WoodsWagon

Split flange: The two halfs bolt together, it grabs onto the bulge left on the end of the pipe where the old flange rusted off, the spring bolts go through the ears, and you're good to go. That's for future referance.

This is the second "turbo my EJ22" thread in as many days. Search a bit. Then go over to the "N/A engines with bolt on forced induction" thread on NASIOC.com Yes, it can be done. No, you don't need a new computer. Get the oil supply and return plug from an EJ22t, it will make it easier. It bolts into the back of the passenger side head.

The auto transmissions that came with these cars really sucked. The gas milage will go down, the acceleration will go down, and it really makes the car a dog to drive. If you were to swap in a 4eat, then it wouldn't be as bad, but you don't have the transmission tunnel space or the ECU signals to do that. Don't swap in a 3spd, there's a very good reason everyone swaps them out. Teach the kid how to drive a manual transmission, it's a valuable life skill. Hell, I learned well enough that when I went to get my liscense, I used a manual transmission car. In the State of NH, if you stall the car on your driving test, it's an instant failure. If you toast the clutch, swap in a 5spd d/r out of an ea82 if you have the hankering to do a swap.

You could have spent $20 or less depending on style on a split flange kit from any auto parts store and fixed it in your driveway. They make 2 piece flanges that bolt together as a collar over the rusted remains of the 2 tabs that the spring bolts used to bolt to. It serves the exact same function, and works well. If they welded a sleeve in where the springloaded ball coupler used to be, expect cracks to start showing up in the y pipe and the brace between the exhaust and the transmission to shear off. Instead of the exhaust being able to flex right at the end of the powertrain package, it now has a lever that goes all the way to the back of the car solidy attached to it. When the engine moves around under normal driving conditions, something has to give.

The freeze frame data won't tell you much, as the computer is looking at average readings of the rear o2 compared to the front o2 over time. When it sets the code, it's just finished completing the catalyst monitor, which is a pass-fail set of tests. That's why it takes a long time to set the code. What freeze frame data is useful for is if you have a intermittant failure, and one sensor drops out at random points. You set it to trigger at DTC set, and see which sensors readings are way out of spec. That's why it's worthless for a PO420, it's not an electrical componant that's failed. It's just comparing 02 sensor readings over time. Lazy 02 sensors can skew the readings, so the computers comparison will be off and it may set a P0420 when the catalyst is still good. That's why you replace the 02 sensors first, even though it has not thrown a code for the 02 sensor having failed. You can put in an anti-fouler, which mechanically skews the rear 02 sensor readings in the direction you want so that the computer will think the catalyst is working. Whether the catalyst is working well or not, a lazy o2 sensor spaced back out of the exhaust will make the computer think everything is OK. So, either replace both 02 sensors, or put an anti-fouler on the rear one. Don't bother playing with the code reader, it won't tell you more than you already know.

There a 2 dipsticks on the transmission, the one on the passenger side, that's bright yellow and has a finger loop and a 6" long solid rod dipstick is for the front differential. That takes 90wt gear oil. The red one on the drivers side, which is a long blade dipstick, is for the transmission and takes Dextron/MerconIII regular ATF. On the bottom of the transmission, the 17mm head drainbolt on the sheetmetal pan drains the transmisson, the 21 or so MM plug that threads into cast aluminum right by the front crossmember drains the front differential. Many a subaru transmission has been killed by people draining the wrong oil compartment and pouring the fresh oil into the wrong compartment, leaving one section dry and the other overfilled with the wrong fluid.

They're meant to go in the front lower section of the rear side doors, the wiring is there for them too, they just didn't put the speakers in and the grill in the door panel. However, the speaker wiring is wierd, they share a common ground on each side. You may have to run an extra wire from each front speaker to separate the grounds for the new deck to be happy. Right now you have 6 wires for 4 speakers, most decks want 8 wires.

So have you tried fixing it yet?

No EGR port on the 92 head, plus the intake wiring harness will be different, plugs out the side rather than plugs out the back. It's much easier to use a 95-99 2.2 out of an automatic transmission car. That will plug in, bolt in, and if you use a 95, the 2.5l exhaust will bolt right up. 96-99, you need the exhaust manifold to go with the 2.2l, as it's a single port exhaust rather than dual port. So, you can use a 95-99 2.2l intake and harness on a 92 block, but you will still have the EGR problem. Someone was working on the EGR problem, you can weld a bung in the exhaust and run a pipe up to the EGR valve if you have one on the intake you get. Is the forester a manual or automatic? Use the flexplate or flywheel that goes with your transmission, not whatever comes on the engine.

