Meeky Moose

well me old 89' gl ea81 hatch gets 32 mpg even when cruising 75mph+.. and thats with 203k on the ticker.. a justy won't do that, lol...

i was gonna say that same thing.. there is a difference between 4wd, fulltime 4wd, and awd... none are the same..

as for slowing down fast, and noise, you might have a stuck brake.. my wagon did this.. chewed up the front pass. side inner pad, and rotor.. the outer looked fine.. i attributed this to a bad caliper..

aftermarket performance coil.. any parts store has them.. if i remember right the part # is accel 8140.. come in chrome too

203,000 and still chuggin along.. 32 mpg, paid $60 fer it :-p the 85-94 wagons all had a body style like this, + or - the roof rack, turbo, alloy wheels, etc.. paid $500 for this one.. the body died from rust at 290k.. engine and trans are in my shed cause theres nothing wrong with them..

well ou can pull the engine and leave the exhaust in the car.. or you can pull the trans and the exhaust.. either way its still some work.. the engine pull is easier tho cause ya don't have to crawl around under the car..

lol, i'm gonna have to come look at the brat in person again wher its done, haha.. or maybe you can drive it down and get a pic next to the lifted hatch so folks get an idea of how big it really is, lol... "what was that bump? what bump you ask? ohh that volvo we just ran over?"

a real weak coil will do that too... just my .02.. hold onto the plug and have a friend crank it.. if it hurts a little, replace the coil, if it makes your fingers numb then its ok. p.s don't do it that way, but i would check out the coil.. might go get an accel for $40 or so.. btw my spfi wagon starts in about 3 seconds when its cold and you don't have to touch the go pedal.. in fact in my carbed hatch you get in, turn the key on, pump it once, and it fires up instantly.. also change the fuel filters.. they are easy to change and don't cost much..

well it looks like the wife and kid will be stayin home so daddy can have some fun.. hehe..

if the RX runs like i want it to, i might be up for a PB run... although if not i'll have to bring a new toy that noone knows about, muuahaha.... hint: i gave one to Ben... muuahaha.. but if i brought it i'd have to ride with, cause its only 2wd..

well subaru never made an RX wagon.. you just have a GL-10 turbo wagon.. and any model of subaru before the legacy's came out was not AWD, they were 4WD.. anyways, the RX's were either 3 door's with a body kit, ea82 turbo engines, 5-speed manual trans with center diff lock, 4wd OR they were sedans which were 5-speed, turbo, 4wd.. sounds to me like your car had air suspension originally and someone swapped it for the plain old stuff.. the reason being, that each air strut is about $500 to replace.. thats not including the compressor, etc.. its much cheaper to change a regular strut..

he just wanted moral support we all know he can do it..

easier to pull the engine.. takes me about 2-4 hours this way.. the latter being that i run into all sorts of problems..

well the PG-FI would make me think you have a single port fule injected car.. one sure way to tell, is this.. if its carb'ed there will be a huge sky blue air cleaner right on top of the carb.. if its fuel injected its going to have a black rectangular boot that runs down to the black air box that sits right behind the pass side headlight.. have ya changed the O2 sensor yet? if not they are about $30 or less at any parts store.. i'd change it then run it back through and see what she does.. your oil pressure sounds a bit odd.. prolly a bad sending unit causing this.. although the gauges have been known to be funny and not very accurate.. every subaru i have had runs between 45-55 psi when warm.. 65-75 when cold.. O2 sensor is cheaper than a cat by alot.. worth the try.. the oem exhaust on these cars is outrageous at a shop.. i put a flowmaster muffler on my car cause it was cheaper than just buying the stock muffler, lol..

