NorthWet

I think that McBrat's information is SO important that it begs repeating.

To make sure that I understand what you have already done: You have removed the original-type filter from the original airfilter-box and replaced the filter with a K&N. Is this correct? And you would like to know if altering your original airfilter box will increase airflow to your carburetor? If this is correct then I will give you my opinion, which is no more correct than anyone else's opinion. I believe that it will not give you any increase in power, as any reduction in restriction to airflow will be balanced by it being hotter engine compartment air. That was my opinion. What other people will tell you will almost certainly be their opinion, as to the best of my knowledge nobody has done any testing that would prove or disprove our opinions. There will be more intake noise, so it will likely SOUND like it is making more power.

For the TPS stuff, try this link. It may or may not help as it was originally for an MPFI problem: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=24997&highlight=throttle+position+sensor

If the TPS is underreporting the throttle opening, the ECU could think that the engine is not under as much load as it really is. The spark plugs should be right; he is almost certainly running NGKs which have a wider heat range to begin with, plus this doesn't seem to be load dependent. Part throttle is not a guarantee of a normally lean mixture, and neither is low engine speed. Depends too much on how the ECU was programmed.

Flywheels do not create power, they store and release it. Using a lighter flywheel changes the responsiveness of the engine without effecting the power output in any real way. A lighter flywheel is good if you enjoy blipping your throttle, drive WOT in lower gears, or otherwise drive in a manner that requires the RPMs to rise and fall quickly. A lighter flywheel will adversely effect the smoothness at idle and low engine speed. It can also influence the quality of clutch engagement, making if feel more "grabby" or "positive", depending on your point of view.

First, easy thing to do if you haven't done so already, is to disconnect the IAC connector, check out the terminals for obvious corrosion, and then reconnect the conector. You should still be thinking TPS also, as if the ECU is not getting the IDLE contact signal, I doubt that it would tell the IAC to fast-idle. It still sounds like you may have a battery/cable/alternator issue, as I wouldn't expect the turn signal and such to greatly affect the voltage gauge needle; though it could be in combination with an IAC/TPS problem.

So, it sounds like your problem is only an issue at idle. 800RPM should be plenty for a manual. So, I have two thoughts, neither of them new to you... First, there is a general electrical problem. What does your voltage gauge needle do when you start loading the electrical system? What is(are) the reading(s)? What does the needle do when the turn signal blinks? Just for kicks, have you tried attaching a battery charger to your battery while the car is running to see if stabilizing the voltage has any effect? (Only do this at a low amp setting, like 2-10 amps, and do not remove the battery cables from the battery or you risk electronic component damage.) The other thought involves the IAC and TPS. IIRC, the TPS has a specific value when at idle; might be that a specific wire has a signal on it saying that the idle contacts are "made". The IAC may not be responding to ECU commands; if you have a fast cold idle you probably can eliminate this psossibility.

That middle of the night thing.... ...PLUS, you said hi and bye! That bye sounded a little final to me. Welcome to the Board! I met Miles during an insane crosscountry trip I made. Find that Subaru, dump the Fords... maybe do that the other way around! I swear by my soobs and swear at my Ford.

The advertisement is a little confusing and, in my opinion, misleading. It starts out saying LOYALE and then says JUSTY. It does say that it is only for fuel injected cars, not carbureted. I would guess that it "works" by changing what temperature the Coolant Temperature Sensor (CTS) reports to the ECU; it almost certainly changes the sensor's output to say that the engine is cooler than what it actually is; the ECU would then enrichen the fuel mixture. If I were to guess what was inside of that box, I would say that it is probably just a simple resistor that is electrically "paralleled" with the CTS' resistance. It could be a fancier electronic circuit that only alters the CTS reading when at operating temperatures. I think that this is what we in the USA might call "snake oil" (a term from Western Expansion era): It is something that does not really do much good that is being marketed in a strong, persuasive manner. Even if it did fit your car, I would instead recommend spending the money on replacement ignition tune-up parts.

If you want to test the sensors, you really need to either a) measure the resistance directly, or measure the voltage at the sensor under operating conditions (this is NOT drop, just the voltage). These require knowing what the readings should be to be of any use. Without knowing what they should be, about all that you can really do is check for open and short circuits. Regarding whether you test for resistance or voltage drop on power connections, either can work IF you understand what you are doing. Voltage drop is less useful for sensors then for power connections. So, to your original problem of engine problems. Is your idle excessively low, so that turning on an electrical load (and the resultant engine load from the alternator) causes the RPM to drop further? Or is is more likely that a drop in system voltage due to the added electrical load is causing the rough running engine? Does this problem only occur at idle? If it happens above idle, I would think it was the "drop in system voltage" scenario, in which case checking the sensors probably won't do you much good.

After skimming through that article, especially the "headlight" section, it seems to me that the person who wrote it either doesn't know what they are talking about or doesn't know how to explain things. "Voltage drop testing" is just indirectly measuring connection resistance. Sometimes with high power connections, a connection with marginal resistance will completely fail when required to pass large amounts of current; but it is generally better to directly measure the resistance rather than infer it from the voltage drop across it. That being said... Under what conditions did you measure voltage drop at the battery terminals? If it was under zero-load then the zero drop would be expected. It should be tested under as much load as practical. If you have problems with lights, heater-blower, and wiper motor running then this is the condition that you should test during. I am not sure how your fuses could have blown while testing the headlights, unless a DVM probe touched both terminals at once. The 3 connectors on your headlights are for a common ground, power to lowbeam and power to highbeam. With the lights off connector off and your meter set for resistance (ohms), find which terminal has zero resistance (vs infinite resistance) and this will be your ground. With meter turned to volts and the lowbeams on, look for near battery voltage and that will be your lowbeam terminal, with the other being the highbeam. (Or you can check out a wiring diagram for this info.) Then just carefully measure from positive battery to each powered terminal, and from the ground terminal to the battery ground.

