stephenw22

Is it possible? If so, how difficult would it be? Anyone done it, and can share their experience? Thanks!

I've put them on my cars, too. Three cheers for Canadian Tire!

On my turbo wagon, I went from 175-70's to 185-80's. I noticed that I wasn't spinning my tires as much on "slippery" starts, i.e. gravel on pavement. Other than that, it seemed like it still accelerated well, and I didn't notice a fuel economy difference either.

I replaced the clutch on my '88 at 230,000km (approx), right after I bought it. The owner said it was the original clutch. It was right at the end of its life - another 10,000km or so, and I'd have rivet-on-flywheel action (not so nice). The flywheel was still perfect. A mechanic friend of mine was pretty impressed with how nice it looked, so the car must have been treated really gently. NOTE: 230,000km is about 145,000 miles My '86 had its clutch replaced after about 80,000 miles (or so I was told). It feels like the flywheel needs resurfacing, so I'm pretty sure it was treated fairly rough at some point before I got it. So, if you've treated your car fairly well, I'd say 110,000-120,000 would probably be a good number to go by.

Well, I've gone and done it. I tried an ATF engine flush. I was kinda surprised how dirty the ATF was when I drained it. I've put my winter weight oil in it now (5W30), since last night was our first snow of the month, and more will be coming soon. I tried running 10W30 in the winter before, but the engine would barely crank when it was really cold, and my oil pressure gauge would almost be pegged for the first 5 minutes of driving. My lifter noise went away about 5 seconds after I started it up with the ATF in it. It's not back yet, and we'll see if it ever does come back. Excellent tip, Adam, you will now officially be known as "Lifter noise hero" (at least in my book)

I have a super cheap source for the M11x1.25 coils themselves, but not the whole kit. If you have an installing tool already and know the right drill size to use (and you're interested), I'll see if I can get some. They're from a surplus hardware store in town here, I noticed them when I was looking for some exhaust stud inserts. Cost will probably be about USD$5 for 6 coil inserts, including shipping. Just let me know. Steve

I use about 1/2L of oil between changes - If I fill it with 4L of oil after a change, the oil level will be down around the 'add' mark by the time it needs a change. Coolant - my WP is shot, so it uses quite a bit of coolant in the summer, maybe a cup or two a week, if I drive it lightly. In the winter, it always runs nice and cool, so no problems - maybe a cup a month or so.

Duct tape over the battery might not be that good an idea - the shiny side will conduct electricity (learned that one the hard way). The thing I love these days is liquid electrical tape (in a can, brush it on, it works great). Before working on a car, jewelry off, safety glasses on, jackets with drawstrings on hoods and clothes with loose sleeves/shirttails get taken care of. My dad almost lost a finger when his ring caught on something once. Luckily, it was a cheap ring, and the ring broke. Another family friend once had a shirttail catch in the drive belt of a grain auger. Again, luckily, it was an old shirt, and he only got minor whiplash when it tore the shirt right off his back.

The dancing Spider-Man is just an animated gif I saw one day on the web. I thought it was pretty funny, so I've kept it now for a while on my computer, and figured I might as well use it if I've got it. I'll have to keep my eyes open for a wreck with a heat riser, then. Hopefully, one of the yards in town will get a carb'ed Subaru in by the end of the month (after about Nov 1 here, the snow won't melt away anymore, so it's officially "winter").

If, by 'more than enough room', you mean that there's enough room to get the job done without having to hammer or pry anything, then yes, there's plenty of room! :-p I did the valve cover gaskets on my '88 this last summer in about 1 1/2 hours. The old gaskets were silicone'd in place, so about 1/2 hour of that was scraping gasket crap off the valve cover and cam cover. Just get yourself the right size combination wrench, and be patient with the bolts. With my big fat hands, I was still able to squeeze them into there and turn the wrench. MAKE SURE that your valve cover gasket set comes with new grommets for the valve cover bolts.

If the manifolds are different, then a swap would be the best choice for me. The main reason I'd be doing an spfi swap would be to learn more about working with the megasquirt computer. I figure that the spfi setup would run a little more smoothly than an mpfi setup. Anyways, back to carbs for a sec, and the heat riser. My cat has no such pipe for a heat riser. Does the heat riser tin just snap onto the cat, or am I looking at a car that has had the exhaust replaced at some point? Would I be able to rip the tin heat riser off a junkyard car's cat, and spot weld it to my cat?

Is the carb intake the same as the spfi intake? Could I pop off the carb and slap on an spfi throttle body? Just imagining a little megasquirt action here, down the road. Carbs are nice, but I like how much nore precisely I can control the engine with EFI. Plus, it would give me a little experience with the megasquirt unit before I start any more 'exotic' projects.

Where does the heat riser pipe go to? Mine just dangles down to near where the catalytic converter is. It seems like my carb is freezing up in the morning, and that heat riser looks like it wouldn't work very well. What are the common upgrades that people here have done to carb'ed engines?

I'm running my '88 on dex-cool (orange) stuff, and it's great so far. The car needed a new rad and water pump when I bought it, so after replacing those plus all my under-hood hoses (basically the entire cooling system), I figured I might as well make the switch. I flushed my system out very completely with hose water first, then soft water, and then deionized water. As long as my heater core holds up, this coolant should last until after the frame completely rusts out on this car. The two coolant types are supposedly compatible, but I've heard stories about problems with some GM cars that would sludge up when the coolant types were mixed. AFAIK, the biggest thing is to just make sure to use good water when mixing the antifreeze. Order of preference (best to worst): deionized water, distilled water, soft water, hard water. Hard water is better than no water, but deionized is best, if you can get it.

