Bushwick

What's the usable powerband with the cams and how much power do they add?

Sounds like it lost a valve or bent one. I wouldn't try starting it anymore as-is. Pull the heads and inspect since it was locked up. If the pistons aren't damaged, you might be able to get away with swapping another head on (might just need one) and a new belt and it'll run again (if you end up going this route, make SURE to have the head inspected as it might be warped). On the other hand, if you stick a new belt on, try starting it, if a valve was bent and is sticking, it might get unstuck and snap off, and you've just destroyed the piston, connecting rod, etc. It's also possible a valve won't be working, so you need to inspect. If you decide to do a belt and not pull the heads, pull the fuel pump fuse and do a compression test. That should tell you if a valve went and will hopefully narrow down to one side of the engine or the other with a 0 psi. Obviously if that happens, you'll need to pull the head. Just please don't throw a belt on and try starting it as you might go from having an engine that's able to be saved, to one that'll have a hole punched in the piston.

Can anyone confirm exactly how they are entering the cars? I always assumed it was from a rusted hole and they are squeezing through, but all this talk of of being in the ducting suggests they are entering through the heater/AC blower's intake piping. Where exactly does this pull in fresh air from? Is under the cowl plastic? Are there holes around there big enough to squeeze through, or are they chewing the plastic away to get pass?

^That reminded me of the same high school buddy's house. His dad was getting the furnace replaced, and when the unit was removed, the big intake vent was there. At the bottom of the vent was a couple petrified frogs, a turtle, and couple hamsters. There was some laughs over that between the group of buddies. The friend that lived there had this shameful look on face, realizing all his pets were there.

OK, I'll assume we don't have one then. Was thinking if it did have one, it'd probably be extremely moldy and filthy by now. I don't seem to get very much if any dust build up in the cabin on the dash, so thinking it might have been possible. Next time I'm at Auto Zone, I'll check if anything was available this far back.

If you are using the amp's internal crossover points, you don't need chokes or caps though tweeters sound good with a nice Nichicon 10mf @ 50v (can use a 1mf @50v but it cuts the freq. too high). Same deal with head units that have internal high pass settings. You can limit everything (but the subs) to say 100 hz or even 80 hz from the head unit as most 6x9's or 6.5" woofers can easily handle that. For parts express stuff, look at the db of the speaker and read the reviews. A speaker doing 98 db at 1 watt will be much more efficient (louder with less power) than a twin making 88 db at 1 watt (will need MORE wattage to get as loud as the 98 db). Mid range speakers fall into this category of a high db rating. Sub woofers on the other hand typically fall in mid to late 80's db range. Tweeters are typically in the 90's to low 100's. How "loud" do I need it? 15 watt isn't enough. And head units are Class D which doesn't sound nearly as nice as a class A/B amp. I liken a good class A/B amp to a bottle of Champagne that's just been opened. And a class D amp to a can of flat pop that's been sitting out for a day. Yes you can still drink both, and if all you've ever drank was flat pop, you'd think it was great, but one is an experience while the other isn't. I have MANY 70's early 80's home stereo Solid State stuff. My personal favorite is a 35w RMS MCS 3233 stereo. It just rocks with movies and the like and obliterates a 100w per channel modern unit in both sound quality and dynamic range. As far as the car stuff goes, I listen to 70's and 80's pop, rock, alt, etc. I'm interested in sound quality. In the car when I turn the head unit up to say 35%, the music is very dynamic and encompassing. You can't get that from 15w of class D. My 4 tweeters are connected to 100w x 2 but their gain is low and the head unit's high freq. are nearly flat to neg values (running off the head unit and just the door speakers, these same settings were maxed out). A 10" and 12" sub are set to roughly 300w each. The two 8" at the moment are connected to 50w (not enough). The gain from each amp is adjusted to be fairly close to the head unit's output, but just a bit higher. The end result is similar to a 160 wpc late 70's Solid State home stereo like a Pioneer SX1250. So to answer the question, "loudness" is NOT the desired target. It's getting all the speakers producing very clean and VERY dynamic sounds across the entire listening spectrum instead of sounding dead and flat with a ton of distortion (distortion isn't a hiss or hum, it's exaggerated music qualities I'm trying to avoid). At home in my very quiet living room, the 35 wpc stereo is very dynamic and can peak in excess of 65w. It's completely perfect at home. If THAT were in the car, it'd sound terrible and it'd also have to compete with road noise. At full volume, you can't listen to it as it's WAY too "loud" on the higher frequencies, talking rock concert loud where your ears are ringing as the music hits them. At normal to moderate volume, it sounds very nice to my ears. The subs rarely see any rap, and are there just to round everything out. Like a home stereo system with 2 15's or similar.