the above mentioned tapping noise is due to air in the oil system.. thus making the hydraulic lifters not pump up they way they should.. this doesn't hurt anything, but it is a good idea to reseal the oil pump.. the parts are about $13 at napa.. as for it being sluggish.. i have an 88 gl auto 4wd wagon single port fuel injected.. the car is slow period.. takes forever to get to 65, then if you wanna get to 80.. well you gotta florr it to get it to 80 in about 5 minutes, lol.. the automatic 80's subaru's that were non turbo were just plain slow to begin with.. there are 2 catylitic converters on the car.. one is in the y-pipe that comes off the heads.. this cat is right in the part where the 2 sides merge together into 1 pipe... then there is another one about 3 feet farther down the exhaust line.. if yours is carb'ed then i would recomend getting a weber and tossing the stock carb in the dumpster.. this will help a little with your acceleration/power issue.. the other thing that is/was wrong with my wagon was the front passenger side brake was locking up a little bit.. caused the car to run hotter than normal and it was naturally slower than normal.. if your cats are plugged or semi plugged it will make the car feel like it has no power, and possibly overheat when worked hard.. just cuse it has low mileage doesn't mean that they aren't bad..

i'm sure i can toss a good ea82T shortblock your way, along with a couple intakes, and whatever else i have thats extra.. hehe.. we'll have to talk more come summer time..

well if you hadda ea81 hatch i'd give ya my numbers.. but i can't help with the hole ea82/5-speed thing.. haven't driven my RX in 4 months so i forgot what it was like to have a turbo and a 5-speed at this point although my 4-speed dr hatch does 83mph at 4000 rpm's muuahaha.. ohh yeah i managed to wrap the speedo around to the "H" where it says MPH at the bottom of the speedo.. guess thats what, like 95 or 100 mph? it was like 5k on the tach tho.. didn't like that.. but i know i can go that fast in short bursts if i need to.. lol

hell dig a steering wheel off one of the other cars and put on it before you leave, lol...

i just did this yesterday, lol... had to remove the outer t-belt cover on the drivers side to get the pump out.. the inner covers were ok where they were.. of course i had the hole front of the motor off, so i did t-belts and all.. if it were me and i had to do it again, i would remove the hole front of the motor, both t-belt covers, pulley's etc.. and change everything all at once.. water pump, t-belts, inspect the crank and cam seals very well and also inspect the oil pump for any leaking.. replace cam, crank, and oil pump seals if needed.. just my .02.. its not the easiest thing on a soob to tear it all apart to just do a water pump then have a belt go in 5k and have to do it over again.. luckily my engine was out while all this was done..

you all can come over to my place anytime if ya wanna tear into my wagon.. needa do a 3at 4wd to 5-speed 4wd both pushbutton of course.. i'm only a couple hours farther south east than Steve... if ya wanna come this summer we can figure out a tent for ya'll to crash in.. have enough room for that no prob.. maybe i can unload a soob onto you guys too, lol...

heres the pic

email me the pic i'll post it fer ya..

yeah, lots of it.. you can wiggle the shaft and the turbines will hit the outer casing.. and you can hear the bearings clink around.. its shot.. funny part was i only drove it a couple thousand miles before it blew the HG.. it was the drivers side rear cylinder that blew too btw.. so teh gen 1 head took a dookie me bets.. the turbo worked fine before it blew too thats another wierd part.. not a big deal though, i used the turbo thats got 300k on it from the wagon.. (it doesn't have any play at all) . so i've got it all under control.. i figure at some point when i manage to save the $$ its going to get a legacy turbo and an IC...

hehe, good ole skip.. ahh thats alright, but i have (i think) the only RX sedan on the east coast.. least on this message board.. so i won't have any competition at carlisle.. arf arf..

the build time took awhile, since i had to swap intake manifolds, broke a vacuum sensor, etc, etc.. but after 3 days of screwin with it it went it.. heres a pic of my work area (not what i'd like to have, but i gotta use what i have.. changed the t-belts, tentioner springs, oil pan gasket, turbo gaskets, intake gaskets, thermostat, water pump gasket, etc.. the cam seals and crank seals were in fine shape so i didn't mess with them.. heres my new motor and heres the lump of crap that came outa the RX. 2 intake manifold bolts snapped off, all the vacuum/rubber lines on it were so brittle they fell off when i touched them, the turbo was shot (had so much bearing play the turbines were hitting the outer casing) and i could go on down the list.. this motor was a big lump thats going to hit the dumpster as soon as i get the gen 3 head off the pass side.. the turbo i'm keeping for a core, just in case... more pics to come tomorrow.. the engine is acctually already in the car and sorta half ways dressed up.. just need to do a few finishing touches and then fire in the hole!