dhise

Bought some new snow tires today! I hate winter but at least I have an appropriate car for the weather.

If you have trouble with that y-pipe I have a like-new one here. It's missing the heat shield for the cat (it was on my loyale to keep the cv boot from cooking), but other than that it's in perfect shape. If you need it we can work something out. I also have the service manuals for the Loyale, won't help for the digi-dash, but the alot of the motor stuff will be the same if you need additional info (wiring, etc).

Finally got a pic of the wagon in it's current state. RX body kit went on a few weeks ago.

Personal preference I suppose to what you want out of a car. I've owned both and prefer the old '86 GL with the ej22 in it. The legacy will be more comfortable, but you can swap in some nicer seats to help fix that as well. I get around 32mpg. Get the same mileage from an ea82, but alot more power with an ej22. In fact you'll move faster than an old legacy without all that weight to haul around. Imagine your loyale keeping up with modern cars and still being fuel efficient. I like the simplicity of the older subes and having one with a hugely improved motor is the perfect car for me. The only thing I miss is air conditioning, but we've had some cool summers here in MI so it hasn't been too bad an inconvenience. -Doug

For the 96 ecu the AT/MT identification is pin 81. On the 96 wiring harness it is a black wire with a white stripe. It needs to be grounded to tell the ecu that it is a manual. Before I did this it had the egr code and a auto trans diagnostic code (1702 I think) because it was looking for the auto tranny that wasn't there. It also cured a high cold start idle (2500 rpm) and made that function normally as well. Hopefully some of this is relevant to his '97 model.

I have a '96 ej22 in my GL. It was throwing an egr code before I grounded the pin that told the ecu that it was supposed to be for a manual tranny. Afterwards, no code. So for the 96's the ecu's should be the same for manual and auto transmissions. You just have to let it know which one you have. As far as 97's go, I have no idea. -Doug

+1, and the way you are going about the restoration, it should outlast any new car!

pull the inner panel and vacuum out all the dirt, mud, whatever out of the bottom of the door and make sure the drains are clear on each corner of the door.

Like Chux said, I recently cured a high cold start idle by grounding the pin that tells the ecu whether or not it is an at or mt trans. This was a '96 obdII ej22 and it was throwing a 1702 code because it was looking for an auto trans. Once the ecu knew it was a manual tranny the cold idle started working as it should.

I've had the infamous "oil being sucked into the pcv valve on long, sweeping, right hand turns" smoke screen once with my loyale. Big cloud of smoke in my rear view mirror! I can imagine it was more annoying before the pcv hose fix recall.

Hi Nollie, welcome to the board! Glad to see another person from the mountains here. Most of my family is from Spruce Pine. Good luck and have fun with your restoration, this board is certainly the perfect resource for old subaru's. Hopefully you can get us some pics of the restoration progress! -Doug

Three out of the four bolt holes were pretty close to existing holes. With a dremel and some bending I got them to work. The fourth, I had to drill and bolt to the floor with a small spacer.

I pulled the headliner out of the car and glued the new material to it. It was a bit of a pain in the rear but it looks so much better now. The braces had all separated from the roof of the car making for a rather noisy ride so I put some sound deadener up there while it was all apart too.

I've got this ej swapped '86 wagon and the drivers seat foam was deteriorating badly, so I came across some '07 wrx tr seats for cheap! Even though the drivers seat is height adjustable they still sit up a little higher, but it is such a more comfortable car now the height doesn't bother me. The old headliner was pretty ugly as well so I covered it with some nice grey material. After I finish making the interior real nice I might get to some body work this summer, but the sleeper look may win out! -Doug

I have that same tool. Found it on ebay for cheap and glad I did! It really makes the job of pulling the axle through the bearings easy and pain free. Gotta love good tools.

lol! I seen a GL in my neck of the woods that I didn't recognize at first because every body panel was a different color!

same problem here, will make the mod this afternoon!

It's normal in the winter time for me. That oil filler neck sticks way out and doesn't get near as hot as the engine so water condenses there with oil vapor. I just clean it off periodically. The cap stays clean as soon as the weather warms up. My pcv system does stay pretty clean however.

It's not me! There isn't any more room in the driveway! Two subes, a truck and my wife's toyota is all I can handle. There was a posting(craigslist) a few weeks ago for a 93 loyale sedan in wixom. Looked pretty good but only front wheel drive.

personal experience here, I bought a new Chevy S10 in '91. Completely stripped of any options except a 2.8 v6 and I drove that thing forever! Just tires and brakes every 60-80k, one exhaust, wipers and bulbs, and regular fluid changes. Never once broke down in 175k miles I drove it and then I stupidly sold it...

If you're ever in the Detroit area with that brat it would be a treat to see a local one in person! Too bad you aren't closer by, I have a nice hub tamer for those bearings plus a tool to pull the axle through. Hopefully it goes smoothly for you. It isn't any fun to be working on cars during the winter time! -Doug

If anything, I want to sit lower in the car. The seats in the ea82's always seem a little too high for me, anything more would really annoy me. I think I'll go with re-upholstering my drivers seat and see how that goes.

For those who have swapped the seats, has the ride height changed significantly? I've got a line on some 98 Outback seats here but I'm hesitant to make them fit if I am going to sit much higher than the stock seats.

I've had a cat. convertor go bad and cause power loss. The element(or whatever it's called) was loose, you could hit it and hear it bounce, so the car ran ok until you went up an incline then the catalyst would slide back and plug the exhaust and just kill the power. Your description seems pretty close to what I experienced.

por-15 is holding up here for me. It is a little pricey but it has kept the wagon intact over the last few winters. Every spring I have to fix up a few areas, but at least it is a manageable decay rate now. Time will tell if the motor or the body gives up first.