edrach

110 says it's a EJ18; acceptable in a manual tranny but I just hate automatics. It looked like a good price until I saw that it was FWD only. Very hard to find a decent Impreza with the 2.2 engine, manual, low miles, and good condition for under $3500 but you might get lucky and find one for around $2500 to $3000. My son found a '96 wagon with manual and 2.2 engine for $3200 about two years ago but he was very lucky. He jumped on it immediately (took time off from work to do it) and had the money in his pocket. I was fortunate to get a nice '94 sedan recently for an even $3000 but it had the EJ18 engine and some minor body damage.(http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=58879) . An engine swap is fairly easy; but a FWD tranny to AWD tranny is harder and likely more expensive.

Do a search on Autotrader with a range of prices and maybe a 300 mile radius; that way you'll see a variety of prices; you can adjust up or down for the mileage.

I'm late coming into this discussion, but vibration when accelerating that goes away instantly as you let of the gas can be caused by the inner (DOJ) joint of the axles. I've had it on one car so slight the mechanic insisted there was nothing wrong with the car; replacing the axles cured the problem. I've had it on another wagon with brand new rebuilds (ARA); replacing the axles cured the problem. I've had it on my Brat so bad that I thought the transmission was falling out of the car; replacing the axles cured it also. I always did both axles since there was no visible sign of a bad joint. Just my two cents worth. Good luck with this.

Try this company: http://www.philbingroup.com/fhhistory.htm

I'm really pleased with the '94 Impreza 4 door sedan I just bought. Planning to make it into a rallycross car and like some of the suspension mods it came with. However, the H&R springs have dropped the suspension about 2 inches and that is not good. I'd like to get it back up where it belongs. I've found a set of '02/03 struts of a WRX and wonder if they would replace what's on the car now without too much modification. Anyone done something like this?

Even more photos: http://www.safedrives.com/olympus06.htm

If you want to test drive it tomorrow (Tuesday), give me a call in the afternoon and if I'm home I can take a look at it for you. I really don't think your problem is the distributor or the vac. advance. Easy ride down the highway.

Some comments here from a guy I knew who did oil analysis (limited to dino oil since synth wasn't available then:rolleyes: ). Basic oil all starts as 30 weight; after adding all kinds of ingredients, it comes out as 10W-30 with the API engineers seal of approval for meeting various minimum standards. The first time you start your engine after the oil change, those ingredients start to go away and at 3000 miles after the oil change, you are back to basic 30 weight oil and whatever other grunge your filter didn't catch. From that I took the following approach: I change my oil and filter every 2000 miles and generally use whatever oil I find on sale and buy it by the case. Over the long haul, the cost of savings buying "cheap" oil exceed whatever savings are gained by lower gas consumption. Over the last 40 years, most of the cars we've owned lasted to 250,000 miles (baring an external disaster like an auto accident) and were still running when we sold them. The one exception was our current '91 Legacy wagon. I bought it with 93K on it, and at 100K switched to a full synthetic with oil changes at 5K (I got tired of changing the oil every three weeks). I didn't have any problems with leakage, but did develop a severe case of "blow-by" (rings?) at 155K which required an engine swap. Whether that was the fault of the oil or not is immaterial. From a purely economic consideration the most cost effective way is to do oil changes often with the least expensive dino oil that meets API specifications. There are no long term savings in gas consumption or cost repairs that will justify the cost of going to a synth oil.

There is a greasless lubricant made by LPS (available at most autostores) that displaces water. Spray it inside the distributor cap and outside along everything high voltage electrical. Good luck.

Water intake; I'm currently pulling the engine out of a 2005 Baja which choked on water. Even with the box in, it injested enough water to trash the engine.

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/photos/showgallery.php?cat=828http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/photos/showgallery.php?cat=663

Way to go Mary. The brats are beautiful!

