bulwnkl

Are you sure it's 5W50 and not 15W50? M1 does not list a 5W50 product for any of North America. I would suggest that a 15W is too thick for Nova Scotia winters. Shouldn't be a biggie next summer, though.

You are correct that Redline's 75W90NS is the proper fluid. It IS gear oil, and as such could be used in your rear diff, but the 'proper' fluid is their regular 75W90. Those two fluids are the same basic thing, except that the NS's frictional properties are made to work well with synchronizers. Redline's site and their technical contact (Dave Granquist) are very good resources. If for some reason you decided to not use the Redline 75W90NS in the transmission, I would encourage you to contact SpecialtyFormulations(.com). They are a company that mostly makes specially formulated lubricants for race teams and other specialized applications, but they have over-the-counter transmission and gear lubes as well. The correct one for our Subarus is MTL-R. It is a GL-5 75W90 fluid made specifically for synchronized gearboxes. It is not to be used in the rear diff. I have it in my XT6 5-speed now and it is excellent stuff. I would be very, very wary of the cocktail mentioned on NASIOC from a durability/longevity point of view. It would be great for the synchros, but death on the front differential. I have asked people who use something OTHER THAN a 75W90 GL5 lube how many miles they've ever put on their tranny with the other stuff (like Redline MTL or Pennzoil Synchromesh), and no one has ever answered me. To me this is good reason to think that they've never seen the results on their front differentials of a too-thin fluid which lacks GL5 protection over time. Do as you will, of course, but you are correct that Redline 75W90NS is the fluid for your transmission.

Bingo. I'm glad at least one paranoiac has placed their paranoia appropriately.

I like the studless tires because where I live (and used to live), the roads are only icy or snowy a fairly low percentage of the time, and they work much better on dry pavement. I have some Nokian Hakkapeliita Qs (for sale if you want them) and I think they are the bomb. They're at least as good as Blizzaks, but unlike Blizzaks they don't wear off all the sticky rubber compound in a couple hundred miles of pavement.

This would appear to indicate that OVERALL the systems can only barely be shown to be effective beyond the confidence interval of the study. When combined with the fact that they can be shown to be more effective on slick roads, this can only mean that they are detrimental on dry pavement. Any thoughts?

Total load of crap designed to keep you away from there for a while (after all, they sold you a car with a bad clutch).

1 '91 XT6. Runs poorly lately, drives great if not for the running issue. See my woes here on XT6.net.

I agree; good point.

If it's 4WD and an XT6, then it came from the factory with air suspension. It's a really great system but is now showing its age and many have been switched over to coil springs. Replacement parts are expensive for the air suspension. There are both 2wd and 4wd ones, and the 4wd rides higher (better for off-road). I like my '6 a lot, though it's giving me serious (electrical??) troubles right now.

SAABs are pretty much bulletproof when it comes to outright longevity. Also, though I'll be stoned as a heretic here I'm sure, your situation is ideal for an American car. A good Buick or even Pontiac with a 3.8-liter V-6 will run 250-350,000 highway miles easily. American cars have lower maintenance costs than any other makes, get fuel economy in the low 30's on the highway, and are bigger and much more comfortable cruising the freeways. Okay, I'm going to go run and hide now.

Nipper, I really respect you as a member here and get great info from you regularly. I hope what I am about to say is not taken as anything other than part of this one discussion. First of all, most thermostats in new cars for the past several years have been 190-195 F, not 170-180. Next, I do not agree that most oil temps are 220-230. Most GM vehicles these days are equipped with oil-coolant heat exchangers that keep the oil temp quite close to coolant temp. If you can provide data to support the notion that oil sump temperatures are that high on average, please post it. I can tell you what the sump temperatures are in our Neon and XT6 during summertime (90-100 F) highway operation at 80mph according to infrared readings of the sump or filters (whichever is higher). The Neon runs ~195F under those conditions, and the XT6 is 205-210F. You can find an excellent digest of a study of coolant temperatures vs. oil sump temperatures AT WIDE OPEN THROTTLE here. Next, those are temperatures in the sump. The temperatures of the various 'hot spots' in the engine are far, far higher than that. So, the oil is constantly being exposed to temperatures much higher. That doesn't mean the oil gets to those higher temps, but it gets part of the way there. So, in order for an engine to avoid coking into a carbon ball within a few hundred yards, the oil clearly is capable of dealing with these temperature cycles over and over and over again. In another thread on here you posted that the additives in oil are worn out by 3,000 miles, even in synthetics. That is absolutely false. I posted data above showing it is false, and there are literally thousands of analyses that show such an assertion is false. Do you have any data to support that claim in a broad application? Finally, I wish to add that main bearings and big-end bearings (lower rod bearings) are actually not very harsh places for oil. In terms of heat to the oil, most of it comes from under the piston crown. In terms of shear, the bearings are low-shear areas. The cylinder walls/rings are the high-shear areas of an engine, as are valvetrains in SOME engines. I fully support everyone's decision to change oil however often they want to. Everyone should change it whenever they're comfortable doing so. Nevertheless, opinion and preference needs to be properly identified as such, rather than becoming confused with fact and data.

