keltik

lol by old i meant 1997 MY. Now waimaks brumby - that beast only needs to turn over once Havnt seen many new Fuel injectorised cars that start so quickly.

I remember my old Honda which would fire after one revolution. None of my Soobs have managed that, they all seem to need about 4. I dont mind waiting the 2 seconds but it is pretty cool to just hear the engine fire up with no cranking noise.

In my case it affected 2nd gear but not as bad, or at least it wasnt as noticeable - reverse was easily the worst. Im open to other theories however - ive just never seen this caused by a bad transmission - usually the gears dont engage nicely in an old tired box.

Yup my old Legacy had totally shot engine mounts. As the motor shifts slighty on acceleration it pushes on the shift lever. If it were actually slipping out of gear or shifting into 2 and 5 sloppy, id suggest looking at the shifter bushes. But if all gears are engaging fine and your just getting a bit of movement - my theory is engine or trans mounts. Is this a 2WD soob by any chance?

Now how the hell did we get this far into this thread without someone asking what the oil pressure is/was!!?? Its all very well to put it down to a spun bearing or whatver - but what caused that? The guys motor got hot recently (due to low lubrication maybe). Symptoms have been getting worse not just appearing overnight and his oil has smelled burned. The noise gets louder after highway driving (hot oil = low pressure). Theres a lot of evidence here but nobody seems to be using it. Lets not foget the totally avoidable carnage of a nakkered oil pump. If maybe id taken my time to check the oil pressure instead of assuming sticky lifters and dumping MMO in - this wouldnt have happened.

I disagree, sounds more like sloppy mounts to me. A broken return spring is pretty obvious. Sounds to me like the shifter is moving about with the change in torque of the motor between acceleration and decel. Biggest problem this causes is if it gets really bad your car may jump out of gear. Ive also heard somewhere it puts extra wear on the synchros. If you hold your hand on the shifter and floor the thottle - do you feel the shifter move significantly?

Im just curious here nipper, which bit of the gauge is 'reversed'? I was hoping to see some funky backwards dials like one of the Mazdas we get here. 0kph and 0rpm are at the 12 oclock position back to back, then the rpm gauge moves clockwise down to the 6oclock position and the speedo moves anticlockwise. Hard to explain but looks pretty trippy.

Big ups to McBrat for sticking this in its place. Im curious about these cam things y'all are talking about. Delta - you have a pm

I feel the same way, theres a reason we got a vendor forum. I came in here looking for an interesting article and all i got was a crappy ad for cams.... So are we talking about carbonitriding? Essentially hardening the valves? Do you get the valve seats done in that price? (Edited to be less aggressive)

Well i was in Tauranga city a couple weeks ago with a few spare hours on my hands so decided to visit PF Automotive - the Subaru specialists who build most of the areas drag and rally cars. Well that place is a freakin treasure mine of info! Really helpfull guys who didnt mind coming out to have a quick look at my wagon. 1) Found out the whining noise my H6 makes is actually the craptachi alternator (common to need replacing more than the Denso models). 2) Im a really tall bloke and have to drive with my seat on the furthest back setting - after an hour or so driving my right knee gets pretty painfull from sitting in the same spot on the gas pedal. I wanted to find out if theres any way to get my seat back further and there is!! The electric adjusting seats dont go back as far as the manual ones - so thats something i can swap out if i get desperate. 3) The transmission in my car IS a 4AT, its just one of the newer gen ones. The biggest difference in the shift patterns (compared to friends soobys) is actually caused by the H6 models having a totally different mapped TCU compared to the n/a and turbo models (twin turbo gets its own map set too). 4) The H6 motor can do some amazing stuff, they recently built a twin turbo one to 700hp for a customers WRX. They also did a low pressure setup on the cheap side for another guy who got his H6 up to around 350hp. 5) A bit of plastic polish (available from any auto store) is BRILLIANT for getting baked bugs off the windsreen and headlights. 6) By fitting a new tv tuner to the clarion CeNet system the car has i should be able to get new zealand tv and play dvds on the in-dash LCD screen. No hope for getting the GPS working tho. My big concern now is - after cruising for a couple hours i got a bit of a tapping noise at idle. It goes away with some revs so im assuming the oil im running is too thin for the temperatures here. Currently using 5w30 semi synthetic in ambient temps of around 70degrees. Winters coming up soon so im hoping this will sort itself out. Also a quick note for any people out there considering some BF Goodrich tires for their soob - awesome traction in the dry - pretty dam good in the wet too but by god they wear quick! Theyve been resealing the roads here lately. I get loads of stones building up in my front spring perches (Bilstein struts) which then causes me to bottom out on larger bumps, anyone else ever had this problem? Thats all for now, she still runs great but that tapping noise scared the shot outta me, especially as my last engine exploded from a nakkered oil pump.

Yup the block is identical to the single turbo unit. All parts are interchangeable with other EJ motors except for the exhaust as the DOHC heads have a different shaped exhaust ports.

