Bushwick

To be safe, you should block all 4 wheels front/back. Explain to whomever does this NOT to touch the gas pedal either unless their other foot is firmly on the brake + the wheels are blocked. Goosing it lightly can show movement.

If by a "JDM" engine you mean buying overseas and having shipped, you have ZERO recourse if it's junk. And unless you are searching for some rare optioned turbo engine they only offered in a few places, just buy locally. Plenty of rusted Subarus with strong engines that'll fit w/o issue. As far as the mileage goes, if you don't see receipts for ball joints, inner/outer tie rods, axle shafts, wheel bearings, clutch, etc. those will ALL be potential issues that will either need looked at now or eventually. I can get used ej22 & ej25 engines for around $140 locally, all day every day. A body with that many miles NOT getting a full restoration, would be better with a cheap used engine, and the money saved going into ALL the things that'll need fixing. If the trans has the full 340k miles on it, I strongly suggest getting a replacement to avoid issues down the road. Manual trans are typically neglected when it comes to fluid changes, so there's bound to be shavings in the oil. If you are looking for a daily driver, you should replace as much as possible at the start to avoid constant little repairs.

Could be a universal joint for the driveshaft or engine mount. I know with old Fords that was a symptom of a u-joint. To rule out engine movement, open hood and watch top of intake manifold and go from a forward gear to reverse. If you have a helper, have them do it instead and watch the trans and engine for abrupt moving like lifting and dropping. For the driveshaft, you should be able to grab it and try twisting it and working back and forth. If a u-joint is bad, the shaft will be loose at one end or both.

You ever get this figured out? Was it the starter?

Does he need to worry about timing advance at all? Anyone actually read these in real-time to see if timing advance/retardation is an issue? Typically DOHC engines make their power later in the rev-range and sacrifice some torque early on. So even though it's less peak hp, tq probably comes on much sooner with the SOHC 2.2L, hence it's hard to tell. If you were racing both back to back near redline from 3rd to 4th, it might be more noticeable. If you can't get definite answers on timing advance, listen for pinging. Might be wise to run 89 or higher to be safe.

It's such a weird scenario that it'd pop while driving, then pop while cranking. Hopefully it's just a worn component on the starter or within the solenoid section and is an easy fix. With the key on, if you can disconnect the solenoid lead and run your own wire directly to the solenoid and get the vehicle to crank + start + run, it should narrow down the field. Hopefully it's not water on the ECM or something.

Check the spark plugs in 50 miles, then again at 100 miles as that'll be more accurate than the internet. If they are black and sooty, then it's running rich. Use this image as rough guideline:

Can't you just swap in new injectors? Why not just turbo the 2.5L instead? Just sell the 2.0L short block and keep the turbo. Hell, just get turbo exhaust manifolds and run whatever turbo you want. You just need to add an oil return line fitting on the oil pan, an oil feed line, highly advisable oil cooler, and finally a coolant line to feed the turbo then return to the engine. Find an aftermarket FMIC and stuff it behind the bumper or whatever and get a blow-off valve from a factory turbo'd car like VW, Saab, etc.. Spend a few bucks on a custom ECM that's tunable and make a bracket to support the turbo and you are golden.

Dunno if it's common with these or not, but my old Lincoln Mark VIII had an issue that was inherent to the model. The blower motor would do the same thing, sometimes it'd work, sometimes it'd go awhile not working. The actual power plug that connected the motor, wasn't tight. Easy fix was to unplug it, then carefully bend the 2 prongs outward a bit then reconnect. The plug and prongs looked just like standard AC plugs. So if you've ever bent a power cord plug, you should get a visual. The prongs weren't making 100% contact with the tabs. It's a quick check to verify. Set blower to be "on", then find the connector for the blower and wiggle it. If it starts cutting in/out, you found the issue. If it makes no difference, disconnect the power plug and probe it for 12v. If car is running, it'll be closer to 14v. If it has power, then the motor is suspect. If there is no power, then the issue is further up.

