rallyruss

you are looking at the wrong one. the CTS has 2 wires. the one for the gauge has one wire.

on my wagon I had to put a floor jack under a breaker bar to get it to crack loose. some good quality penitrating oil is good to use before hand too.

no dont cut holes in the gasket. they design them that way on purpose. you will mess up the coolant flow. oh yeah nice view.

I thought we were going to leave politics out of the USMB?

ok I will bite. the supperior detergent packages in synthetic oil is the best part about them or and standard oil with a good detergent package. now you mention larger molecules in gaps. that sounds like poor sealing to me. there should be no "gaps" in a properly sealed motor. trust me I have done both good sealing jobs and bad ones. and on the bad job any kind of fluid would have leaked out. so ok lets say this is true. then if you have a motor with some amount of "normal seapage" and you really dont want to mess with resealing it you may see some increase in the leakage if you swith to synthetic. I would buy that scenario. ok point taken. as for the expense of the stuff? if you find cheap synthetic oil its probably just that "cheap" I personally dont run with the Royal purple crowd. I used to sell it. there were some fishy aspects to it. I dont really trust them. its a red line knock off in my opinion. I have heard lots of testamonials about Amsoil from people who swear by it. hey that must mean somthing. I chose Red line because they are a local company (to me) and have been verry helpfull in the past when tring to find a special oil or specifications on the products. they also are used alot in racing.

I dont know. I think this is an urban shade tree mechanic myth. I have never seen any proof of synthetic oil causing the engine to leak. I have used synthetic in motors with well over 100k on them that did not leak before or after synthetic. I have also seen plenty of low mile motors run on regular oil leaking. now is the oil to blame? or is it just a crappy seal job?

I have run red line products in my cars with good results. the trany fluid MTL (manual trans. lube) is by far some of the best out there. helps the synchros work smoothly for really nice shifts. I was using the red line engine oil too but it is rather expensive and I went back to good old castrol recently.

easier to hang out and check the terrain? gives you that wind blown look? its different? I dont know but I like em.

no problem. hope you get it done with out breakage.

hmm all the valve checks are all well and good to check. I assume this is with the motor installed in the car? I would dorp the exhaust and retry just incase it was pluged. I once had a no start after an engine replacement of an overheated motor. turns out the exhaust pluged up real good. another thing I would want to know it what a vacume gauge showed while cranking.

ok chiltons was almost there. you want to tap into the signal while its still connected to the harness. with the car good and hot signal voltage should cycle yes. .4 to .6 mmm no. that would tell me that its a lazy 02. you need to come closer to .1 and .9 Volts. note: do this at say 1500 rpm. if 02 stays high or low it still may not actually be an 02 problem but a problem with the engine management. but if you want to just change it I now rember what you mean about the heat shield. that thing is in the way of a wrench. you will need a 02 socket. try to find one with a ratchet attachment on the side not the top. they are usualy shorter. or a ofset wrench will work too. good luck.

how are you testing this? I dont quite understand. that sounds like an unusual test method. as for the isnstall and or removal try a normal combo wrench(7/8" I think will do fine) after soaking it with some good penitrating fluid. there are lots of different 02 removal tools you may have just got one that will not work on your car.

for seal replacement this is the proper method. if you actually retorque it you may overtighten the crush sleve and cause bearing failure. I would recomend using loctite on the nut and lube the seal really good.

http://www.fle-online.com/CONVERTERS/CATUniversal/catcouniversal.htm not a recomendation just did a simple search and this place had good info. http://www.knfilters.com/facts.htm#PAPER

pin locations should be acurate. 85 mpfi I would guess you have the flapper style maff. if so you can manualy open the maf "door" while watching the signal voltage(key on engine off). do it really slow and watch the voltage increase nice and smooth. If the singal drops out you have a bad spot in the maf.

its around 215,000total and 22mpg.shooting for 300,000:drunk:

when in dirt I say dump it. on the pavement I would not knowing the weak trany int the wrx.