I know that the "change it at 3,000 miles or else" phobia will persist perhaps forever, but I'd like to offer this: Over the past several years (since 1999) I've used both synthetic and conventional oils in a variety of vehicles and have taken samples and sent them to the lab to see exactly what was going on. Prior to that (way back in the '70s) we used oil analysis on the oil in our tractor(s). Using Mobil1 in a 1998 Dodge V-10 farm pickup in Yuma, AZ (it gets 125 F there), and SE Washington State under conditions of extreme dust, sand, mud, standing water, towing and hauling well above rated levels, and general farm (ab)use I ran 10,000 miles between drains and filter changes. The lab report showed excellent, low wear rates and plenty of reserve to go much further. I declined because 10,000 was an easy figure to remember. I found precisely the same results under the same conditions with my '01 Toyota Tacoma V-6. In my modified '99 SAAB 9-3 I found the same ability with both Mobil 1 and RedLine. In our present Plymouth Neon I have found the same with Amsoil and RedLine. The cars did/do not see the same kind of service as the pickups, of course, but the Neon has made several very-high-speed trips through and around Nevada and southern Arizona at temperatures above 115 F during those long oil drain runs. My XT6 has never been taken to an extended drain interval. I use it too infrequently, it uses/leaks too much oil, and I'm trying to get it all cleaned up. At this point I would increase the drain interval if it didn't go through as much as it does. It's hard to see pouring high-$ oil through it when it's a leaker/user. There are very few driving conditions in North America which would NOT allow you to run 5,000 miles on $0.49/quart Chevron Supreme these days. Subarus are not 'sludger' motors so you don't need a synthetic for that. Super-short trips in sub-zero temps in the winter might require you to change more often than that in a Subie, but you'll never know if you don't test it.

If the junkyard option doesn't work out for you (or if they're in the same shape as yours), you might consider having it/them repaired. I know at least 1 shop in Spokane that repairs WAAAYYY worse head cracks & problems than that. That's really their whole business. I'm sure Seattle metro area has shops that do the same work. Good luck!

I think I'm confused. That picture is of a standard Euro-spec low beam pattern (meaning that is the pattern required in Europe). You can get that pattern out of any 'E-code' lens/reflector combo. Is that what you mean? That the 'E-code' pattern is optimized for HID lights but the American-mandated pattern (which is different) is not? The American-market cars with HIDs seem to work pretty well. Can you help me understand?

This was covered here recently. A search should pick it up. Alternatively, it's stickied on the main forum page at XT6.net Anyway, Legacy or Impreza front struts will work, but need a little modification. I have no info about spindles or brakes.

There's really nothing in particular to worry about. Diesel fuel won't burn properly in a gasoline engine; that's why a car filled with diesel fuel on an empty tank won't run. I doubt there's trouble with the cat given the very limited amount of diesel that probably got through the engine, but I suppose anything's possible. Drain and re-fill fuel tank (with gasoline this time ), bleed supply lines and off-side injector rail, and drive away.

You can easily repair (or have repaired) cracks of this type. I cannot say about those particular cracks. XT6 heads that are cracked between the vavles have been successfully fixed.

I agree, too. The only way I can see this being a 4-cylinder is if it's a 2-stroke; the throws are only 90 degrees apart. Wrong. Over-simplified and only partly true. PERIOD.

Have you put a meter on it to see whether the resistance/output is stable or variable? I have had a similar condition on my XT6 for a while. A couple of us on XT6.net describe it as "power waves." A new (used) TPS had no impact. A new coil seemed to help some, but it's not gone. I'd love to know if you resolve it this way, because I have been totally unable to find or eliminate this problem.

This statement from your post: makes this statement untrue: So are you uncertain, or suffering from multiple personality disorder?:-p

Well, which math? I guess in part I was trying to demonstrate that the sound is generated inside the engine, and is merely resonated by the exhaust. When I pull the exhaust off my XT6 (2.7-liter flat 6), it sounds absolutely nothing like my Z-car (2.4-liter inline 6) without its exhaust, and it never will without different cams and heads, and maybe even a significantly different ratio of bore to stroke. This is very analogous to a musical instrument like a trumpet. You can alter the tone, you can make the noise more or less "brassy," or other similar things by switching between a trumpet and a coronet or a flugelhorn (changing rate of taper of the tube, size and flare rate of the bell, diameter of the straight portion of the tube, etc.), but the base sound is the same between them because the instrument is not generating the sound, the player is. The instrument, which is analogous to the exhaust of a car, simply resonates the sound and can augment certain qualities of it. Exhausts are normally much simpler than musical instruments in that they are typically constant-diameter pipe from the lead-pipe to the muffler (at least) and are all made with basically the same construction and material-type. I don't disagree at all that you can "smooth" or "even out" the sound by tuning to make the exhaust pulses reach a certain point at a certain interval, but as I said in the example above, even when you do that some engines just sound completely different.

Speaking of ER27 exhaust sound, I don't happen to like mine. It's still a 6 cylinder, but it's not that great. So, exhaust tuning people, what would need to be done to get it to sound like a Datsun 240Z? Strictly exhaust work, or also head and port work?

I'd like to hear more about the "sludge," too. Either way, what is the timing chain's tensioning mechanism in the EZ-30? Is it a hydraulic tensioner or spring-loaded?

Hey, THE ROSS, please post how you resolve this, will you? I'm chasing a very similar thing in my XT-6. I think it's electrical on mine because you can't reproduce the failure reliably.

You can pull the equivalent parts from a junkyard. I have '01 Impreza 2.5RS struts and springs on the front of mine, and I had 4WD wagon rear struts & springs on it until I went to Huck's Ultra-Secret suspension back there. The Impreza units are NOT simply bolt-on. The ONLY thing that is purely, 100% bolt-on is a full set of struts and springs from an XT. The Impreza units are not too hard to make work, though. Come to think of it, 4WD wagon rears will actually bolt right in, they just don't ride at quite the right height. I cut a coil off my springs and they were just about right. Now, if you're going to use standard XT fronts, then you wouldn't want to cut anything from the back, because XT struts will lift the car a little (sometimes a lot). HTH