Unless your engine is carb'd, you're electronically limited with the revs, so the cam won't make a difference with the redline as it's electrically limited. If the cam favors top-end, then you'd need to find a way to get a tune to raise the limit assuming the valve springs can tolerate it. CA. is a little too strict with regards to their inspections and all the "CA Approved" BS. Anywhere else you could just run a universal single cat. Your rear cat being factory, is still very restrictive and I think oddly shaped. Ideally you want them round with coarse honeycomb and short. The factory ones have a fine honeycomb and are rather long, which means more backpressure and more effort to get the gases through them. There really isn't a lot you can do to get a 2.2L NA making serious power as the aftermarket isn't really there for it like that. About the most you can do NA is install 10:1 pistons, have the heads professionally worked over (valve job, back cut, maybe increase the intake valve size), balance the engine, add nitrous.

Thanks for the pic and the suggestion. Just checked with a flashlight. They are original Think I'll try and run them from the amp and see if they last or not. They are technically just full range speakers, and as long as the lows are cut they should be OK for a little more than their rated wattage just doing mid-range and higher freq. They don't need to have a large magnet for that. Speakers from yesteryear were paper, and paper mid-range still beats a polymer mid-range from the ear test. I've always upgraded factory speakers in the past as they've never been up to snuff, and if these were the only speakers in the car, then some decent 2-ways would be required. But I have a feeling if they can survive a true 65-75w with lows cut, they'll sound good enough backing up everything else. If not, some mid-range drivers from partsconnection will probably work.

You REALLY need to disinfect your car ASAP. They don't have to bite you to get sick or a disease from them. They piss/spoob everywhere, which gets on your clothes, hands, then you touch your face, and now whatever bacteria or disease they might be carrying just got into your mouth. Mouse URINE is extremely corrosive to metal and paints. If it's allowed to set on bare metal, it'll rust quickly. If it were me, I'd pull the seats out and SCRUB them with a non chlorine disinfectant. Scrub the carpeting just the same. Wipe down all plastic surfaces, and vacuum (probably vacuum 1st). If the seats are out, the only place they can hide is the dash, but I'm betting they are under the seats. If they destroyed the hard foam the seats have, just get replacement seats as the hard foam is formed around the seat metal. I added heat to my driver seat as well as adding new foam padding on top of the hard foam. My hard foam had a rip on the left, from entering/exiting the seat. I was able to glue it back up and put Gorilla duct tape on it for extra hold, then cut segments of high density foam and glued that on top. One the seat cover was on, you even couldn't tell. If the hard foam is destroyed, you can't really add anything and might as well replace the entire seat. Oh yeah, you need to find the hole they climbed in through. I'm guessing there is a rust hole somewhere they can reach. Might want to find a way to seal it. Steel wool would work if it's not exposed to water or salt. You definitely don't want them in the dash as once they eat through a couple wires, you are SOL as it'll be a nightmare chasing down electrical demons.

Yeah, you've always got to watch with 6.5" drivers with large magnets in door cutouts, as sometimes a window can hit them, or worse they hit the back panel and need spacers to sit further out. Rear doors aren't usually an issue as most windows stop midway, although we get the funky rear window slant when rolled down. First time I noticed it I thought they were off track LOL. I've got a 3rd amp on the way 75w RMS x 4 that will be for the doors. Since tweeters are separates as are my 8" mid-bass, the doors will be full range for vocals, etc. Was hoping people would say "factory speakers are junk, they rattle, etc." as it'd tell me right away if someone already installed newer units, and thus avoid the issue of pulling 4 door panels, or at least 1 panel to see what's there.

Yeah, it's a wagon. Clarion was actually a decent speaker maker in the 90's. My doors are the only things NOT amplified externally yet (tweeters, mid-bass, and subs are). I'll be really surprised if the factory units are still in then. The Pioneer is probably 10-15w RMS x 4, and at full volume with high pass around 80 hz starting point, I've yet to hear them rattle or give any sign of of clipping or distortion, which you'd normally get with most cheaper factory speakers.