If your running a megaSquirt setup it would actually be pretty easy to keep the sequential turbos. Just run independant boost controllers for each turbo. Then youd need to figure out an RPM activated switch to open/close the exhaust valves to route flow from the small turbo to the big one. The hardest part is sorting out the RPM switch as the factory ECU figures out when to switch based on the TPS and boost pressure inputs. Biggest issue i see is having the 4500rpm valley of death, where the small turbo is unable to produce enough boost while the big turbo winds up - so you lose a LOT of power for a few seconds. The end result if you can pull it off is a unique dune buggy with insane amounts of low down torque, but will rip your nuts off when the big turbo winds up. All this is theory btw based on working on a few GT's and stripping the motor from my old one. I had a play round with mine in an attempt to remove the "valley of death".

The EJ20T motors are a bit more rare as they were only used in the WRX and some Legacys. EJ20TT's were used in most Legacy GT's, B4's and Blitzens from '90 onwards. The twin turbo is almost identical to the single turbo unit. A common modification here is to bolt on a WRX turbo and exhaust system and throw in a new ECU. The intake manifolds are the same, just the intercooler thats different - and you can even use the same intercooler with minor modification. Also as far as im aware - all the JDM turbo models had hydraulic lash adjusters and quad cams.

Same problem here on my '02 legacy. Annoying as hell getting a shower when opening the hatch. Let me know what works for ya

I had the exact same issure almost down to the letter on my old Suzuki. Turned out i'd smacked a rut a bit harder than originally estimated whilst out wheelin' and bent one of the radius arms. Mr Mechanic couldnt get the steering wheel straight so sent me to a panel beater. Has your soob been fighting at all?

I considered taking my LegWag to the local spannerhouse to get some service work done. When i was there to make a booking i asked "so what brand air filters do you guys use?" to which the chief mechanic said "We use whatever they came in with - just blow em out with compressed air and shes all good to go again". I did the service myself.

Needs the caption "Yes its still ticking and leaking oil" Then its the ULTIMATE Soob statement

Weirdest Find: A couple hundred Wendys serviettes in the dashboard of my Honda and up under the auto shifter. Nastiest Find: Used condoms in the back of my Mitsubishi. Worst smelling car: Holden i bought off waimaks which oozed hot gear oil out of the dash on the drive to work. Best Find: A thermos coffee mug, screwdriver set, yamaha brake rotor, measuring tape and photo of the PO's wife in my Calibra.

I still think the Legacys win for sexiest cluster. We get the transmission indicator thingy AND a little car! Talk about having your cake and eating it too (ooh and the fuel gauge flashes on and off when your low on juice).

Thankyou Mr Skip for those wonderfull pics. The massive spacer on the oil filter baffled me - couldnt figure out where or why it had pipes heading back into the block from it. All running well now, anyone else find their H6 has a bit of a whine to it?

Well i finally got round to doing an oil/filter change today. After removing all the covers and discovering a dead nasty bird in my front grille - everything seemed remarkably clean, and this is the first soobie ive ever owned with no oil leaks The oil filter was actually mounted in a really sensible place and at a good angle to allow draining. It also hadnt been welded on by the previous owner which was cool. The old oil came out pretty clean but the air filter was chocked with dead bugs. After shopping for a filter and finding one with a good solid build (Valvoline brand, metal sprung anti drain-back valve), i had to find some oil. The Subaru NZ website stated 5w 30 and i needed 6 liters. Well it turns out 5w 30 is hard as hell to come by here, so i had to buy 2 5liter cans of Castrol Formula R as 1liter cans werent available. $140NZD later im all set for another ten thousand k's. Only items of mechanical concern i found while under the beast was a leaking radius arm bush. I had no idea so much oil could come out of them. Also i dont seem to have a E4AT....the sticker on the trans says B4YVE. Overall im very impressed with the design of the newer Legacys - they seem to be a pleasure to work on as well as a blast to drive.

Woohoo another NZ'er joins the board. You appear to have the world famous Subaru 'TOD' or tick of death. Theres a million and one cures for this from adding ATF to the oil or just doing a change and flush - loads of info on this site. All i can say is if the ticking gets dramatically worse, have your oil pressure checked - dont just assume its several sticky lifters or you may end up like me...

I think this discussion is very intriguing. Ill agree that the major part of engine braking is due to the mechanical advantage in lower gears giving the engines rotating parts more of a drag on the car. I can also say that whether the throttle is open or closed makes little difference. From what ive learned on my daily commute (long straight downhill), my Holden and all of my Subarus will shut off the injectors (or make some sort of adjustment) after a couple seconds of 'engine braking'. If the idle switch is activated and the engine rpm is above 1800 - there will be a change in exhaust note and an increase in braking until the rpm drops below 1800. When descending long grades such as the Kaimai mountain pass - ill knock the a/c on. It makes one helluva difference. Even switching the main beam lights on slows me down quicker. IMHO its the engines accessories and cams that give the greatest braking effect, rather than compression or vacuum effects.

Ok if i get one reply ill be happy....even if its waimaks. No thread deserves to be this empty lol

Standard speed limiter on JDM Subarus is 208kph. Cant really explain the sound in yours as both of my Legacys have hit this limiter, and i also cruise for miles above 150kph with no ill effects. Its roughly about 4000rpm in the Legacys ive driven. To summarise i dont think the higher cruising speed caused the problem, im inclined to think its the cold weather. My guess is the higher airflow through the intake for an extended period dislodged a joint somewhere.