you are correct. but the old camaros with cowl induction also had many motors fail due to water intake and then hydralock. I understand the principle in question I just want to point out that you would have to get it done just right or you may have a serious problem during the rainy season or serious puddle smashing.

fourtunately it does not run lean. it would be a bandaid to just put on an extra bypass valve and the bov has nothing to do with boost regulation while you are on the gas.so the best solution I see is the TD04 that is actually better matched to the EA82T. if the bidding goes well I will have an intercooler today to complete the system. now back to air filters. the fender is probaby still the best location for a good cold air intake. air thru the hood means water too. this brings somthing to mind oh yeah hydralock.

look at your wiring diagram and find the signal output wire. the maf should output a linear voltage that coresponds to air flow with out any drop outs. a standard meter may not work if the problem is not severe enough. I would not rely on disconecting stuff as a test method. what maf sensor type are you refering to? flaper or hot wire?

it is set at stock boost level yes but the combination of flow increasing mods makes it flow more than it was designed for. the wase gate opens to dump and limit boost but the opening is rater small and enough flow is still forced thru the turbo to keep boost climbing after it has tried to limit it. this usually happens under a good full throttle load at 4500 rpm or higher. we had a discussion on this a while back where others had noticed the same thing after doing some good intake and exhaust mods. if you compare a stock turbo next to say a TD04 you can really see the difference in wastegates. northwet- I respect your opinions on the K/N type filters but I personally have never seen any ill effects from running one. I have been using them for the last 10 years on multiple vehicles. I do agree that a GOOD paper element filter is a verry trustworthy filter. I have seen crapy ones fail and cause problems espically if water is added to the situation. I only have one car running a paper element now and thats my new(to me) turbodiesel mercedes. the stock filters in those cars are awesome. most japan designed vehicles dont use paper element any more but rather a synthetic material thats a bit more open and breathable. so I guess its a matter of personal choice as there are benifits and drawbacks to all designs.

normaly they are a oil soaked gauze material such as K/N or a foam type. personaly I lean twards the K/N type. I have seen motors lost due to crapy foam filters. This does not mean all foam filters are junk but I cannot tell the junk from the good ones yet.

currently I have a subspeed down pipe 3 way cat 2 1/2 pipe out the rear. stock up pipe. this part ofthe set up works really well. I used to run a guted down pipe with an exta waste gate pipe added into a 2 1/2 system out the back. I only used this for rallyX but it ran well. now its just sitting on the side of the house. as for intake I feel I have found the best of both worlds. I use a K/N drop in filter(not a cone) and have removed the intake silencer in the fender as well as enlarging the opening from the fender into the air box. I also run an intercooler. the good part about my set up is that it runs a lot stronger than a stock set up but looks rather stock and is clean. the bad part is that it has surpassed the tiny stock turbos flow ability and It now tends to overboost at high RPM. thus the need to get my TD04 installed. you can do cheap mods no problem but if you really want it to go fast AND be durable you need to save you cash and do it right. of course the search function will bring up many previous discussions about the mods in question. good luck and happy tuning.

I use a miller 135 at work and a miller 175 at home. both are great welders the 175 is more expensive but does a better job at a wider range of thicknesses. dont buy a cheapo welder if you can help it it will only frustrate you. go with a lincon or miller. and yes you NEED fine adjustment. espically on sheet metal. that is in my opinion some of the hardest stuff to lay a nice bead on. you may want to consider gas or tig setups too.

maf sensor failures usually cause the car to run lean. an o2 failure I belive will run rich. o2 will make it run crappy all the time but still drivable. where a maf failure usually will have pinging/ hesitations. the effect are a bit more harsh but can differ depending on what whent wrong. simply disconnect the o2 and drive it. does it get better? worse? you can clean the hot wire mafs but the flaper style ones are internal contact issues usually.