idosubaru

i was looking at port matching for my XT6 heads and intake, didn't seem like much room for improvement. nothing as noticable as i've seen with cast iron V8's. am i missing something? i was thinking i could trim the gasket down to open them and then match the intake/head...or just cut my own gaskets. anyone done this port matching? as little as you drive i'd leave the block as it is unless you have the time and money then who cares. i have zero experience with turbos though, so maybe those blocks tend to experience more wear than NA soobs. clean your HLA's, send them off to be cleaned or clean them yourself. i disassembled mine and cleaned them, it wasn't that bad. slightly time consuming but not hard. (but you'll have 4 less to do than me). have your fuel injectors cleaned professionally by RC engineering or some place similar. get new timing tensioners, they are inexpensive for the EA82 at places like http://www.thepartsbin.com. or buy bearings and press them in yourself to your existing pulleys. i'd buy new tensioners before i'd buy a new oil pump. doubtful you need a new pump. i'm at 205,000 miles and i don't plan on needing a new pump anytime soon.

4wd won't help with accleration. it will help with traction, so if you're on a slippery surface or have loads of power to put to the ground it will help. but normally, no advantage.

very subjective question, all identical motors are similar. all tapping HLA's are not. each person with noisey HLA's could have entirely different issues, different levels of oil pump weakness or dirty/sticky HLA's. each will have different effects on gas mileage and performance and can vary in severity. bottom line is that HLA's can definitely affect gas mileage by a substantial amount. you can experience minimal to no effect on performance or terrible performance. if the tapping never or rarely goes away, i'd expect significant loss. if it goes away above idle, it may not be noticable.

the service provider of xt6.net had a hard drive crash and is moving all the xt6.net files to a new hard drive. they expect a 24 hour turn around time. maintenance started sometime before 5:15pm thursday, so hopefully we'll be back in action tomorrow afternoon....but i wouldn't start sweating and bouncing off walls if it takes longer.

major service maintenance on the providers end at xt6.net, they will be down for approx 24 hours from the time they started...but i don't know when that is except to say it was before 9pm thursday night sometime. there are a few XT turbo owners there, so you should have some good info. some are members here too and it's the same EA82T motor that is in all the other late 80's subaru's so lots of people here will have input. search or look for posts regarding the EA82T, that's your motor. subaru offered that in other models, but the motor is the same as far as youre concerned . it's always a good idea to make sure the car is running as close to 100 percent as possible. ignition is huge - plugs, wires, cap, rotor and coil. have you replaced any of that recently? i'd recommend doing it all at the same time. better performance, gas mileage and peace of mind in my position. but i was in college one time too...... you don't have heavy items in the car do you? extra weight will hinder you some. they don't make spares the size of pie pans for no reason. i believe you can increase the boost very easily....read *cheap*. but i've never done it so i'm not sure how to do that....i recall something about installing a long hose to some other line and the length of the hose will dictate boost...blah blah blah, but i've never sat in or worked on a turbo so i don't know specifics. i heard this from john in ky and he definitely knows his turbo subarus so it can be done even if what i said makes ZERO sense. if you have a welder, do the exhaust work yourself. i took the old exhaust into a shop that has exhaust pipe and had them bend it for me and i welded it in place. that's easy and should help from what i've read about turbo's (thanks kevin). in college i bought a muffler and had a guy install it with larger pipe for 35 dollars. keep your eyes out for an honest guy not trying to rip you off and you can get it done cheap. he used to own an XT6, so i think he was excited to do the work. you could install a larger intercooler from some other car. get a used one cheap and install it yourself and it shouldn't cost too much. if your HLA's (lifters, valve train) are noisey at all, i'd address that. the familiar tapping noise of a subaru can kill power as it prevents the valves from operating properly. and the valves are what allow your motor to *breathe*....ahhhh....

i think some RX owners like to upgrade to 5 lug suspension from an XT6. maybe because the brakes (calipers/rotors) are better?

it's a very trivial issue if you can put up with the grease slinging around. i routinely drive 50,000 miles on broken boots, just stay out of the sand and you'll be fine. they get REAL noisey when sand gets up in there. inner and rear cv joints don't ariculate much, so they last forever. put a new clamp on it or take it out and return it for another. one of your old axles was not leaking when you pulled it. swap that with the new one that is leaking and see what happens. then go return, exchange or install a new boot clamp on the new one.

i know the pistons are different, are you sure the rings are the same?

hti-johnson, i would very surprised if you had any problems. but why not change it? no point in taking a chance, no matter how small it is if it's known, cheap and easily avoidable. moshem74 i don't think the installation of your hoses is causing you any problems or is anything to worry about. if i could remember i'd tell you how they are stock though so you can make sure they are correct. someone will post that info.

