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Ok, so how about tomorrow at 2:30; G St Dutch Bros?

I recommend G Street Dutch personally. Less annoying hipsters with iMacs and fixies to deal with... Either way, I'm in. And I fully endorse this hijacking.

Nah it's fairly quiet, and it's only in reverse and 1st. I set the timing at 20* and it definitely woke it up a little bit. Still a flat spot at 4k or so, hopefully the exhaust I just got done mocking up will allow it to breathe a little better and pull through the power band. Probably could use some new vac lines and a seafoam treatment to help the intake out.

Holy crap, 4 of us? Should have a mini meet one of these days.

I'm 100% certain that the cam timing is perfect since I checked it about 15 times in the course of reassembly. I'm not 100% certain on the diz though. I set it about 15* back from #1 (trying to account for the angle of the gear) and the rotor was right on top of the #1 plug mark at TDC. I tightened it down at exactly where it was when I bought the car, so it's currently "gud nuff". It's not in 4wd either, double checked all the vac lines and such. When I was doing the brakes, I had the car up on stands and double checked engage/disengage and it was all good. I do have a code 34 CEL and am trying to find time to go snag a 68Ohm resistor at the shack since I pulled the one out that was already at the solenoid and plugged it back in... lol. I'm used to seeing rigged up crap like that in wind turbines and am so used to pulling crap like that out... guess I'll read up more next time. The whine doesn't sound bad, just wanted to make sure it was a fairly normal sound.

I waved at your yesterday while (futilely) attempting to put manual belts in. I love the look and sound of that old CBR. The car still put down about 130# on all 4 cylinders and I've put over 400 miles on it this week. Still have a handful of bugs to work out, but it's serving it's purpose well; I commute in warmth and good fuel econ.

Wow, I love how you don't waste any time and jump right in. You're really great at body and paint.

I have too many vehicles... My 2006 CBR600RR with almost 40k miles on it: My 2003 Mitsubishi Montero Sport LS AWD. Intake, exhaust, roof rack, insane sound system. My g/f drives it more than me now since it sucks down the gas and I have a 35 mile commute each way. 92 Loyale that I've had up and going for all of 6 days now. 332k miles, and as stock as can be, with lots and lots of new maintenance items. Won't be stock for long. 1979 Suzuki GS850GN. Girlfriend commandeered this one too (notice a trend?) but it's alright because it means she stays away from the CBR. Bought it for $100 as a total basket case and pieced it back together over 3 months. Runs like a dream now, and gets to 100 pretty easily. And finally, the truck I learned to drive in almost 10 years ago. 1973 Ford F100 longbed 2wd with a 302. My parents were moving about 3 hours north and were going to give the truck away since it had intermittent running issues and they didn't want to tow it all the way up there. I hadn't touched it in about 3 years (had since acquired a lot more wrenching knowledge) and discovered it was simply a bad connection to the coil, and the coil was bad as well. $23 later, I had it running, and my parents signed it over to me. No pics of this one... no idea why.

I've been on a dubstep kick lately. Mostly when I'm wrenching on the mistress though, the Subi has been pretty much straight rock and metal.

I keep hearing a distinct gear whine that sounds like it's come from the transmission at low speeds. Much like the sound of most cars' reverse gear (Manual trans) Is that common on these cars or should I consider changing the fluid? Gear oil is nice and transparent and full. Just thinking it may be to low of viscosity? I also can't seem to find a definitive answer on ignition timing. It runs well, but I notice a flat spot around 2700-3000rpm that feels like it's out of time. I'm at 1000ft elevation if that matters, just wanting a good starting point more than anything (Have seen everything from 8* to 20*) Finally, anyone who's done a manual belt/trim piece swap: Does anything line up right, or is it a sacrifice in aesthetics to not have the auto noose in the car? I put it in and have all sorts of gaps at the head liner. Not to mention the stock female end has to be cut off?! Thanks in advance.

Hm, well I don't know enough about it yet to say for sure. I'm installing my head unit tomorrow morning, so if I figure anything out on my own from that, I'll let you know.

When you say new wire harness, did you buy an adapter to wire into the head unit that plugs right into the stock wiring? Something like this: http://www.discountcarstereo.com/Best-Kits-BHA8900-Radio-Replacement-Harness-for-select-1955-94-Subaru-DL-and-GL.html If so, it's hard to cross up the wiring since they're usually colored like the aftermarket deck. If you tapped into the stock harness, I would guess crossed wires. Subi colors were all over the place for radio wiring.

This is pretty cool. I'd probably go this route if I hadn't already had my heads machined. I'd never thought of head resurfacing as any sort of DIY.

You can pop out the little oval rubber covers in the center timing cover (used to access the belt tensioners) and look and see if the belt is snapped. I agree with the lack of disty movement being about as sure of an indicator as you can get.