The rear differential has nothing to do with torque bind, you can change fluid and replace rear differentials untill you're blue in the face and it won't change at thing. The center clutch pack is where the problem is. It's a computer controlled, hydraulicly actuated clutch pack that sends power to the rear driveshaft. If the binding went away when you put the FWD fuse in, that's a good sign. What that tells you is that the clutch pack is still working, it engages and disengages, but it's sticky. That's what gives you the chatter and bind. The solution is to drain the automatic transmission fluid, fill it back up, drive it, drain it, fill it, and drive it for 3 drain and fill cycles. That will get most of the old fluid out and fresh fluid in. The transmission pan has a drain plug, 17mm head on it I belive, and you fill through the dipstick, which is on the drivers side of the car, next to the brake booster. It can be hidden a bit by the heater hoses. It's around 3qts per drain and fill, measure how much you drained out, and pour the same amount of fresh back in. The level has to be checked with the transmission warmed up and running in park.

If the parking brake works well, put it all the way on (step on the footbrake with the engine running, and pull on the e-brake handle at the same time), put it in drive, and let it idle at 15mph. Get out and look to see what's spinning and what isn't. That will tell you CV vs hub splines vs spider gears.

You can make an up-pipe that comes off of the flange that connects the y-pipe to the first catalytic converter to feed the turbo, or you will have to notch/swap out your front crossmember with one out of a turbo car to clear the wrx headers and up-pipe. Oil feed, drain, and coolant hoses will all have to be custom configured. You can't run big boost (more than 10psi) because of the high compression ratio. But you can make decent real world performance gains. Don't get caught up in "I want to make XXX horsepower" because you will push too far and blow the engine up. Set up the turbo, start with low boost and work your way up to something that has good power and a nice margin of safety. Take a look at the "N/A engines with bolt-on forced induction" forum over on NASIOC, or 2.5rs websites.

As long as you loop the heater hose connections together, there won't be any problems. However, the heater is useful for defrosting the windshield. Depending on the A/C compressor, if it was a "York" manufactured compressor, it will work well as an air compressor for inflating tires and whatnot. Some of the earlier dealer-installed A/C systems used the York compressor. The box that the a/c evaporator is in under the dash can be removed and replaced with the tube that goes in a non-ac car. That opens up a fair bit of space in the passenger footwell.

No, the pump is definiately not on. If you ground the pin on the fuel pump relay that the computer uses to turn on the relay, the relay closes and the pump kicks on. It's not a quiet pump, I used a F-150 framerail pump and it's held to the body with zipty's. Any one got a spare 85-86 MPFI turbo ECU I can borrow? They're kind of non-existant in the rusty northeast.

Stop using ether to run the engine, that will do permanent damage to the engine. Bad ************ to have anywhere near a gas engine. The only thing you can use ether on is a direct-injection diesel, nothing else should ever have ether put through it. I have personally shattered a piston with ether. You'll be replacing an engine rather than diagnosing a no-start before too long if you keep using ether. Use propane or gasoline in a squirt bottle.

No black connectors on the harness anywhere near the ECU. So it's gone into it's default cycle. It clicks the injectors while the key is on, and will not turn on the fuel pump relay. If you plug the green test connectors together, it slows the rate of injector clicking, but does nothing else. All fuses and fusable links are in good shape. ECU appears clean inside, no corrosion or burnt spots. Unplugging the MAF doesn't change it's behavior. It will run. The residual pressure in the lines is drained into the inake by the cycling injectors. You crank the engine, it fires up, Idles around 1400, and the vacuum in the intake will suck the fuel through the injectors from the tank with the pump OFF. You can slowly rev it up over 3k before the vacuum drops enough that the volume of fuel drops off. Runs rich as hell, but I think it's hilarious that it will run with "fuel induction" rather than fuel injection. Except for the fact you can't drive the car because of it, that's not so funny. Pretty damn annoying actually. Nothing seems to bring the computer back to life, wiggling connectors, unplugging stuff, removing the ECU from the car and beating it soundly, nothing helps. If I leave the car sitting for a month it will fire right up and work for a few days, then do the same thing again.

Yeah, pull the front anti-fouler out, leave the rear one in. That should set it up good enough for now. Might want to replace the front 02 sensor while you have it out. Your gas millage should go up significantly.

