subynut

That is cool! My Dad had one many years ago, they are quite cute. 70 MPH WOOHOO!!!!

Yeah, Phoenix is really high paced - kinda like tucson, although Vegas takes the cake in that department.

Agreed. EJ is the way to go. One other note - prolly want to go to full time 4wd if you go this route. If not, you will have to learn very fine throttle control - the amount of torque that is there in the ej motors is mind boggling compared to the ea-71. Plus you'll get awesome milage IF you keep your foot out of the throttle. However, if an engine swap is out of the question: if it's an ea-71: go with a weber 32/36 dgev carby and 2" cat-bat exhaust. If it's an ea-81, do the spfi conversion with 2.25" cat back exhaust. That will give you the most power and fuel economy.

Agreed, shade is good. Distance is not so much of a problem with the amount of miles we drive. However, as far as time frame goes, later in august would be better from us arizona guys since that desert heat is a killer on our 20 year old roos - june and july are the hottest.

Welcome to the board and great find! Here's a place to start on the ej conversion: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=73676 Also do some digging in the subaru retrofitting forum, you'll want to get the factory service manuals for the year ej22 of the wiring harness you will get - makes life easier when it comes to the wiring part of the project. Also, there are a few guys on here that can do the wiring harness prep if you don't have that kind of knowledge. The ej22 will give you a serious boost in power and at the same time better mileage. I'm currently doing the ej conversion on my wagon since the ea82 finnaly died at 210k.

Those of us that travel from arizona would prefer late august - the desert in arizona and nevada are cooler than in june and july. It's alot easier on the cars (and us).

That is cool. Love it's sound and looks. That's a wagon you don't want to pick on, unless you got the torque to keep up with it.

My brother has an ej22 in his 87 wagon. On our last trip to WCSS, he got an average of 28MPG doin 70 with a full load in the back. Parts of northern cali and oregon with speed limits of 55, he saw 33 most of the time. Only time he would drop to 4th was when my sister and I were going too low on the grades and he fall out of the higher torque band. Another big difference between the EA82 and the EJ22 is that the EJ22 runs MUCH cooler than the EA82 does. Down here in the southwest it gets very hot on those open highways in Arizona and Nevada. I was talking to a guy who used to own an XT6 - he loved the car, but it ran too hot and kept loosing head gaskets even with colder t-stats or no tstat at all, so he sold it and switched to something more adapt to high heat areas. I'm not sure how hot it gets in the PNW area in the summer, but when it's 110-130 deg on the desert floor with no humidity, you better have your cooling system in tip top shape if you want to go any faster than 55. Yes, EJ22 FTW!

Rally it! :burnout: Your Subaru will love you!

Beautiful brat Brian! That is cool! :clap: I think my next subaru purchase will be a brat. Where I will put it, is another question.:-\ There's a turbo brat in the back 40 of one of the local car lots here, just begging me to take it home, but I have no place for it. We are already at 8 right now and we look like the local used subaru lot.

Looks good. I don't know why, but, wagons look really good with aux lights on them.

Yep.

The dealer charges $13 per filter and I'm 90 miles from it! I'm currently using napa filters in my cars - about 6 bucks.

The subaru headlight system uses a common hot system: they ground the filament side of the bulb. Basically, what I had to do was run a always hot line to one side of the relay then the other side to the hi-beam circuit. That make sense? It's backwards to most other cars. Lets' see if I can make a sudo diagram.... Lo-beam----------------------| Common (+)-----------------| Hi beam----------------------| When the lights are off, there is + on all three points. When you turn on the headlights, the low beam switch goes to ground, completing the circuit. When the hi beams are on, the low beam goes to + again, and the hi beam side goes to ground.

You will blow a fuse. Wire in a relay to control the driving lights.

I got a consistant 30mpg out of my XT6 with a 4sp AT and ft4wd during the trip to and from WCSS: almost 4000 mile round trip.

Yeah, we left the XT at the motel since there was no reason to kill the CV any more than necessary. Good thing we took both wagons; with all the stuff we bought at the picknpull, we would've had a hard time fitting us and the stuff in one car. Sounds like you had a nice run home too, Dave.