if it's anything like the EA82 in the XT (same motor), then way slower. no comparison. much better gas mileage but no comparison for power, pulling, acclerating...etc. did you mean to compare the rx turbo and xt6 or NA rx?

in the 4EAT transmission there's a seal that seperates the diff fluid (gear oil) and transmission fluid. if there's leakage at this seal, the fluids can mix and one...i think the ATF will read higher. you'll notice a corresponding loss of gear oil in the front diff. i could have it backwards...the DIFF oil could read high with a corresponding loss of ATF. your post sounds like you drained ATF, but it still was reading high...higher than it did after you drained it. so either the measurement was off for some reason or you have additional fluid entering the trans?

keep running MMO or ATF, something to clean it out. if one particular area sounds bad (the right rear cylinder or whatever you said), then i'd suspect one HLA is dirty or sticky. i would not suspect the oil pump just yet...although the seals probably do need replaced, but i think your immediate problem is probably not oil supply related.

if you can't pinpoint a side, it may be differential noise. (front or rear) try checking the differential fluids or changing them for good measure. use a quality synthetic gear lubricant within the specifications of your diff. your tires that you replaced, were they old, worn in bad shape? were they a matching set of tires or all different? check wheel bearings for play/noise/etc. jack up car and turn wheels by hand. remove wheels and turn the rotors/hub by hand and listen for noise or feel for roughness. pay attention to rotors, brakes pads, wheel bearing and cv noise. grab your cv axles and make sure they feel solid. sounds to me like it has to be a moving part.

anything happen before these problems? someone tried to wire something or install something? what wiring did you play with or "rewire" and why? the door ajar and interior light sounds like the switch at the door jamb is fouled up. could be rusted out, disconnected, shorted, bad switch. normally you just pull the rubber cover and there's one screw to remove the switch. they typically rust bad. by the floorboard on some soobs are some wire connectors that typically get shorted out (a white connector in XT's and XT6's), causing intermittent and random problems...usually with headlights and tail lights in my experience. if you have a manual trans i'd pay particular attention to this, but auto's are fair game as well. manuals seem prone to this problem since snow sticks to shoes and gets on anything you may accidentally nudge down there. then ice melts and gets into the wiring connector. inspect them closely, sometimes it's obvious because your white connector is now brown and brittle to the touch, other times the wires are shorted out in the connector but the connector appears okay.

can you determine left/right or front/rear? any vibrations? how are your brake pads? how are your cv axles? (age, boots torn...etc) does it do it whether the car is in gear or not? does it all the time? any speed?

i know a guy with an XT6, he pulled his alternator apart and found an old and poor looking solder connection inside the alternator. he cleaned it up and resoldered it and this fixed his electrical issues...similar to yours i believe but i don't recall the specifics. you can look it up at the Yahoo XT6 group site...his name is Wayne, he may have even posted pictures in the pictures section (he has some great fixes in there, very resourceful fellow) it was just this summer that he did this. .....i forget all the terminology because i just get mine rebuilt...but he said the bad solder was causing the voltage regulator to dump inconsistent current back to the alternator creating voltage spikes and terrible output from his alternator. again, forgive me if my explanation or semantics aren't 100 percent, i've never opened one of these things up. but the solder connection was his only problem. other than that, make sure all battery and alternator connections are solid, clean and tight. even if the alternator is shot, make sure these connections are golden so your next battery and alternator are problem free.

is the tapping from ONE SIDE or ONE CYLINDER or all over the place? best thing to do is visually inspect the oil. if it's noticeably dirty or low, good idea to change it if you have loud HLA's (tapping). if it's not dirty, you can still change it or let the MMO keep chugging away. MMO is good, but it's not all that potent, one bottle is trivial so i wouldn't expect a miracle in a bottle (though it has cured noisey valve trains on many occassions quite quickly). if you have the time and money, change the oil again for kicks and add MMO again. if you'd rather wait, then give it some more time and leave it in there. if you continue having problems, you can add 2 bottles of MMO or one quart of ATF at your next oil change. or add one bottle of ATF just prior to your next oil change. add one quart 100 miles before your next change then drain it all out and refill with oil or oil+MMO. if your oil pump seals are jacked up, all the tricks in the world won't work or are temporary. good luck and have fun,

i wasn't able to locate a replacement draincock at the standard auto parts retailers for the XT6. if you experience the same problem i'd just get someone to send you a used one. check with local radiator shops, seems they'd have these things lying around or deal with this. there should be plenty of old rusty radiators out there with perfectly good draincocks that someone would part with. it looks like the old drain cock is sheared off in the picture, is that the case? i temporarily used what was left of my old drain cock with some sealant all around the threads and it worked fine until someone mailed me one. as mentioned, it's threaded. if you can take the threaded part in, match the threads with something and use some sealant around the threads and you should be good to go. i'd make sure you get whatever you put in there to seat securely if it's not the standard drain cock, to prevent it from vibrating out. it will back out if it's not secure.

