Snowman

Goatboy: I have no problem towing a skiff or a single snowmachine behind my soob. Never really tried anything bigger, but it probably could. Of course it's slow, but if you're crazy like me you can still keep pace with traffic pretty easily.

On N/A cars, were there also different cams offered? If so, which one is the the best? When I rebuild my engine, I have the choice of cams from the original '86 carbed engine, the unknown-year carbed japanese import engine that I will be yanking out, and the '89 SPFI engine in my parts car. Also, same question for the heads. Are there any differences between different years of carbed engines or between carb and SPFI?

This might be a bit cynical, but it's possible that subaru is making two models of basically the same thing so that they can offer more options (even though they're the same) and sell more cars. The forester has been marketed as an SUV, and the outback has been marketed otherwise, so the same basic car is sold to both groups of people.

Thanks caleb. I don't think I'll have a chance to check it out until next monday, but I'll PM you if I need one (it's not terribly important that the car is running right now, and I'll be making the trip for Christmas anyway. I may still take you up on that though, because I might need the car running sooner than that.)

1986 ea82 d/r 5spd 4wd GL wagon Location: Alaska Quaker State full synthetic (meets GL-5 standard) used in tranny and rear diff Results: EXCELLENT. Shifts much smoother, and is easier to shift when it's cold. After 5,000 miles, I still have to look pretty hard to see it on the dipstick because it's so clean.

Just hearing about this, I can't wait to see this thing when it's done. That sounds awesome!

HELP!!!!!!! 1991 loyale Died all of a sudden. Checked spark, it's good. Checked for fuel at filter, no pressure because fuel pump isn't running. Pulled fuel pump and tested it, and it works just fine. Whipped out the Fluke and tested the power to the fuel pump. When the key is first turned on, it reads about ten volts, then drops to zero after about one second. When cranking, no voltage appears. What demons have possessed this car? Could it be the fuel pump relay? The computer? I've got spares of both, but they are 800 miles away, so I need to find out what's wrong.

The oil I'm using says it works for regular transmissions and diffs, and those with LSD.

YOU DIDN'T STEAL IT???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! j/k I need to get a Legacy up here so I can take a picture by Legacy Street. (And then there's the sign in front of Wang Inc.):eh:

I'm considering doing this on my car, which is carbureted and therefore doesn't have any ECM, or an O2 sensor. I've got a Y-pipe from a fuel-injected car on it, which has the O2 sensor, but I need to know what to supply the sensor with. Does it just get 12 volts, or do I need to regulate the voltage? I like the idea of just hooking up an analog voltmeter, but where could you get one that just reads 0-1 volts so that it would move enough to be noticable?

I know I've said this before, but switching to Quaker State synthetic 75w-90 in my subaru was one of the best choices I made relating to my car, and definitely worth the cost. Cold weather or hot, not a single drip from the tranny or the rear end (just the engine:rolleyes:), and she shifts SOOO much smoother now. It's also pretty easy to shift right when she starts up in below zero weather, where before with dino oil, it was difficult to shift for the first few miles in temperatures below freezing. And I did the switch on a tranny with 150,000 on it, which is WAY after you're supposed to do it.

Overall, I thought the extra footage was excellent. Some of the rallycross scenes could have been done without, but that's just my opinion. The offroad stuff was darn good though

Buy Zap's Subarubicon video, it's the bomb!

Assuming you don't have an electric winch, and even if you do it couldn't hurt, get a 4-ton come-along winch and enough rope/chain/whatever for at least 50 feet of reach with it. I've pulled my car out many times with one when I was by myself. Sure, it takes a while, but that way you know you can always get unstuck. I don't think anybody mentioned zip-ties or bailing wire. Those two things, along with duct tape, can hold ANYTHING on that might get knocked loose. Heck, there are even a few of them holding on permanent, important stuff on my car.

I'm trying to go through all of the options I have to put bigger tires on my soob when it's time to put summer tires back on. Something that I haven't seen on a subaru before but is commonplace on prerunner trucks with big tires is fender flaring. Odviously, we can't just go buy some nice flared fiberglass fenders like those guys can, but I read an article in an offroad mag that described how to lightly flare your stock fenders. They did this on the rear of a chevy pickup. I would like to get some opinions on why this would or would not work on a subaru, or if there is a better way. They did this by cutting with a grinding disc between the inner and outer fenderwell, then placing a bottle jack between two-by-fours on the inner and outer fenderwell. After using the jack to push the outer fender out about an inch and a half, they welded in new sheetmetal to fill the gap that was created. This seems quite intriguing to me, at least for the rear, where it is impossible to chop much of the fenders off. It might also look very cool if it were done to the front as well, and the whole car wouldn't be covered in mud after wheeling. Could this work on a subaru, or is there something that I'm totally missing here?

If the price is reasonable, I'll take a large.

Go with snow tires. I would recommend studs as well. I just drove my mom's outback which has all-seasons on it, and even just for traction it can't hold a candle to my subaru, which has narrow studded snow tires on it. You're much better off getting better tires than running chains even if your car will allow the use of chains, which apparently it won't. I would also recommend getting the narrowest, tallest snow tires you can mount on the car. Having tires an inch narrower does wonders for traction and control on snow and ice, and extra ground clearance can be a godsend.

As a response calebz quandry of why they mostly wheel ea82s, it looks like they basically ran out of ea81s. Now they're getting into early legacys and such, so it seems that the old ones are just not around anymore down under.

If this is going to be a serious offroad car, I would go with the ea81. Definitely better offroad, but they are more "primitive" and don't have as much room. If you aren't doing any hardcore wheeling, I would recommend the ea82 wagon. You can always lift it if it won't go where you need it to. I've owned an ea82 wagon since before I got my license, and I briefly owned an ea81 wagon. For my use, the ea82 was better because I haven't really done any extreme offroading, and I usually need extra room for people and supplies.

My parents claim that when their 87 carbed 4wd wagon was new, they got 40-45 mpg cruising the highways in Oregon. One time when the little orange light came on while I was still 50 miles out from any civilization, I managed over 50 mpg. More downhill than up, but no coasting.

Hey Matt, maybe we could lift ours at the same time this spring. As for tires, if you are running the same ones all year, DON'T go with the BF Goodrich A/T's for driving up here. My dad put some on his truck this year, and he says they are really bad on ice. And I did get four center caps for you. BUT three are ea82 generation, painted with spray-on "chrome-like" finish since the original finish was all scratched and faded, and the other is an ea81 generation cap in pristine condition. If matching is important, I would recommend putting the caps on the rear, and cleaning and painting the front hubs and putting on new castle nuts. If you want them, you can either pick them up, or I can drop them off on my way out of town on the 14th.

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!

That's where I bought mine.

URGENT! The heater blower only works in position #3 in Alice, and I need to get the correct parts from my parts car while I am in Haines for Thanksgiving. Do I just take the switch itself, or are the resistors located somewhere else? Is there anything else that could possibly cause this that I should pick up while I am there? Oh yeah, and an early happy Thanksgiving to all! Be thankful for Subarus!