S1 is the front pre-cat sensor, S2 is the after cat sensor. B1 means "bank 1" S1 means "sensor 1". Since subarus only use 2 sensors, there is only one cylinder bank, so B1 S1 is bank one sensor one, AKA the first sensor in the exhaust stream. Voltage readings of 1.45 means it's not a traditional O2 sensor, it's an A/F sensor, air/fuel ratio. The voltage on those means nothing, it's the current that it generates is what the computer works with. There should be an EQ ratio or something like that listed near by, which should be around 1. P0420 codes are usually due to tired sensors, and it's a lot cheaper to put in two new sensors than replace the cat. If you need to get the code to go away, but you don't want to actually fix the car, then get a 18mm spark plug anti-fouler, with a flat face w/ washer, not tapered. Use a 1/2" drill bit to drill through the middle of the anti-fouler, remove the rear 02 sensor from the exhaust, thread the anti-fouler into the exhaust, and thread the sensor into the anti-fouler. You can have no cat, and the computer will still think it's working. That's because the sensor is in the exhaust atmosphere, but not in the stream, so it reads the right mix, but not at the sampling rate it used to.

You don't want a 12k winch. The front of the subaru will not hold up to 12k of pull on it. My wagon has a 9k winch on the front, and I was pulling a extended cab k2500 loaded with dog kennels back up onto the trail. I had to put the wagon in FWD, spin the front wheels to sink the nose down into the snow, and then start winching. The truck was buried up to the doors in dense snow, so it was putting up a lot of resistance. I could watch my winch bumper pull forward from the hood 1/2" and then come back as the truck started to move, and then pull out again as the truck bogged down. My winch bumper is 3x2" 1/4" wall box tubing, solidly anchored into the stock bumper mounting points, the lower radiator support, and then has the skidplate subframe going down to the lower crossmember. My 9k winch was stressing the body to the point I was nearly ripping the bumper off, plus the front suspension was taking a lot of stress holding the car back. With a 12k, you will rip the nose off of the car no problem. Plus, my 9k weighs a lot already, and it affects the handling and ground clearance of the car noticeably. I'd recommend a 5 or 6k with a snatch block if necesary. Oh, and build a snorkel. I killed my first motor in a pond. Water gets deep quick, and if you can't keep the motor going to get out the other side, it would suck to watch $3k of audio equipment go under.

Does the car have ABS?

With a clutch, windshield, and brake work needed just to make it street legal, I'd say 150-200 tops. If it only needed a windshield and was in good shape otherwise, the 750 would be ok. A clutch is $150 in parts plus a weekend's worth of work for an inexperienced home mechanic, brakes are probably leaking some where, either a caliper or a line, so figure $50 in parts at least plus an afternoon of working on those. Windshield is $150 for the new glass, less if you cut it out of a junk car, plus $20 in urethane to glue it in. Another afternoon cutting the old one out, cleaning it up, and getting the new one set in. Power windows probably need the switches taken apart and cleaned in the drivers door, not to hard, but another hour of work or so. Who knows with the A/C, could be a leak, could be a blown fuse, no way to tell without hooking up some gauges. It's also a R12 system, so the refrigerant is getting spendy. In Arizona, A/C is probably a big deal.

92 wagon, should be under the drivers side of the dash by the column. There should be a pair of green connectors, and a pair of black connectors right next to each other, Neither should be plugged together. The fans will cycle on, and off, and on again with the key on, engine off if the plugs are hooked together. If the fans come on and stay on, then the coolant temp sensor could have failed. The computer defaults to running the fans continuously if the CTS fails. That would set a code though. The A/C system can turn the fans on, make sure it's not set on a/c or defrost and see if that turns them off. You could have a stuck fan relay, it's rare but possible.

So after driving it around a bit yesterday, the ECS light went out, but there is still no activity on the LED. I'm used to the SPFI computer spitting codes out easily, so I'm concerned there's a fault inside the ECU. It runs good, you can spin a wheel though all of first and second accelerating on dirt, and when it builds boost it hits hard. As a side note, it's unwise to drive a car with no hoodlatch aggresively. I had meant to get hoodpins, because I have an intercooler installed where the hoodlatch used to be. Oh well, the windshield was already broken and was only sitting in the body because I have to repair the rusted cowl where the windshield seals to it, and I had a spare hood. The hood folded up like a wet rag.

You can buy a used one in good shape off of the WRX folks for $100 pretty easily. I'd see rebuilding it if it was a rare, or valuable turbo, but where they're cheap and swapped out for better turbos all the time, I don't see why you'd want to put the time into rebuilding it. If you mark the compressor wheel and the end of the shaft before pulling the wheel, you probably don't need to rebalance it.

I had it running today, the ECS light is on KOEO, goes out when you start the car, and comes back on 2-3 seconds after starting. This is with both plugs unplugged. There is no activity on the LED while the ECS light is on and the engine is running. There is one other possibly important tidbit, it's an automatic car, that I swapped a pushbutton tranny into. I left the auto shifter plugged in, so I can start it in park and neutral, turn the reverse lights on, and suchnot. I have the spedo cable plugged into the tranny, but nothing else. What would prevent the LED from flashing? But still let the engine run OK sometimes, and go into a default cycle others?