Fairtax4me

You or car has a 4.11 final drive ratio, you need a 4.11 final drive transmission to match your rear differential. If the 97 originally had a 2.5 engine the trans will match. If the 97 originally had a 2.2 engine, the final drive will not match. You can use the trans but will need to swap the rear differential as well. Verify the original engine type by the VIN.

Can't see the vid on mobile but fast whine when cranking is either starter not engaging flywheel or cranking but no compression > Broken timing chain. Smoke/vapor from the tail pipe would lend to a broken chain.

Felpro head gaskets for that engine are exact same as what you would get from the dealer. Even have te Fuji heavy industries logo on them. A thinner head gasket won't make a noticae difference in power. You want more power switch to a roller cam and rocker setup, and put in a set of delta torque cams.

I'd guess a faulty temp sensor. Did you keep the old one?

Only makes noise up to 30? What does it do above 30? You had the axle out did you spin the wheel bearing to check it for noise/rough motion? How old are the tires? Did you check those for broken belts/bulging? Normally an axle that's causing a problem in the front will cause the steering wheel to wobble. A tire would do the same. Same for brakes. Vibration that shakes the whole car would be drivetrain, rear brakes, rear axle, rear wheels. Rear axles almost never go bad. More likely for a u-joint to fail.

Same difference.

Hill holder is probably just adjusted too tight if it's dragging the brakes. The hill holder cable is attached below the clutch cable on the release lever. Often if the clutch cable is adjusted the hill cable is forgotten, and the hill holder ends up being too tight after adjusting the clutch. Back off the adjuster nuts on both cables so there is 1/4" slack in both. Tighten the clutch cable until you have 1/8-1/4" of free play at the end of the release lever. Operate the pedal a few times and check that the engagement point of the clutch is satisfactory. Tighten the lock nut on the clutch cable adjuster. Turn the hill holder adjusting nut until it just starts to pull against the spring on the hill holder lever. (On frame rail below the master cylinder) Test operation of the hill holder to ensure it doesn't drag. It should fully release when the clutch pedal is just before the point of clutch engagement. If the brake is still dragging when the clutch is engaged (car starts moving) the cable is too tight. The hill holder should not prevent the car from rolling forward, only from rolling backward on a hill. If the hill holder prevents the car rolling forward it is adjusted too tight. Tighten the lock nut on the hill cable after adjusting.

I've done the other way. Put a two wire alt in a car that had a three wire. IIRC two of the wires just go to the same place in the fuse box. The other one is from the charge light in the cluster. I don't remember wire colors off hand. Shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Find the charging system wire diagram for the year/model the 3 wire alt came from.

L wagon had 3.90 FDR. Outback and GT models had 4.10 FDR. That's really the only difference. You can use either trans as long as you use the matching ratio rear diff as well.

There are only two coils in the coil pack. Plugs on each coil are fired at the same time. Polarity is opposite on the plugs so the spark on one side actually comes from the ground electrode to the center electrode. Causes funny wear patterns on the plugs and necessitates the use of double platinum plugs for the best wear resistance. Called a waste spark ignition. Firing order is 1-3-2-4 Cylinder order: 3-4 1-2 Front Opposed pistons push away from each other then towards each other. YouTube/Google animations? 11.25° would be right if you advanced by 3 teeth. Cams do run half speed of the crank. Cam sprockets have 48 teeth, timing change would be 7.5° per tooth. 6 teeth = 45°. Divide by two... If it runs fine that's great. Just seems like that would make it less efficient to be that far off. No the crank sprocket isn't magnetized but there is a magnetic field induced in the sprocket by the sensor. I don't think those little teeth make much of a change in the magnetic field of the sensor without having the mass of the rest of the sprocket behind them. The broken tooth will not carry with it as much of the field from the sprocket. Might be wrong. Would be interesting to see the wave on a scope to find out for sure.

I would have just drilled the bolt out of the original. Doesn't have to be exact as long as you can drill all the way through the threaded section and get all the chunks of the old bolt out. Drill from the thread side just to the split in the knuckle and once the threads are drilled through the rest can usually be knocked out with a punch. Then drill the hole wider if necessary to fit a 3/8 bolt through. Use grade 8 for highest strength and best rust resistance.

