RallyKeith

Also look for snow that's turned into ice built up around things like the muffler or wedged between the transmission and tunnel. Keith

How many times did you drive it? It needs a certain number of cycles of going from full cold to full hot before it sets the ready flag. I think it needs 3 but I honestly don't know. Keith

If you don't have a u-pull it yard near by to search, http://www.car-part.com is a junkyard search engine. You can find them on there (search for air flow meter) for less than $50 if you're in the right area, and if not most places will ship. Keith

Ah.... I've got three other things that day, including the BMR SCCA Banquet. Better luck for me next time... At this rate I won't make it until Import Carlisle. Keith

Did a little looking and it looks like Autozone, if you have them there, might rent code readers. Any OBDII (OBD 2) code reader should work. You can buy them for as little as $60 from places like Harbor Freight.

First though would be you should have the code read. It's a 95 Legacy so it's OBDII. You should have had that done right away when the light came on but since it's now immoble you'll have to try and find someone or place that will let you borrow a code reader. With out the code it's almost pointless. If I had to take a blind guess though I would say it could be the MAF sensor.

Exactly! Also, if you read the first post of that NASIOC thread I listed it goes into detail about the issue of the subaru gearbox being a single unit with the diffs and the output gears and the syncros sharing the same fluid. Each type of gear and mechanism responds differently to changes in the fluid, and with the subaru design, changes that help one thing hurt another.

If you don't mind, where do you live? I just looked at your location and was wondering if you lived in a different country and therefore might have different headlights than I do in the USA. Keith

NEVER run straight synthetic gear oil in a subaru transmission, regaurdless of the brand. Transmissions and specifically syncros work on friction. ANY synthetic straight out of the bottle has a different coefficient of friction than it's regular (Dino Oil) equvilant. There are TONS of discussion on the topic on places like NASIOC because of issues in higher perfomance and tuned cars. Here is a very detailed thread discussing some of this. http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=986710 We run only regular gear oil in our Rally car because we very quickly destroyed a gear box using synthetic. Like GD said, subaru transmission last so long anyway when properly maintained that it's just not worth it. Keith

The Title says this is an i model which means NO TURBO.

#1 To the best of my knowledge Subaru has no problems with Synthetic. In fact they used to offer an extended engine warrenty package for using Castrol oils at the recommended intervals (Must be well documented), and the mileage coverage increases from 100K with Dyno, 200k with Sythetic Blend, to 300k with full synthetic. When I had my STi and '05 LGT I was having the dealer do the oil changes (no place to do them myself at the time) and they were installing Castrol Syntec fulll synthetic. This was two years ago. #2 If you're not a car expert you really should have someone experianced listed to it. Lots of other things can make knocking noises. I understand that you think it's loud, but things can get amplified by all the metal involved. I've had two engines that I though had rod knocks that were actually failed timing belt tensioners. #3 It's not a lemon. You didn't own the car from new and have no idea how the car was treated for the most of it's life. It's a failure of some kind. Sometime's things happen. Sorry

Is your garage heated? You are afterall in Maine and I know my house in PA has been averaging about 18 degrees F in the morning for the past week or so. There may be absolutely nothing wrong other than the temps.

I've got an '06 Impreza that has gone through a set of bulbs every 6-8 months, but I also do a fair amount of dirt and rough road driving with the car for rallying so I've never thought badly of it. I've never seen anykind of failure other than broken filaments. Keep in mind that what see as an arc betweeen the terminals is 99.9% likely caused by the broken filament bouncing around. It takes hundreds to thousands of volts to arc across even a .1" gap. Where are you getting your aftermarket bulbs and what brand are they? I happen to be located very close to http://www.rallylights.com so as I have had bulbs go I've been replacing them with high quality HELLA bulbs. 3 months ago I installed Hella Yellowstar stock wattage fog light bulbs, and this past weekend I installed the Hella High Perfomance Xenon bulbs, all stock wattage. I had been buying Sylvania stuff at my local autoparts store but thought it was time to try something else. I'm hoping to get a year out of these sets.