Some autos (turbo autos) have a removable front section for the diff. I'm not sure if your tranny would have that.

I worked for a summer in a Ford dealership's "Quick Lube" bay. It sure opened my eyes to how a lot of those quick oil change places work. We didn't make much money off the oil changes themselves, since we used good oil and a good filter. Where we made money (and commission) was on all of the other services and stuff we'd push on the customers when we did the oil change. 13, 25, or 40 point inspection? It was just what we'd do to find things that needed "replacement". The best way to make a sale on extra stuff was to put a little fear in them, or tell them how it can hurt the car. "A dirty air filter can reduce your mileage" "A broken belt will leave you stranded on the road" etc., etc. There was one guy there who would replace the air filter on every car, and if the customer was annoyed at all, he'd just say the old one was dirty, and that he could put the old one back in if they wanted. Customers were in a hurry, and almost never bothered, even though they didn't need a filter. Another tactic was to get a new filter, and show the customer (in the waiting room) the difference between their "dirty" filter, and the new one. The problem is, air filters look about as dirty (superficially) after 5000km as they do after 20000km, so a lot of customers would go for that one. We'd sell a tire rotation for $35, and it would take about 10 minutes to do on the lift. Tranny service was $70, and took about 20 minutes. We made $5 in commission for every belt, tire rotation, tranny service, diff service, or other service appointment. Also, we made $2 off each air filter or set of wiper blades (another common item to replace). Right from the start, I couldn't stand taking advantage of the customers, so I'd do all the checks, but I'd only suggest extra work that really needed doing. Even then, sometimes I'd tell a customer to buy the parts and do it themselves, because it would be so easy. After 3 months, I was talked to by my boss about how I wasn't selling as much crap as the other guys. I told him that it was because the cars I saw didn't need it. Then, the next week, I gave my notice. It was definitely the low point in my career as a human being. Other lovely things that a lot of those places do: - Re-use the crush washer (or use no washer at all), and just spray paint around the drain plug after cleaning it off. The warm engine dries it quick, and it seals up the drain, even without a washer. - Skip steps (like greasing chassis points) if they're in a rush. In high school, I had a friend who took his old '51 chevy 1/2 ton to a jiffy lube, and watched as they struggled to find all 13 grease points. He even counted as they did it. - Topping off dex-cool systems with regular antifreeze (a no-no). Most of those guys are in high school, and don't actually know they shouldn't. - Saying they'll do a tire rotation, and then just loosening off and tightening up the lug nuts to make it look like they were changed. Also, tightening up the lug nuts with the impact wrench, and not checking torque. - Losing the valve stem caps, or not bothering to check the spare tire pressure, or even asking to check the spare.

I don't know if "rolling" to a stop should be something to hope for!

http://www.expressautoparts.com has them for less, I think. I've never used them, but I think others here may have.

It bothers me that someone would do this to a fellow subaru lover, board member, or just to anyone at all. I always try to put as much faith as possible in others, but people like alcyone, or whatever his actual name is, ruin it for the rest of us. I hope this all works out for moosens in the end. Best of luck!

The ECS light is the equivalent of a check engine light on today's cars. You said it's flashing - it is a consistent flash (like a turn signal) or is it intermittent / random?

If you can't find a split boot, I've seen someone take a regular replacement boot, cut it down the middle, and then after dumping a tube of CV grease in, sealed it up with a strip of rubber from a patch kit. As far as I know, it ran for about a year before the patch started to give out.

It should be like my '85 or '88. There are two bolts holding the caliper assembly on. You have to take both bolts out, and then pry off the whole caliper assembly. Once the caliper is off, the old pads just pop off. Then, turn the piston clockwise to retract it into the caliper. You can use pliers, or you can buy a universal brake tool from a parts store. The universal tool is a 3/8" drive steel cube with little knobs poking out of its corners which fit into the piston to grip and turn it. With the piston all of the way in, put the new pads on (use the brake pad goo, for the sake of everyone's ears). Put the caliper on the car, and put the 2 bolts back into the caliper.

add another vote for the brake piston tool i've tried pliers, and they work fine, but using the special tool made the job many times easier and faster. sometimes, special tools = lots of $$, but also remember, special tools = less kicking the car.

As far as fuses / fusible links go, you could go either way. Putting individual fuses on each branch just makes it easier to troubleshoot if anything goes wrong, and also won't knock everything out if one branch shorts out. Just make sure that the wires can handle the operating current. Remember to de-rate the wire ampacity because of the high ambient temps under the hood. Example: (using tables and guides from the Canadian Electrical Code) #12AWG wire, 90 degree C. temp rating Rated Ampacity = 25A (CEC Table 1) Assuming max under-hood ambient temp of 60 degrees C De-rating factor = 0.67 (CEC Table 5A) New Rated Capacity = 25 x 0.67 = 16A If I run the same example with wire rated for 110 degrees C., the capacity becomes 39A.

My turbo wagon ran much better after replacing the cats with straight pipe. It was amazing how much more pep I had above 4000 rpm. If you haven't already, go for the crossover pipe next. As far as EA-82T's go, it seems like exhaust is the biggest power robber.