unobtainium

Check out the tire threads on www.legacygt.com. Nearly any decent tire has been discussed there. My car? 225-45/17 Pirelli P-Zero Nero M+S. It is a huge upgrade from the stock tires. They tramline pretty heavily and if you frequently drive on grooved pavement they might not suit you.

It works a little more subtly than steam cleaning: http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCEsoft/CCA/CCA1/R1MAIN/CD1R1830.HTM Entire towns used to depend on "gasworks" in the UK where they would make water gas out of coal and steam. The snag is the CO is poisonous.

Cleaning the IAC seems to have helped quite a bit. Even on a fairly savage descent, with lots of braking and closed-throttle engine braking, the symptom has not returned. There have been some little changes in the way my car runs that might help others. A/C stumbling is much less severe. In this thread: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=59879, <b>chicobiker</b> says the idle on his car drops fast. Mine used to drop that way, hot or cold if I put the car in neutral and let go of the pedal it would go right down to 700 rpm. After the IAC cleaning, it drops to about 1250 then descends much more gradually to 700. Many thanks to the members for helping.

The '05s are doing well. You can check out http://www.legacygt.com in the "normally aspirated" section for the 2.5i. I believe the NA 2.5i continues with the 4EAT transmission while the GTs get a 5EAT. '05-'06 2.5i wagons and Outbacks are very common in Northern California. There is a quirk in the Legacy's seating position between '94 - '04 where driver legroom seems constrained to me, but that isn't true with the '05.

Mahalo nui lo'a fo' da links. The valve doesn't stick at the end of its rotation any longer and that is a good thing but it's too late tonight to take the Harrowing Test Ride. I'll update when whatever's ailing this car is definitely fixed.

Yesterday I pulled the fuel pump. Inside the tank is -pristine-. The filter sock on the pump intake is bright white with nothing loose on it. There is no rust or anything in there. Pulled codes again, got #24 (IAC). I can replicate the exact feel of what happens after the car dies, if I take the hose off the IAC - the car will run unevenly but won't idle. (During one of the stuck-by-the-side-of-the-road incidents it takes a few minutes before the car will start at all.) Now, the car won't idle with that hose off so I sort of sneaked some carb cleaner into the IAC while it was running (just made a tiny gap in the hose end), and washed it out with more cleaner after that. I've been looking around a lot on this board and cannot find a walkthrough for cleaning the IAC. This valve has four 10mm cap screws holding it to the throttle body. There are two coolant hoses, one air hose and a three pin electrical connector. There's a grey plastic body held to the main valve with two #2 Phillips screws. I loosened these and found I can move the grey plastic body around, but it doesn't feel as though it wants to be yanked out. Is it OK to pull up on the grey plastic part of the valve, or do I have to try some other method of disassembly? Is fixing the IAC the end of this problem, or should I still suspect something else? Thanks for the help so far.

Thanks, Nipper, I'll pull the pump and see what's what.

It will do this hot or cold and I can make it happen by driving down a hill and turning sharply right. Gear doesn't matter. It has no problem whatever going uphill, you can stand on the gas, crank the wheel right and go uphill with no problem. The car had plugs, air filter and wires about 10k ago. It sat for a few weeks during the winter. When I started driving it again it started doing this, before I parked it, it was fine. Fluids are fine, no bubbles in the water tank and no goop in the oil. Tank was probably at 1/4 when I parked it, and hmm, I wonder now if water in the gas (heavier than the fuel, it will go forward when the car's pointed downhill) would explain this and the right-hand turn problem, when the water would go to the left, where the tank pickup is. Sounds pretty weird, but a can of Heet is cheap.

Today the car was even worse, sputtering when I was going downhill. If I release the clutch the engine feels like it's going to quit. So: after disconnecting and reconnecting every connector I could reach, checked the intake hose and horsed it backwards and forwards while the car was idling. No difference. Wiggled every wire I could see. No difference. Checked insulation on the O2 sensor, which looks fine. Checked and wiggled the vacuum lines. No difference. After all the downhill sputtering and all this wire wiggling (remembering I cleared codes yesterday) I pulled codes and got "all clear". Evidently the car doesn't know any of this is going on. The tach reads about where it should when the engine feels as though it's dying. On some cars the tach will have a fit if the spark's not working, so I'm thinking this means the ignition system's fine at least up to the igniter. What's left is air leaks and fuel system issues, as far as I'm able to tell. Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Toothpaste. Just take some Colgate, put it on a rag, and buff the lens by hand. It doesn't take that long, you can use plenty of pressure and you are not going to go too far, since the toothpaste is a very fine abrasive. This works on the clear plastic dashboard cover, too, but you cannot push as hard. Meguiar's NXT is fine for treating the lens after you wash the toothpaste off. It seems to help delay the onset of yellowing.