When you disconnected the ignition coil, did you unplug the actual power harness to it? You might want to try and rule out the starter too. Check and make sure no cables or wires are touching it's terminals. Might want to carefully disconnect the 12v+ power cable; not sure if there's a secondary wire going to the solenoid or not, if so disconnect that too and wrap with electrical tape so it doesn't touch anything. Then try turning the key. If the fuse still blows, it's something else. If it doesn't blow, might be the starter, or a solenoid shorting out internally or something. Though it's possible something is hanging and touching.

Was the starter ground wire fixed? Also, you should still run the EJ22 ecm as the fuel maps will be slightly different between a SOHC 2.2L vs a DOHC 2.5L. It might "run" but won't be getting exact timing and fueling needs the 2.2L was programmed to run at. It might even fail an e-check as a 2.5L needs more fuel than a 2.2L. Long-term damage would be from overly rich condition, which would cause cylinder wash, plugs and O2 fouling, etc. Unless someone can show you that fuel maps and timing advance are identical, it's 100% not worth the risk.

Sometimes leather covers will have the finish wear off. Seems to get exacerbated by always holding the wheel in the same spot, having gorilla grip hands, and sweating. Shouldn't be an issue with synthetics. As far as the wide spokes go, if you run a lace horizontally to the spoke while having it weave in/out of the material and pulling really tight at spoke ends, it should at least stay put. Could always apply some adhesive or spray tack (very carefully). If the leather has a folded over lip seam that covers the spoke area, can fish a strap through that, or possibly find a thin diameter wire through as it'll help keep the leather against the spoke. A little DIY involved but doable.

Thanks for posting this. Whereabouts is this test connector? Under the driver-side dash? Would it be on left or right side i.e. above gas pedal area or further left? This thing taped to the harness, is it a wire with spade ends? Or some sort of metal contraption?

You stated the donor engine is an EJ22 and went into an EJ25D, right? Why didn't you swap the EJ22 ECM into your car? The EJ25D is DOHC and requires more gas to run, right? Plus idle speed will be different. The random surges are from an EJ25D ECM not knowing how to run an EJ22 engine. As far as the ground strapping goes for the starter, go to Auto Zone (or whatever is close) and buy 3 braided ground straps as long as possible near the battery cables area of store. Install all 3 of them to FRESH points with new bolts or clean existing bolts/nuts. If you use existing body holes, grind the paint away so the bolt and nuts have bare metal. I suggest applying a conductive grease over the bare metal AND all over the nuts/bolts to inhibit rust and reapply yearly over top. Don't remove more paint than absolutely needed. If you bought 3 ground straps, do at least 1 of them from engine to body. Can use the alternator's case bolt as one point. Do another one from battery negative to engine. Do the last one from battery negative to body. Your car will NOW start with the key. If needed, buy a generic NEG (-) battery post clamp that has bolting to clamp the copper wire. Use it's top bolts to connect the braided cable's eyelets to the negative post. Add conductive grease here as well. If you find the bolts are too short to allow the eyelets to connect, buy 2 extra bolts from the bolt section at Auto Zone. If need be, open up the package to the neg post clamp and remove a bolt. Thread it into the display they have to determine metric and thread pitch to find a match. Find an 1/8" to 1/4" bolt then thread that into the clamp and make sure it won't be too long or hit the battery. If need be, add washers to lift bolt head a few mm to clear hitting battery case. Add conductive grease to each washer. Good Luck EDIT: QUIT free-revving the engine! Last thing you'd want is to have it lean out or dump too much raw gas into the exhaust. After you swap the ECM, it may run a little rough for 20-50 miles. That'll be normal. If you fouled the O2 sensors and spark plugs, they'll need to burn off the raw gas.

