Fairtax4me

Yes, NGK wires are recommended for these engines.

Other way around. With larger than stock size tires your speedometer will read SLOWER. But it'll probably only be off by 2-3 mph. The speedometers in these cars tend to read about 3-4 mph too fast with the stock size tire. With a larger tire it will generally read only about 2-3 mph slow.

Like bratman said, the whole bumper has to be swapped, along with the grille. But, The bumper cover by itself is more of a pain to swap than to do the whole bumper. The whole thing pretty much has to come off in order to swap the covers. It's easier to just unbolt the whole thing, and bolt the "new" bumper on. There are some screws or clips on either side that attach the bumper to the fenders, a couple of screws or clips on the bottom, then the main beam unbolts from the frame by removing the two large bolts on either side under the hood. You may have to remove the battery to get to the bolts on the drivers side, I don't remember exactly. It really doesn't take long to just swap the whole thing though. Here's a pic of my 96 L with the OB bumper swap done.

Are you sure its coming from between the head and block? Seepage from the upper radiator hose would run down the front of the block into the same area on the passenger side. If its at the back it could be from the crossover pipe on top of the block, or it could be from one of the small hoses that go to the TB and IAC.

The main fusible link is what's blowing out? That could be caused by a short in the white wire between the fuse box and the alternator plug. Or it could be a wire between the main fuse box under the hood and the small fuse panel in the dash.

Popping out of gear is an internal issue. The mainshaft ball bearing fails and allows the input shaft to move fore/aft which makes it pop out of gear. If the gear oil in the trans is clean, this probably won't ever be an issue. When the mainshaft bearing goes bad it fills the trans oil with fine silvery flakes. The shifting issue you have sounds more like its due to old fluid, but could certainly be from a leaking slave cylinder. If you pull the rubber boot off of the cylinder and fluid comes out, the cylinder seals are bad.

There is no gain to be had with a different MAF on this engine. The stock MAF can handle more air than this engine can ever pull in its stock configuration. If you need some extra oomph, pop a set of Delta Torque cams in it. This is to minimize complaints. The only cars that greatly need that accuracy are turbo. An N/A car can adjust more than enough to account for a minor longterm change in signal output.

This is a fairly common problem. The best approach is an aftermarket stereo. Crutchfield sells dash kits to mount aftermarket single and double din head units. http://www.crutchfield.com/g_112200/Vehicle-specific-Mounting-Kits.html?tp=3121 Spend $119 on a stereo, get the dash kit, wire harness, and install sheet for free.

When pulling these engines the engine and trans are often stuck together by the dowel pins in the bell-housing. They rust and can literally weld themselves to the aluminum bellhousing. It may take some prying to get the engine and trans apart. Start with a flathead screwdriver, tap that into the seam between the engine and trans and work your way up fom there to a large pry bar. Have a new clutch slave cylinder on hand. Many times when the slave cylinder is removed from the trans the seals inside it are damaged, and it starts to leak and cause clutch disengagement issues.

MAF sensor. This is becoming a common occurance in the older cars. Pop a used MAF in it and you should be good to go. If you're adventurous, you can pop the top cover off the MAF and resolder the connections where the pins for the plug meet the pins on the PCB. The problem these have is one of the solder joints will crack, and the MAF signal to the ECU will drop out intermittently. When the ECU loses the MAF signal it cuts fuel, which kills the engine. A second or so later the loose connection will re-touch, the signal comes back and the ECU resumes fuel. When the car is still rolling it will re-fire and keep right on going. I've attempted to fix three of these now. Two of them worked. They're back in use in my car and my girlfriends car. The third one was tested and the resolder didn't fix it, so it doesn't work sometimes. But if you have 20 minutes and can solder, it's worth a shot.

