edrach

That's cool. My wife's family is from Natick. I grew up in NJ in Essex, Union, and Morris Counties. Jeanne grew up in Sussex--the town-- (went to High School there)and then moved to Morristown where we met. Small world. I'm in a quandry. What to bring to the meet? My old school Impreza or the '84 Brat. Maybe I can talk Jeanne into coming out also; then we can bring both.

Enjoy the Brat. Best of luck with it. Where on the east coast? I grew up in northern NJ with a short time in Wilmington, DE before moving out here and discovering Subarus are fun!

Thursday Jul 28th works for me; I'll have to check the home calendar to be sure. I like Magnuson Park better also; I don't need to indulge in a wongleflute's hamburger.

We could try a different night; Monday would work for me most of the time as long as it's not the 2nd Monday of the month. I'd like to see more old school participation also. I have a problem with the aura of testosterone that goes along with the WRX and STi crowd.

Sounds like it would be fun. I can find the wongleflute's on Holman.

Good luck waiting for a nice warm day. Only For Seattle! INSTALLING SUMMER..... ███████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 44% DONE. Install delayed....please wait. Installation failed. Please try again. 404 error: Season not found. Season "Summer" cannot be located. The season you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later, thank you for your patience. :lol:

Actually, he's dropped the price from $600 each on his previous CL post. I spent some time looking for the actual price from England and after not finding it after a half hour of looking, I gave up. I also asked a knowledgeable rally person about them and he said they were terrible wheels and he wouldn't use them on his stage car.

Sorry, I finally woke up. I was really asleep when I posted the earlier message; I saw the "set of four" for $400; not the EACH! I was up, but not awake.

2002 Forester sohc says it all. It's an interference engine and if the pump fails and takes out the timing belt, you'll have a very expensive repair. IMHO If you're doing the timing belt service at 105K, adding a new water pump is a pretty smart move.

Rally class wheels are always pricey, but this is the lowest I've seen. I just spent 10 minutes googling for the original price of these, but couldn't find any listing that covered this model. Most of the raceline wheels now are 17" and up. Only raceline rally wheels I found were listings from 4 or 5 years ago.

Speaking of wheels, this showed up on CL today. http://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/pts/2447920897.html

Actually, I bought them from a guy in Spokane. They were already powder coated that color. Great deal for me, since I would have had to pay for powder coating them anyway since I think the original grey is a bit too ostentatious.

Today's issue of the Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015312569_dirtfish14m.html

Another great event from RASC. It started out a bit ominous for us since the alternator gave out on the trip from Bothell to Moses Lake. Installed the spare from my parts box and all was good. I have to add that rally folks are great. When I mentioned that the alternator failed, Jason Stokes replied without hesitation, "If it fits, want to borrow my spare?" Day one was fantastic. Some of the best roads I've ever seen. Washington has some great countryside (certainly better than the east coast where we spent most of our years rallying), but Rallymaster Dan Comden found the cream of the crop in the SE portion of the state. An unusual weekend (for this year) of no rain and sunny weather was just icing on the cake. The route for the last two hours of Day 1 heading down into Lewiston was indescribably beautiful. Just an aside on the event. I know a little about laying out an event like this (no, I don't plan on doing this again anytime soon; too many people out here more competent than I ever was), but the behind the scenes organization was incredible. Take a 300+ mile route with a minimal number of checkpoint workers and manage to put around 30 checkpoints along the route takes thought and planning; it certainly doesn't happen by accident. Add to this, the ability to score the day and post provisional results within two hours or so of the last car arriving at the overnight stop is nothing short of astounding. Day two heading back to Moses Lake was not quite as exciting running more in the flat-lands than in the hills. But the speeds were a little brisker to make up for that. Then after the event, the BBQ was excellent and the results and awards handed out in plenty of time for the trip home in daylight. We opted out of that in favor of another evening in beautiful downtown Moses Lake and a leisurely trip home on Monday. Official description and results: http://rainierautosports.com/events/2011/noalibi/

Boy, wish I had known that when I had a VC issue with our Forester.

Looks event better now that I have some miles on the car.

Come to Washington and drive it home. Here's a sample of what's available out here: http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/cto/2433760208.html I live close enough to check it out, if you have interest in something like this.

