idosubaru

speed, weight, mountain grades, and A/C will all come into play. if you get 28 mpg around town then maybe you will see that 30+ range, sounds like the car is certainly capable of mid 30's on the highway and EA vehicles can do that. if the car has to struggle to keep high speeds with the A/C on and carrying a lot of weight up mountain passes you could get less than what you get around town. i've had that happen on long trips, get worse than what i get in my daily commute. but i was doing 80 mph in the mountains with a lot of weight (1,000+ pounds of people and gear). on long trips (which i do very often) going 60mph can add 5 or 10 hours to a trip over 75 mph...not acceptable in some situations.

if you tighten the other bolt it'll be fine. not saying I recommend it - but i would do it and it would hold just fine. i'd drive it like that until i got another bracket or repair parts ready. buy a longer bolt that's the same thread pitch as the original and it can often access threads that are deeper and unused. usually the holes are quite deeper than the original bolt. i've done it a hundred times...though not on a caliper. be best to chase the threads with a tap if you have one first. worst case - it's easily repairable with a time-sert or other thread repair device. or simply drill and tap for a larger bolt. or swap the bracket with another one.

Phil (kingbobdole on here and other Subaru forums) deleted his with the valve cover breather set up and had issues. I'm not sure what the issues were but i think it was simply puking oil out the valve cover breathers.

50,000 miles is usually going to be easily done with a known good used trans. change the ATF and front diff oil and put new ATF lines in it. I have put 60,000-70,000 on my $150 used 4EAT (100,000 miles when i got it) now and i expect a lot more. Subaru auto trans are reliable and the car you're putting it in is not taxing on transmissions. Check the fluid in it before you buy it, see why the car was junked if you can, etc. is that "Bowie" Maryland? i'm from MD and used to work in Greenbelt.

probably, they are notoriously hard to bleed. letting them sit/running them a little seems to help - then bleed again. like is "moves" the air to the valve to bleed or something? GD has some comments on here and has done a few of them, he mentioned he an get it right every time now.

right on, looks like you're good to go. a cursory glance via google suggests it's only the manual trans that are different. glad it was only the manual trans, good to know. every single EJ transmission with a stubby shaft is the same for many, many years and generations except for the 93 FWD impreza - it's a freak. all EJ's have 25 splines on the transmission. the freaky 93 FWD manual Imp's have 23.

final drive ratio won't matter at all to the TCU or ECU, like you said it's FWD. i converted my AWD legacy to FWD. it was originally 4.44 and i dropped down to 4.11 with the swap, no big deal and i made no changes to the TCU or anything, just bolted it up and plugged it in. be careful with those early imprezas - 93 impreza FWD's have an oddball spline count on the front axles, so your legacy axles may not slide into it. i could be off and maybe you won't run into that. if i'm correct, it's still worth it to also swap axles to match or you may simply be able to install the DOJ parts of the impreza on your existing legacy axles - not that big of a deal and might as well put new boots on them while the thing is apart anyway.

still following, thanks all. the technical stuff is way beyond what i have time for. wish i did, but i don't and won't. so for now i'll just be hack welding rusted stuff that has some more years left but doesn't need to look great.

thanks. that sounds good actually, not overcomplicating- i'd like to know more about the differences since i've got two of these vehicles, one with an unknown manufacture date and the information out there is a bit ambiguous.

65,000 miles on the car - is that the original brakes? That's really good actually to get 65,000 miles on front pads. and you're not to the wear indicators yet so you have more mileage to go. I would wait until the wear indicators start sounding off. they give you plenty of warning and you can drive them for awhile after, giving you plenty of time to arrange parts/repair. And who knows - you might get another year or two out of them. As for the vibration, you can google it but rotors don't technically "warp". I think it's more like material build up and driving style and conditions are most likely to make it happen again. There are some excellent technical reads about it. So turning is a fine solution. Sometimes you can tell which side it is...turn the wheel by hand and you'll feel it hit a high spot - that's the warped one. If you can't tell then install a new rotor on one side and then: 1. if it goes away you're done 2. if it doesn't go away then install the rotor you removed to install the new one on the other side Or just replace them both or have them both turned, lots of options.

Gotcha, guess i'll just be pulling both apart and comparing.

Jamal's extensive thread is a bit ambiguous and indefinite on this change. When did the brake pads change in 00-04? I have 02 and 03 Outback H6's as daily drivers so I should figure this out. Subaru forums seem to suggest the change was around 00-02. Some of the parts stores (one on Amazon) suggests thru 09/01 is different than after that date. Another issue i that my 02 had the door replaced so I don't have the original door plate with the manufacture date on it.

