ShawnW

There's a lot of heat are you considering where or how to get rid of it?

The hardest part of any conversion is the wiring. Pull the entire harness from the dash, get the computer and get all the wiring forward of the dashboard. If you can afford to, send it to one of us that does harnesses for people on here. The time you will spend doing the wiring will far exceed the charge they have for doing a harness. $350-400 is pretty typical, some are cheaper. The main and fuel relays are in the dash on the drivers side IIRC on a Forester. You technically don't need the actual relay box or the fuse box from the forester. It all gets chopped. If I do a harness for someone I prefer they haven't cut any of the wires-that they have only unplugged things. This makes it much easier to identify which wires you don't need and that the harness isn't messed up before you begin modifying it. Feel free to contact me if you want me to do your harness for you. Leave yourself this: If you try doing it yourself and it doesn't work at least have all the plugs. If you have that you could probably do a standalone with a Haltek computer instead. They aren't cheap and last I checked if you have a 4 wire air flow meter setup you need a $1000 setup and 2 wire is more like $500.

The black ones on the left were offered on the 85 and up models. I have installed that dealer accessory kit on an ea81 hatch with success. The white covers on the right fit the chrome backed ones from the 80-84 series.

With no engine in do you have the ground wires and related items that would be connected hooked to the chassis or something?

I installed a few of these kits as a dealer service technician and I would say 90% of the people that bought these also paid to have them installed. It should be as simple as having each dealer report how many were dealer installed vs sold over the counter. Either way I hope people realize they have them. I would also guess that many of the people that picked the accessory also picked about 5-7 others and just were blowing cash to load up their car like a luxury car. In other words, they wouldn't even realize they have them on their car since its fairly subtle.

I have been toying with doing a legacy with an ej18 or ej16 and a turbo, but a large enough turbo that it doesn't kick on until around 33-3500RPM. I am looking at some of the Haltek stand alone units and maybe a corn map along with an 87 octane map. Then a tune to as lean as possible. Even considering having a split gas tank and 2 fuel pumps so I could go long distances on 87 and have a small tank with e85 for around town with the thought that I can go on a trip leaving town on the e85, drain that half of the tank, switch the map to 87, drain that and then fill with 87 for the trip since e85 can be pretty scarce in places like Wyoming, Western Colorado, Utah, etc. where I like to go. The problem with the projects to me is spending the kind of money it takes to do a project like this is probably as expensive as the savings you would see in the car for a lot of miles. Gearing is also a consideration. A conversion to 3.7 gears and appropriate reductions in the trans should help too. Also not cheap but a start.

Sold out. Buy a USMB Shirt!

Welcome! Your car has a timing belt rather than a chain but that's great that it was serviced. Its pretty common for those to have had an engine replaced. Check out the Newer Generation of Subarus area if you run into any more questions.

Welcome! Any problems or questions about the car so far? Fuel economy?

Brock, can you post a photo of one of yours too? I love that there is a choice in Nebraska!

The Vanagon conversion faces the same problem. What we usually do with those is add a return H into the heater lines so if you shut the heater off the coolant can still return to the engine.

I got one of these tools in today. Pretty simple and really not much to it. Will test out on the next belt change. For those of us that do this for a living this is great. But certainly not a required thing since I have been installing these belts for years without one. Nice for the piece of mind. List price is $24.64. I can ship them if someone wants one. If I order more than one at a time I can do them with shipping for the list price.

The dye is certainly different but I don't think its worth extra money. For $10 you can't go wrong. Its a real pretty color of green compared to a traditional gallon of Prestone or other house brand antifreeze. That jug is the Full Strength stuff so you need to mix it with distilled water to use it.

Has she had anybody other than you or your son work on it?

Its a box in the upper right. If you want advanced search hit the gear to its right.

I drop the differential when I do one. That gives you enough flex to slide one end off and then attack the other.

They were fine when new but over time all the nuts in the back of the bottom housing have fallen off. The clips are so much easier to deal with and its nice to not need a tool to get the air filter out.

Wow, not cool! I assume you have reported this to your local Subaru dealer? I believe it would be a touchy one to cover but one that would likely get covered by most dealers after a call to the regional representative. At a minimum it would seem like one to cover as a good faith thing even if its not 100% certain its the fault of the car maker.

I too am sorry to hear of your parents cars demise. I would recommend, if possible, finding one that is out West like Colorado, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Idaho or Montana to maybe dodge some of the rust that you would likely see in PA. Could be worth a cheap flight and the drive home to have a car last longer. If you find one in Denver I may be willing to make a quick look and inspect it first too.

It should be a pretty good product as long as nobody tries turning the boost up. Maybe they should make a shake maker. (milkshake of death?). Smoothies anyone?

Any of you that might have a 90-94 Legacy with those air filter boxes that screw down, I was able to install a 95 Legacy one that has the wrap around clips. Everything bolted straight in. The old airbox was missing 3/4 screws to keep it shut and had a tab broken off.

No kits available. A factory harness for a 78 is probably the easiest and then modify the items you need to suit.

What about the dealer accessory dog guard?

The snow tires suggestion is pretty decent but they do wear pretty quick too. An Impreza might suit you better. A little more power, same or better gas mileage and the 4.11 gears are certainly available in one. LSD rear is pretty easy to find too.