Thermostats are designed in 1 of 2 ways. Factory versions when they fail, they typically remain shut, which won't allow coolant to flow, or they stick (like from putting tap water in your system and mineral deposits mess it up). Some aftermarket units will fail in the open position. Those are complete garbage though and I've personally had 2 of them fail in my other car, with neither one seeing more than 2k miles in a year before failing. I hope you've been using distilled water. If the issue doesn't straighten out with bleeding air (assuming that's the issue, I know VW has the issue as well with the 1.8L turbos) spending $7 for a new thermostat isn't going to hurt anything and will give piece of mind.

I honestly wouldn't bother with these. Unless you are planning to up the rev limit to 8k or something ridiculous, you won't see much of anything with improvements and will probably hurt your performance unless you plan on sticking a custom cam in and upping compression to 10.5:1 or something. Porting is more beneficial in an engine with 1 intake and 1 exhaust valve. Since these have 2 in/ex each cylinder, it's already flowing better. Like Gloyale said, you can remove any flashing or ugly casting marks, but I STRONGLY advise NOT touching the port diameters. I'd also suggest porting the exhaust header INLET to be a touch larger than the exhaust port in the head, and leave the intake alone. Aluminum is a RPITFA to grind, and reworking the steel header is more safer and more practical. From there, I suggest a cold air intake, sticking a SINGLE high flow cat in, and running a 2.25" exhaust from cat-back. Although, since you are in CA., I suggest getting an approved cat like a 3" in/out and getting a welder to adapt that to a 2.25" diameter after the cat and matching it to fit the factory headers. A 225 HP 302W Ford would typically get dual 2.5" exhaust as an upgrade, which split in half is 2.5L per exhaust and the cars ran super strong with it. Being a 2.2L, 2.25" exhaust will match nicely. Doing the math, the old 302 was making 112.5 HP per 4 cylinders, as opposed to the 2.2L making around 132 HP. My old 96' Mark VIII with the 4.6L DOHC engine with 290 hp (2.3L and 145 HP per 4 cylinders) only had 2.25" and it ran fine with that too. Doing your exhaust and intake will be the most bang for butt with 4-6hp roughly from the intake and maybe another 10-15 hp for the exhaust depending how restrictive your entire set up is. Assuming you were a PRO at blending and working the heads (just cleaning up the ugly castings if they exist and removing burrs), you'd be HARD PRESSED to pick up 1-2 hp, although the engine might "feel" smoother when you step on it. Here's an example of how a restrictive exhaust steals HP. My Saab's factory turbo died right after I sold the Mark VIII. Needing a car to drive until a rebuild could be done on the turbo, I removed the CHRA but left the exhaust housing attached, and bolted on a home made "cover" to block the hole off, so the exhaust was just flowing through the hollow turbo exhaust housing. With a 5 speed, the car was barely making 90hp NA (might have been less). It was about as a quick as my old 84' Diesel Rabbit that had 50 hp. I ported the empty exhaust housing inlet (basically the same as a header inlet) as the rebuild was getting a MUCH larger compressor wheel and compressor housing, and the factory A/R was like 48, which is VERY small, it's like 4 cyl. trying to breath through 1 exhaust runner on a NA header. After porting that, the car picked up something like 15-25hp NA. I did a video before and after with just the exhaust housing ported and car running NA with no turbo. It was night and day. Dropping your factory 1 7/8" exhaust for a more performance friendly 2.25", should give you some HP numbers you can actually feel and back up with a stop watch.

I'd pull the plugs and see how they look. I'd also inspect the spark plug wires. If routed wrong and heavily chaffed, or just plain OLD and falling apart, they can ground out on the engine and cause all sorts of issues. Had an 86' Cougar years ago. The battery hold down was loose and the battery moved. It touched the alternator fan blade, which promptly chewed a hole on the exterior of the battery, which spewed some battery acid on a plug wire and ate right through it which went unnoticed. Replaced battery, and engine was misfiring and running rough. At night, the arcing from the compromised wire was visible. Have you checked your oil lately? That's an easy way to see if coolant is leaking in there, as is a steady decrease in coolant from the reservoir.

