idosubaru

most here, myself included, recommend Subaru head gaskets, have the heads machined and install everything nice and clean. good luck:banana:

are you leaving the calipers stock - are you doing the nissan rear ebrake caliper swap or what for the ebrake when you swap to wrx? i'd get a set of quality rear pads in what ever flavor you prefer, there are a variety of high quality pads that do well. i find the brake discussions and information insane. i looked into all the fancy stuff people like to buy but ended up just getting high quality stuff like adaptive one ceramics, and i've been happy with those so far.

that would only be for 95 model years - all EJ25 DOCH vehicles will run just fine with an EJ22 ECU from 1996-1998, completely interchangeable. Of course all the EGR and auto/manual items still apply.

swapping ECU's is not the final solution. if you're swapping to a manual trans though you're fine, just ground the appropriate pin for manual trans.

you can but that won't get rid of your CEL's. and then ground the pin and you're still going to have issues because you have an automatic transmission. that further confuses it. unless you swap the manual trans in then of course you're fine.

doesn't work, already discussed in details here why. lots of little details, etc.

here's an entire thread discussing ABS: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=680253 ABS is very finnicky, so disable if you need too. But be sure your tires are good because when the white stuff is on the road and you're in an emergency situation snow tires will make a difference between good and bad.

Exactly - that's what happens with poor tires. Actually - you can find my old thread when I was saying exactly what you are saying now 3 years ago. Lots of tread - like %80 and performed great - when I got new tires the braking was completely different. Since getting new tires it performs fine. I actually have snow tires on 2 of my 4 vehicles now and they're even better.

Master cylinder was already replaced prior to me working on it and it appeared full. Watching the plunger should rule out everything pedal/cylinder related right? If you push the pedal and the plunger is moving - then the clutch should be working? He's had two clutch jobs so I'm a bit nervous about jumping into this thing for him. 2002 Leg Wagon EJ25 250,000 miles.

Okay he just stopped by - reservoir was full - so it's not the fluid. So - what else to look for? AH - I forgot to see if the plunger on the hydraulic cylinder actuates when the clutch it pushed. I can try to look at it again later today if anyone has any feedback. He's paid for at least two clutch changes now, not sure what's going on with it.

I was very surprised about ABS, knowing as much as I do about cars and how long it took me before I knew how poorly ABS can work. But it's actually mostly your tires. The ABS doesn't work well with sub-par tires. The best option is to get a dedicated set of snows or new tires, it will make a world of difference. If you're having problems with ABS then even without ABS you're still going to have poor performance in an emergency situation with slick road conditions. Depth of tread means little in this case.

Same friend that had shops hose him with a couple clutch jobs that didnt' fix his problem. I replaced the hydraulic slave cylinder a couple months ago with some help from folks here - thanks! That worked, but he's having problems again. I replaced the slave cylinder and hose. It won't shift, the clutch pedal isn't doing anything so he has to drive by starting the car in gear and matching RPMS to shift - the clutch isn't doing anything. What can I look for? He's stopping by in a few minutes. I'm hoping it's something obvious like a rusted/leaky line or something. But i'm not a clutch/trans expert by any stretch and am really new to this hydraulic stuff. Or is this a clutch problem - it's "stuck" in gear - throw out bearing?

Comments on doing this job? A friend is asking if I want to do his spark plugs. Lots of thread on DOHC stuff but few remarks on SOHC.

If the tie rod nut and other parts are rusty - then yes this kind of thing can happen. Being from maryland, I know how things can rust around there and rubber boots get brittle. But - sounds like they are hacking at it to be breaking all of this stuff at once. There's just no way that all sorts of different parts are bad at the same time. Most likely rust and dried boots are causing them issues as they proceed with the job. it's a tough situation. To keep these old, brittle boot, rusted parts from getting mangled they'd have to proceed carefully, soak in penetrant for awhile and it might not work. That's annoying for the worker. But you'd be annoyed if they charged you more to take the time to do it - and then who wants these parts on there much longer if they're rusted and the boots are brittle? So it's kind of a tough situation for both parties when it comes to stuff like this. One thing you can look for is under car rust - if parts and nuts are rusty then that's probably the issue. And of course look at exactly what they're having problems with. I'm curious what problems they're having. A tie rod is rather simple to replace and doesn't not involve messing with the ball joint - so not sure how the ball joint comes into play. Good chance something is getting lost in communication here. Mechanic to salesman to you to us. I know a guy that's a service manager of a dealership in Maryland and he said they will not work on older generation Subaru's because of stuff like this.

