dennyt

It's probably the Idle Air Control Valve. This is an electric solenoid valve that adjusts the idle by allowing more air to bypass the throttle plate. It often gets sticky and stuck open. Pull the 1/2" hose going onto the front of throttle body, spray carb cleaner or similar down there, let it sit for a while, then start it back up. If you really want to neuter it, drill a 3/16" hole in a dime, and file down the perimeter until it fits inside the line. Jam it in the line & reattach, and it won't idle above 1100. Works for me, and still idles fine when the AC is on.

Lots of good mods here: http://ecomodder.com/ My '94 Loyale has been getting 32-40mpg lately, with some mods and I do drive it mindfully. http://ecomodder.com/forum/em-fuel-log.php?vehicleid=3436 Most important mods: Buy ethanol-free gasoline http://pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=WA Clutching Fan Delete - Added Electric Fan Power Steering Pump Delete (shorter belts needed) A/C Delete (Fuse) in the winter, so it doesn't come on with Defrost Fuel Injector Kill Switch Vacuum Gauge Coolant Temp Sensor Potentiometer - tricks the car out of cold-start enrichment Idle Air Control Valve Restrictor: dime drilled out to 3/16" in the IACV line, prevents idle from going above 1100RPM Block Heater 400W - much cheaper to warm up your car at $.04/kWh in WA than to burn 2X the fuel at idle Most important driving techniques: Not idling (kill switch, no morning warmup) Coasting to stops / anticipating lights / letting off the gas earlier so you don't stop No short trips, the car runs much richer when it is cold Using the vacuum gauge: accelerate 2000-3500RPM at 5 in. Hg. Cruise at 15 in. Hg, in the highest gear possible but keeping the RPMs above ~1800 (volumetric efficiency). Look for routes that allow you to cruise at 45-55 without stopping

I wired it to be on whenever the ignition is on. Cheers!

I'm happy with my 3-wire (heated) Bosch on my SPFI. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BZI4KC

I have my second fan on a manual switch, I'll only turn it on in stop & go traffic in the summer, most likely. You could use a fuse tap-off on the AC fuse, which is right next to the spare tire, passenger side, to run a relay. I pulled this fuse so my AC doesn't turn on when I use the defrost in the winter...

Get a magnet stick from the parts store. For torquing the crank pulley, you can try putting the car in gear (higher gears better than lower gears), setting the parking brake & and torquing it until the clutch slips.

Hauled about 500lbs of 3" aluminum plate, "scrap" donation from work to the UW Formula SAE team

Bummer about the leak! If you're looking for a second fan, I mounted one of these, it's nice and low-profile. Clears the water pump studs by 1/2". You need to make a custom bracket out of angle aluminum, or I guess you could try your luck with the plastic through-radiator stuff that comes with the kit... http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-G4901/ I wired it up to a toggle switch on the dash, direct, it only draws 6.8A

I've been filling up with E0 at the Grange in Issaquah. Upped my average from 32.5 (4 tanks) to 34.6 (4 tanks), and it doesn't cost any extra! Found a radiator leak... damn. This was new last summer. Installed a block heater! Added an orifice to the IAC inlet. I drilled a 3/16" hole in a dime and filed the perimeter down so it fit snugly in the line, on top of the IAC. Now the warm-up RPM is 1100 instead of 2000. Compression check, 165-170 all cylinders, pretty good for 219k! Put some 6x9's in the back!

Wow, what an ordeal! Bummer about the impound. Did you notice the car cranking unevenly when you tried to start it? After a few broken timing belts you'll learn to identify it :-\

I had intermittent intermittent wipers - they would stutter across the windshield, 2-3 stops per cycle. It turns out the connector to the wiper motor was bad. I tweaked the contacts in the plug, to make the spade connectors a tighter fit, and it works like a champ now. Good luck!

Picked up a D/R transmission for 'later'... Drove with no muffler for 300 miles (WHAT?), then had fun drilling out the rusty heaps of bolt remains. Picked up a Walker Sound FX 18400, sounds... quiet and crappy at the same time. Maybe I'll hack a Thrush onto it later. Installed an orifice plate in the IAC inlet line, to reduce start-up idle from 2000 down to 1100. Drilled out a dime to 3/16", filed the perimeter a bit, stuffed it in the line. No more crazy-high idle.