Sadly, SCCA has succeeded in driving my Brat out of contention. As much as I think I might be competitive in the rain and mud, with good conditions I haven't been competitive running against Imprezas, Legacies, and whatever else was running in Prepared AWD. I went looking for a suitable Impreza and this one came along with enough potential to consider parting with my other "show" Brat (which will go on the market as soon as I get around to it....hopefully by WCSS8). It's a '94 4 door coupe, 1.8 engine, AWD with 5 speed manual; around 125K miles on it. It came with the 16" wheels and 205/55-16 tires, KYB GR2 struts, H&R springs, 22mm rear swaybar, whiteline bushings, front strut bar and a battery relocated to the trunk. Added bonus were the studless Alpin tires mounted on stock wheels and the Thule rack system with snowboard carrier. The extra goodies prompted me to jump on this rather than wait for something less expensive. I will have to replace the springs since 2" less ground clearance is not good for rallycross. This should be a fun car and make the long trip to Portland much more pleasant. I'll be keeping the rallybrat since it is too useful to give up.

Simplest possibility is that the castle nut was loose and stripped out the splines on one side. After that check on what Craig suggested.

More photos here: http://www.chaserace.com/photo/20060521olympus00.html

Bow Wow in Lynnwood sells the EMPI adapter for the EA81 (not sure about the EA82). I have some custom adapters that were made by a board member that I'd consider selling. Come by sometime and look at it if you like. ---ed---

Sadly, an EVO won the Sunday event; it would have won the Saturday event also except for a co-driver error. Although I don't think the car made much difference; I think it's all with the driver and the two fastest drivers on this weekend were running EVOs.

Some really great photos of the rally this past weekend by Wayne Flynn. A chance to get some exciting shots for your library for not too much money. http://www.pdxsports.com/photos/showindex.asp?folder=2006OLY Here are more with cars getting air on the ORV section: http://www.pdxsports.com/photos/showindex.asp?folder=2006OLY_Jump

I'm headed south to work the Olympus rally. Apparently, they are planning to run a stage through the old Thurston County ORV park.

I've been running a weber on my '84 Brat for three years without problems overheating until a water hose let go.

I've owned this '91 wagon as my daily driver for the last three years. The car is perfect except for the stupid automatic seatbelts; I'm amazed no one has been choked to death with these yet. Not one of Big Brother's brighter ideas. Besides the choking hazard and annoyance, the glider mechanism has started to fail (yea, I know it's been 15 years!). I was thinking about replacing the mechanism with one from PAP but I'm sure it's just as bad as the one I have now (and I haven't bothered to inquire what new costs). I found out a while ago that Canada wasn't required to have these automatic belts and used a standard lap/shoulder harness. I do use my seatbelts so I inquired of a Canadian member if he knew of any Canadian wrecking yards that might have donor belts for my car. A phonecall to a wrecking yard on Vancouver Island that specializes in Subaru only found a set of belts with all the hardware and trim and $200 for both sets got me the belts. Thanks again to dominical1 for the help in finding the yard and getting the parts. Installation is pretty straight forward as long as you're careful removing the seats and the trim. In spite of the fact I didn't see the old parts come out, I managed to get everything back together properly. The old headliner doesn't quite match up with the new trim but I don't really care about that. The new belts are comfortable and don't chafe across my neck like the old ones and the stupid retractor is gone. Slight update. I had done the driver's side first and was happy with that side even though the trim pieces didn't fit all that well (much narrower since they didn't have to clear the slider track). Now that I'm doing the passenger side I'm finding that the trim pieces don't mount the same way. In retrospect, you just need to drill a large hole on the original column trim piece to allow bolting in the seat belt fitting and then re-use the original trim. You have to live with the un-used slider channel, but everything fits much better.

Check the ebay/CL forum; I just posted a '92 Legacy which needs a clutch for $300. Other than that, there are 8 early Legacies at the Lynnwood Pull a Part as of yesterday. They're getting $175+ for the engines if you pull them yourself. I bought a running '90 Legacy recently with a bad transmission for $450 with a JDM engine with 50K on it; that engine is now in my current daily driver and the rest of the car went to Pat's haven for retired Legacies.

Tex, not dumb; we've all been there. Just think, you're older and wiser now. Good luck with your other projects.

Not sure how it is with the Justy, but is there an adjustor for dimming the dashlights? If so, is it turned all the way down? Sorry, I had to ask.

Weird, my stock '91 Legacy wagon has stock disc brakes front and rear. My wife's '97 Impreza has front disc and rear drums. The tradeoff is that the handbrake was moved to the back which I like better.