stephenw22

I realize that 100% isn't going to happen, but I hope to get close. Our octane calculation is (MON+RON)/2. I think it's the same in the US, isn't it? The reason for the extra octane is that the fuel terminals aren't set up for both ethanol-blended fuel (for local sale) and non-ethanol fuel (for export). Basically, they take the 87 octane gasoline (normal for regular gas) and add 10% ethanol. Eventually, once they build more storage facilities, they will drop the local gasoline blend to 84/85 octane and bring it up to 87 with ethanol. If the mixture screw is only for idle, then a re-jet might be on order. No feedback carbs up here (on subes). Maybe I'll just hold off on carb mods and focus on a future SPFI swap.

Those actually ADD horsepower, so you should be getting around 80mpg.

Ethanol has fewer BTUs/lb than gasoline, but it has a much higher octane rating. Ethanol is also an oxygenate (it contributes some O2 to combustion when it combusts). First (ideally), I would rejet the carb slightly bigger. The stoich AFR for a 10% ethanol blend is something like 13.2:1 (gas is 14.7:1, ethanol is around 7:1, i think). In reality, I will probably just fiddle with the mixture screw a little bit. I'm planning on swapping an spfi exhaust onto the car, and use the 02 sensor to tell me what the mixture is like when I'm cruising. Second, I can advance the timing a few degrees above the stock values. 90% of my driving is at 3300-3500 rpm, so I can try to optimize my ignition for operation at that speed. Also, for the next 6 months or so, the regular gas in town will have an octane of around 90, versus a pre-ethanol 87. I can adjust timing and mixture to try and find the best combination for fuel economy. If I do it right, I'll be able to have fuel economy that is as good as running 100% gasoline. Of course, if I just switched over my carb to an SPFI system, it would do a lot of the trial and error for me. Plus, the higher compression of the SPFI block will give more power per unit of fuel I put into the engine.

On my hatchback (the Hornet) I took the PS pump off and just hooked the two PS rack fittings together with a small loop of hose. Since the car is pretty light, steering is pretty much like an old heavy car with manual steering. I don't have any problems getting it around in town, although parking can sometimes require a little grunt. With a manual rack, the gearing is so nice that you might not even notice that it's a manual rack.

Yup, that's the one. I was sad to take it off - it looked so good. But, this one little change will save me about $300/year in gas. I've stashed the spare in the back for now, since I want to keep the space up front for 'future projects'.... If I ever move back into town from the farm, I'll put it back on, since most of my travel would be in town. For now though, the rack will have to stay off.. Oh well, it's the price I have to pay for... SUPREME FUEL ECONOMY P.S. - Spark, I'm still trying to get some pics uploaded of the Hornet. Maybe I'll toss the rack back on to take some photos of that, too.

I have a small hand-operated vacuum bleeder that I found for $30 at a local hardware store. It works well for bleeding brakes, and it can also work as a vacuum gauge for finding leaks and crossed vacuum lines.

The quarter goes between the air piping and the heads. You can remove the asv piping, cut it off near the flange, and then tighten the flanges back on, with a quarter to plug the hole. For me, I just made up some covers out of some 3/16" plate I had laying around the shop.

This was the first step in my quest for supreme fuel eceonomy out of my soob. I took the roof rack off my car last week, and I've only had 1 tank of gas through the car right now. That said, my results are VERY preliminary. My fuel economy with the roof rack on was around 22-23mpg(ish). With the roof rack off, my first tank of gas gave me 26-27mpg. Is this possible? Almost 100% of my mileage is done on the highway, so I guessed that reducing drag would have a pretty big impact. This is insane though! 20% fuel economy improvement from taking off the rack? I'm going to have to run a few more tanks through the car before I say this is the actual increase in mileage, but WOW, this was big! Next on the list will be to tune my car for highway driving, and for ethanol-blended fuel.