I had a 96' Lincoln Mark VIII for years that had a base weight of 3800 pounds, but was closer to 4100 with me, tools, and stereo equipment. I installed a Class II hitch and could pull a 750 pound dolly, and had as much as 5500 pound Ford F150's and 4000 pound minivans on the dolly, and also pulled numerous cars weighing 3800+ pounds. While I didn't use an extension, I was WAY over the "rating" for the Class II assembly bolted to the floorpan of a unibody's trunk rails not to mention pulling more weight than the actual car. Most weight pulled moved 4100 + 750 + 5400 = 10250 and the car never pushed or had issues stopping. Granted it was a different car and DID have air bags so it always leveled out, it was never an issue pulling the combined weight. I also was NOT using electric brakes and regularly pulled vehicles in the hilly section of PA highway roads at 70 MPH. You are in a similarly powered AWD Tribecca with a similar curbweight, pulling a fraction of what I pulled with a car plus you have a Class III hitch. That 1600 pound puddle jumper isn't going to tax the handling of your Tribecca, even if you extend the hitch further out. Most of the weight will be on the trailer's axles. If you want to offset the weight laying on top of the hitch, add a couple 45 pound barbell weights to the floor at the BACK of the camper. 90 pounds should shift the weight to be behind the axle, which will make it feel lighter from the car. I also drove semis for over 10 years and had to manipulate the weight of trailer quite often (moving the axles on the trailer to create the same effect to not have too much weight on the tractor or the trailer). The amount of weight you are pulling isn't much to be worried about even if you extend the hitch. My advice like niper's would be to add an external cooler to an auto trans. I also STRONGLY suggest leaving the trans in "3" or pulling OUT of OD on the highway as it's harder on the converter's OD lock up. You should also change the auto trans fluid yearly at minimum if towing to get the most life out of the trans.

Are you saying you want to add a steering wheel cover? One that's laced on and NOT terribly thick? You need to measure the steering wheel's OD. Then take say a seamstress' measuring tape and measure the actual diameter of the grip. With that info, you can look online for leather replacements. If your steering wheel is solid plastic, then you need to take into consideration whatever material you choose will ALWAYS make the wheel THICKER as the 1/16" leather will increase the diameter of the grip. Using a lace-up style leather grip cover with a thin material, can at least allow you to get the cover as tight against the wheel as possible. IF the steering already has a leather cover from the factory (you'll have a plastic horn area and rubber covering the airbag, but actual grip will be a leather and will already have laces) you can sometimes carefully cut the laces (a "seam ripper" works great for this vs. say scissors or a razor) and remove the factory leather wrap. Most newer cars will have plastic underneath along with the factory molded grain. This is an option to "refresh" the wheel when the factory leather has worn through the finish as the plastic grip will be as fresh as a brand new car. You can then either leave wheel plastic OR apply a fresh leather wrap on top of that. The benefit here will be a slightly thinner grip. I've seen some cars however (think it was mid 80's Dodge turbo cars) where the leather wrap was actually hiding bare metal (cutting corners at every corner) but most newer cars should just be the basic steering wheel under the factory leather grip. If you can't find a decent online alternative, consider contracting a leather specialist. Most make gun harnesses custom-made to fit, but should be able to make a custom wrap out of premium leather or even pigskin with excellent stitching to connect the ends and create pre-made holes to lase it up yourself. I suggest getting a large needle to do the actual lacing. Takes about an hour to lace. Also, if you want to forgo leather, you can go to a local fabric shop, and typically find a black vinyl in simulated leather. It'll be extremely thin and VERY durable. Buy several feet of it and take that to a local seamstress. They should be talented enough to make one for you. If they are completely clueless, buy a generic cover and take that with the material, and ask them to recreate the generic one with your chosen material. They should be able to join the ends and punch out the holes, copying the generic one's layout. Use a premium synthetic for the laces or find a quality leather strap.

