casm

Awesome, and thanks. That jives with what I'm looking at from the front, so good to know.

I thought of this, but we're only just going back to Summer gas here so pretty much the entire drop has been measured on Winter gas. I'm used to the annual 20% drop once the blend changes; I swear at it, but can't blame the car for going from 23mpg on average back down to around 19mpg. Also, re: Ethanol: there's nowhere I can conveniently get ethanol-free gas around here, so all numbers are on E10. No E15 in this area yet (thankfully).

Question regarding the clocking of the sensor: looking at the one on my '99 Forester S (EJ25, N/A) from the front of the engine, the electrical connector is set at about the 10 o'clock position. From the photos earlier in the thread of the EJ22, it looks to be somewhere around 4 o'clock - or roughly 180 degrees opposite where mine is. Is the orientation on mine correct, or should it be set at some other position? The new sensor is shipping out tomorrow, and I'd really rather not screw this up when I do the replacement.

Just had a quick eyeball of the knock sensor. Didn't remove it, but I learned two things: first, I have the later-type sensor without the pigtail attached to it, and, second, from what I could see it appears to be cracked along the top from the centre going out to the electrical connector. I'll pull it out later and verify, but, figuring that it was likely swapped over from the old engine and it looks to be factory-original, there's 151,000 miles on it so replacement makes sense. I've ordered a new one and it should be here in the next couple of days; I'll update once I've had a chance to swap it in. It looks to be a no-brainer in terms of what's required to actually do the job, so as soon as it hits my hands it'll be in. Also took a shot at figuring out how to access the coolant temperature sensor. It appears as though the only two options are either pulling the entire intake manifold (best access, most effort) or removing the alternator (harder access, less effort). Any recommendations on how to approach this? I'm not ordering it until I get a chance to pull some OBD-II data and figure out if what the gauge is showing more or less matches what the sensor is reading since it looks like one of those jobs I'd rather avoid until I just can't ignore it any longer. I've also got a fairly long trip coming up this weekend, and with work requirements having the time to take care of all of this is pretty limited.

Correct - all gauges read normally, and the car runs to temperature as expected. Good point. I'll have to see if mine can do that; it's something I've never tried to do with it before. FWIW, it's one of the cheap Chinese ELM327 Bluetooth readers that I've been running with the Torque app under Android for a couple of years. Worked great so far but I've never tried to do that with it so have no idea if it's doable or not.

Good points, particularly since I didn't mention them. Front rotors are new (within 6,000 miles); pads were replaced all around within the past year. There's nothing to suggest a sticking brake (no loss of braking or pedal feel; no burning smells), and none of the usual audible wheel bearing symptoms are present. That said, I haven't jacked it up and done the wobble test in quite a while to see if there's a possibility of them going out. Hadn't thought of that - is there a good test for them? No codes are being thrown and there's no CEL, though that doesn't mean that there isn't something out of spec that the ECU isn't sensing properly.

Posted this originally on subaruforester.org, but didn't get any bites so am asking over here. Any ideas gratefully received. I've been measuring a big drop in fuel economy over the past two months - 19mpg on average down to (as I filled up this evening) 15.1mpg. I'm at a loss to explain what might be causing it. Before I get into the suspicion that I have, however, here's what has remained constant: - 1999 Forester S, 4EAT, N/A. 151,000 miles on the body; 15,000 miles on fully-rebuilt SOHC EJ25 (heads and block). Compression and timing are good. - Drop in economy is noticeable in daily commuting or on longer trips at constant speed. Total loss in fuel economy is approximately 20% across the board. - Oil is changed every 3,000 miles; level is good and oil is clean. No leaks or burning. - Tyres are brand-new (less than 800 miles on them). Economy drop was measured before changing tyres. - Brand of fuel and station it is purchased at have varied, so it's not a case of one station having poor fuel storage leading to contamination and poor economy. - Front oxygen sensor was replaced after the rebuilt engine was swapped in. Rear sensor has not been touched. - Air filter is clean, spark plugs have normal brownish-grey residue, and the fuel filter was also replaced after the engine swap. I believe that the original injectors were reused with the current engine, though I'd have to check some fairly buried paperwork to confirm. - Engine gets up to temperature normally, and there are no signs (whistles, surging idle, etc.) of possible vacuum leaks. - There are no smells of fuel leaks, flooding, etc. - A/C is not a factor as it hasn't been turned on since somewhere in the October timeframe. There are two of us using the car on a regular basis, we're both seeing the same drop in terms of percentage, and driving styles haven't changed. However, for reasons that are completely inexplicable at this point, we've both seen the fuel economy go through the floor over the past eight to ten weeks. Frankly, the Jeep Cherokee that this Forester replaced managed 17-18mpg in mixed driving, and that was with a 4.0; in the nearly two years I've owned this vehicle, it's never been anywhere near this bad (with the exception of when the previous engine exploded). One thing I will mention: the catalytic converter was not replaced after the engine replacement, and the old engine (which had failed rings and burned valves) was definitely dumping raw fuel and oil down the exhaust. I would not be surprised if the cat was burned out internally, but there are no rattles from it or signs of external damage. Ditto no exhaust leaks, either from the pipes or gaskets. I'm not entirely certain that I can blame the cat at this stage, though given that it's probably the original one it's likely time to replace it anyway. That said, does anyone have any ideas on what to check? The vehicle is otherwise behaving perfectly normally apart from the huge drop in fuel economy, and I'm at a loss as to where to start probing since all the usual culprits seem to be in working order. Seeing a drop this sharp and this sudden with no obvious indicators of what may be causing it has me completely stumped.