What kind of struts? Are your springs old? Sagging? Drive anywhere that makes the rear of the car bottom out over a driveway entrance/ pothole/ rough road/ etc? If the strut is bottoming out or overextending it can break the mount. Cheap mounts are usually not great quality, but I would expect them to last longer than a month. Another thought, often the rear mounts are side specific. What brand and part numbers did you order? They also have to be installed in correct orientation, might have an arrow on the mount that indicates which direction the mount should face when installed.

Air injection solenoid is that dohickie with the two hoses bolted to the front of the #1 intake runner. Might be unplugged. Power for that comes from the main relay. Check at the connector for 12v. Ground goes straight to the ECU. ECU controls opening/closing of the valve during certain RPM ranges and throttle. It should be closed at idle. If it's stuck partly open it creates a vacuum leak. Check for any other loose or split vacuum hoses and breather/PCV hoses. What kind of knock sensor did you install? The Cheapo eBay sensors sometimes cause problems.

You'd be better off welding the broken tooth back on (Theoretically at least). Replace the crank gear. A break in a magnet creates a different magnetic field. Same thing applies to the broken tooth on the crank gear. The magnetic field of that tooth is weaker now and the ECU is reading a gap in the AC wave coming from the crank sensor. That gap is messing with the ECUs calculation of the crankshaft angle and speed of rotation, and throwing off the timing of the ignition command, or skipping a spark command. The coil fires in pairs. So two plugs get spark at the same time. 1-2, and 3-4. So on a normally commanded ignition cycle you'll see each plug fire twice as often as it should. Igniter on the 06 is built into the ECU. Not on the firewall. Pre2000 cars had a separate igniter on the firewall. You advanced the valve timing? How far? 6 teeth is 45° advanced. Works out to about a 22.5° change in valve timing compared to crank/piston position. That would mess with the spark timing enough at idle to create a misfire.

These can explode if left to wobble for long enough. Several threads here about shredded transmission tail housings and damaged shift linkages/broken shift cables from u-joints breaking. The ujoints on these have a very narrow operating angle compared to most RWD vehicles, Only about 1-2 degrees, So they can seize and still allow the driveshaft to rotate. Typical symptoms of a bad ujoint still apply. Rumble/vibration that starts around 35-40mph and gets much worse around 70-80mph. Could have a rumble/wobble sensation at low speed during hard acceleration.

Tapping sound? Sounds like a plug wire or the coil is arcing. Wait until it's dark out and spray some water on coil and plug wires and look for arcing.

Outback wheels are 1/2" wider. Suspension is the same width. Just get new shocks/struts/springs and aftermarket wheels. Lower offset and/or slightly wider than stock.

A deep rumble/wobble sensation from the center/rear of the car is usually a bad u-joint on the driveshaft. They don't normally have play, you have to unbolt it from the rear diff and check to see if the u-joints are seized.

Only one way to find out. Trans fluid can look very dark when it's drained. If it really was as black as old motor oil there's a good chance it is burnt or has excessive clutch material in the fluid. The trans may already have been damaged before you drained the fluid. Refill the trans and drive it. If it drives fine drain it and refill again to get more of that old dirty fluid out.

Arrows for valve clearance. -> TDC

IIRC there's a fuse for the fans and a relay in the dash fuse panel. Might check in there.

Sounds like a shredded clutch pack or blown seal internally. Something causing drag on multiple clutches inside the trans. Time for a new trans.

Testing using the wrong marks. Arrows mark TDC. Arrows need to be at 12, 3, 6, and 9 when doing leak down test or the valves on the cyl you're testing will be open. Timing hash marks are 45° off on cams and 90° off on the crank. Using timing marks for a leak down test, the Pistons will be at mid stroke and exhaust valves will be starting to open.

Inspect the knock sensor. Replace it if it's cracked. How old are the spark plugs? Copper plugs usually wear out in about 30k miles.

Can you smell fuel at the tail pipe after cranking? Pump might be running but if injectors aren't pulsing you get no fuel. Can check injector pulse with an LED test light. Pull timing covers and check timing marks. You can have signals from the cam/crank sensors but if they're not in time you'll have incorrect spark and fuel timing.