Maybe they'll buy GM? I've heard more and more complaints of this problem lately. The thing is, I've read of plenty of older soobs doing the exact same when running synthetic oil. The synthetic is thinner, and while that's great for starting ease and fuel economy, it means the oil is more likely to vaporize during engine operation, especially at high engine speeds (3,000rpm) during constant highway cruising. Half a quart to one quart in 3,000 miles can be considered normal, but it seems to me that subaru is far behind the times for oil change intervals. Honda has had 7500 mile change intervals all the way back to 1990, possibly longer than that. Most European makes have had 7,500-10,000 mile change intervals when using synthetic oil, for at least 15 years now. Pretty much every auto maker I can think of actually, has a change integral of at least 5,000 miles. If any car were to burn a quart of oil over the course of a change interval I would certainly consider that normal. 2 quarts if its on the first 10-15k miles. But any more than that and there is a definite problem. I'll also make a point here towards people talking of the oil light coming on. Subaru doesn't have oil level sensors in any of their cars that I'm aware of. So when the oil light comes on its because the engine has lost oil pressure. The oil is so low at that point that there isn't enough left in the oil pan for the oil pump to suck up into the pick-up tube, and the pump is sucking air instead. At this point the engine has lost far more than one quart of oil!!! Being ONE quart low will never cause the oil pressure lamp to turn on. Most engines have a reserve oil pan capacity of about 3 quarts of oil. That means that if the engine holds 4.5 quarts of oil, when the engine is running there will be 1.5 quarts of oil in circulation through the engine and three quarts of oil still in the oil pan. That means you need to lose between 2.5 and 3 quarts of oil for the oil pan to be sucked completely dry during engine operation, and cause the oil pressure lamp to turn on. If one quart is burned away, that still leaves 2 quarts in the oil pan, which is more than enough to allow the oil pump to continue pumping oil. When the oil pressure light is coming on, the engine has lost at least 2.5 quarts of oil (more than half the capacity for most Subarus).

As an immediate/temorary loss you'll likely not notice anything wrong. No lights on the dash, and I'll bet your headlamps were not substantially dimmer either. If its a continued problem, such as over the course of several days or weeks, you'll likely first notice it when starting, because even a partially charging alternator can still keep up with the current demand for the headlamps. But over time the charge level of the battery will decrease, and slow starting will be the first major sign. When the battery voltage finally drops below about 11v, that's when the warning lights will start to come on, but you will be hard pressed to notice a major difference in the headlamp output. You may have adjusted them too far. The beam pattern for the low beam lamps is designed to illuminate the roadway directly ahead of you, about 75-100 feet out. Beyond that the light is not focused well enough. You lights may now be too high, which decreases your immediate visibility, but also points the lights into other drivers eyes. Another issue that I've seen with newer vehicles is the way the bulbs sit in the headlamp housing. In order to get the maximum output the bulb has to be aligned perfectly with the reflector. Many low beam bulbs now have a notch or alignment pin that has to be lined up with a similar recess or pin in the housing, or the bulbs will not sit perfectly in the housing. This moves the center of the lamp out of proper alignment with the reflector and will cause the light output from the housing to be distorted. This affects the output of the beam, and can cause it to be either too high, too low, or it can spread the beam too wide, or direct it into too narrow of a pattern. Think of an old mag-light where you can adjust the beam pattern of the flashlight by turning the end, this moves the bulb into a different position relative to the reflector, and changes the light output to either a very wide pattern, or you can adjust it to be very focused in one spot. This changes how much you can see with the light, and you can either see a wide area up close, or focus the pattern to see further away. The same principle applies to the headlamps in your car, if the bulbs are not inserted properly the light will not be focused the way it was intended to be.

If you worked on the rear sensor there is a long extension harness that runs from the top right corner of the bellhousing, across the top of the transmission, then down and along the side of the trans back to where the sensor plugs in. Check the plugs at both ends of that harness. Make sure none of the pins are bent, or that any of the wires have backed out of the plug. Ive seen this many times lately on customers vehicles after they've replaced a sensor or other electrical part. You'll also want to check all of the fuses. The heating elements normally get power from the fuse panel.

