djellum

you can get tires that don't rub in either size, its just a little less sidewall. I run 14's with 24.9 inch bridgestones and a couple of winter tires that came on them, and I don't rub. there are very few actual offroad tires that run 25 inch or under and/or 14 inch rims, so your best bet if you want really good tires is 15 inch rim with some 27 inch tires and a 2 inch lift. depending on actual tire diameter you may have to trim but I would doubt it would be much at all. if you want cheap and easy, no lift, 14 or 15 inch pugs, and normal road tires. subs are light and 4wd so it should do well in most light applications even with less tire than other rigs. go to the tire manufacturers website and look up the tire, somewhere it will give an actual diameter. dont trust the numbers on the side of the tire, they are just approximate. also dont forget chains and cables. if you want to run chains or cables you have to account for that space. its not a terrible idea to undersize the tires for commuting and just put on traction devices when you play in the sand.

first thing is to check your vacuum advance line and make sure its hooked to the proper port. if you just swapped the carb its likely that you have it hooked to manifold vacuum which would give you 30-40 deg of initial timing depending on where the static is at. that could be why you dont notice it once you get to speed since that is when the motor normally wants it to be that high. you should also check your timing components. check that the timing belts are tight and not able to flop around. Pull the distributor cap and make sure the rotor is seated and in good shape, and that it is movable by hand and springs back into place. also check your vacuum advance to make sure it will hold a vacuum (just suck on the tube and block it with your tongue, if it holds your good). all those except maybe the belts are 1 min checks with just a screwdriver, and worth a look. then of course put a timing light on it.

use sea foam. its about the only additive I use anymore. I have used many others with mixed results, but seafoam works well and has been around for years. buy 2 bottles of it. put half a bottle in a full tank of fuel, the other half in the oil. run the car for an hour or so, change the oil. drive till you have to refuel. next bottle pour half in the tank again and change the fuel filters. pour the other half down the throat of the carb slowly while its running at a fairly high idle, pour faster towords the end so the car dies. let it sit for 20 minutes and start it up. it will blow a rainbow of smoke out of the tail as it burns off all the gunk on your valves. once it done drive it some more, checking fuel filters and the oil often, add more additive as needed to clean out the systems. Seafoam will make the car run a little rough while its in the tank, and its ussually the second fill up after I use it that you see the most gains. dont use it every tank, just a tank or 2 now so you know its at least a little clean. once you think the systems are clean, id take the carb off and clean it in and out, since that is where all the crud will wash up. with that said using cleaning additive like this can cause problems as old gunk and blockages break loose and move around. you should be prepaired to remove and clean any part of these systems if the additives dont work or cause more issues. also you may have 2 fuel filters, one by the fuel pump and one in the engine bay on the firewall. i dont know for sure so you will have to check but make sure if you have 2 they are both in good shape.

ive heard of people using thunderbird injectors as well. there are a couple styles and as long as you get the right style the will "fit", though application does change them a bit here and there. there was a place in Washington (Tacoma I think) that will rebuild your injectors and rerate them to whatever you want them to be. used to cost about $30 per injector plus shipping, but that was years ago. might be worth some google time.

generally your looking at 25" tires max for no lift, if you want no rub and no trimming, then id go for 26ish max with the 2 inch lift. ive heard that 27's clear with the 2 inch, but if you want no rub and no cut then error on the side of a bit smaller. make sure to look up the tire on the manufacturers website and check the actual diameter. the numbers on the side are just approximates, the website will give you an exact diameter. i run 24.9" bridgestones on my 14" pugs with no lift. tbh I wish it was a little taller so I will eventually look into a 2" lift, but even just the rims and 25's does a good job of giving it more clearance. some people even think its lifted just from those, and it doesnt sacrifice ride at all. I was getting 28 mpg with a crappy gutted hitachi, get 26-27 with my weber but I think there are other problems keeping it low.

id weber if emmisions or inspections aren't rigid in your state. if they are, then get it fixed. ask your mechanic what is actually wrong with the carb. if he says the throttle shafts are leaking or some other non rebuildable problem then replace, but if its just cause he cant get it to tune right then ask more questions here or take it to someone who knows these cars. its not a super complicated system, but it is non standard and not something a mechanic may see a lot of. the weber is mainly because its much simpler and easier to work on. you may notice a difference on the butt dyne, but most of the time thats from having a gutted or problematic stocker to start with. I like the car better without all that hosetry and gizmos just sitting there getting ready to fail on me.