It looks like they are 6.5" speakers in the doors, but I want to be certain before pulling any door covers off. Also, are the front and rear door panels difficult to remove? Any tricks with them coming out? I think the speakers might not be factory as the stereo was not factory when I got the car. I replaced that stereo with a newer Pioneer, and have yet to ever hear them distort regardless of volume, which I doubt the factory speakers could handle in a base L model, especially after 19 years. Or did Subaru actually contract a decent speaker company?

Saw as early as 99' for the Impreza, but unsure of when the Legacy started either using them, or offering as an option? Are they all behind the glove box?

I'd leave it AWD and bump the power output. 1.6L isn't the greatest for power and you'll need all the RPM you can get. Cheapest HP maker is a Frankenbuild setup. Guys run EJ22 heads on an EJ25 bottom end. Run 91 or 93 octane as it raises compression. Supposedly, HP is around what the EJ25 has, but with the compression and heads aimed for velocity = more fun especially for the intended purpose + it's very cheap to do. Or stick a smaller turbo on it and get the steepest gearing you can find (something has 4.44's, but unsure what. Might be the Outback. Big difference going from a 4.10 to 4.44 if you have the latter). Otherwise, go with steepest gearing and a small turbo like GT2556 (270hp) or GT2560 (60 trim version as it makes 300 hp) and you'll have all the low-end hp and tq to spin with, but you'll need an ecm that can be adapted to run boost, plus injectors, FP, etc.. Standard Legacy seats weigh around 35-40 pounds each (manual tracks) so sticking aluminum buckets in can pull 50 pounds give or take, so Impreza should be very similar. Sticking a lightweight hood would be smart too. Apparently aluminum rims for these are already very light compared with other cars. Another option is getting a 3.0L or 3.6L to work with a carb. It's doable and the toughest part will be fabbing up a spot to mount the carb and make sure it's feeding enough fuel to each cyl. and the HP will be in the 250 range, which should be plenty for this curbweight. Hell of a lot cheaper sticking a tiny Holley 2 or 4 barrel on and adding regulator to drop pressure or adding an aftermarket fuel pump than swapping ALL the electronics from a donor. Saw a guy do this on a Saab with it's factory intake by machining a spot for the carb. Didn't think it'd run but it did. I can drift mine in the snow and loose gravel easily even with a bunch of added weight (tools and stereo stuff) and it's an auto with just an EJ22 (and it's a wagon). Pretty fun as I can hold it almost sideways on heavily snowed roads. Facing 12 o'clock, I can keep the rear at 4 o'clock on left turns and 8 o'clock on right turns and this thing is lucky to make 130 at the crank. Forcing RWD would be boring on this.

http://sl-i.net/FORUM/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=23111 Just scroll down, he notes what fits and what fits with alterations. I really like my 95' L Wagon. It's an auto with the 2.2L as well. I changed all the fluids (trans, rear diff, oil, etc.) to be safe as the mileage was up there and no point "hoping" 180k mile rear diff fluid is "OK". My front struts were replaced supposedly as part of a recall (previous owner said this), and the front sits about 2.5" from tire height to fender lip. Rear with weight squats too much, so installed those 2" spring blocks. Works like a charm and firmed the ride up. How high is yours sitting BTW as I'd like to compare. I'd thoroughly look over the rear crossmember. Mine was completely GONE at 177k miles. I mean there were 8" sections that were just GONE. Had to have it towed home. If you don't have any holes in yours yet, I suggest putting axle grease or some other rust and moisture inhibitor allover it, top and bottom. Oil spraying would work too. Salt likes to sit on top and just eat it away. If your Outback has a strong crossmember, hold onto it. With that said, the EJ22 is a fairly strong runner. We had iced roads the other day (freezing rain) and I was out lighting all 4 tires up and burning the carbon off the valves. Sounded pretty good hearing it run like that EDIT: I forgot, take your REAR sway bar OFF the 96' and stick it on the 95'. It'll make a huge difference in the turns and the rear won't "wag" as much. If you find the car "wandering" too much in the snow, check for cracked/broken end links on the front sway bar.

