skishop69

It's not the HLA's, nor do you have a warped valve stem. No machine shop with half a brain would grind even a slightly bent valve. I've ran into this before on other heads. I'm guessing your valve guides with either knurled to the wrong size or came out of the box the wrong size. You need to have the stem to guide clearance checked. I'm betting you'll find it'd out of spec.

If it's assembled correctly, you can just shift it through all the gears right there on the bench with a pair of channel locks on the shift rod. If it won't shift on the bench, something is wrong inside.

Nope. I had to do some work on mine a while back and it's vacuum apply. What I've seen over the years and what was taught to me is all HVAC vacuum servos are vacuum applied to operate so that the default state has no vacuum to extend the life of the diaphragm. You wouldn't want the recirc servo to fail and get stuck in recirc mode or your car would fog like mad when its cold out.

+1 However... You could have a dead short in the relay windings. Rare, but I've seen it. Either way, the relay, ECU or the circuit to the ECU is shorted to ground.

Put a new fuse in. Find which large gauge wire at the relay has 12v on it with the key off. The other large gauge wire will have no voltage on it with the key off. This is the power out of the relay. Test THAT wire to ground with the meter and see what the resistance is.

Loaded voltage drop tests do not apply to circuits that have a dead short. Only to circuits that may not be supplying the correct amount of power to their respective components due to wiring or terminal issues. You need to test for a short to ground just as Scott described.

Yes, they have a vent, but as you noted, it's not related to the HVAC. I also did say the HVAC system on the Brat is all cable controlled. I did say the MAJORITY of newer cars ( meaning roughly 05 & up) don't do this. Some still do. People whined about it so most manufacturers dropped their cowlings down well below hood level and re-positioned the fresh air intake along with changing the mode doors and HVAC box to eliminate this. My 07 Equinox doesn't do it, but my 02 Park Ave does. I want to recap what his 'issue' is, because it seems like you may have misunderstood, and I don't mean this in a snarky way at all. When cruising with the temp lever in hot (I'm guessing because he didn't say what air temp), he feels the air without the fan. As he pulls a hill, the air flow diminishes and stops. Since the recirc door is the only thing in this system that can cause that, it means that somehow, vacuum is being applied to the recirc servo causing the door to close. The recirc door closes to outside air when vacuum is applied. The only way for this to happen in his scenario is if the supply vacuum is hooked to a ported line and the vacuum valve in the control head is bad or bypassed. Now, if I'm guessing wrong, and he has the heat lever in max AC and this is happening, then the problem is that the vacuum supply has been routed to ported vacuum and nothing else is wrong. As you already pointed out, ported vacuum increases with engine RPM which would cause the door to close. Like I said, I'm not trying to be snarky. His situation can't be caused by a loss of vacuum since the recirc door only closes to cut off the outside air when vacuum is applied.Maybe I'm confused. Annnnd go! lol

+1 A loaded voltage drop test is simple and done with a generic meter. Set the meter to volts. Power the circuit on and place the positive lead on one end of the circuit and the negative lead on the other end. It doesn't matter which lead does on which end because you're measuring the voltage drop or differential on that circuit. You want the reading below 0.5v which would mean you're losing less than 0.5v across that wire. Anything above 1.0v is a problem. The reason you want the circuit and device powered up or 'loaded' is that sometimes circuits will only fail when loaded. Straight load testing on the circuit is easier and you can do this with an 1157 or 3057 bulb and socket. wire the two positives for the bulb socket together so you now have one + and one - wire on the socket. Place the wires accordingly on the circuit you wish to test. if the bulb glows bright, they are most likely good. If it glows dim, you have a problem with either the power or the ground circuit. Now you would leave the + attached and take the - directly to ground. If it still glows dim, the problem is on the + circuit. If it glows bright, the problem is on the - circuit. Technically, you should use a small halogen bulb for the build so there is a larger draw, but I have ran across a few scenarios where the draw is too much and things go pop, snap, fizzle so I use the 3057.

Continuity check to ground for shorts is great, but continuity checks on circuits (wires) end to end mean nothing. You can have low resistance on a wire and have your correct voltage and still have little to no current. Say you have 20 strands inside the wire and over the years, do to vibrations and movement, 19 of the strands break inside the insulation. It happens. I see it at least a couple times a month at work. Now you have one strand left that will show good voltage and low resistance but it will not be able to supply the necessary current to run the load. If you suspect a wiring issue on a circuit, you should do a loaded voltage drop test or load test the circuit. I mention this in regards to your voltage issues at the ECU.

That's a possibility too if the vacuum valve on the temp lever were stuck open. He'd lose enough vacuum at higher engine loads that it wouldn't have enough pull to overcome the spring.

