presslab

Your intercooler is very wide, looks like it will flow a lot without much drop! Yeah, I don't need one that big. Hmm one of the new style intercoolers could fit in a fender maybe... My car actually has a lot of power when it's hot, it's just if I stop for a bit it heat soaks, I see some knock, timing retards, and then the power is gone. I do have some boost taper tuned in to keep the intercooler happy, with an FMIC I could run more boost up top. But for now I ordered a 300 CFM Spal fan, and water sprayer. If it works well then I will make a circuit to operate it automatically. Have you thought of some cold air intake? I switched from a cone filter to a box I made from a few Subaru pieces and a stock STi pleated element, and I don't think I lost any power when cold, yet when hot it is certainly much better. My filter is in the stock location and draws from inside the fender.

Looking forward to seeing how tucked up you can get that FMIC. What model is it? I'm afraid to go that way as I'll probably mess it up when I go off road, but the TMIC heat soak has been killer lately! 102 F yesterday...

The auto trans are quite heavy, so if you have an engine hoist I'd vote for the engine pull. You can also do any maintenance items like reseal, timing belt, etc. like nipper suggests.

Pretty sure Ivan cooks a lot of pistons too. As I said, the timing and fuel mixture are substantially different, and it wouldn't be safe. Just compare any stock turbo map to a N/A map and you'll see. The only way to consider running a N/A ECU would be to unhook the wastegate lever completely to run the bare minimum boost. The EJ22T uses a silver Hitachi MAF so the only N/A ECUs that would be close are the 90-91 MT EJ22. The 93 ECU uses the green label JECS MAF.

With both the black and the green connectors plugged in it will only show codes that are new. The idea is to drive the car with these plugged in, and if there are no new codes it will clear out the old ones. Any new codes will blink immediately. Perhaps you have a shield problem here too as the knock sensor is a shielded wire.

Umm, he never said front of engine, he said bell housing. A broken flex plate could sound high pitched. But it could be loose bolts as well, easy enough to check!

The TCU will tell you if the fluid at the valve body has overheated, where the sensor is located. It doesn't know the temperature at the exit of the cooler. But my point is that any overheating in the past could have damaged things, and everything is not necessarily fine just because it's not overheating now. I assume you changed the fluid the same time you changed the filter. Changing the fluid could of course would have a marked effect on everything. The output of the oil cooler only lubricates the gears and spragues and then dumps into the pan. There are detailed diagrams in the service manual.

Try using a hose as a stethoscope to isolate the noise. It sounds kind of like a periodic scraping to me which makes me think there's a problem with the flex plate. There's no pressure plate or flywheel on an auto. Double check the torque converter bolts through the access hole below the throttle body. Is the same whether the engine is cold or hot?

The TSB filter is in addition to the screen inside the transmission. It has a pleated paper element. I don't believe it's magnetic; there's already a magnet in the pan. There are aftermarket filters called "Magnefine" that have a magnet, but these are not factory filters. The cooler and external filter is not on the main "line pressure" hydraulic circuit, it's on the torque converter return. Basically if this filter clogs up your transmission will overheat, which could damage a bunch of stuff, primarily the planetary gearsets. But it won't be the primary cause of delayed engagement, even with a stopped up cooler it should still shift fine until everything burns up. There are dozens of different hydraulic circuits in the transmission, of which the line pressure is only one. The valves in the transmission can compensate for some wear, so I don't necessarily think line pressure is the problem. Often there are leaks on the "lathe cut" seals causing loss of pressure (or misdirected pressure) to actuate the clutches. The TCU on these years is fairly dumb and will only report obvious errors like a burned out solenoid.

Yes, the single blue wire is the compressor clutch. The ground is through the engine block. You should hear a loud click when the clutch engages, and you will feel the pumping when turning the pulley (without belt) by hand. You can see it too, but it only moves very slightly.