Actually, on a hunch I went ahead and waited until the Legacy was at full operating temp and had a full charge on the battery by the time it made it to the local gas station 15 minutes ago. While leaving the engine running but turning all the accessories off, I popped the hood and pulled the "on" wire (the 3 wired plug on top of unit, NOT the actual charging wiring that runs to battery) and let it set for a minute. It had absolutely NO lights pop on in the dash despite the fact it wasn't charging. That's because the battery was still at a "safe" voltage and hadn't dropped enough to trigger any dash warnings. So, the result with the Mark VIII is the same as with the Legacy. As long as the battery has an acceptable voltage, you can unhook your top alt. plug and no CEL, etc. should come up if it's like mine. He put a Silverstar bulb in and is saying that was dim too. If someone before him stuck an incorrect alternator from a base model that makes too little amperage to handle all the car's electronics, while running all his stuff it might be OK for small current demands, turning a bunch of accessories ON might be taxing the alt beyond what it's capable of, especially if it's NOT working as it should. Hence we should know what his alt. voltage is AND his voltage at the lights to see if a drop in voltage is occurring at the alt, after the alt, or at the lights, etc.

Yeah, I only used the Lincoln as it was an OBDII car at the alt was modded. At idle, it wasn't spinning fast to kick on. The OBDII stuff wasn't detecting an issue and the car ran, but at idle it was only running off battery until the engine speed went up. Any time you buy a used vehicle, you have no idea what the PO did to it. At idle, the headlights were so dim it wasn't safe either If his dummy charge light was unhooked, he wouldn't know if the voltage was too low either.

I'm on my 2nd dremel after the 1st gave up after many years in a quick pop and release of smoke so it was retired and replaced with a unit that didn't have as much torque ;( Was just giving a heads-up as the material is soft. I'd suggest practicing 1st on your old plugs you are pulling and see if you terminate the overhang to stop around 75% of electrode coverage with a perfect radius blend where the square tip used to be. Also, try and keep the area getting rounded 100% vertically straight. It's possible to "cant" the edge, so the bottom edge closest to the electrode gap extends further than the top of the |````\ |___\ ( <- rounded edge with a canted angle) |```| (<- Electrode) ground strap like so ^. Doing that might affect the incoming charge to get thrown a bit as it hits the ramping (speculation as I don't know where the incoming charge hits on these heads). If the air/gas enters the head on top of the that is. If someone where to take the strap back to to say beyond the middle 50% coverage point, to something like 25%, the angle might actually help if the incoming charge hits directly from above. Again, purely speculation and probably doesn't matter, but worth considering if you are the type to make up several sets of plugs, then run them back to back on a dyno to see if any hp/tq changes occur and if the mixture leans out or the spark gets weaker or something in the higher revs. Furthest I ever tried was around 45% electrode coverage with the rake on my old 4.6L DOHC Ford. Don't think I'd go back to that short considering the NGK V's are responding so well as-is. Anyone tried this yet? Would love to hear your impressions. Only person I ever had try this was a Harley owner and he really liked it. His reaction to me was funny as he was skeptical at first This is smarter: `````| ___| |``|

In Highschool, a buddy's brother had a snake that he fed mice to. One night I was in the kitchen and a mouse escaped it's execution chamber and was scurrying across the floor. A 2nd buddy was with me and we caught it, then I decided as a joke it'd be funny to put it in my 1st buddy's dad's car It lived in there for almost 2 weeks before getting detected LMAO

http://vespamaintenance.com/elec/plugs/resistplug.gif I looked here as I wasn't familiar with calling by anode/cathode (with regards to plugs) and had trouble finding pics calling by that name as well. @Fairtax, this mod won't make your existing plugs "worse". If they are at the end of their lifespan however i.e. 40k mile copper plugs with a lot of hard driving, it won't do much to help them. As long as your wires and such are in good shape, it'll definitely help the car out. My old Mark VIII that had a set in for AWHILE finally developed a miss after several years in the car and a ton of hard driving and some towing. Pulled them and they looked near new, with minor wear and were clean, but it was definitely failing. Just saying, give the mod a 2nd chance with new plugs

What are you talking about? A battery with 12.5V is good. That's usually about where they are at after the car first shuts off. If the engine is running, the alt is producing the voltage and it should be 13-14V. Did you try adding the extra grounds to the block like I suggested? A ground can't be verified from a "visual" only. Ground the block to the battery, and try starting. Did you check the fusible link? When mine went, it wouldn't start but I believe it still had some accessory stuff working.

You are welcome. Wish I had the old magazine still as the articles were priceless.