jamal

My car has done Missoula to LA 5 times now. Bike+skis on the roof, full of my stuff, crusing at 80+. I got about 23 mpg.

That is what I gathered from the huge thread on nasioc awhile back.

going into the mountains will definitely affect mileage. Driving north on the 15 into Montana, I had to keep it in 3rd for like an hour straight. Where's he headed? I talked to my dad yesterday and he said there was about 5 inches on the ground in Missoula, but the Interstate was mostly dry. I suppose there might be some snow or slippery parts outside of butte.

have him check the atf level and ask if the power light has been coming on/flashing. The 4eat will change to the "power" shift maps which could cause downshifts if it's starting to overheat.

yeah, definitely get a relay. I tapped into the high beam circuit right at the pass. side light, because there's room and the wires are right there. Here are the directions I got from a guy (vrg3) on legacycentral when my directions from hella conflicted slightly with those that I got from rallylights.com:

Actually it's a 2.2. No ej20s in the US until 2002. as Josh said: bbs.legacycentral.org

The 16s come with 205/55s and the 17s come with 215/45s, so the overall diameter stays the same. Both also have Potenza RE-92s, which are not the best performance all-season available. Although for $200-250 a set with wheels I'm not complaining.

Check your state vehicle code for the requirements as to what is legal. I'm sure it will say something like: Only 4 lights total (which includes headlights), must be between 16 and 42 inches from the ground, and may only be used with the high beams. I have a set of Hella FF1000s mounted above my bumper between the headlights. I made my own brackets and ran them through the bumper. I have the lights wired to a switch on my dash and they're powered with a relay through the high beams circuit. Pictures:

Well, obviously not, and an HID is not just a blue bulb. The blueish headlights that are not hid are just bulbs with a tint. The problem with this is that the tint filters out non-blue light, and halogen bulb tend to not put out much blue light. Because of this, they're overdriven and will not last long, if they're legal at all. Phillips and PIAA make a couple of legal blue tinted bulbs. HIDs on the other hand, are a completely different type of bulb. The gas in the bulb and the filament are different, so the light output is in a different temperature range, and produces a different color. The pattern of light put out by the bulb is also different, requiring an HID-specific reflector. You can find "HID kits" on ebay which solely consist of the ballast and a bulb which fits into a standard halogen housing. These are illegal and will NOT help anyone see better. There are a bunch of people on nasioc with 500s. Check out the "Ultimate Subaru lighting thread." I have a set of huge driving lights instead of fogs. They're wired to only come on with the high beams, as is required by law. I'm occasionally tempted to flash them at people who drive with annoying lights.

They're not necessarily yellow, although I hear yellow can increase visibility in rain and fog and stuff. What classifies a beam as "fog" or "driving" or whatever is the beam pattern. A fog light will put a light right in front of the car so you can see the road close, when it's all foggy and the like, whereas a driving beam will put a lot of light down the road. For this reason, you'd also not want to put driving lights in the fog light holes on a Subaru (which a lot of people do). I've noticed that stock fog lights tend to be fairly useless in actual fog on most cars. If you want to replace them, however, there are much better fog lamps available, such as the Hella 500s. You can buy a 3rd fog lamp, and I believe they're mandatory in Europe or something. Here they are at rallylights.com, my favorite store for auxiliary lighting.

Thule and Yakima both make kayak racks. I've heard Thule is more durable than Yakima, but Yakima has the round bars which work better on a curved roof. Check out the Thule site, where you can pick all the stuff you want and price it out.

use this miata.net tire size calculator to figure out what is about the same diameter. 185s will fit without problems, but a 185/60 is a little short. I would say go with 185/70s or 195/65s. I have 205/55-16s on my 93 Legacy, which are wider and slightly taller, and there is no rubbing. I could fit 215s easily and possibly a 225 if I had the right offset wheels.

Cross drilled brake rotors are crap. Don't get them. The holes are purely cosmetic, and can pose a safety risk. I don't see why anyone would want to drill holes in their brake rotors. Here's a rather long discussion about it. Basically, rotors were drilled in like the 50s on race cars because pads would out-gas fairly severly, and the holes gave the gas a place to go. Now all drilling does is make pretty holes in your rotor, remove material, and create areas of stress concentration during heating cycles. The increased surface are of the rotor for dissipating heat is also negligable compared to the lost material and lost surface area on the face of the rotor. Slots supposedly "scrape" the pad for better initial bite. If you were to take three identical cars with the same tires and pads, and they had drilled, slotted, and blank rotors, I promise you there would be absolutely no difference in braking performance. OEM or brembo blanks or whatever would be good. I've heard that cheapo parts store rotors aren't always straight, so you could have pulsating and vibration right from the start. As much as I want to go buy $35 autozone blanks when I do my brakes, I'm probably going to go to the dealer. More articles about brakes: Brake system rotors stoptech technical info Hmmm... I think I may have convinced myself to not even bother with the bigger brakes I have planned, even though they would look SO COOL. Although there are not many pad options for a 93 Legacy L, and a lot for a WRX. Some other makers of good performance street pads are Hawk, Porterfield, Ferodo, and Carbotech. I personally am going to try out Axxis Ultimate pads, which are fairly inexpensive and supposedly pretty good. However, if you've never experienced fade with stock pads, I don't see much of a reason not to get another set. The companies I mentioned tend to make more expensive and performance oriented pads, so they may dust more than stock pads and be noisy and chew up rotors and not work really great when they're cold.