Wow, that has got to be the longest post I have ever written!

After a long 4000mile round trip we are home in one piece. We left Sunday afternoon after the morning rally cross (a blast, I must say! A shame there's no rally cross in southern AZ. ) Anyways, great show this year. Had a blast, got to hang out with the same guys/gals as last year and met some new ones. Really good job, guys! It was awesome!!:clap: As I said, we left Sunday afternoon and ran down the coast on 101 to 22 then to Salem. Becky's roo hates the coast, soon after we got rolling, the idle went south and died every time she rolled into a parking lot or came to a stoplight. I kicked the idle up to about 2k to keep it running which wandered anyware from 1200 to 3k depending on the temp, humidity and elevation. David t-boned sombody turning onto highway 18, thankfully, he just bumped him, so both cars were driveable. We hit a serious traffic jam there, and somehow David didn't see the other guy. They exchanged insurance info and we continued. We got to Eugene that night without too many other issues. Continued the following day down i-5 and picked up 199 to California and ran down the coast again on 101. Stopped in Eureka for lunch then continued to highway 36 and headed east towards redding. Tell you what, I was kinda bummed out that I couldn't go to the dragon meet this year, but, those corners on 36 was close enough. What a drive! Nothing but corners from the coast to almost redding. The XT6 sliced through the corners like there was no tomarrow! I had to slow down a few times so my sister could catch up. I read about the hiway in road and track, they said it's a blast to drive and boy, were they not kidding. WEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:burnout: The speed limit is 55, but the corners are anyware from 15 to 45. It's intritsting how the XT6 handles the corners, full throttle understeers, but if you back out just a tad, the nose dives back in and zip right around the corners - zoom zoom!! We finnaly rolled into redding about midnight. After all that fun on highway 36, I noticed the typical CV click when I turned sharp; took a peek underneath and found the passenger outer boot was toast. Bummer; decided to continue on and take it easy the rest of the way. We continued on 44 the folowing morning and checked out the Lassen Volcanic National Park - very beautifull country! We stopped in Carson City for fuel and continued on, but that's when the fun started: I noticed my clicking was getting louder and Becky's roo also lost a CV boot. We decided to contine, but when we got to the NV/CA border, I suddenly got the shake-o-roma in the front + serious clicking going straight. GREAT. CV said "I've had enough!" So, we stopped and took a look and what was left of the gease had a very gritty feel to it. That won't work - not with 70mph + 100* heat comming up shortly. I cleaned out as much of the bad grease I could and stuffed some axle greese in there then turned around and limped the XT6 back to Carson City. At least, we had NV Zeno there and a larger city area to possibly find parts. Next morning, I headed out looking for a CV axle for both the XT6 and Becky's roo. Getting the ea82 axle was a snap - everybody had one in stock. The XT, on the otherhand, nobody had them in stock. I tried all the parts houses in the carson city/reno/lake tahoe area, and nobody had them. NOBODY. Not even the dealers. I called up NV Zeno and he sugested we try the pick-n-pull to find a used one to get us home. We went out there and found quite a few XTs and even a pair of XT6s. One was missing the entire front driveline and suspension, the other was a 5 speed and had axels. Now, when I was on the phone with the subaru dealers, they said the halfshafts are different between the AT and 5sp. But I decided to pull them anyway since it would have been monday before I could get a new one. Well, we tried to get the axle nuts off of the car, but they just would not move. I jumped on the breaker bar and my borther tried jumping on it. It just would not budge. Gave up after about an hour trying, pulled a few other pices off the engine, and moved on. Went back to the parts store and picked up a boot repair kit and went back to the motel. I again, cleaned out the CV as best as I could, used new cv grease and put the new boot on. David's car lost a u-joint on the driveshaft, so we picked up a used one of those while we were at the picknpull, and had a new halfshaft for Becky's car. There was an empty lot next to the motel that we used as a "garage" and had our very own wrench fest that afernoon. David tried to put the rear tires on the curb between the lot and the motel's lot, but missed and ended up stuck. I used the XT6 to give a little tug and he was back on solid ground and used the spare tire as a ramp instead. While he replaced his driveshaft, I fixed my CV boot, and Becky began the replacement of the halfshaft, then I finished her car when I was done with the XT6. We stayed overnight and moved on the next morning. I took it very easy, still had the click turning in parking lots, but the shake and click at highway speeds was gone. My guess is between the run on the beach on Fri and the rally cross Sun, they put a bit too much stress on that CV. We continued on down 395 back into california picked up 120 then to us6 back into nevada where we picked up 95 and down to tonapah where we fueled up. That run is higher elevation and much cooler than taking 95 out of Fallon. Stopped in Vegas for dinner and made it to Kingman that night. Fri morning we headed down 93 through wickenburg where we had lunch. Unfurtunately, we hit the phoenix area in mid afternoon (hottest part of the day) cooked through the traffic but made it though. Gila Bend was 116, acording to the trip computer:eek: Boy, was it hot there. So hot, in fact, that we only did 65 on I-8 and I-10 because 75 would put the engine temps too close to the max of the "safe zone". We had to drop to 55 in order to keep the engine temps down while climbing the grades out there. Once we got to Tucson, things started cooling down, but they closed eastbound I-10 for the construction, so, we crawled through tucson on the frontage road, stopped, had dinner and zipped on home. That's about it for our run home. We are tired, but had a good time. We are thankfull that we were able to get things fixed in Carson City and many thanks for the info on the picknpull, NV Zeno!! I would have posted this this morning, but, I had to go to work today.:-\ Fortuantely, it was a quiet day today, so, I didn't have to work too hard. Again, thanks for another great show, guys! :banana: I'll have pics posted tomarrow since my internet is on the fritz, right now.

