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I used to do Subaru oil changes several times a week on those cars. We did call it the fire ring. There is no reason you can't get your hand up there, and I never even used a socket cap wrench to even pull them off, and the cars/ Exhaust were HOT when I did it.. Pliers or a 3 jaw wrench is what I used Now when I did laying on the ground oil changes to my girlfriends moms '10 legacy, I actually used a Honda V6 filter. Same specs but slightly longer to make it easier to grab

Well we took the car into a mechanic that specializes in Subarus to get this car sorted out. They said it was a weird interesting case. After a couple hours of labor they determined that it was an electrical problem. They surmise there is corrosion between the transmission and the engine causing a voltage drop. The ground cable from the battery goes to the transmission. So they put on a “bandaid” short ground cable from the transmission to the engine. My daughter reports the car is now behaving normally and appears ready her upcoming road trip from Fairbanks to Anchorage in about a week. Thanks everyone for the advice and suggestions on diagnosing this. I learned a lot more about working on our five elderly Subarus (95-98) as a result of this frustrating problem. It should help me in the future keeping them all going.

reducing mass frees-up a pony or 2 for acceleration. lighter rims, maybe a lightweight crank pulley, if you are always near home and help is easy to get - leave the spare and jack at home. Don't haul around any excess gear. If you literally never have passengers, take the seats out. you can make the car more fun to throw around the corners, cops rarely care how fast you take a legal turn. stiffer springs, fresh struts, maybe stiffer rear sway bar and stickier tires, good brakes, etc. 9-11 pounds weight = about 1hp, 4 pounds rotating mass = about 1hp.

I never change plugs. I clean them with a points file, regap them and throw them back in. Back in the day when plugs were expensive the old timers had plug cleaners that used compressed air and sand to clean them up. We still had a cleaner in our tool truck at my national guard unit up till a few years ago when it got thrown out. GD