its not specifically relevant to wheel cleaning, but the problem is that the aluminum oxide on the surface is harder than the steel, so it wears away at the brush, but the aluminum underneath is softer than the steel, so its worn away from the steel. so while your wirebrushing both items are getting worn away and mixed together (though far less steel is used up and mixed in). the stainless is harder so the aluminum oxide wont erode the brush. were not talking 50/50, or even 90/10, but the oxides will cause some of the steel brush to wear into the softer aluminum. I dont know if its relevant to wheel cleaning, but if you have to weld aluminum then you can have contamination problems if you don't use a stainless brush.

also try here on the looking for parts section. you will have to pay shipping, but its easier than driving all over looking for unpicked cars. you will have to thicken your skin on the Honda thing. you dont even want to know how many times I've heard "sweet Prelude, does it have a body kit or something?".

if you turn a tight corner with the 4wd engaged you will immediately notice the problem. the front and rear axles are built to allow the tires on each side to rotate at different speeds for corners and because no 2 tires are identical. they are not built to allow it front to back (in general on 4wd's like most of us have) so you can only use it on surfaces where your tires can slip a bit (you wont notice it when they do, but the car will). even hard packed dirt isnt the same as concrete or asphalt. AWD is designed for use when all the tires have good traction, so you want to search that out and find out what parts you need. most of the 4wd cars had 3.90 gears so you likely have that now. no idea what the AWD trans you find will have. its more common to want to swap to the 4.11 gears from other models to lower the gear ratio. I would think if you want an AWD track car, it would be best to start with an AWD legacy/RS/impreza. but if your dead set on using the loyal, then find a car with the center diff like mentioned earlier or find an early 90's rolled over subaru with an EJ motor and swap the stuff out. its not quite that easy, but it has been done before

if you use a wire brush use a stainless one. steel can embed itself in the aluminum. not a huge deal overall, but if you can theres no reason to contaminate the aluminum with rustable stuff.

they make media for stripping alluminum that you can use in the blaster, just check into it.

not much for lowering. the 6 lug is a good idea, or look up SJR's website, they sell adaptors. you can also drill a different pattern than the 6 lug as well. the AWD swap would probably be cheapest by just buying an AWD car with a blown motor. then just swap the stuff over. you can also get 15 inch pugs that run your lug pattern. dont know what your tastes are, but the 15's look pretty good.

ive heard different methods for motor breaking, drive it softly, drive it like you are going to drive it, etc. in the long run I dont think it matters as much with the RPMs as it does with the level of lubrication all the parts get off the start. do they use the right amount of assembly lube, prime the oil pump, and/or lubricate the top end before starting it. i fthey start it dry and rev it to 6k off the bat with no load on it, I would cringe a bit, but if it lasted 10k and you believe the guy, its probably fine.

I would check the hub and CV assembly. in particular the hub splines, cone washer, and cv boots. the cone washers are just underneath the castle nut that holds the CV on. just pull it out and see if there is a pronounced lip on the edge of it. if so replace and see if that changes things. they are a dealer only part called the "center piece axle", which comes with a new spring washer as well, but are fairly cheap at around $10 per side. it doesnt take any work to replace them really, just pull the castle nut off and pull them out to check the condition. while the center piece axle assembly is off check the splines on the hub for wear. CV's can often cause a shimmy even though they seem tight, but I would check everything else out first, delving into the aftermarket CV waters will drive you nuts so wait until you have to. of course check the boots and make sure they arent slinging grease everywhere. if you have factory axles rebuild them instead of buying aftermarket ones.

Ive heard of a few people who had issues in deep snow, but other than that a lot of people run without.

lockup is exactly what you dont want. the design dollars go into making them less prone to locking up, while still allowing you to slow down. im sure you can feel what your brakes are doing, but brake lockup is worse than weak breaks most of the time. bleeding the MC is good if you run out of fluid. if you get air in the MC its good (and sometimes necessary) to bleed it seperate since you will just push that air into the lines. there shouldn't be much need normally, if you unhook the breaklines and put something on them to stop the fluid from leaking (piece of plastic and a rubber band works well). you should only really have to push out the air in the calipers if you remove them. gravity bleeding works good for calipers (at least you dont waste as much fluid). course it never seems to work out that clean

your correct, I was reading it wrong (I use the weber specific haynes manual)

best bet imo is to put a weber on it if you can, but if not you will have to make sure that the oxygen sensor is right for the application. if it was running fine before then its most likely the sensor, or perhaps the cat itself is not functioning within spec and causing the car to trying to make up for it. I dont know exactly what readings the carb uses and how it adjusts for them. id get that old sensor out, even cut it out if you need to, and try that. also check if theres a rear oxygen sensor after the cat. if so it may be reading funky due to the non standard cat (I dont know if these old subs had that sophisticated of system though) from everything I have heard the feedback carbs are a nightmare to strip down, so I would recommend fixing the problem, or just replacding if you dont need to get inspected.