From what I've read from people who have done the swap, the rear discs increase the rearward bias slightly. A little more rear bias can be good provided it's not to the point where the rears lock up first. Putting on the turbo fronts will move the bias forward. So, without doing any real math or research, I'd guess the bias would be similar if not better. Legacy777 did a neat brake math spreadsheet, but I don't think it has anything about drums in it. It does compare turbo with non-turbo and wrx fronts and rears and h6 brakes and wagon prop valves. It's on his website. And, for all I know, the prop valve is the same on disk and drum imprezas. In that case, the front bias will be slightly higher. Legacy turbos and wagons have slightly bigger pistons that L's. More piston area means higher braking force. As far as the parking brake cable goes, I believe it's a different length, but I read on nasioc that a spacer and washers can be used to adjust it to a proper length.

No. Unless the clutch is messed up, you're only removing a fairly light pulley. People do take out the whole a/c system to save weight, though. Doesn't the defrost uses the compressor sometimes?

Why are you capitalizing the first letter of each word? You guys do speak english is Australia, right? Get a Chiltons/Haynes manual or whatever there is for your car, and the service guide if you really want. Then read that, and search around here, on nasioc, legacycentral, and rsliberty club. You'll also want to be a little more specific when you're trying to diagnose problems with the help of a bunch of people on the internet. For example, this: Is pretty much incomprehensible. Maybe instead you could write something like this:

Kind of like what VDC does, but not all fancy and computer-controlled. If you have an auto, it's actually not a viscous coupling, but a set of clutch packs. Either way, it's still not the purely mechanical connection of a 4x4, and allows slip between the front and rear (so you can drive it on pavement). So, if one set of wheels is really bogged down, the car might not be able to transfer enough power to pull the car out. Oh, and the reason one front and rear wheel will spin is that the differentials are open. Contrary to what subaru marketing might say, they do not transfer power from the "wheels that slip to the wheels that grip."

you can thread a bolt into that hole to pop it off. I think it's M10x1.25.

Full atmospheric blow-off valves are for ricers. Unless you're running some ridiculous level of boost and it's necessary.

If it's floored, my car will rev to 6500 (redline), regardless of manual/power mode. I think. This endwrench article says it will shift at 6100 in 1st if in manual mode. I guess I'll go find out. According to the Winter 04 Endwrench article I'm reading, 95-98 Legacies for sure will not shift higher than the selected gear. Instead fuel will be cut. 93-? Imprezas are also the same way. The only 4eats that will upshift automatically are in 90-94 Legacies and 92-97 SVXs (and also some earlier 4eats have something similar). Those are also the only cars with a "manual" button. Go out and hit redline with the selector in 1st if you don't believe me. Cars without the manual mode can't be started in 2nd.

yeah, you could get the 17s for the bling bling, and then a set of 16s used for snow tires. My most recent set of 16" wrx wheels was $250. With 100 miles on them.

No. GT has the bigger brakes, STi has the same brembos, WRX has 4-pot/2-pots now (same size front rotor as old WRX, rear is bigger and vented, same as LGT but 2-piston), Impreza 2.5 has the same brakes as it always has (98-06), Legacy 2.5 has the same brakes as an 02-05 WRX. The rear rotors on the Legacy actually got smaller from 04 to 05 on non-GTs. I think. I personally am putting 02 WRX front and 00-04 Legacy rear brakes on my 93 Legacy (I did a lot of research on Subaru brakes before I decided). Here's a picture of the WRX pad and bracket compared to my front rotor (I'm changing a control arm and thought I'd see how it fits. Too bad the damn ball joint won't come out): I think it's so cool that I can take the brakes from an 02 Impreza and they bolt right on to my 93 Legacy.

The GT has bigger brakes. The fronts won't fit under 16" wheels.

I use it all the time. Partially because I wish I really had a manual. When I'm going sort of slow and want to get on it, but don't want the car to drop all the way down to 1st, I'll use it. Same for 3rd. When I'm near the top of 2nd, and don't want it to drop down and rev the last ~500rpm to redline, I'll use 3rd manual mode. And yes that is right, nipper. In 3rd, it will shift 1-2-3, and then to 4th if you were to hit redline (~110mph). In 3rd manual, it starts in 2nd and shifts to 3rd, and stays there. In 2nd, it shifts 1-2, and then to 3rd at redline (~70). In 2nd manual, it starts and stays in 2nd until redline. This is only on 90-94 Legacies and SVXs. Imprezas never had the shift-up logic, nor did 95+ Legacies. In a later legacy, if you put the selector in 1st, it will rev to redline and hit fuel cut. In the old ones with manual mode, they'll upshift even if the selector is in 1st (or 2nd or 3rd).

grassroots motorsports did this little test on plus-sized wheels. The 16- and 17-in Legacy wheels have the same tires, but the 17's are slightly wider and have a lower profile. THis makes them a little less flexible laterally, so it could make the car a bit more responsive. Less flex also means a little less bump absorbtion, but one inch isn't a very significant difference. When going from 14s to 16s, I felt an immediate increase in lateral grip and response. Now I have pretty stiff suspension, so I would probably benefit from going to a 17, and I could definitely use some better tires. Oh, bigger wheels also tend to be heavier. Also the 17s look way cooler.