Any other options besides calling Subaru? Before I owned it the door was replaced so the date on the door plate is wrong on my 02 OBW.

sounds like the trans is blown. does 2-4 mean: "2 and 4" or "2 through 4"? so first gear works perfectly fine? clutch, pressure plate, throw out bearing - new, used, etc? no signs before failure in the 5,000 miles you had it installed? noises, grinding, crunching...?

that's a good price and would sell quickly in some markets. it's a great price given the motor that's in it if it's in good condition. the general public doesn't know it but that's a great motor - a premium vehicle in terms of reliability. does the dealer have any service records? have the spark plugs ever been changed (they are due at 100,000 miles and it's an expensive job)? great engine. they easily make high mileages with little more than oil changes. i have two currently and it was intentional based on the motor. 200,000 on one, 150,000 on another, i'm planning on 300,000 on both. valve cover gaskets, oil cooler gasket, and spark plugs are likely to need replaced at some point, but those are minor maintenance items that any used car of this era will need. i would have a look at what condition the valve cover gaskets and oil cooler gasket is in before buying it, you might be able to get the dealer to repair those at a reduced cost or something now. it will definitely need those at some point. change oil regularly. if it has the same serpentine belt idler pulley issues as the 00-04 (which i believe it does) - have them both repaired immediately. there's a sticky about the issue on subaruoutback.org. it can be repaired in 15 minutes and $10 for two bearings, or $25 for two pulleys off the shelf from the auto parts stores (DAYCO part number posted on that website). very easy repair, just find the threads about it. they fail very often, i'd consider them 60,000 mile or so maintenance items.

not very many were made and theyre still new enough that prices are high and folks aren't really "playing" with them yet. don't see many baja posts at all, there's just not a ton out there.

Welcome - good luck tackling that head gasket job. Glad i was able to inform you of the HG problem before you went further on the belts. Be nice to determine if the valves are bent or not soon.... If the vehicle is decent and wasn't overheated previously - the engine/car usually isn't hard to get another reliable and inexpensive 100,000 miles out of. It's annoying but one of those things you could look back in 5 years and enjoy the lack of a car payment you had.

Not really. Depends on your definition of "work" - it is not "black and white" as folks (on both sides) tend to talk about it. Long answer, it might limp you along if you don't have any intention of keeping the car or that motor any longer. Those types of repairs are best considered short term salesmen type band-aids and can be bad for the motor over the long haul if you ever planned on doing it right. if you just want to drive it into the ground and get another year (or week or nothing) out of it and junk it, then maybe it's worth a try. if the car is in good shape, the motors are generally capable of 200,000+ miles rather easily if the repair is done right, and you'd like to see more miles years out of it - then those bottles of magic are generally best avoided. if you're into a timing belt job though this far - just do the headgaskets, it's not that hard really...time yes, but not that bad. if you remove 3 nuts (2 lower engine mounts and top dogbone mount) you can jack the motor up a few inches and do them in the car rather easily with the battery removed. not bad at all. the annoying part is cleaning all the parts prior to install, just grunt work. be sure to use SUbaru's 610 gaskets (last three digits of part number)

actually we're going to shift gears and try to help them save some time and effort. stop, you have no need to install the timing belt. you have a blown headgasket. replacing the water pump has zero chance of repairing this. also don't waste your time on compression tests, leak down tests, or oil and coolant mixing. these headgaskets don't fail like that and will pass those tests. they push exhaust gases into the coolant, causing the bubbling and cavitation that prevents water from circulating. those exhaust gases are also the "gas" you mentioned smelling.

so this car was running perfectly fine before you removed the timing belt? this is an interference engine so you never want to rotate the cams without the crank timing mark being lined up. first thing to check is if the crank timing mark is lined up. if the crank mark is properly lined up then your cam is likely not stuck - they are under a lot of resistance due to the valve springs and cam lobes in the valve train, they are very heavily spring loaded and can rip meet off of your fingers when they finally spring forward or back. you're likely not turning with enough force to get it over the springs/cam lobes. if it's actually "stuck" then the crank mark probably isnt' lined up and something is interfering - valve hitting piston or something - never force it and make sure the crank mark is lined up.

your post is hard to read so i'm not sure what you're asking. i think you need to verify what is wrong first. any OBD scanner should work fine. many auto parts stores do it for free as well. clarify what is wrong with the brakes..."brake cylinder"...what do they mean by that?

what he said. great motor with few issues. change the oil and never let it run hot or low on oil and that motor will make 300,000 miles rather easily. and idler bearing as well - same bearing number and issue. there's a sticky here about that issue, at 140,000 miles one has probably already failed at some point or will. luckily they can be fixed in a matter of minutes for a few bucks. very easy repair.

right on, no arguing, i hear you. it would be interesting to see the differences, if i had the time i should go on over there and check it out.

nice photo journal. so you've seen mountain lions before? that's awesome, i can't imagine that. i've camped/hunted at 10,000 ft in Colorado three different times and no signs of the reclusive jokers. my grandfather went to the same area 25 years and only heard one one time, never saw any.

someone hacking them will see those implied limitations soon enough and then know how to work around them on their own, they won't need to buy an EJ20g chip - they can just go make one. also, not everyone cares which one is better. some folks will value practicality over a few HP.