SVX's may have been talked about in this thread, but I don't ever remember mentioning anything about using an SVX transmission. In my town, I've only seen 1 SVX ever, and that was about 10 years ago. For me, an SVX transmission isn't an option. If I were to do this, I'd be just changing out the differential. The rest of the drivetrain (engine, tranny) would be from '80s Subarus. Jim, The car I have does not have SPFI, so it cannot automatically compensate for the ethanol in the fuel. Ethanol has less energy/volume than gasoline, but much better octane rating. A computerized car can adjust ignition timing to compensate for the better octane, and cancel out most of the difference. I can't do that without specifically tuning my car (manually) for different fuel. --- After all of the posts, I think the best course of action for me is to continue with my plan to replace my auto transmission with a 5-sp manual. I'll also start planning to swap over to SPFI. Those 2 things will give me the biggest improvements.

I have a car that was in just as bad, if not worse shape. I used to drive a 1986 GL Wagon called 'The Red Rocket'. I paid $250 for it in September and drove it until March before one of the front axles failed. I never checked the underside of the car before March, because the doors and rockers were in reasonably good shape (a little rusty, but not too bad). When I went to jack up the car, I put the jack under the frame rail (I never used the rockers because they looked a little weak, and I was going to put a jackstand under the engine up front). The rail looked okay, so I started to lift the car. I had the car in the air, and I went to the garage to get a jackstand. When I came back, the car was on the ground. I figured that the jack was crappy and was leaking, so I pumped the jack a few more times until I heard some crunching. Then I looked under the car. The jack had punched through the frame rail and was pushing the floor of the car up into the passenger compartment. Anyways, I drove that car to my farm that day. It was the last time I ever drove it on a public road. It's cut into pieces now, waiting to be scrapped.

Fan speeds are controlled through a resistor pack by the blower fan. When resistors in the pack burn out, you lose fan speeds. The easiest fix is to find a good resistor pack from a wreck, and replace it.

Ah ha, but what if I have a d/r 5-speed without a center diff? A rwd-only option is quite possible on these older subes. The only thing I need to do is take the shafts out of my front axles, and then put the car in 4wd. I'd imagine the burnouts would be quite cool, since the e-brake is on the front.

I've been running without covers on 4 different subarus for almost 6 years now without problems. There have been 2 belt failures - 1 was from re-using an old belt that I didn't know how old it was, and the other one was from a seized tensioner that was 300,000km old. My wife and I drive about 8 miles (13km) each day on gravel roads in our Subarus. We've been doing this every day for about 3 1/2 years now, through all kinds of weather. With new timing belts on the cars, I haven't had a failure in the last 2 years, with about 40,000km each set of belts. I'm completely sold on going cover-free. I completely agree with Miles that no covers are the way to go, and I haven't seen any direct reduction in t-belt life from gravel, mud, sticks, and other miscellaneous crap under the hood. Last year, I even stopped carrying spare belts in the back of the cars.

It was blocked from work. I just looked at it now from home - excellent! The odds of finding an SVX or WRX here are close to zero - I'll have better luck finding a Z, and playing around with axle stubs.

Our province is transitioning over to ethanol-blended gasoline right now. With the way it is working out, all of the regular and mid-grade pumps in my city, regardless of brand, have 9% ethanol in them. Basically, as long as I use this as car locally, I'm guaranteed to be driving with 9% ethanol in the tank. For absolutely best performance, I could (but probably won't) tune my car specifically for the blended fuel. An spfi swap is a lot cheaper for me than an EJ swap. I already have an '88 DL for a free parts car. It would take me forever and cost a ton to find an EJ18 or EJ22 that I could swap in. I took the roof rack off tonight. I'll see over the next couple of tanks how much it changes the mileage. I also cleaned all of the non-essential tools and spare parts out of the back of the car. Anyways, back to the original topic - Which vehicles have R180 diffs in them?