carbs can cut out depending on the force of the car (ive seen holley's that used to die if you hammered the breaks, don't know if they still do). it shouldnt be pronounced though, mine looses some rpms when I hard turn left on a strange camber, but it just goes to 500 or so and doesnt die. it also doesnt do it above 20mph or so. I would guess that even this could be tuned out, but im not worried about it. Its not safe to have cars die in turns though, id tune it to take care of that. I dont know for sure if its float related, but checking the adjustment isnt bad.

jacked or on the ground doesnt matter, level would be best in case you run the master cylinder low. if you have a vacuum tester it should have come with a bottle with an input and output nipple. any pump would technically work, though make sure it doesn't flow to much, and you could make the bottle as well. you hook up the hose to the bleeder and open it, pull a vacuum to the canister, and it sucks the fluid through. its pretty much identical to the foot pumping method but you can do it yourself from under the car (works really well if your GF will watch the master cylindar and fill it for you) also you could gravity bleed, which is just opening the bleeder and putting a bucket under it. go make a sammich and keep the MC topped off. a lot of people just open them all up with this method and keep and eye on the fluid level. personally I always bleed them all even If I only open the system in one place, and I would do them in the proper order.

check your ASV system before you take the exhaust down. it can leak as well and you dont have to repair broken studs if its in that system. the pipe runs from the same connection as the exhaust header and goes up to the pump, and then to plastic baffles, and then to the air cleaner. not saying it is that, just that there are other systems to check before deciding to drop the exhaust.

Jezek linked a post earlier.

the air box was a common place for a lot of systems to coexist, but they are actually fully separate systems and the airbox kept them from connecting to each other. the ASV is simply an air pump that puts extra air into the exhaust. look up air injection on wiki or something, that is what it is. it took filtered air from the airbox and injected it into your exhaust manifold so that your catalytic would be fed both unburnt fuel and raw air so that it could do its thing. my suspicion since in the older times they only put them on california emissions cars is that it was simply diluting the reading at the tailpipe. the reason for deleting it is that if any part of it leaks, which its prone to do, then it becomes an exhaust leak. It was causing afterfires when I shifted due to leaky baffles. it wont hurt or help power, its neutral and only related to emissions. for most of us the reason we want these cars is simplicity and reliability, so for that sake we simply remove unneeded complication. the PCV system allows for 2 things, the release of pressure in the crankcase, and the removal of gasses that make it by your piston rings. those gasses can be corrosive and harmful to your engine long term (they are a big reason for your oil breaking down). having the heads open to the air will solve the pressure issue, but not the removal of gasses, thats why you have a PCV valve. the PCV will open to the manifold and the engine vacuum will pull out the gasses to burn them. The asv's mount to the exhaust manifold, right at the head, and then at the air box, but not to the PCV. the PCV will intake air at the top of the passenger side head and will need a breather cap. the air will travel through the motor and exit out the top of the drivers side head. that hose will go to the PCV valve on the back of the manifold under the carb. you will want an inline T fitting between the drivers head and the PCV valve. some people leave it open, and others hook it to the air cleaner. its just to reduce some of the suction so you dont pull raw oil into the manifold.

ok, we all thought you were talking about hooking your crank case vent ports to the ASV system. sure just use a vent cap or foam filter for the ASV input, that would activate the system again and keep contaminants out. sorry, ready too much into that one. I would personally leave it completely unhooked. it does nothing for helping it run, and I doubt its effectiveness even on an emisions side. Im not an expert on it, but I think there just diluting the contaminants with air to lower the readings.

theres 2 things to consider, pressure and gasses. breathers will do fine to relieve pressure, but the gasses in the crankcase need to be removed as well, which wont happen with the dual caps. if you look at lots of race cars they run pumps that take care of the crankcase gasses without feeding them to the motor. I thought about the same thing and just hooking up the ASV system to pull the gasses out. Id imagine that it would work, but the problem would then be lots of dirty (and possibly flammable) gasses going through your cat and muffler. also with the amount of oil that can get sucked out of the head on right hand turns you would likely end up with oil in your exhaust making a smelly mess. theres also the fact that the ASV's arent tuned for that, and wont provide proper suction, though I dont know if it will be less or too much.