He doesn't say he's loosing speed and the effect you're talking about won't show a significant decrease in air flow until you drop 15mph or so at speeds of 45mph (or so) and up. There is also no 'fresh air' or vent mode on a Brat. The system is always open to outside air unless in the max AC position causing the recirc door to close off outside air intake. No, even new cars do not do this. Some may still, but the vast majority employ multiple mode and recirc doors to stop this effect. My Brat moves air on it's own from about 20mph up and after about 40mph, the amount remains steady. All of my Brats have done this so some vacuum line on his Brat is in the wrong place and the recirc valve is not functioning correctly. To the OP: If you have the engine running and the Brat is just sitting, turn the fan on high, temp on hot. Slide the temp to max AC and listen for the sound of the fan/airflow to change. If the vacuum is not hooked to the correct port, you won't hear the change and this will confirm the system is not operating correctly. You may have to raise the RPMs a bit to supply enough vacuum if the system is operating correctly.

The Brat system is all cable driven except for the recirc door for AC which is vacuum driven and should only work when the mode lever is all the way to the left. Something is not hooked up right, because it sounds like your recirc is coming on as you're climbing a hill.

Scott is correct, I got ahead of myself... again. HLA's don't move up and down in the bore. I would still be a little concerned about it staying put in the bore and not walking back out due to engine vibration and causing an issue in the future. Once a sleeve like that gets free, it will move again. If you were set on attempting a repair, I would get everything clean with brake clean, apply some Loctite green sleeve locker to the outside edge of the sleeve where it is outside the bore, press it back in and wait 24 hours for it to cure. It won't come out again if you use the green Loctite. At least, not without using a torch. You'll want to debur it before doing this.

Yeah, the link doesn't seem to work. If the lifter bore sleeve has been pulled or slipped out and damaged at the top, it's toast and as GD said, not serviceable. The bore has to be completely true and smooth or the lifter WILL bind up and seize especially after it gets warmed up. The damaged head is now junk. Yes, you could find a sleeve that could be machined to work and then installed, but the cost would be far greater than finding another set of heads or even an engine.

+1 You will be woefully disappointed with a 6" lift and bigger tires on an already under powered Gen 1 Brat. I've owned several Gen 1 Brats over the years and where they are fun, as pointed out, without the low range, they are next to useless for any kind of serious wheeling. G is right and I wouldn't do it either.

You can't realistically sit in the back seats with a low roll bar for a couple of reasons. You can't raise the head rests to the correct height for taller people. Second, taller people, like 5'4" and up can't sit in the seats without knocking their noggin on the roll bar. The placement and slope of the seats puts the back of your head right on the bar. Personal experience... Add to that legalities of injuries that will occur with a short roll bar in a rollover when the high roll bar was the only Subaru endorsed dealer option available. I agree the high roll bar looks out of place, but I personally wouldn't put in a short with seats and let anyone ride back there. JMTC

Ooooo look! They Armor All'd them so you can kiss the tailgate when the driver hits the gas.

Just to clarify, there were Gen 2 specific roll bars. Just no 'factory' offerings. I have one, but it's a low profile and I haven't gotten around to installing it because of that.

There was no 'factory' roll bar, as in they didn't come from the factory with one, at least not that I ever saw on any lots. Brush guards, roll bars and winch bumpers were offered and installed by the dealers or aftermarket shops. I don't remember if the dealer ones were contract builds for Subaru or if they were an aftermarket offering that the dealers picked up, but IIRC, Subaru did not make them. This came from a rep way back when the Gen 2 was released.

Use search tempest. It searches all of CL nationwide. That's the only way to find them when they pop up few and very far between. Expect to pay $100-$200 and don't expect to find head rests.

A few things come to mind. A bad coil as previously mentioned. It's not uncommon for one to start and run fine, then go bad as it heats up. It's possible there's a short in the windings that only contacts after it heats up and the wires expand which greatly reduces the output of the coil. The fuel pump could also be doing the same thing causing pressure loss. I've also seen injectors do the same thing. Worn distributor or bad pickup coil and last but not least, bad grounds on the block, body or ECU. You can test the coil, fuel pump and injector by taking a resistance reading cold, the start it up and run it until it craps out, then test again. A significant change in ohms will show the faulty component. If it doesn't run however, this won't work unless you have specs or a known good part to compare it to.

+1 Sounds like the clutch went bye bye. There's a lot more torque from the engine needed to maintain 5th gear. Less so each gear down so 5th is the first to go when the clutch starts going as Dan said.

Oh yeah! +1

Ok. Jack it up and spin the tires to see which one is binding. Either a locked caliper or one of the rear shoes has come loose. My money is on one of the rear shoes. I've had it happen before.

+1 Your rad is plugged. No upgrades without some fairly extensive fabbing.