EDIT: Yes, it's the hatch, but an EA-82 HB. The car is tuned up pretty well, but like I mentioned before, the local switch to ethanol-blended fuel hurt my mileage. I was around 24mpg before it, and now I'm down to 20ish. My wife's car (a 92 Loyale) was able to compensate better, and her mileage only dipped a little. I could tune my car and re-jet the carb for ethanol-blended fuel, but then it would be really out-of-tune whenever I travel somewhere that doesn't have an ethanol blend. One other thing that affects my mileage is that about 25% of my driving is on dirt/gravel roads. This year has been soft and wet. I rarely ever use 4wd because the Subaru gets such good traction, even without it. Just thinking about it, I might just go ahead and re-tune for ethanol fuel. I don't take the car out of town very often. Also, I have a roof rack on the car that is probably taking 1-2mpg from the car's potential. I like how it looks, but it might just have to go... Anyways, I'll have to keep my eyes open for an R180 diff at the local JY.

Right now my mileage isn't great - maybe around 20mpg. It was better this spring, but they've recently changed all the regular and mid-grade pumps to ethanol-blended fuel in my city (9% ethanol blend), and that's negatively affected my mileage. It was 23-24 mpg before. I could tune my engine/carb for ethanol, but then I'll have problems if I ever travel somewhere that doesn't use ethanol. Premium fuel doesn't have ethanol, but it costs over 10% more. I spend about $250-$300 per month on fuel right now, so a 10% improvement in mileage will give me $25/month in my pocket for other stuff I'd rather be buying. I'm planning a transmission swap this summer (going to a d/r 5-sp), and I'm also going to put an spfi block into the car. If I don't run out of time, I might even swap over to an spfi system instead of the carb. Those things will give me the biggest improvment. If I can take an R180 diff and swap stubs, it might give me the gears I'd want. I noticed that one of the available ratios is 3.36:1 - about 16% taller than the 3.9:1 that I have now. That would drop my highway cruising revs from 3000 to around 2600. Skinnier tires are something I'll be eventually doing, but I want to use up my current tires first.

Is there a rear differential gear available for my '87 that's higher than 3.7? What other vehicles use the same diff? With the price of regular gasoline sitting at US$3.85/gallon, I want to continue my quest for better mileage.

I've had resistors in place of the EGR solenoid for a couple of years now without any problems. I just stuck the resistor into the harness plug and left it that way. I go through all kinds of snow, mud and water with the car. No problems at all.

Last time my car sounded like that was when I was having ignition problems and I was running on 3 cylinders. You might want to take another quick look at the ignition system.

This is in my province. It will be interesting to see how much money they get for it. Let me translate a few things for you: "Repaired" title - car has been totaled and repaired, probably poorly. body rust "just starting" - rust is starting to bubble through the paint and show. In reality, the car is probably full of unseen rust and is only a few years from being completely rusted out. I bought a car similar to this a few years ago. I paid $600, not $6000, and I was feeling pretty generous that day. I'd be surprised if he gets more than $2,000 for it. But hey, if someone wants to pay $6k for it, maybe I'll have to start importing Subarus and selling them here.

You'll never get it back! It's mine! All mine! Muhahahahaha! Seriously, though, that looks so sweet. I really ought to do that to the Hornet.

To test it, just tap the exhaust with a rubber mallet, or have a friend rev the engine while you are underneath the car. Easiest, cheapest replacements will be at the junkyard, but you might be able to find a new part from a dealership. Depending on your local emission laws, and your environ-mental-ness, lot of people have passed emissions with their cat completely gutted.

Thanks everyone! I called the local stealership, and they're ordering them in for me. It will take 5 days, but oh well, at least I'll have them then... You'd figure that they'd keep something like that in stock - it's a dealer-only item, they're tiny, and they're only a few bucks each. But, then again, they wanted the serial number of my car before they'd give me a price on a windshield...

I need to put a new clutch in my '92 Loyale. The kit comes with a new throwout bearing, but not the bearing clip. The parts place I go to didn't have a listing, and the local Subaru shop parts people are about as smart as a bag of hammers. I usually have to walk them through the parts catalogs myself. It would be easier if I had a subaru part number to give them. Thanks!