WoodsWagon

teach him to weld. welding opens up a world of options. I think that superbrat was saying you should turn the wagon into a brat, aka weld the back doors shut and chop the top.

I'm building the same EJ25 with 95 EJ22 heads. I've got two blocks, I think the one I'll be using is out of a 99 automatic forester, and I'll be using the crank, rods and pistons out of a 1997 outback, and the heads off of a 1992 legacy with the cam and roller rockers out of the set of 95 heads that have burned valves. Oh, and I have new Subaru piston rings. The 1997 block will have to be bored out to be made useful, it's too pitted to be honed. I'll have to buy oversized pistons. Then, I'll make another engine using the SOHC 2.5 heads off of the forester block.

Get a big cooler with a seperate electric fan. When you're using the torque converter to crawl, all the unused horsepower is going into heating the fluid. As long as you don't overheat the tranny, it should work well and be reliable.

Though you could be a jerk and drop some 6011 in the spider gears and make it a "VLSD", a Very Limited Slip Differential, and sell it that way.

When I read Gloyal's post I was like:Flame: and ready to:dead: WHen I read this post I was like and:clap: Thank you for saving me from myself. Seriously. Aside from the ageist coments of "18 year old thinks he knows everything", I am going to assume that Gloyale has not read my post thouroughly and is geting huffy over an assumption. My quick check is to pour some gas down the throttle body after removing the rubber intake boot. This means pouring gas straight down next to the injector onto the throttle plate, which is EXACTLY the spot the injector sprays. As for it being a danger of backfiring and blowing it all to hell, the exact same volume of air and fuel is present when you do this as is all the time the engine is running. It's the "wet manifold" concept, which is the same between carbs and SPFI's. And if you think I'm wrong, unplug the MAF (yes SPFI's will keep running without it hooked up), and pull off the rubber intake boot. You will see the injector spraying away and a steady film of liquid gas flowing over the throttle plate. I'm trying to help russ here, who has already stated he doesn't have time to figure it out and deal with it. So if it's kept simple and easy, there's more of a chance of him fixing it himself. Throwing parts at a problem is easy, and not much skill is involved, which is why there is no glory in it. I would assume that russ has acess to a lot of spare parts, so... Russ, now that you have the gauge hooked up, what does the pressure go up to if you clamp the return line off? That's the true pump output pressure. What you're watching is the regulated pressure. The regulator is in the throttle body.

I don't think any brats came with lsd's. And if they did, they would be 3.7's The way to tell is to look at the sticker on the cover of the diff. It will say LSD and ratio in big letters on it.

True, but flooding the car could lead to the same results, so it's not that big of a deal. The SPFI system already has raw fuel sprayed all over the intake in normal operation. You have to be reasonable with it too, not a cup of gas, just a tablespoon full. It's much preferable to giving it shots of starting fluid (ether) down the intake, which has a way greater chance of screwing the whole engine than just the MAF. I've shattered a piston using ether. Which sucked because it was an antique engine. Anyway... Doing quick checks like this can narrow an issue down a lot quicker than doing it the right way, and using all sorts of diagnostic equipment. Since russ said that it fired right up on ether (ouch) then died out, it's definiately a fuel delivery issue. Since it only does it on warm starts, it would tend to be a heatsoak issue, where a componant gets warm and ceces to function properly. It seems unlikely that the CTS would be doing this, as that usualy fails so that the PCM will not richen the mixture up for starting a cold engine. The car isn't flooding either, so it's not reading cold. The fuel pump.. mabe but why wouldn't it fail while the car was running? Especially since it works well enough to keep the engine fed during full load 5k rpm pulls. Can you hear it cycling on and off when the diagnostic connectors are togher? If you can't hear it cycling, mabe the fuel pump relay is warming up, and when it's switched off, the relay won't make proper contact when it's switched on again untill it cools off. Even so, if the fuel pump works right up untill shutoff, there should be engough pressure left in the system so that the car would initally fire, then die out on restart. The other thing is the injector. If it normally has cooling fuel flowing around it, it may work. When you shut it off, the heat from the coolant in the throtlle body would heat the fuel and the injector, possibly enough so that the injector would have an open circuit untill it cooled off again. Why wouldn't that throw a CEL though? The PCM could be a culprit too. But like the fuel pump, you would expect it to fail while operating. I've got a pile of SPFI stuff kicking around, so I just throw parts at these old systems untill they work. Are the guys at the dealership going to charge you for fixing it?

You don't have a spare distributor and ignitor that you could put in do you? It sounds like a heatsoak issue, which could show up while you're doing your long drive west. If the ignition system was heating up and becoming weak, the spark may be good enough to run, but cause hard starting. Does it cough and choke at all when you're cranking it over, or just solidy dead? Pop off the rubber intake duct and throw some gas straight down the throttle body. If it fires right up, then it's a fuel issue. if it doesn't, ignition. This is always my first diagnostic procedure on beater cars.