The EJ22 has been considerably more reliable than the EJ25 version (talking about SOHC only). However, the EJ25 can be a decent engine from a reliability viewpoint. I only have anectdotal support for that. I bought our '99 Forester from an independent shop in Portland (www.fixmysuby.com) with the head gaskets already done along with timing belt service at 105K. Three years later, and with 155K the car is still running fine and without any engine related issues. (by the way, Superior Import Repair is owned by a USMB member). I have a close friend who runs rallycross events with his '99 Legacy GT. I know he has an EJ25 engine (not sure if it's SOHC or not) and he's the original owner and his car went 158K before he had head gasket issues. He had the head gaskets done last year and hasn't had any issues since then. Over the years, Subaru has addressed the head gasket issues and come up with gaskets and repair requirements that seem to have made the head gasket issue go away. As to the comparison with the EJ22, understand that the EJ22 was a non-interference engine prior to 1997; after that SOA went to an interference version on the EJ22. All the EJ25 engines are interference types. This will only make a difference if you are unfortunate enough to have a timing belt failure.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cto/2429373124.html Here's a typical CL ad from today for a '99 Forester. S model, a slight upgrade from standard; features alloy wheels and a nicer interior than the L model. I'm personally in favor of buying from an owner rather than a dealer or shop; private sale normally doesn't know how to "hide" the bad news. Besides, I get to judge the seller and form an opinion as to how he took care of the car he's selling. And I often get a look at the service history of the car which you'll never see in a dealer sale. I consider myself pretty knowledgeble, but I'll still spend $100 to have a trusted shop check out the car I select prior to buying it.

Another comment that I didn't think of earlier. You're looking to upgrade and have a current reliable car. TAKE YOUR TIME looking for the RIGHT car. No reason to rush into something NOW. My wife and I looked for over 6 months and 5 or 6 potential Foresters (we were pretty picky) before our current car came on the market. Get a carfax report on any car you are serious about. The right car and good value is out there if you're patient. Good luck and good hunting.

'98 Forester is a DOHC engine. Nothing wrong with that if the rebuild was properly done. But Subaru went to a SOHC engine in '99 for a reason. 248K is a lot of miles on the chassis; as I said earlier, I buy mine around 100k and then sell them off when I get to 250K when they are still running fine. Here's the CL ad from the forum, it's still active but I copied and pasted it since it could be pulled anytime. Too bad it's so far from you; it is certainly a rust free car since it's WA state. Odd that they mention the miles on the rebuilt engine but not the total miles on the car. Pull up the original ad from the CL/ebay forum to see the pics. '99 subaru forester: need gone - $1800 (enumclaw) Date: 2011-06-06, 10:12PM PDT Reply to: sale-7b2cb-2425627985@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?] Front end damage, won't start, engine good but needs to be towed. Selling way under kbb value. Engine was installed new only 65k miles ago and was a dependable car until the fender bender. Single mom needs this money to replace car to get to work so no lowballers. First 1800 (firm) takes it. The engine alone is worth that. As-Is and clean title in hand. Please put in subject line "subie for sale" so i know you aren't a spammer Thanks

I usually buy our car with around 100K on it since many of them become available because of the relatively high cost of a proper timing belt service (belt, tensioner, idlers, AND water pump). I'll have the job done by a shop I trust and I'm good for another 100K. I prefer the EJ22 engine because I don't really need all that much power in a family daily driver (especially if you're replacing an early GL). Also, an EJ22 prior to 1997 would have a non interference engine which is another plus. If you go for a EJ25 engine the SOHC engine has proven more reliable the the DOHC version. We bought a '99 Forester for just that reason over a '98 version. Our Forester was bought three years ago with 105K on it from an independent Subaru shop that had just done the head gaskets and timing belt service. Since that work was already done we paid a premium of $6K for the car. We now have 150K on it. You should be able to find comparable Forester now in the $5K and under range, especially if the timing belt service hasn't been done yet. There's a Forester in the CL forum now for $1800 with some body work needed which could probably be restored and stay under the $5K goal.

Thermal compound wouldn't hurt anything even if it's not used on a flat surface. Manufacturer probably added it to all their product whether it's needed or not. I've had at least 15 EA81 cars over the years in my family from '82 to '86 models and they all had a vapor separator in them. I could send a pic of the one in our Brat if you like.

A truly great event. Great weather for the weekend and the most fantastic roads I've ever seen on day one. Just a perfect event for someone to get into TSD rallying. No traps, excellent instructions and a truly enjoyable drive on some phenomenal roads. If you weren't there, you missed a great one.

Tread wear indication of 540 makes me think they'll last longer than 20K. In any event, I seldom buy tires with tread longevity in mind; it's way down on my list of what I buy tires for. That's why I never buy Michelins; it would drive me nuts to keep the same tires on the car for 80K or more.