FroggerRoo, ManYaiK, and I are on our way for WCSS. We three roos will be buzzing down the highway, if you see us, wave!! White XT6, blue GL wagon and a white/black wagon. See you guys at the show!!:burnout::burnout::burnout::burnout:

I put the xt 2wd struts on my wagon to give it better handling on the pavement. With 185/70r13 they rub just a bit while going over a bump and turning at the same time. I found the rear struts from a 87 4wd are lower than the struts from an 86 4wd. As a side note, might want to pick up a sway bar from a rx or xt6. I put one from a rx on my wagon and that helped quite a bit. Still need to get the rear installed to keep it in place now.

Nope, all turbo motors have MPFI - it must have the computer, otherwise, it won't start.

That's what my wagon gets doing doughnuts at WOT in my "sandbox". Course, that's beyond redline, 4lo, 1st gear and WEEEEEEEE:burnout: I've got stock jets in my weber, but it runs a wee rich cause I'm at 4600ft elevation. When I went to wcss9, there were parts of california where I was really down on power and running quite rich cause we were at 6000+ elevation. BUT, I still got 30+mpg humming along at 60-70.

2wd makes quite the difference, I see. Here's my wall of poor milage: 86 GL wagon 227k miles weber 32/36 5sp d/r 4wd with WOT driving: average of 20 88 XT6 4spd auto 4WD 37k miles: 25ish non soob comparison: 95 Sportage 120k miles 2L 5sp 4wd offroad tires: Consistent 24mpg I wanna try the no faster than 60 on a few tanks just to see how the three do. Will it happen?......... The wedge: probably, the Sportage: maybe, the wagon: most likely not. I'm adicted to the ea82 sound at full throttle too much.:-\

My Dad's 97 legacy outback has decided to eat one of the fuseable links: SBF no 4. (45A) Whatever it is, all is dead except the 4ways. It died on his way home from work, I swapped it and it lasted about a mile before it gave up again. So, my question is what is SBF no 4? My haynes manual says nothing about it and so does the user manual and the only fsm I have is for the 1st gen legacys. Does anybody have the wireing diagrams for the 97 legacy outbacks? If I know what it's for and where it goes, then I can start tracing wires (what fun) and pinpoint who shorted. Also, I doubt it's related but, after we replaced the longblock,we've been having a cyl misfire on 3 and 4 while crusing and only crusing. But that's another nightmare in of itself. THanks.