Next time it does it, try cycling the key from of to run a few times. That should kick the fuel pump over a few times, and then try to crank it over. If it fires right up, the regulator or the fuel pump check valve are leaking down.

Yes, it is. Take out the two phillips screws above the gauge cluster, and the two right above your knees while your in the driving position. Drop the steering column down to it's lowest tilt setting, take the keys out, and put the wipers on High. Pull the gauge cluster surround off. Undo the wires for the switches in the surround from the back of the switches. Remove the rear defrost switch from the surround, it comes out the front once you squeeze the locking tab. There are two bulbs mounted in the side, each looks like a phillips screw. Give them a quarter turn, and the bulb should come out. Then buy the bulb and base from a dealer. Or, you can look at any of the climate control light threads for directions on replacing the bulb with and aftermarket one.

And the gangesta with the white rag hangin is Russ, right?:-p Seriously, who does that? That is a sick brat.

Well, I think I did actually damage the car in the river. I noticed that the front 2-bolt block on the rear subframe is toppled back about half an inch, and the floorpan is torn. I must whacked it on a rock. Frigin'A, time to bust out the MIG welder again.

My loyale wagon starts sucking air around 13 gallons down. The Gauge pegs on empty, and I kept driving it, and the light never came on even with the engine sputtering. The light is just another electrical circuit that can fail just as easily as anything else.

Ahh, the old german torque spec's. Gootentite!

If you're BANNED, then don't try to sneak in under other user names. This is a thread discussing why the Mainiac was banned BTW: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=69155

Yeah, rolling above 30, most subies suck. However, I can holeshot any car at a light with the outback. If I'm taking a left hand turn at a light, I can be doing 30 by the time I straighten out in the lane heading left. One foot on the brake, one eye on the opposite directions lights, when it turns red, I powerbrake the tranny, then snap off and hold if floored when my light turns green. No wheelspin, just acceleration.

Honda Odessy trannys have a nasty habit of going... under warranty. So even brand new trannys can suck.

Dear jesus you guys are ruthless! I woulda said it wasn't him, but then I saw the post about the clutch fan and shroud being an improvement.... We trashed some of those rims a number of years back on an isuzu. How many of you have blown a fully inflated tire off the rim??? We did it 4 times, with 4 seperate wheels.

1998 outback 2.5 auto. It kicks butt in AWD, but in FWD, it smokes the sht out of the tires. I started at the bottom of burnout hill, little patch of sand. punched the gas, let off as it snapped to 6k rpm in first, then modulated the gas to keep it round 5.5k. No brakes, not even the handbrake, at least 60 feet of nice black stripe before it hooked up. Imagine what it could do with the handbrake! I'm keeping it to just that, what with me not wanting to buy tires. But if you ever want to show up the local honda kids, throw in the FWD fuse and let 'em rip.

especially after huge flows. I took a little trip through the woods, down the power lines, and across the river. There's a well used river fording that had a relatively level bottom, and was only about a foot deep. Well, the river level had come most of the way down, but the bottom had changed a lot. Big rocks had moved around under there. Seeing as I don't have a snorkel on my car, it got sketchy. The river is probably around 75 feet across, with moderate flow, with a smattering of whitecaps. It had been fine to drive across before, but not now. It was one of those deals that when you see the right front corner of the hood go under, and you know that your air intake is right there, that you just punch it and hold on. I could feel the car dragging on boulders, the back end was taking a hammering, and the skidplate was getting full use. It's all round riverstone, so it was shifting and and the wheels were scrabbling. Big holes had opened up, so the front was surfacing and diving pretty violently. The other bank was pretty steep, so I had to stay in it to make it up. I had to do a parts check on the other bank, the car had been hammered so hard. The rear floor pans had been pushed up, and there were scrapes all over the place, but everything was still there. It get's scary when you know you're commited to getting to the other side, and you don't know what's waiting halfway.

Uh... there's loads of tires in the 15 inch rim size. There is no 15.5 inch size tires or rims. There are 16.5's, but that's a truck tire.

You need to get rid of the fat lip on the front and put on an 86 pre-5mph bumper on it. They look way better without the extra shelf sticking out. The '86 bumpers are flush with the turn signal lenses, so all the bumper that sticks out beyond the lenses is extra. And I won't comment on the fart can.... Looks good otherwise. Could you get any action shots?

Animation of the engine I ran across... =

It wasn't her driveway, it was a public road. She just thinks it's her driveway.

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=72792 That's my coverless t-belt experience.