the EJ18 engine and some minor body damage.(http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=58879) . An engine swap is fairly easy; but a FWD tranny to AWD tranny is harder and likely more expensive.

Do a search on Autotrader with a range of prices and maybe a 300 mile radius; that way you'll see a variety of prices; you can adjust up or down for the mileage.

I'm late coming into this discussion, but vibration when accelerating that goes away instantly as you let of the gas can be caused by the inner (DOJ) joint of the axles. I've had it on one car so slight the mechanic insisted there was nothing wrong with the car; replacing the axles cured the problem. I've had it on another wagon with brand new rebuilds (ARA); replacing the axles cured the problem. I've had it on my Brat so bad that I thought the transmission was falling out of the car; replacing the axles cured it also. I always did both axles since there was no visible sign of a bad joint. Just my two cents worth. Good luck with this.

Try this company: http://www.philbingroup.com/fhhistory.htm

I'm really pleased with the '94 Impreza 4 door sedan I just bought. Planning to make it into a rallycross car and like some of the suspension mods it came with. However, the H&R springs have dropped the suspension about 2 inches and that is not good. I'd like to get it back up where it belongs. I've found a set of '02/03 struts of a WRX and wonder if they would replace what's on the car now without too much modification. Anyone done something like this?

Even more photos: http://www.safedrives.com/olympus06.htm

If you want to test drive it tomorrow (Tuesday), give me a call in the afternoon and if I'm home I can take a look at it for you. I really don't think your problem is the distributor or the vac. advance. Easy ride down the highway.

Some comments here from a guy I knew who did oil analysis (limited to dino oil since synth wasn't available then:rolleyes: ). Basic oil all starts as 30 weight; after adding all kinds of ingredients, it comes out as 10W-30 with the API engineers seal of approval for meeting various minimum standards. The first time you start your engine after the oil change, those ingredients start to go away and at 3000 miles after the oil change, you are back to basic 30 weight oil and whatever other grunge your filter didn't catch. From that I took the following approach: I change my oil and filter every 2000 miles and generally use whatever oil I find on sale and buy it by the case. Over the long haul, the cost of savings buying "cheap" oil exceed whatever savings are gained by lower gas consumption. Over the last 40 years, most of the cars we've owned lasted to 250,000 miles (baring an external disaster like an auto accident) and were still running when we sold them. The one exception was our current '91 Legacy wagon. I bought it with 93K on it, and at 100K switched to a full synthetic with oil changes at 5K (I got tired of changing the oil every three weeks). I didn't have any problems with leakage, but did develop a severe case of "blow-by" (rings?) at 155K which required an engine swap. Whether that was the fault of the oil or not is immaterial. From a purely economic consideration the most cost effective way is to do oil changes often with the least expensive dino oil that meets API specifications. There are no long term savings in gas consumption or cost repairs that will justify the cost of going to a synth oil.

There is a greasless lubricant made by LPS (available at most autostores) that displaces water. Spray it inside the distributor cap and outside along everything high voltage electrical. Good luck.