Cool sounds like you're up for this, that's great as this is the easiest and best solution. The air suspension is really quite a fat set up to be honest. I always keep it because it rides so nice. Handles awesome and just plain rides really smooth particularly considering how high it sits, not bad for 20 year old cars. But it can be a real pain to keep operating. Gone completely over it can be reliable, but that requires a lot of effort. Okay let's clear this up before you get in trouble: XT and XT6 are not the same. They have some significant differences here, so start using "XT6" when you're talking about your car and pay attention to exactly what folks are saying since they are interchangeable sometimes but not others. Front Struts: MUST be from a FWD XT6 - not an XT. Not compatible at all. EJ (legacy/impreza) struts will work up front. Rear struts: MUST be from an EA series car - GL-10, Loyale, RX, GL Wagon, XT (4 cylinder) FWD XT6 rear struts work as well. (EJ struts WILL NOT work in the rear minus an oddball exception that doesn't matter here)

air suspension - most direct and easy conversion is XT6 FWD which were all coil over. but the car tends to lean "nose forward" with those. you can flip the rear top mount to help level it out or cut a coil off the rear spring. any EA82 (old school subaru's) REAR strut assemblies also work. EJ (impreza/legacy) front struts fit on an XT6 but need some minor work - the bolts are larger so the hub needs drilled out or you can try to fit your XT6 bolts to the EJ struts...i don't think I'd do that though. Just drill out the XT6 hub holes to accmodate the EJ bolts. just regular cable shift, very simple, bushings are shot. i've never worried about it, does it cause any acutal problems? subaruxt.com for all your XT6 specific needs. many of us are here as well, but that forum has more activity from XT6 folks.

These were alloy. Another guy on the XT board said 14" legacy steels didn't fit on his.

These head bolts are not meant to be replaced and never are. Replacing them comes from quirky ideology, not anything quantitative and factual. Subaru doesn't do it. It's a good idea to thoroughly clean the threads, maybe even chase them with a die, of the bolts and block to make sure you get good even torque. If that's annoying and a waste of your time, buy new ones.

Okay I figured it out - I installed a p/s tie rod on the d/s because it didn't much matter with the 16"ers I normally run. Forgot I did that...still scratching my head about that, must have did it when I was installing the lift? They were standard 14" subaru rims..not sure if legacy or impreza.

oh and hey slick - that tool my buddy has that i talked to you about offline - i could ask him if he's done with it and you could use it as a "mold"? just let me know and i'll ask him.

nice, thanks subaru 360 and will, that's awesome info .

Roy - not sure about rpm's, but in all cases i've seen so far it's valves only - so basically just head work. Being interstate driving sounds a bit scary but I bet it happens so fast you might just have valve and cam issues only. If a cam is seized though you might not be too interested in saving the block if it's due to oil starvation. Good luck!

that's awesome! many of the frequent contributors here know what they're talking about and are not "used car salesmen". suggesting that is a bit on the mean side considering he's donating his time, free of charge, and helping you and others out. shady, cheap a## people don't do that. and, back on topic - i do about the same thing that GD does with cars i'm selling. new is typically not an option, cost prohibitive. so it comes down to leaving 10 year old grease deprived bearings in there to hopefully last 200,000+ miles or having brand new ones in place. if someone argued the OEM are better - well you have 10 year old better bearings verses brand new lower quality. either way they should always be checked at every timing belt interval and it is unlikely the new ones will fail before that.

yes, the new H6's have timing chains. not positive on the rest. but i wouldn't be surprised if you can't install the old style onto Phase II engines. They have completely different heads and stuff.

Hmm - the calipers are actually pivoting though? That leads me to think they would come out but you've already spent hours on them? The ones I haven't been able to remove, or broke when trying, were seized so bad they woudln't even move. So you have the "one bolt" and "one pin" style calipers, not the two bolt style? There are both on these dual piston style calipers. Spray lots of penetrant up in there (WD40 is not a penetrant), have something quality like Liquid Wrench, PB Blaster, etc - all available at Lowe's, auto parts stores, etc. Let it set for awhile if you can. Rust is really annoying - turns 20 minute jobs into hours. Used calipers are really cheap - my buddy just replaced both front calipers in a 97 OBW (same as yours) for chump change, I think it was $25 each or something crazy cheap like that. He ordered from a place down south which means no rust too!