The light started as intermittent and is now on full-time. ABS seems to still actually be working though as tires won't lock-up under heavy braking. Is there a way to trace if it might just be a wheel sensor? Only thing odd the car does is sometimes after first starting and moving, when 1st applying the brakes, the ABS seems to either be activated or deactivated briefly as I can hear it make a noise similar to when you, say, hit the brakes on snowpack and the tires loose traction and you can hear the ABS click. Pedal effort alters when the first stop occurs then stabilizes. From that point onward, brakes act normal minus the ABS light remaining on.

It's not something to even consider. Engines going over 110k miles + are in all actuality probably chain driven. If you drive 100k miles in a year on strictly highway cruising, it *might* be possible to go longer, but NOT worth it. My mom gave me her old 91' Geo Storm GSi around 2000 and it had either mid 50's or 63k, I can't remember. She never beat on it or anything. I was clueless about belts back then and was going into 2nd gear after pulling away from a stop and it quietly stalled. Thankfully it was non-interference and super-easy to work on after getting towed home. Rubber belts typically will NOT last after a certain point. It's not an "If" situation either. It's a "when".

What year is the transmission you apparently purchased and is it a manual or auto? Filling in the blanks should net more responses. I don't know enough about these to answer so hopefully someone else will once you've explained more.

Hmm, that's strange. The trailing arms are solid. Are you saying the actual unibody is rotted? Not really much back there. If it's JUST the crossmember and/or trailing arms, it's very easy and cheap to do. Keep fresh engine oil in it and change timing belt at proper intervals, and they'll run awhile. Are doors, hood, hatch rusted? What color is car and what state are you in again? Might be able to find someone on here willing to buy it from you when you are ready.

Put video on you tube then link it here.

Chains can go 150-200k miles on average. Meaning a belt would need changed 3-4 times in the same span vs. 1 chain replacement. Cost depends on the actual engine. Good to hear chains are being used in newer engines. While belts definitely have their advantages, having a freak failure that tosses one or causes it to skip a cog on an interference engine really stinks.

When you say "constant", is it making noise at idle now? If you free-rev the engine while parked in Neutral, is it making noise then too? (I'm by no means a Subaru bible and others here know way more about these and oddities with them, was just thinking of things worth checking. Some cars a bad engine mount for example could allow engine to load differently during decel and hit exhaust on unibody, for example. Just one of those "you wouldn't believe until you see it things :/)

Yes, the differential fluid. It's optional, but is cheap enough and you'll just cross one more box of the "make it last longer" check list. Mine was almost pure black coming out and it had around 172k miles IIRC. You won't snap those studs. I suggest cracking them loose first before anything else so the rear diff will still be anchored. If you do it later once the diff is lowered, it won't be as rigid. It's basically a stud that threads into the diff cover (it might be backwards threaded at the diff cover, or it'll back out instead of the nut loosening, I don't remember). If the nut doesn't readily crack loose with a 1/2" breaker bar, put some heat directly on the stud. Just get it warm and it'll crack free. Try not to get flame on the bushings they go through or it'll smolder and stink. Replacement crossmember will have it's own bushings. Entire process is very easy. You have the 2 bolts going through the diff cover, I think 4 more that directly attach crossmember to unibody, then 1 bolt per side for lower trailing arms. If the rear brake line was replaced at some point and routed around crossmember, it may need loosened and set aside. When you initially jack rear up, leave yourself enough room to work crossmember out/in. I think mine needed to uncouple the rubber exhaust hanger so the exhaust pipe could be moved a bit for extra room when fishing the crossmember out. Any time spent will be the bolts needing heat. If you add anti-seize to them during reassembly, they'll be super easy to remove in the future. If you plan on reusing your trailing arms, crack their bolts at the crossmember around the time you crack the diff cover nuts. They are a PITA to remove sometimes if the crossmember is out of the car.

If you are going to mismatch tires, the OD needs to be identical. Also, it's typically a BAD idea to have mismatched front tires as the differing tread pattern can cause odd braking or handling behaviors. If one tire has excellent grip and other is so-so, car might not stop the way it should during a panic stop.