Snowman

The biggest problem with resealing an old pump is that the shaft gets a groove worn in it that can be quite problematic. I tried resealing a pump with 140k on it, and it started leaking less than 5,000 miles later. Take a look at the shaft, and if it's worn, replace the pump. If not, go for a reseal.

Overall, Subarus are very dependable and long lasting vehicles. The generation of Forester you speak of is not susceptible to the same headgasket problems as the earlier 2.5s. If you take proper care of a Forester, you can reasonably expect to get between 200,000 and 300,000 miles out of it, with few problems along the way. Like Corky said, you see lots of people on this board with problems because people usually don't post here when their Subaru is running fine, which for most people is the vast majority of the time.

Sounds like you've got a coupe, and not a hatchback. The coupe is a two-door, with a big-a$$ hatch that opens up in the back, and has an EA82 SPFI engine. The hatchback is a smaller car, and has an EA81 or EA71 carbureted engine. You can tell for sure what kind of engine it is by looking for the engine code cast into the block. An EA82 engine will have "EA82" cast into the block near the center, on the top front of the engine. I can't remember where the EA81 has its ID casting, but it's somewhere on top of the engine, and it's easy to see. If the engine was swapped, you may have a carbed block, which has lower compression. There is no way to tell, aside from tearing the engine apart and looking at the pistons.

Yeah, just take off the disty cap and see if it's wet or dry in there.

Your engine should be an SPFI EA82, which already has the highest compression pistons available in that engine (9.5:1). Getting custom pistons made would not be worth the money. As much as I love these motors in their stock form, modifying them is not cost effective in my opinion. If it was my car and I wanted more power, I would do one of two engine swaps: 1. EA82T engine. Gets you up around 115 horsepower, with some room for mods while keeping it reliable. You'll have to transplant most of the wiring harness from the donor car, which is not hard, but takes a couple days. 2. EJ22 engine from a Legacy. This swap is becoming quite popular because it gets you to 130 or 140 hp, depending on the model, with much better reliability and longevity than your stock engine. The wiring is about the same as an EA82T swap, in that you have to transplant most of the wiring harness, which takes a couple days. There is lots of info on this site about this particular swap, so try a search for "EJ22 swap" and other similar terms.

I do believe that they ran different cams. It also depends on year. I've been told that Subaru switched cam profiles in 87 or 88.

Could very well be water in the fuel. Put in two bottles of HEET at the next fillup, and I would recommend changing your fuel filters, as water may have collected there as well.

I would imagine you'd do it a heck of a lot faster than if it was 70 degrees! Seriously though, it takes like a minute. Clamp off the line, use pliers to remove the clamps on either side of the filter, take the hoses off, pull the filter out, put the new one in place, hook up the hoses, put the clamps back on, take the vise-grips back off, and you're done. There's nothing in the way that you have to remove either. I replaced a fuel pump in an SPFI car in -10 weather two years ago. It sucked, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Probably the most important advice I can give is to keep the fuel off your hands as much as you can. That gas is also at 0 degrees, and it will make your hands freaking cold in a hurry, so much so that it's difficult to work.

Two words: Vise Grips.

Working on an old subaru is NOTHING like working on your corolla. You can pull the engine in less than an hour, and most stuff is pretty accessable. You could do headgaskets in a weekend if you need to. It is relatively common for these cars to blow headgaskets IF the engine is overheated. If the car is taken care of and not abused badly, they don't really have much trouble. So if you found one with a blown headgasket, you could concievably replace the HG's, most likely do some head work while they're off, put it together again, and have a good reliable vehicle for quite some time thereafter.

OMG, that thing is sweet! Forget paying for school, I gotta get one of those!

I know it's not an old Subaru age-wise, but some guy in Europe has over 800,000 kilometers on his Legacy, with the original engine and everything. Apparently he works delivering small travel trailers all over with it.

It shouldn't cause any permanent damage to the engine itself. It may affect running or cause it to lose oil, but it won't really hurt anything.

It won't be quite as bad as you might think. You will need: The engine The transmission The driveshaft The rear diff The ECM The complete wiring harness from the dash forward It will be very similar to the EJ22 conversion that has become very popular recently. The motor mounts bolt right up after some grinder lovin'. The transmission crossmembers will have to be combined using a welder, but that's not very hard. The wiring will take you several days to sort out, but it's really quite straightforward if you've got a factory service manual for the donor car. The driveshaft will have to be shortened a little, but it and the rear diff will bolt up. The rear axles from the GL will go right onto the new rear diff. You will need to get front axles from a turbo GL in order to get the right spline count, but once you get those, they will go right onto the new tranny. Shift linkage will have to be fabricated. Cooling system will have to be fabricated...I'm not sure how much they changed to cooling setup in those years, but a 90-92 Legacy radiator can be made to fit into your car with minimal modifications. For pictures of a completed project like this go here: http://www.funonwheels.net/ Edit: Sorry, the link can't take you directly to that car. Once you click the link, go to "projects", then click on the "powered by WRX L-series wagon".

You can also just clamp off the line between the tank and the pump with some vise-grips. The pumps are really easy to change (takes about two minutes). They're horrendously expensive new, so I'd get one from the junkyard to have on hand if you're thinking it might go out. Some people have also had good luck running a pump from an older F150, which costs a lot less than the regular subaru pump.

Wow! Cool pics on the site. Lots of subarus run in that competition from the looks of it.

Sounds like a slipping belt to me. Does the problem accompany load, or engine RPM? I had an Outback that would charge at idle, but not at higher revs. The belt was fine, but the alternator was just not charging at higher RPMs.

Hrmm, which one is it Matt?

That's awesome! Might be another product for you to sell, if they're cheap to make. You could produce them with the proper correction for a few different popular tire sizes. I've never had my EA82 gauge cluster apart, so I don't know how hard it would be to do on those cars, but if it's not much of a hassle to install, and you could produce them for a reasonable cost, I'd probably buy one.

I've had SPFI cars in which the pump made no noise, and SPFI cars in which the pump made a definite humming-type noise. None of them failed, at least in the time that I owned the cars.

Yeah, you have to do the whole cluster. The gauge in my mom's old wagon died, and rather than get another cluster, we just put on an aftermarket gauge.

When he stomps on the gas, is that car going to stay on the ground, or in one piece? Best example I've seen so far of the, "I'll make it fit!" attitude. Bravo!

Mick, how did you resolve that issue and get a heater core that will fit an EA82? NAPA had two cores available. One apparently measures 6 1/2" in whatever dimension is important, and one (this one) apparently measures 7 1/2". Should I just get the 6 1/2" one, or do they just not offer an EA82 heater core?

I guess I should have explained my situation... I live in a place where it takes forever to get parts, and they're very expensive (rural alaskan town). Right now, I'm at college in Anchorage, where I can easily get parts, but I don't have time to work on my car due to school, so I can't pull the old one to verify. So, I need to make sure I've got the right heater core before I drive home for Christmas break, because if I pull it apart and it's the wrong one, I'll be without my car for up to a couple of weeks.

According to Mapquest, that's 1100 miles, so you averaged around 65 including stops, not bad.:cool: That's about what I averaged on my last trip. Soobies are real road-warriors...at least from what I've seen, they take to long trips pretty well.