presslab

That looks fantastic! Well done.

Yeah funny how I pinpoint the problem and all I get is flak! You're welcome...

Okay, I give. Your proven intellect and accomplished feats far surpass mine. It's all about the "osculating magnetic field", yes. What do tacnodes have to do with the price of hay in Wichita? Subaru was obviously wrong when they only connected one end.

You know enough to be dangerous. :-p You're using "inductance" wrong; what you mean is electromagnetic. If you connect the shield to ground on both sides, you now have multiple paths for ground current to flow. A ground loop. You know, that 60 hz hum you have in your home stereo. Or that "alternator whine" from the radio in your car. So now when your injectors fire, your IAC is energized, etc, a portion of these currents are flowing through your new ground connection. This new ground connection just so happens it's trying to shield a millivolt signal, and in fact it's now inducing electrical noise into this signal. I'm certain the stock coax cable is not attached to ground at both ends.

Nice job! One note though, I believe the shield of the cable is only connected at the ECU end, and not at all at the sensor end. If it were connected at both ends it would create a ground loop. One trick I've done with the sensor is to insert a resistor in series with it. Something like a 470 ohm, but I'd have to look it up if you're curious. I was getting some false knock from my worn out 160k mile engine and this helped a lot. But in any case I didn't get a CEL before or after this mod.

The technical documents on R12 conversion say that the mineral oil used in an R12 system is not miscible with R134a. What that means is that the R134a will not carry the mineral oil through the system to lubricate the compressor. Whatever R12 left in the system will need to do this. A somewhat less crappy way to convert to R134a it is to add more PAG oil on top of the mineral oil. This works, and the mineral oil just hangs around, coating the insides of the condenser and evaporator. This reduces the cooling, but at least the compressor has good oil. If you didn't evac the system and change the dryer the moisture will mix with the PAG oil and form acid to rot the system out from the inside, but this will take a while. It seems to me like false economy to do something that could damage the pricey A/C components, when a better solution is not really any more expensive. But in the colder areas of the country A/C is really not used often, so I guess I can understand not caring so much.

Without any R12 left in the system, the existing mineral oil will not lubricate the compressor and it'll burn up. If you're mostly full with R12 you can top-off with r134a and it will work I guess. If I were you I'd order the ES-12a right now and slam it in there. ES-12a will work with your existing mineral oil and you'll get it in less than a week. Then when you get back you can vent the ES-12a (non ozone depleting), flush your system, replace the dryer, add POE oil, and charge it back up. http://autorefrigerants.com/co00033.htm

The wire also has a shield around it. The shield can short to the center conductor, so it's a good idea to also check from the wire to ground to see if it's shorted.

I'm not sure why the EAs have such front positive camber from the factory. I'd guess it's because the early cars didn't have power steering, and positive camber reduces steering effort. I can't see why positive camber would be better off-road, specifically; I'd say zero static camber would be ideal to maximize straight line traction. For street use, negative static camber can counteract the tire's tendency to roll under on hard cornering, and to compensate for the lack of negative camber on body roll. The lack of caster I can easily understand, as too much caster can cause torque steer on an AWD vehicle. Positive caster will give more negative camber as the wheel is turned; this is what is desired for performance handling. More positive caster will also increase steering effort. A good (although dated) reference book that I have is here: http://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Your-Car-Handle/dp/0912656468

I used four of these on each side, 2" by 13/16": http://www.mcmaster.com/nav/enter.asp?partnum=98026A036 It's close when the wheel is turned, yes. But still at least a finger's width away. It's never rubbed. I have taken it offroad a little, and driven some mountain roads like they're meant to be driven. I'm sure my ~300 HP engine applies a good amount of force to the suspension as well.

Thanks Twitch. The camber made the biggest difference in tire wear. I kept having to rotate the tires because the outside on the front was getting chewed away. What I noticed with the caster is that before the caster change the handling was tight (push, understeer) and after it was loose. This means that the front tires have more grip during cornering. I don't really want the car to be loose so I adjusted the f/r tire pressure from what I used to run and now the handling is just how I want it. The radius arm push does tweak the lower control arm bushings. This was part of the motivation for the urethane. I don't have a ton of miles on the urethane but there is no noticeable wear. They're not terribly strained anyway though.

I have successfully "crushed" a stock FPR to increase the pressure. This basically pre-loads the internal spring. A couple blocks of wood and a vice, not hard. Do a little at a time and test it until you're at the pressure you want.

Yeah your car is awesome DBCooper, please stick around. Did you do the work yourself? I hope to someday make nice TIG welds like yours. We need more people like you here. There are some pretty harsh members here compared to some of the other forums I visit, I'm not sure why. I try to ignore them. There are some pretty cool guys too. It's not as bad here as say NASIOC, that's for sure. Cheers.

Yeah, the stock valve will do that. As you say, it's not an issue when plumbed correctly.

Loctite 518 is indeed the good stuff, it is anaerobic so it won't clog oil gallerys.

The 5MT has 1.59 low range and 3.545 1st gear, for a reduction of 5.64:1. The 4EAT has a torque converter ratio of 2.02 and a 1st gear of 2.785, for a reduction of 5.63:1. And no clutch to burn up in the 4EAT. :-p The GL is a lot lighter than a Forester or Outback.

You still need a tranny? I have one from a GC8 WRX, 4.11:1.

If your car never came with an O2 sensor, you can plug it with a oil drain plug from your corner parts store. One wire sensors sense oxygen content just like a three wire sensor. The three wire sensors have a heating element so they work sooner upon startup, but once warmed up by exhaust gas the one wire ones work just fine.

The fine print:

I have another thought as well. What about making an external input shaft to the pinion gear? This would allow an external t-case with two driveshafts between the tranny and the t-case. The t-case will drive the pinion with an internal chain, along with the possibility for low range and 4WD to the front. I know the t-cased lifted Subies use a front diff under the existing one, right? But being able to utilize the existing diff inside the 4EAT would open up some possibilities.

Here's an intermediate shaft from a FWD. You can see the width available between the bearings for a chain. If I wanted a wider chain I could make a longer intermediate shaft (and cover spacer), but that's more $$$.

Yes a romulator would be nice. But there's two EEPROM chips and it would be a pain to do both. Maybe if there's some dual ROM emulator or something, that could download the two at the same time. It's not so bad with the ZIF sockets. I need to pull over to tweak the tuning anyway, and in the van the ECU is easily accessible under the rear seat. I took the van on some steep dirt roads this last weekend. The torque is fantastic, from 1500 RPM up it just pulls. Now that I have the idle good I'm glad I went with the cams.

Yes no more chlorinated brake cleaner here, although they still have red and green cans they are the same thing. The brake clean here is just acetone. Cleans up things really well and evaporates to nothing. It's not super toxic, it's actually an organic compound created by the human body. Once evaporated it's half life is 22 days. Try not to mix it with water, as then it stays around a lot longer.

One of your options is to keep the "center diff" (which is part of the output shaft) and the answer to your question is that being locked won't cause a problem. The other option is to replace the intermediate shaft and gears, and you will no longer have a "center diff" or an output shaft, so obviously this is not a problem either. The "center diff" is really a transfer clutch.

I leave the ECU installed, but I do need to remove the EEPROM ICs and program them. I use a ZIF socket on the ECU daughterboard to make this easier.