Can you post a photo of Z8 and Z9? Especially the markings. A single transistor has 3 leads, the reference designator "Z" is usually for a zener diode which has only 2 leads. You can often check a transistor with a multimeter's "diode check" function, most multimeters have this. Probe the transistor in all possible ways and record the voltages observed. Compare the "good" transistor voltages to the "bad" one.

Thinking about it more, the ECU is probably open and not shorted. With the ECU transistor open, the ignitor will be powered through the pull-up resistor inside the ECU, and therefore the coil will be on. Another test you can do is to temporarily short the ECU pin to ground. This should cause the plugs to fire. If so, then the ECU is not working. There are some parts in the ECU which are semi-custom and could be hard to find a replacement. But it's bad anyway, what do you have to lose? The PCB is "conformal" coated. It's like a thin clear plastic coating that can easily be melted off with a soldering iron. You're probably thinking of "potting" which is epoxy. Pop open the case and take a look. It would be a good idea to keep the static electricity low with a grounding strap on your wrist, or just touch some grounded metal every minute or so. A bright flashlight helps to shine through the board so you can follow the traces. Once you find something that might be it, get the part number off it and post it here.

The tuning for a turbo motor is completely different, regardless of how you control boost. It would not be safe to run a N/A ECU without tuning, which is an advanced subject. Transistors can fail shorted or open. For example the bond wires can open like a fuse or it could touch the wrong parts of the die. If you open the ECU you can follow the connector trace to the power transistor. It might be shared with other transistors in the same package. Often it will show visible damage like a darkened spot or a crater.

You applied 12v directly to the clutch and it didn't engage? Did you measure the resistance? Are you sure it's the right wire? Even with the engine off the clutch will engage if you power it from the battery.

I've tried a bunch of boots. The silicone ones work well near high heat for inner boots, like on a turbo motor. Stock boots aren't bad for the outers. I just put on a set of Rockford boots. They're pricey at $40 an axle, and a lot for shipping, but they're the toughest boots I've ever felt. Anyone else run these? I think they will last a long time.

I have an EJ25 in my Vanagon; I put the ECU in the normal Westfalia spot under the bench seat. Well, it does sound like the ECU is the problem then. My diagrams don't show anything other than the ECU and the TPS on that wire for 1993 year. I suppose you could build a makeshift supply for testing from a 6V lantern battery and a 1A inline fuse. If that works with no codes and the fuse doesn't blow then the ECU is not generating the 5V power.

Yeah a test light between the ignitor and the coil should pulse. You said you swapped the ignitor so I guess we can assume it's good. I believe this is the schematic:

The ECU generates 5V for that red wire. Since you don't have 5V maybe that wire is shorted somewhere, and/or the ECU is messed up. It's probably shorted to the braided shield around that wire; check near the ends of the wire. Do you get 5V at the ECU if you unplug the TPS?

It's possible that a transistor in the ECU was fried. The voltage from the ECU to the ignitor isn't that much, so a test light won't work, but you could see it on a scope. You might be able to measure it on a frequency counting multimeter.

Looks fantastic. Time will tell how it pans out but I really hope it does. I've always had a fond-ness for the S2000, this looks surprisingly similar. It would be like an S2000 on crack! The Koni coilovers are a nice touch. I wonder why they say the STi drivetrain won't work. I'm guessing it's because the Subaspool won't work with the STi 6MT. As light as it is, I'd say the 5MT will do just fine, or use the split case 6 speed.

The teeth are on the retaining rings, the nubs you use to tighten it. One tooth means the distance from one tooth to the next. The amount of damage done depends on how far off it is right now.

Well you should probably figure out why the stud spins...

The stud shouldn't spin, it's part of the trans mount. Maybe it was broken when the new mount was installed. The gap is normal. You'll notice your mount does not have as many studs as the one pictured below. The new ones are like yours.

Did you grease the o-ring and threads? It makes things much smoother on assembly. You could always reset the backlash and preload. The procedure is not too complicated, can do it on the car, best to pull the tail housing. That's what I'd do.

There should be about one "tooth" of preload from what I recall. It takes a fair amount of force to get that one tooth once it becomes tight.