Just spent about 45 minutes pulling manual belts, a working clock, and all trim pieces out of 3 different cars at the junk yard, to convert the Loyale to manual belts since the autos are picky about when they want to work. Debating on the roof rack and rear spoiler since I don't really want to drill into my roof/hatch. $30 for all of it. Then I snagged a nice Clarion head unit and 6 1/2" speakers for another $50. If I'm going to be in this car for 70 minutes every day, I need a properly working stereo and not blown out speakers. Fanagled a cup holder in... It's not perfect, but it's good enough.

HG jobs really are not that bad if you can follow directions step by step. I was able to do it in 2 days (not counting machine shop time) and only needed to refer to the how to for torque patterns and #s, and timing procedure. Take lots of pics as you tear it down for reference. Driving on blown HGs is asking for catastrophic failure. Aluminum warps pretty easily, I saw enough soccer mom Legacies and Foresters driven to death to vouch for that one wholeheartedly. As far as block sealer is concerned, I really want to falcon punch the lady that owned the car before me. I wasted a good hour flushing that crap out of the block and radiator. It's like putting "Slime" in your tires. It serves it's function for the immediate future, but makes future maintenance absolute hell. After a gasket set, fluids, machine shop work, and various other tidbits; I had under $300 into the project.

Sounds like the way to go then. I don't have to pass emissions, so I'm more inclined to get a little more oomph out of the engine as well as a better exhaust note.

1992 Subaru Loyale; 332k Been driving the Subi every day now, put probably 250 miles on it since the HG replacement. Fixing little things here and there, but I think I have an issue; possibly severe; with the cat. The HGs were gone long before I got to the car. Little copper flecks all over the radiator cap, in the coolant, and all over internally; someone ran some HG fix through the cooling system. Lots and lots of oil residue on the passenger side cross member and the cat was totally coated. Long story short, I noticed a decent sized oil mark in the driveway. Nasty burnt smelling black oil. The oil in the engine is right where it should be, and still transparent and decent smelling, so I know it's not the engine. I looked at the back of the cat, and it was dripping oil and had a lot of residue still on it. Cut to the chase; is it feasible that a ton of oil collected in the cat from the HGs being gone, caused it to flow horribly and pop a seam, and is leaking said oil now? And if so, how do these engines take to a more open exhaust from the y pipe on back? Probably cheaper to have a 2" catless with a nice throaty muffler built, than to replace the cat itself.

Discovered a bunch of issues in the front passenger side of the car. Whoever did the axle swap really buggered up the reinstall. Axle nut was loose Swaybar end bushing was gone Lower ball joint was totally thrashed Brake line was twisted Tie rod was hand tight at best. So I tightened everything up, replaced the lower BJ, fabbed a new swaybar bushing, untwisted the brake line, and drove it another 100 or so miles today .

Head gaskets and all that's entailed with that arduous task. Oil change to T5 semisyn and a Bosch filter Coolant flush with Prestone (had that copper HG repair crap in it.) Brake flush and new Duralast front pads. Tomorrow: Exhaust

Any ideas on where to get a set of these for a reasonable price? I'm looking at price realms from $8 to over $100 each depending on the site (which tells me I'm looking at different parts probably) So far it looks like the AM ones are: Anchor 8665 2 ea rear Anchor 8641 2 ea front but I can't find the 8641 for any sort of reasonable price... and rockauto only has 1 in stock with no option to order. I'm also slightly skeptical about using Anchor brand due to a lot of bad feedback I've seen over the years.

I'm not fully educated on the "hill holder" function, so my advice comes with the "grain of salt" disclaimer. I'm not saying hand pump bleeders don't work, but I personally have never had any luck with bleeders outside of this style: http://www.harborfreight.com/brake-fluid-bleeder-92924.html My method is to pop a hole in the foil cover of a bottle of brake fluid, stick it upside down (like a water cooler) in the reservoir, and bleed about 28oz of fluid out of the system (8oz through each rear, 6oz through each front). The pneumatic bleeder keeps a constant vacuum on the lines and almost prevents any back feed that can result in air in the lines. I do a large number of motorcycle brake jobs this way (only guy in the area with his own pneumatic unit, so all my friends hit me up ) and I have yet to not be able to bleed a system out and get rock solid pressure. EDIT: This is the one I own personally: http://www.matcotools.com/catalog/product/BB70850K/BRAKE-BLEEDING-KIT/ but I don't see a lot of difference in it and the one that HF sells for 1/4 the price.

Luckily we have mostly rust free vehicles here in OR. I had a 69 bug with original floor pans and rockers. From what I'm guessing, the car was rear ended at one point. I found the emblems from a GL-10 hatch in the rear area and the paint is slightly different. No worry of mine, I just like tracking down things like that.

Type of Wrenching: ~6 months as a Subaru light line technician and ~7 years general mechanics on everything from motorcycles to wind turbines. Other skills: Electrical/electronics mad scientist, welding, painting/body work.