Good suggestions. I hadn't checked the intake hose. The only common link I can think of when the car's done its trick is that the curves were -downhill- and pretty tight. The time it really died, the tank was close to full, and now it's at 3/4.

I've searched for symptoms like these and see that it's a morass, with JDITCO relays maybe playing into the situation, but let me list the symptoms and see if it clicks with anybody: Last week my '93 Legacy wagon died on a corner. It would not re-start for ten or fifteen minutes - it felt as though no fuel was getting through. No CEL. I took it home and changed the fuel filter, which clearly needed it. Pulled codes and I got 32 - O2 sensor - but that is the first time I have pulled codes in several years and that was the only code. Reset the ECU by pulling fuse 14 according to Legacy777's instructions. Yesterday and today, when I have gone around a particular corner, I've had ten seconds' worth of mis-firing. It happens cold or hot. Once the misfire stops, all is good. I've been wiggling wires under the hood for a while but nothing seems to make the misfire return. Still no CEL. Ideas?

Just went through this on my '93 Legacy. There was a sharp "tak tak tak" sound from the #1 cylinder and my guess was a HLA collapsed, so: 1) Put a pint of MMO in the crankcase. 2) Warmed up engine. 3) Held engine at redline with no load for 30 seconds (the idea was to get the oil pressure as high as it would go, you might not need redline for that). 4) Let the car cool down. 5) Repeat 2,3. The sound was gone and it hasn't come back in 800 miles' driving.

My '93 AWD Legacy wagon is getting a little tired at 220,000 miles. The A/C is a little under-spec'd relative to GM cars but there is enough cooling. As far as reliability is concerned I have replaced maintenance items, halfshafts, and the purge air valve. That's it. These cars are fantastic where there is bad weather or bad traction. You will get where you are going - the Legacy can do 80% of the off-road stuff a real 4x4 pickup can. Gas mileage isn't in the Honda league - I get 25 mpg on my commute and 28 on long freeway trips. There is enough (but not a lot) of power, the car's comfortable and solid, and I would not hesitate to get in it today for a cross-country drive. In March I bought an '05 LGT wagon to keep the '93 company. That car has a lot of power.

My '93 uses Chevron Delo 15W40, but the manual is your first source of info; and NGK plugs. The heater fan issue is the coil of resistor wire that has broken, which is what allows you to have the lower speeds. It is on the heater shroud and is a cast-iron *************** to get to. The oil burning smell may well be the grease leaking from the inner right-hand CV joint boot getting on the exhaust, which is right under the boot. Check that first. When that happens you will have smoke going right up the firewall. The cam covers can develop leaks but you have to be pretty ham-fisted to get big ones.

Since my '93 Legacy AWD SW has been in a sort of delightful adulthood, with no issues for a couple years, 217K on the clock and still getting 28mpg on freeway cruises, I just haven't been around here. I'm so pleased with that car that I bought another Subie: While the GT feels about the same size as my '93, it's a lot tighter and way more competent. I still wouldn't hesitate to take the '93 on a road trip, and it's staying with me.

A stick, a rock or an accumulation of gravel might have got between the cat or front exhaust and the heat shield. That can make a tremendous amount of difficult-to-trace noise, of various kinds - buzzes, bangs, thumps and duh-duh-duh noises (resonances). Since the engine tends to move a bit on its mounts when it is developing power you can have an interference under acceleration that is not there when the car is idling or shut off. I found it easiest to just remove all that shielding, clean out the accumulations of stuff - in my case it is half-inch rocks from my dirt road - carefully replace all the shielding and tighten nothing completely until it is all back in place. You have to tighten this stuff carefully because it all shifts around a bit. I found the work frustrating but I got rid of a hideous buzz (people on the side of the road would point and stare) by doing this. HTH Greg '93 Legacy L AWD 5MT, 208k mi

Went underneath the car and banged on things. The cat goes bzz, bzz when I hit that. Nothing else makes any noise at all. Took heatshields off the cat, removed two small rocks and re-tried. Things are the same. I haven't tried the rag + hand test alias mentioned, when I have those results I'll be back. Thanks, all. -Greg

that would be the sound my 1993 Legacy wagon (AWD, 5MT) makes -sometimes- on deceleration. It is an amazing noise. It seems to have something to do with the catalyst or something in the front exhaust pretty near there - if I push down on the front cat while the noise is happening (off-idle but stationary) the noise can be made to come and go. I checked underneath the car to see if I could find a problem - and I can't see anything wrong. Is it possible that when the catalyst is shot, bits get loose in there that can make this noise? Thanks - Greg