idosubaru

i figured EA82's were supposed to do that! i resealed an EA82 last summer. complete valve job, ported and polished heads, delta cams, all new seals everywhere (except rear main), disassembled and cleaned all the HLA's, new OEM subaru PCV valve, timing belts, pulleys. when i was done the car was running like crap. while i was leaning in the engine bay i noticed that if i pressed on the oil cap the car smoothed right out and idled great. when i pulled the cap off it ran like crap, sputtered and i think it even cut off but maybe not. pulled the cap and realized one of the seals/gaskets in the head set was for underneath the oil cap. replaced that seal and the car ran great. still would idle bad when i removed the cap though, i figured it was supposed to do that since everything else was new and the car ran awesome with the cap on.

hanging out with an XT6 owner from hawaii yesterday. he had severe rust on the bottom of his windshield. he had the windshield removed, removed the rust and repaired it with fiberglass and reinstalled the windshield. sounds like you don't want to do all of that though. leaks can be a real pain in the rump roast to fix. i'd probably either fill it up with silicone (they make really runny kind that will flow into spaces) or pull the windshield and do it right. depending how long you plan on keeping the car. leaks suck, wait til it starts smelling like mildew. mine leaked, i pulled all the trim and ran silicone along every freaking edge and corner of the windshield multiple times and it always leaked on one of my old soobs. no rust..not around the windshield anyway. thought i finally had it fixed when a guy was installing a windshield in my friends car. while he was there he said he'd fix mine for 10 bucks. he ran some sealant inside and out....didn't work.

i'm speaking of swapping the turbo engine in place so you have turbo pistons in the car. still plenty of fabricating and playing for you to do with exhaust and plumbing. you'll have turbo instead of NA pistons. you could pull the heads and install turbo pistons if you're ambitious. otherwise you will be fine with 6-7 psi boost.

sell the engine and get a turbo engine to drop in there. they can be found inexpensively and that's a much better way to go. you can get to 200hp easily with the stock ECU, no fuel controller needed.

i was having a similar starting issue in my XT6 a couple months ago. thing wouldn't turn over sometimes, sometimes it would. tried jumping it when it wouldn't start and it did the click like you mentioned but would not turn over. ran the jumper cable straight to the starter and nothing. after my friend drove off with his car i decided to jump the negative terminal of the battery to a grounding point on the car. i think i noticed the wire was really hot, so that's what gave me the idea. thing started right up. got home and installed a heavy gauge wire to a ground on the motor from the negative battery terminal. never had an issue with it again and that's the OEM 215,000 mile starter.

if the pins match, even if it's a different connector all he would have to do is splice in the connector from his old (trashed anyway) trans. 2 FSM's would be really nice, that would make this job much easier. tell you exactly what is what.

need trans, drive shaft, rear diff, rear hubs, axle shaft. a very tricky part you need to find out is that some subaru's dont' actually have all the holes and bosses you need in the rear to mount the rear differential. it would require some minor fabricating, drilling and welding. but i don't know about this year and model so i can't tell you for sure whether those mounting points are avaible or not. i don't know if it's auto or manual transmission. if it's an automatic you'd need the TCU as well.

how about this - what doesn't go bad on them - the air lines. that's about it. compressor, drier, o-rings, strut bags, height sensors, one of the 5 solenoids, computer. but all in all, i've found mine to be very easy to maintain so far. replace the orings and keep your struts clean and free from rust and things will go much smoother. bad orings will run the compressor to death. and dirty, rusty metal on the struts ruins the air bags prematurely.

don't just turn the distributor cap an insane amount to compensate. i did that and ruined my motor. turned out the distributor was bad and i drove it like that too long. i eventually replaced the distributor and set the timing properly, but it was too late, head gaskets (brand new) were already damaged. afterwards i read that bad ignition timing can prematurely ruin headgaskets. i still have my old *bad* one, not sure what was wrong with it as i never really looked, the car wouldn't run when installed properly. but it would run if i intentionally installed it a few teeth off and set the timing somewhere off the charts. was a really weird problem, biggest pain in the rump roast that i've had with a soob because it never occurred to me something could be wrong with the distributor.

ask the previous owner. ask the previous shop that did maintenance on it. pull the covers off and have a look at the belts. if they still have writing and look good, then they are likely fairly new. still a pain, because you'll never know unless someone tells you exactly when they were replaced. the left and right covers should be easy enough to remove just to have a peak. remove a couple small bolts and have a look. i say replace them unless they look really good. i highly doubt the belts are original, it is very unlikely they would last that long (i'm sure someone will now post they drove 234,000 on an original belt). best to replace them if you're not sure. if it breaks you're definitely not going anywhere unless it's all downhill. at 143,000 i would bet they weren't changed anytime recently. easily could have been a factor in the previous owner getting rid of the car. "ooh....70,000 miles is up again, let's get rid of it instead of paying someone 500 dollars to replace the belt on a car with all these miles." but there's no way to tell unless you can ask the person who did it or owned it.

if you're not concerned with cost, go with the new one. or if you're paying someone else to do it, then a new one might make you feel better. the real question is, are the new ones more reliable? they start as parts and then they are assembled. a proper rebuild should follow the same assembly and should be just as reliable. my guess is that some rebuilders cut corners though. personally i'd get a rebuilt unit. i've never had one fail. but i did avoid buying the 8.99 subaru XT6 water pump. it might be great, but that just seems rediculously cheap. you could research a little on the internet, some companies are probably better rebuilders than others. rebuild, remanufacture, refurbish...they can have different ways of doing it. i'd like one that has been mic'ed and everything replaced, not just the out of spec or damaged parts. the EA82's are super simple to work on if that's what you got. i'd definitely go with a rebuilt one and replace it next time i did the timing belts as well.