forgot to mention - one of my XT6's currently has 9 of one style and 3 of another. i was worried at first they were different, but they appear identical in every way....except the cap.

i've seen 2 different styles of caps from OEM subaru motors, so for whatever reason maybe they made a change one year or used different caps? not sure, but i've seen 2 kinds on original HLA's from subaru blocks.

nice hit hot dog, good work!

how did you know the cams weren't properly ground? can you give us more details, i don't know jack about cams so i'd like to know how you know they were'nt done properly. kevin, nice try, i'll stick to NA if i get an XT or some other EA82 for gas mileage and ease of maintenance.

awesome. i dont drink, you can have a beer for me too. i'd check with some others and see if that bad ground/bad running could degrade the coil at all. i don't know how they work so i have no idea. but be nice to know if that could ruin the coil prematurely. i still have the original coil on my 205,000 mile XT6...i really should replace that sometime soon. i'd pull the spark plugs. clean them and check the gap. with the coil having output problems that may have fouled the plugs up a little.

you didn't really mention anything about the fronts, are they working okay now? "they are working a bit better", what does that mean? give us some specifics, noisey, vibrating, not braking, slow braking, mushy pedal..... what do the fronts do now when you brake? how do they work if you just use the emergency brake? i'm going to be gone for a few days so i'll probably never see this thread again. that being said, you might want to ask someone what happens when a brake booster goes bad. i've never had to replace one or know anyone else that has either, but if you can't track this problem down you may want to look there. this is the part that connects to your master cylinder and bolts to the firewall in the motor. it's essentially most of the linkage from the brake pedal to the master cylinder. i wouldn't get too frustrated, brakes are really simple to work on. calipers, hoses, master cylinder. buy another master cylinder if you have to and swap it in (bleed it properly). get a used one if you cant' afford a new one, should be easy enough to find. the master cylider might even be rebuildable but i've never looked into it. i got a new, rebuilt one for a friends volvo for like 10 or 15 bucks from Discount Auto Parts. calipers can be rebuilt yourself for a couple dollars. front caliper rebuild - remove caliper from rotor (leave the hoses attached!). wrap caliper in towel. keep a good eye on how the boot and seal are installed so you can reinstall them properly. keep pressing the brake pedal until the caliper piston comes out. (have bucket underneath to catch all the fluid). now clean everything up really good. install the new seal inside the caliper, be sure to grease the seal. intsall the piston and new boot and you're done. the piston is difficult to turn, be sure to have good tools and be patient. dont' think anything is wrong, it's just difficult because it's a tight seal, it needs to be or it'll leak. bleed the brakes. i think you can get the kits for under 10 dollars (this includes enough seals for BOTH sides!). try www.thepartsbin.com or www.rockauto.com. good luck,

how about bad gas or water getting into your tank? i doubt it, but something to eliminate at least. how old is your ignition coil? the engine code connectors aren't connected are they? like the "diagnosis connector" or the "read from memory" connector? sorry i'm not familiar with your model soob, but some have these connectors at the ECU. normally one is green and the other black by the ECU. are you SURE your ignition system is good. electrical stuff is funny, plugs, wires, rotor, cap, ignition coil. when it's running crappy, try this. carry an extra spark plug with you, or go out right now if you're confident it will run bad. pull one spark plug wire at a time and attach it to your *extra* spark plug (holding it with insulated channel locks or gloves) and ground it to something like the motor (away from the fuel lines/filter) and see if you have good spark at each and every cylinder. i did this to a friends honda and the spark was there, but VERY weak and very small. his car barely ran, wouldn't get up to speed....turned out the ignition wires were installed wrong. anyway, that's not your problem but the ignition system has GOT to be good. just to make this longer....here's another story i was trouble shooting starting, idling and running problems with an XT6 last summer. very random in nature, getting warmed up made it worse. i replaced all sorts of stuff, fuel pump, filter, PCV, cleaned my connections, water temp sensor, fuel injector cleaner...no engine codes...probably some other things i've since forgotten. i finally replaced the plugs eventhough they were only a year old. thing ran perfect after that. ignition issues cause more problems than anything else in all the cars i work on....maybe with the exception of battery terminal problems, dirty, corroded and loose.