There's nothing wrong with using a longer ground wire for lighting. Use a slightly larger wire and you can ground them in the trunk if you have to. This isn't a 500w amplifier, its two fog lights that might draw 10-12 amps at the most. 2 feet of 14awg wire isn't going to have enough internal resistance to even think twice about here. Braided ground strapping will NOT be a benefit in this case. Braided straps are primarily useful for grounding body panels in order to direct RFI and EMI away from sensor signal wiring. They're flexible enough to be used to ground the hood or trunk to the main body, or to ground the body/cab to the frame of a truck without breaking like a typical stranded wire would. Braided straps will corrode over time, and will become a source of high impedance in the circuit.

I seem to remember reading the only difference in the 1.8 and 2.2 trans was the 5th gear ratio. Final drive should be 3.90 on both, almost all of those had the same 1-4 ratios. I'd run it. Time for some exploratory surgery! See just how many gears are eaten to bits in there!

In waste spark system yes, the spark plugs on one side of the engine will fire from the ground strap to the center electrode. This is a function of the design of the ignition system, not the design of the plug. But when speaking in a general sense, for spark plug applications, the cathode will be the center. I may have to give this trick a try. I've had odd hesitation and stumbling in both of my cars for quite some time. I was considering a set of iridium or double platinum plugs just to see what would happen but I'm hesitant to spend the money on them. This seems like an easy mod, and it can be done to the plugs that are currently in use to see if it makes a difference. And if it makes it worse, new plugs are only about $10.

My biggest question is, are the low beams actually turning on? If only the Daytime Running Lights are on the lights will appear very dim at night. Identify which bulbs are the low beam bulbs, turn the switch on and make sure those bulbs light up. Have you checked all of the fuses? That's step 1 before even replacing any bulbs. If you had a charging system problem, there would be other issues. Dim headlamps is the last sign of low battery voltage. You'll get warning lights for the ABS, Airbag, TCS/VDC, and you'll probably get a CEL before you notice the headlamps dimming due to low voltage.

The stall rate would be the only difference. FWD torque converter had a slightly lower stall rate than the AWD converter. Only a few hundred RPM though so probably not very noticeable. Size-wise they're the same and bolt up the same.

There are three large plugs on the bellhousing on the passenger side. All of the sensor wiring for the engine passes through those plugs. Ignition, fuel, all of the sensors. If one of those is loose it can cause all sorts of problems. Unplug them, make sure all of the pins are straight and clean, then plug them all back in and make sure they "click" all the way together.

Just run longer wires to the main ground points on the inner frame rails under the hood.

That's basically what I was thinking but if it happened once its likely to happen again. I doubt you'll have much luck through the reverse switch hole. You'll just see a solid rail with nothing to push against. You would need to pull the reverse check mechanism to get a good purchase on the shift rail. The little screws that hold that in like to shear off. On the older transmissions there was a bolt that held the selector arm to the shift rod. If that came loose it might cause this kind of problem, but the only way to get to the bolt was through the top access plate. On the newer transmissions they ditched the top access plate, and IIRC they redesigned the selector shaft and arm to be a one piece deal and did away with that bolt. I'm pretty sure that to remove the rear case you have to remove the reverse check mechanism to allow the shift selector arm to swing out away from the forks on the ends of the rails. I'd try removing the reverse check first if possible. Soak the bolts wih PB for a few days before trying to remove them.

The heater vent on the floor will not overheat the amp under the seat. If that's happening, you're asking way too much of that amp. Just use the defrost/floor mode.

Double post...

Yep, gotta be careful with those blend doors. You made sure the cable was attached at both ends first?

Filler neck. There's an exhaust pipe that runs under the tank. When the car has been running a while the fuel in the tank warms up befause of heat from the exhaust system. The heat causes the fuel to evaporate, and the fumes to somewhere. If the tank is sealed vapors would normally be directed into the evap canister. If there is ANY small leak in the hoses or anywhere else, fuel vapor will be pushed out of there rather than going through the canister. The filler neck is the prime place for fuel vapors to escape. Yank the plastic cover off the filler tube and you'll likely find that it looks like Swiss cheese.