jamal

no it actually decreases grip and is purely a style thing. A tire works best when the tread width is close to the same as the rim width so the sidewalls are vertical.

Say you have a 185 section tire inflated to 30psi and a 225 section tire inflated to 30psi. If the weight on each tire is the same, the 185 will have a narrower and longer contact patch but the actual area in contact with the road will be the same. The 2.5GT wheel is 6.5" wide. If you go to tirerack, you can view the details of a tire and the recommended rim width. For example, here's the sheet for my tires. I have 16x7" wheels, and 225/50-16s. You can see that the recommended rim width for them is 6-8" with 7" being preferred. You can also see that it has a slightly higher load rating than the narrower 205/55-16, which has the same diameter.

It is narrower. It's not smaller though if both tires are inflated to the same pressure. If you take two of the same tire, a narrower tire will have a lower load rating usually. Plus with a taller section and narrower tread the tires are going to flex a lot more and it's not going to feel very good while driving.

15" Subaru alloys will fit. No 14" wheel will fit that I know of (maybe some rally wheels). The only thing iffy is 15" steelies.

"weight per ground area" is entirely dependent on inflation pressure and has nothing to do with the width. The width of the tire determines the shape of the contact patch, not the size. IMO a 195 or 185 is too narrow for the weight of that car, and you should stick with a 205 section. I don't think you can go much taller before you run into rubbing on the spring perches or fenders. A 205/60-16 would probably work, and snow/mud/offroad oriented tires would also help along with not driving into "high lips." Or she could trade for an outback.

yeah, front camber is adjustable and -1 degree is GOOD. without a bit of negative camber you'll wear the outside edges off the tires first, due to the poor camber curve characteristics and excessive body roll these cars have. As long as the toe is zeroed or very slightly in you'll be all good. Just make sure there's no cross camber. Many alignment guys are idiots. If you can find a place that specializes in subarus and/or race cars, it will be well worth it.

there's nothing wrong with -0.6 degrees of negative camber. In fact, you could run quite a bit more to improve handling without a significant increase in tread wear. I'm tempted to buy camber plates so I can get up to -2 degrees and add some caster. Additionally, trailing arm links should have very little effect on the camber, although I'm not as familiar with the 00+ multi-link setup. I don't even know if rear camber is adjustable with it. -2.6 is about a whole degree out of spec, so there seems to be something wrong back there, though. Maybe the subframe is just shifted. I would take it to a good alignment shop, and by good I mean not pep-boys or firestone or whatever. Find a place that does performance alignments and corner weights for coilovers, and see what they can do. wait, what? You mean could not? Yeah, I've had to show the guy how to adjust the alignment on my car, and it's very, very simple. Scary.

is the e-brake on?

no, you need to use 91. The 165hp 2.5 barely gets a big fatty outback moving, and I would be looking at H6es. I think they also have more reliable headgaskets.

V-6? Oh no you didn't It seems to be a pretty good motor. Not sure if that one has the avcs and avls, but they do have have bigger valves, a bigger throttle body, and a timing chain. Also, the VTD/VDC AWD system is way better than what's in the regular automatics and manuals.

I can send you that part of the 1995 fsm when I get home, which won't be until pretty late tonight.

Driving lights, and how you mounted them please. I used to have some brackets bolted to the bumper but I'm going to make a bar of some sort that I have mostly laid out in my head. Also those are 05 WRX and 05 Legacy 2.5i wheels. I personally prefer the 02-04 style on the 1st gen Legacy. (I have the 02-04 wheels).

oh man can I get close ups of the headlights?

are there any stored codes? When my knock sensor went bad, the CEL wouldn't stay on but I was experiencing pretty much exactly what you're describing.

Hey, saw this elsewhere and browsed the Subaru selection; found a lot of old school parts. http://www.ufixitautoparts.com/ headgaskets are $12 and brake pads are super cheap to start

most alternator specs I've seen, such as those in the FSM, give a spec for multiple alternator speeds. Yes, I know the alternator isn't putting out the max current at idle, and off the top of my head I don't know what the numbers are. At 5000 alt rpm it puts out 85a.

Ratings are based on the speed of the alternator, not the engine. The alt turns about 3x faster than the crank.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/interps/files/deetz.ztv.html

the sale of retrofit kits is illegal for that exact reason. HID, or any lighting for that matter, when improperly aimed or not having a sharp cutoff, significantly increases glare and the time it takes for an oncoming driver to recover when you pass. I expect any that are available online come from another country and/or say "for offroad use only."

I would like to see all your examples of this working perfectly. Re-aiming the lights does not compensate for all the extra light going every which way. Look at the cutoff for a real set of HID lights: Then look at the cutoff for a set of bulbs thrown into the stock housings: Uh, I mean what cutoff? Those are very bright bulbs and the halogen reflectors simply cannot handle them. That's why they are illegal, and that's why it is a very bad idea to use them. Without a proper reflector, there is way too much light going all over the place, which blinds oncoming drivers and adds too much foreground light.

Yeah I replaced the bumper and fender recently so I'm going to make a better light bar out of bent tubing and maybe get the car painted some day. I figure I'd might as well make room for four of those while I'm at it.

A xenon bulb places the arc in a different location and orientation than the filament in a halogen bulb. A headlight works by reflecting that light onto the road. Move the filament, and you mess up the beam pattern. How is that armchair science?

no mine are prettier The paint is not though

Okay so in this article: http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/Hid/conversions/conversions.html What specifically do you think he's just saying to sell light bulbs? You would rather take this empircal evidence from some guy saying "yeah dude they're way bright and awesome" instead?

okay, well if I were you I would run a separate outlet with bigger wiring regardless.