That sounds like classic head gasket failure to me. The failed head gasket is allowing combustion pressure into the coolant jacket. This then causes the coolant to not circulate properly giving you the lack of heat, and the excess pressure gets vented through the radiator cap and resivoir. Keith

Not specifically disagreeing, but the issue with a nick in the crank is the resulting burr and sharpedges that actually tear up the seal and make it non-effective. Doesn't actually take much for that to happen. Keith

Welcome to the board. I live in Reading and work in the Trexlertown / Macungie area. Keith

I'm about 99% certain you'll need 16" wheels to cover the fronts.

It's obviously hard for anyone to properly comment or diagnose with having experienced the problem first hand, so obviuosly what I'm about to say is just to provoke more thought and provide perspective. So far a lot of the conversations have focused on changing grip levels. At first I was going to post up that people should go find someone with an STi and take it to an autocross on dry pavement. Everything described can be felt in an STi with the Mechanical LSD Rear Diff, Locked Center Diff, and VLSD Front Diff. It's a serious job wrestling the steering wheel as the grip levels change in a random parking lot as each different wheel gets and loses grip. But then I was rereading this and two things came to mind. #1 Is this happening when coasting or neutral on the throttle, or is it only when trying to accelerate or decelerated? #2, This honestly reminds me of when I built a Honda del Sol for autocross. I installed new struts and lowering springs on the car and then took it for an alignment. It was raining, and I couldn't go over 40mph with out the rear end of the car stepping out BIG time. Why? Because the rear wheels toed out when the car sat lower..... So anyhow, sounds like there could be a couple factors adding up to one bad outcome. Keith

If you had it on Recuirculate it has to suck the air from somewhere in the car, typically from behind the glove box. Maybe it sucked something out of your glove box and into/onto the inlet for the blower? This actually happened to my wife in her 2005 Pontiac Vibe. Sucked Napkins out of her glove box. Keith

Welcome to the USMB. I live in Reading but work in the Valley. Trexlertown/Macungie and Coopersburg. '01 might limit you to no smaller than 16" wheels which don't go to narrow. I run 185/65R15s for snows on my impreza and used to run those on my 95 Legacy Wagon. Great for winter only traction. I pull people out of the ditches around here all the time.

When you say it makes the noise when the clutch is released do you mean sitting still in neutral with the clutch released? If so it sounds like it's the main bearing on the input shaft. It's actally not that hard to replace if you have access to a press and it only costs about $70 for both bearings. I did it on my 95 at about 175k. Keith

This explains alot. When I bought my '06 2.5i I had just assumed this was same system as used on the STi motors. It defenitely is not. The STi motor actually have variable valve timing with the cam gear "floating" in reference to the cam and it uses oil pressure to variabley advance and retard the cam at will. Oh well....

Father has a Milwaukee 18V cordless Impact gun. It's one of the best on the market. It's about 4-5 years old now and still works great. I think he may have replaced one battery. They are pretty expensive but seem to be worth it. Something like $350 I on the other hand wasted my money on a harbor freight job about 4 years ago. I had no experiance with Harbor freight at that point. I've sinced learned not to buy their battery operated tools. I couldn't even get one set of tire changes out of it on a brand new freshly charged battery. I think I got mine on sale for around $80. My stepfather bought one of the Goodyear branded ones from Pepboys the other year. I think it was around $100. It seems to be doing well, but he only uses it twice a year. As for corded, we've got a crafstmen corded that works well. Never had any problems with it, but it doesn't seem to develop as much torque as the Milwaukee cordless does.

Had my meeting with the building code inspector this morning and all is good. No limitation on the garage door width so that makes me happy. Now the only concern is the setback distances. I'm good with the 5' setback off the alley, the concern is the setback off the neighboring property. My existing garage is only 2' off the property line and code says 5', but I'm in an area that is zoned industrial so I might be able to keep the 2' off the property line. I care about this because it will impact the view from a bench swing I have under some trees on the other corner of the back yard. Anyhow, inspector is going to read that section of the code and get back to me, but he thinks I can completely tear down and start over using the existing location. Keith

I know it works the other way around. If you go to the dealer and buy a new short block for a Phase 1 you get the same thing as used for the Phase 2.