i believe you're right on with the bushings. you have some bad (or non existant) bushings back there most likely. at least one side is good, should be able to compare the two if it doesn't smack you in the face when you first take a look.

i'm not sure what they're referring too either, but i'm skeptical that it's applicable for this thread in anyway. there are no "resistance sensors" that i'm aware of on subaru's.

get a left handed drill bit and use it in reverse in a drill. a couple dollars and they'll come right out in no time. then replace them. or cut a notch across the top of them and use a flat bladed screwdriver to reinstall them. if you have room you can also cut a notch in them to remove them with a larger flat blade screwdriver. but i'd use the drill, they'll bust right out with that. if you don't have a left handed drill bit, you can try using a right handed drill bit in reverse. i tilt the bit at a severe angle and it will often catch enough to break the bolt loose. and on these dinky pan bolts, i can't imagine they'll take much to get out. as long as it takes for you to get an extension cord and slide the drill under the car and you'll be done. i'd have a left handed bit handy though so you're not trying again, although i think i could get a standard bit to work unless the bolts are REALLY rounded out bad.

haven't seen it myself yet so i shouldn't assume, but what if that light stays on a second or two longer than the others? that's the impression i'm getting from the fiance about it. thanks.

definitely not standard to replace those bearings you speak of. i'm not sure of your car but on older subaru's replacing even the seal on the front diff is tricky as it affects some internals of the diff itself. is this still a 4EAT transmission, that's what mine are so some things may still be similar. i'm sure others that actually know your car will speak up.

not at all familiar with the new OBS i got yet. my fiance said the Oil AT Temp light comes on just for a second or two when she first starts the car up, but it didn't do that before. everything appears normal and the car drives great. any ideas? is this normal? i just got it and haven't had a chance to install a trans cooler and flush the fluid, but that is coming soon. 68,000 miles automatic transmission

if you're mechanically inclined at all, definitely rebuild the calipers. i got rebuild kits online for like 7.35 (that includes BOTH sides) and it was very simple. for your first time, just tear one caliper down at a time, so you can look at the other one to see how the boot and seal sets in there. great deal, two rebuilt calipers for under 8 dollars. very easy job, there's a piston seal and dust boot and not much else to it. clean everything up real good and put it back together. the only tricky part is screwing the piston back in if it's on a threaded spindle (like the XT6 front calipers). but with the right tools, it goes right in, they are tough to turn by hand without a good brake caliper piston tool and the finely threaded spindle takes forever to get anywhere. just keep turning and turnning. i spent a ton of time screwing the pistons back in my first time, but with the right tool this job is super easy. don't forget to grease the seal and boot as you install them. (the rebuild kit came with grease).

if your stock wires fall outside that range, something is electrically compromised in that wire, that's why they provide those numbers. those numbers are not applicable to other type/manufacture of wire and are not meant to apply to all wires ever made. the FSM doesn't say "the motor needs wires in this resistance range", it just tells you the spec's of the stock wires so you can determine if something is wrong with them. the engine does not care what resistance the wires are, so long as the air-fuel mixture is combusting properly. the resistance of the wires is transparent to the motor, only thing it may affect is the life span of the plugs due to different loads being applied to them. and i say this liberally, as i can't imagine it would actually be a quantitative difference that's even measurable without a scanning electron microscope. go with the NAPA, i use www.magnecor.com . they have extensive information (as unbiased as you'll find from a manufacturer) about wires there.

200,000 miles isn't much to chear about. lots of foreign cars make 200,000. lots of subaru's make 200,000. i've had 2 make it to 200,000 (actually 196,000 and 198,000) on all the original gaskets before one was totalled and the other was parted out due to rust. go read boards about any cars, that's where people go with their problems. you're going to hear lots of problems on a forum of this type no matter the manufacturer. it's the nature of the board - free help. well, at no cost to you anyway.

all in all exhaust doesn't seem to make enormous differences in my (NA) cars so i wouldn't worry about it too much. if you want to be picky, i think kevin might have some good dyno numbers and posts comparing 2", 2.25" and 2.5" exhaust diameters on an XT6. being NA maybe that's useless. going from 2.5" to 2" is a 36% decrease in cross sectional area. i think 2.5" or larger (and kevin i think agrees) is too big for an otherwise stock XT6, a noticeable difference from 2" and 2.25" exhaust. again this is NA, but we could notice the difference, not a very big difference but something. i'm a turbovirgin but that seems significant from what i've read about turbo's. in the end it probably moves the power band more than actually making the highest values that much different. that's what i don't like about the larger exhaust sizes on the XT6, loose too much low end for what i want.

my guess is this is paul or someone picked up his project. i don't see paul "looking for ideas" though.

shawn, did you retorque when you reused the bolts or not?

how can you find out if they are torque to yield or not? i've called the dealer about EA82 and ER27 motors and they had no idea.

if you do this, you probably want to try installing the Duty Solenoid C switch so that you can manually *lock* the transfer clutch. i did it with mine and i don't know any percentages but the car bucks and binds just like the manual when i flip the switch. just splice one wire and you're done.