I just use some needle-nose pliers, push and turn at the same time...

Use the odometer and mileposts on the highway to check your calibration. Reset your trip-meter (or remember the number down to the tenth) at your first milepost, then check it again 10 miles later. If you're off by 0.1 miles in 10, that's 1%. My '94 Loyale reads 3% high with 185-70/13's.

On my '94 Loyale, installed a 10" electric fan in place of the clutching fan. This one from Summit Racing is only 2.25" thick, leaves about 1/2" of clearance to the water pump studs. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-G4901/ I was able to make some brackets out of aluminum angle. I thought my heater core was plugged, no heat on my commute lately. Went to back-flush it last night, and found... no coolant. Oops. It's not leaking, so it must be a head gasket issue. I haven't checked the level in forever (yeah, stupid) so I'm not sure how fast it's disappearing. Maybe it's time for that 218,000 mile reseal.

I just did my cap & rotor & wires the other night, and happened to take a pic for reference.

Snow tires, studless or studded, and you will be fine. Don't put weight in the back, that will only hurt traction going up hill and stability going downhill.

I switched to Redline synthetic, I forget the mix, but it helped dramatically on cold mornings.

Sounds like wheel bearings.

My '94 Loyale has received some serious love lately. New hatch struts from rockauto - goodbye stick! The hatch lifts itself - what a miracle! But I keep reaching for that stick when I go to close it... The front rotors warped again after they were turned 10k miles ago, so I found some Brembo rotors for $17 each! What a deal, drivewire.com. As I was preparing to install the rotors, I noticed that the wheel bearings were trashed. One of them was only 7k miles old, after a failure on the road in Oregon (nightmare). It was replaced at a dealer$hip, but I think they skipped replacing this seal. It's all good now, new bearings, seals, and synthetic grease. Rolls like a champ, so quiet! Oh, and I found that my rear door gaskets were flopping around. Gorilla glue to the rescue. Between this and the wheel bearing fix, my car is much quieter now. Viva la subaru!

Tension the belt using the alternator bracket. The tensioner pulley is for the rearmost belt that you don't need if you don't run the AC.

After three years of using a stick to prop up the hatch, I installed new struts - it's amazing! Pretty cheap from rockauto, and they were even the correct parts. I also installed a new wiper motor so my intermittents would be less intermittent, thanks to Clay for parting out his '88.

The Automatic transmissions are dog slow and get poor mileage. Timing belts need to be replaced every 60k miles, ask for proof or factor the cost of the repair into your negotiation.

Found this gem of a thread, thought I'd add to it. '94 Loyale 5spd SPFI Power door locks disabled by the previous owner. He said they were cycling constantly on their own, and it would cost a lot of money to get them fixed, so he "pulled the relay". Thoughts? Intermittent wipers work intermittently. They stutter across the windshield, sometimes they take a break mid-cycle. Hatch struts are pretty weak, but I've got a broomstick to fix that. Idle bounces sometimes after the car is warmed-up. The vacuum gauge drops as the idle drops, so I don't think it's the idle air circuit. Perhaps it's getting air from the EGR or purge, & going lean. It did this before & after I changed the oxygen sensor. :-\

987687 has it right, I'm doing this for the fuel economy. Adding and using a kill switch got me a pretty big gain in MPG, I installed it just to the right of the red bar here: My average went up from 26 to 31, and I average 17k per year. At $3/gallon, that's a savings of $316/year, (3 starters per year to break even?). I'd say at least half of that is from using the kill switch to coast down hills and to avoid idling at stoplights. I try to bump start it as much as possible, but there are a few unavoidable red lights on my commute. I took a look at the starter solenoid contacts when I did the timing belts, and it looks pretty good after 50k. Thanks for all of your 'constructive' input I realize I'm coming at this from a different angle than most. So, perhaps a backup power supply for the stereo is in order... a battery pack with a diode?