Thanks, good to know. I was pretty sure something like that would be the case, but figured it was worth checking. Meanwhile, I've been doing some digging around and came up with the following part numbers: 14001 AA071: Intake Manifold, Complete 14001 AA072: Intake Manifold, Complete 14070 AA001: Heater Pipe Does anyone know what the differences are between the two manifolds listed above? I'm guessing one is Hitachi, the other's Carter/Weber - but the parts book I was looking at didn't say one way or the other. Also, regarding the heater pipe: is this the correct number? Same parts book, but the diagram wasn't entirely clear as to whether or not it ran to/from the correct (passenger) side. I *think* it did, but I'd like to be certain before placing an order.

Yes, that's the one. Damn. I was afraid that would be the answer. And doing that will necessitate removing the intake anyway, so it'd be a good time to just replace it outright. Bugger. So I gather. From searching both here and elsewhere, I can't find reference to anyone else ever having this issue. Doesn't mean it's never happened before, but neither of my previous Brats even came close to anything like this. Hm. I'll have to double-check the junkyards, but I think that both of the couple of EA82s we've got around here are FI, not carbed. I like the idea of the SPFI swap - it's just not what I want to get into right now. This would be the time to do it, though. What are the chances of using the EA81 Hitachi (which I just had rebuilt) with the EA82 intake? Is it one of those, "even if it fits, it doesn't work for the following 27 reasons..." sort of things?

I'm hoping someone else has run into this problem before, because right now it's got my Brat completely dead in the water and I can't figure out what I'm going to do about it. There is a pipe that runs from the thermostat housing on the intake across the top of the engine to the driver's side, where a rubber coolant hose connects to it. This pipe has corroded out pretty close to where it meets the intake, and I'm losing coolant rather rapidly from it. As far as I can tell, the pipe is a press-fit into the housing. My questions are as follows: - Can the pipe be replaced? - If so, what is the SOA part number for that pipe? - If not, what are my options? I should point out that junkyards aren't an option for me to scavenge parts; we just don't have any EA-81s in them around here. So far the best idea I've come up with is to somehow remove the pipe, tap the thermostat housing, fit a nipple to it, and run rubber hose the entire way across the engine instead of the pipe. There are a lot of reasons why I don't like this approach, most of them involving metal shavings in the cooling system and the proximity of rubber coolant hoses to the EGR valve. Any ideas? I haven't driven the Brat in a couple of months (back problems kept me off my feet) and took it out a couple of days ago only to find this new and exciting issue.

This morning: oil change, new OEM drain plug, and new filler cap. Evidently the OEM cap decided to give up its seal's ghost and vibrate off of the filler neck. Oddly enough, my '85 did exactly the same thing at about the same age.

Nice find! Congratulations! Just curious - why wouldn't it have the dual-range? The DLs I've seen all had it.

Good point. I really don't want to go all-out on it, but rebuilding the Hitachi, replacing the coil, cap, and rotor, and running a couple of Seafoam treatments through the intake and crankcase have substantially restored the lost power. The butt dyno says it's about stock at this point, which is fine in terms of lugging it along. The more I think about it, the more the 5-speed swap looks like what I need. My main issue is with the gap between 3rd and 4th - 3rd is too low on a lot of the hills around here, and 4th is too high. Dropping those two down a bit should let me maintain 70mph on the uphills, which is what I really want: getting passed by semis because I'm stuck in 3rd at 55mph on an incline is getting old. I think that part of it is that my first Brat spoiled me - it was a non-US-model MV that I owned in the UK, and running 90bhp in that one vs. 73bhp in the past couple I've had here set some expectations that I know won't be met.