DaveT

Tee a fuel pressure gauge into the system.

I checked one in a manifold I have loose here. It seems that the sensor is isolated from the housing, so the wires should not matter. You can double check with an ohm meter. If the meter shows open circuit to ground from both wires, it won't matter. The FSM has ohm readings for a few temperatures, so you could try connecting a fixed resistor for the current temp of the engine, but it will be wrong when the temp changes, obviously. It might be worth checking the resistance at the ECU connector pins also. a bad connection in the harness could cause bad readings also.

These cars do not run off vacuum bring in fuel from the tank. The pump must be running to supply fuel.

The reason I've recommended EJ it a few times was due to this: Person was asking about making more power. From years of reading about what various members have done, the limitations on the EA82 are mostly in the ports / heads / valves. Air passages too small. You could add a turbo, or supercharger, but neither of those are simple mods. Neither help the reliability of the engine. A 2.2 EJ has a lot of reliability, and a lot more power. A swap would be a big project, but so would the other 2 options. I've thought about doing a swap. But the low power of the EA82 helps keep me out of trouble. Replacing the timing belts costs me under $100.00. Name brand after market belts, and I buy high temp bearings to rebuild the idlers. I made rebuildable tensioners decades ago. I just did the belt on out Forester, and spent $500. for the belt and idlers. I did get those all from an online discount Subaru dealer, but still.

Look at uship.com

Time for the relay mod.

My only experience with a transmission slipping out of gear was an old truck. It would not stay in reverse. Unless I held the shifter. Then it completely stripped and no reverse at all.

Are you adding 4wd? Or giving up 4wd?

Other possible cause of massive white smoke is broken intake manifold gasket or throttle body seal. Remove radiator cap, if not full of coolant, add water, start engine. Are there bubbles? Also, typical of the blown headgaskets I have experienced, coolant gets pushed out of the recovery bottle. One of the worst ones, coolant leaked into the crank case, mixing with the oil.

I'm in CT. Wow, we paid something like 12k for our 2001 forester about 10 years ago. The real reason I need to do something is it rusted around the rear wheels. Kind of too far to fix easily, I think. Which sucks. Body work is far from my favorite thing to do.

Trying to find something rust free. $10 to $15,000.00. Timing belts I can do, no problem. I'd rather avoid headgaskets, mostly due to time. I've heard some variations of the engines are more reliable than others with the head gaskets. Don't need any more power than the equivalent power to weight ratio of a 3 speed auto loyale.

Cast impeller version. Try NAPAs better / best brand. Im not sure if they havd them for your engine though . I've bought them for EA82s there.

Sounds more like axle or brakes than transmission.

Good grief. Sooo many variations. We just want a reliable basic car. Don't want frilly expensive stuff that just adds cost, like leather seats, alloy wheels, crazy tire sizes, fancy stereos, etcetera. Is Forester the models we should be looking at? If not, what? Has Subaru completely abandoned the reliable and affordable market and gone all luxury?

I mostly deal with old gen, 87-93 Loyales / GLs. Have begun searching for a newer Forester for my wife. I have heard about an ll bean Forester. Can anyone help explain what the difference is between one of those and a "regular" one, assuming the same year, etc.?

Ah, I'll have to look. Collision is what I dropped that made the big difference.

I'm not young, and have very few insurance claims, no tickets. I dropped comprehensive / collision and got a second car. Costs about the same for registration and insurance, etc. , and I usually have instant backup if a car dies, or I need to work on one.

I had the idle air control valve fail on one of my EA82s. I just drove by feathering the gas to keep it running. Assuming EA82 SPFI engine, I have interchanged pretty much any part from 88 to 93. 4wd 3AT wagons.

air control valve could be an idle killer. Connecting the connectors is not enough. You have to do the whole sequence from the FSM.

that code only indicates that the ECU is detecting the winding of the solenoid is open. It could also be a broken wire or connector between the ECU and the solenoid. That code would have little to no effect on idle. 34 is the EGR solenoid code, same things apply. Nearly every OEM EGR & purge solenoid I have ever had has failed. My recollection is that when the solenoid / bad connection is fixed, the CEL goes out. May take a trip or 2. There is a way to clear the memory, and a diagnostic mode, using a pair of white connectors and green connectors under the hood, an the area above the brake booster. It's likely written up here somewhere. It's kind of odd sequence of things to do with the key, gas pedal, driving, etc. The normal state of the 2 pairs of connectors is that they are not connected. My fix for the solenoids at the link below: http://home.comcast.net/~davidtief/solenoid.html

94 vs 90 I'm pretty sure, is identical. What code number/s is it showing? I've not had a problem with a PCV valve since I've been running EA82 powered cars - 1988. I don't think it could cause idle to fail. 2 things I have seen screw up idle - the CTS [coolant temperature sensor] and the Idle air control valve. The CTS is the 2 wire sensor that the ECU uses to deal with the engine temperature. Not the 1 wire sensor for the thermometer on the dash.

I think I paid around $200 each time. But they were a while ago. One I had replaced due to the crack, the other, was just sandblasted from so many miles on the highway.

I have attempted 2 so far. The official windshield removal tool I bought breaks them, the blade is too thick. What worked was a guitar string, one of the lower frequency ones with the 2nd wire spiraled around the steel string. Not a big fat bass guitar string, one for a regular guitar. Add some steel wire to a couple blocks of wood for handles. Have to carefully poke it through the sealer to get started, then a lot of "sawing" to work your way around.

If they got that cooked, might as well replace them. Not expensive. Get inner and outer seals.

I think they are 8mm. Best to bring one with you to match up.