Thanks. I had spent half an hour searching for TPS info, but had no luck. I do not think that it is the injector not opening up, as starkiller says that the pinging is across the range, not just at high-fuel-flow. So if it is the injector, it is never really flowing the right amount of fuel.

I doubt that the temp sensor is the culprit. If it is misreporting the temp as too low, the mixture should be richer than required. If it is reporting too high, well, it is either a) so high that the ECU recognizes it as a false reading, so high that the ECU enriches the mixture to try to mitigate detonation, or c) the ECU does not know what to do with the reading so does nothing extraordinary. My money would be on something else, something underreporting airflow (MAF) or engine load (TPS?), something misinterpreting the sensor data (ECU), or something mistranslating the ECU's instructions (TBI). Or a vacuum leak. I have spares if you need them.

If you need a precision cutting edge, IMHO get something other than HF brands. If you need sacrificial tools (drill bits that you expect to break, Torx bits that you plan to use with a BIG impact gun ) HF is OK. The cutoff blades seem to be just fine. I wore out my original Milwaukee blade cutting up pipe, stuck an HF blade on and kept working without noticing any difference. But, yeah, I wouldn't put an HF blade on my table saw or compound miter saw.

No info, but... You are going from a transverse to longitudinal engine in your X1/9? Where will the people sit?

Maybe they didn't do anything with the mains. Is the knock a crank bearing or TOD? Or is it the crankshaft/flywheel hitting things due to end-play? I've had an engine (non-sube) with thrustbearing probs that the flywheel would hit the sheetmetal that spans the gap between the engine and tranny bottoms. Nothing can guarantee clean passages better than removal and physical cleaning and inspection. It depends on what is doing the clogging as to what particular products might do. If it is grit, nothing is really going to help, and do you want large chunks trying to squeeze past your plain-bearing surfaces? For everyday gunk, maybe some ATF, MMO, or Seafoam (which I haven't used yet). The ATF is high-detergent, I assume the MMO is solvent, and it sounds like Seafoam is solvent (based on the trans stuff I just bought).

I just priced a windshield replacement for a wagon, and it was $235 at shop, another $100 if the molding was too deteriorated to be reusable. Thanks for the tip about saying it will be out-of-pocket; I hadn't thought about that. BTW, I was there to price replacement for an XT rear quarter window. It was $230!!!

4 total - 2 damaged --------------- 1 fine Hmmmmm.... "Math is HARD!" - Talking Barbie

I've had a Milwaukee 14" cutoff saw for several years. Before this, I used a hacksaw or, more recently, a recip saw to do my metal cutting. No comparison! In January I had to cut some hardened chain to length, something not really practical with other cutting methods (except bolt cutters, perhaps). The cutoff saw cut through the links like butter... very cold butter to be sure, but it was quick and easy nonetheless. Please note that it can ruin/alter the temper of stuff you cut. Did you get extra discs with your saw? They regularly go on sale for half-price, making them an even better deal.

Just because it is "AWD" doesn't meant that there is any power being transferred to the rear wheels. The 4EAT uses a clutch-pack for the transfer function, and it is normally not engaged. I imagine that whatever control glitch is causing the bad shifting behavior could also be causing the lack of rear-wheel engaging. Any possibility that the TCU got damaged?

I wouldn't have expected any voltage if the non-installed EGO sensor was not up to temperature... though there was a discussion last fall/winter about the ECU putting a 5volt health-monitor signal onto the EGO sensor's line. I have a MAF that I can loan Alan. Did you only look at one sparkplug? I would expect that the SPFI would use a separate coolant temperature sensor (as does the MPFI), rather than use the temp guage sender. TPS might be misreporting. From what I hear, pretty common for SPFI, and correctable by adjusting TPS position. When does the pinging occur? WOT, partial throttle, high-/low-/mid-rpm? Does it sound like all cylinders or just one? What is the oil consumption like, and do any of the plugs show oil? With EGO sensor disconnected, the system should go open-loop and default to a mixture that is richer than optimum. If it is still too lean, then there is probably a vacuum leak, a sensor misreporting/malfunctioning, or insufficient fuel flow through the injector. Anybody have a clue about how the SPFI injector functions? Is it constant injection, with the flow rate modulated, or is it pulsed like the MPFI?

So, you have a 4EAT. I haven't had to trouble-shoot mine yet, although I do have a hard-shift from 1st-to-2nd but not on the scale of yours. Did you get all of the connectors reconnected? There are some power-dropping resistors on the passenger(?)-side fender, but I think that if these are not functioning right you still shouldn't get a wheel-spinning shift. Any history on this replacement tranny?

There is a yard near me with between 50-100 Subarus, pretty much a single-Make yard. But you can't go into it; the owner says it is because his insurer put the kabosh on it. With the exception of engine and trannies, he says his prices are based on how difficult it is to pull the part. Subarus as far as the eye can see... as long as you are on tippie toes and looking over the fence! AARRGGHHH!!!!

C/S/K refers to them as strut rod bushings. The control arm bushings may be the inner pivot bushing for the control arm (AKA radius rod), and AFAIK are only available for EA81s. C/S/K doesn't want too much for them, at least not compared to having a car that doesn't shake on the highway and doesn't eat tires. Virtually every car with a "modified MacPherson" suspension uses them. My Datsun goes through a set every few years. Just too much rubber and too much abuse heaped upon them. The Legacy went with a different system for a reason.

I uploaded 2 photos into the Photo gallery. First one is of the clutch fork end of the cable http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/photos/showphoto.php?photo=6355 and the second is of the valve end. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/photos/showphoto.php?photo=6356 I hope that these help.