turboguzzi

It's a 1999 2.0L 5MT forester, 106K miles, not very loaded with extras but that electric sunroof surely makes up for it! it has a 12 galon Gas tank in place of the spare wheel, just like in my Leg, and overall makes the only two decalred highly believable. On the way to her place I did a little bit of "Italian Tuning", i.e. kept her almost pinned down for 15 minutes at 110 MPH on the auotstrada to get rid of all the crap and deposits, engine indeed felt even nicer after the high speed blast. My 95' Leg is in good health and has the same EJ20 motor, so am quite amazed at how much stronger this Forester's motor feels. My lady is pretty chuffed with her new toy, let hope it holds up as well as it looks.

When my girlfriend's Opel Astra 1.7 Turbo diesel SW started giving her some grief a year ago i told her that her next car will be a subaru forester.... In the last ten years that we are together she already knew to appreciate subbie quality form my two leagacies Well, her Opel's ECU gave up the ghost two weeks ago so i jumped on italy's popular search engine and unbelievably, found exactly what we were looking for at first try Reqs were: 1st series Forester (coolest looking IMHO) No more than 100K miles LPG (Liquefied petroleum gas) system already installed Well, so here she is:

nice fellows smashed the rear passenger window of my 95's Leg SW, took my GF's tablet, etc. while we were out pedaling by the river. oh well, life i guess... broken window went out easy , am having more of an issue inserting the used window i found back into the slot due to the blue bearing wheel and front guide being wider than the slot.... ive taken out the two internal sliders of course, but stil cant see how to slot it in without using brute force on the metal sheet. any secret tips here that i am missing? workshop manual is not that detailed here.. tnxs in advance TG

great, mistery solved! looks like by part number i am aable to locate a supplier in europe. cool, tnxs again

tnxs fairtax, helpful as always regetfully partsgeek doesnt ship to italy.... and cant find any EMPI reseller in europe and the mistery of no part number for the inner boot remains open, seems to be the case all over the range, odd any other tips anybody? tnxs in advance

mmm... the inner (DOJ) joint in my STI axled legacy is torn, the opposedforces fiche show a part number only for the CV joint (14) http://opposedforces.com/parts/impreza/en_g11/type_7/suspension_and_axle/front_axle/illustration_2/ for some reason the "b1" inner boot doesnt have a number.... so is this part number (28323FE001) just the outer boot of is it for a kit for both inner and outer? not that i am fixed on original parts, so if anybody's got a link to an ebay shop, that'l be welcome too couldnt find any so far... cheers & grazie mille! TG, milan, italy

checking over a long trip/full tank of highway will give you a much better idea if you have bad mpg. city driving can have so many variables. if you get 26-27 highway then you dont have much to worry about.

great, tnxs for the tip!

well, looks like i am going to be using OB struts + stiffer srpings made here in italy by a company called ORAP. but in the meantime, was also reading about DIY raiser blocks, so being a DIYer myslef had to give it a try! 1hour work in the workshop to make 1.25" raisers using a template file found on here, and amazingly, less than an hour to fit without even taking the struts out, just by lifting the car and letting the struts drop. car now looks like a proper SW job, back higher than front rather than the other way round, same stance as my good old gen 1, pretty amazed it was so easy. like many say, 1.25" is pretty much the limit, simply because of the brake hose length, gave it some extra slack by bending the tab on the shock with vise grips. if OB struts will result in the same height, then definetely thats the next step

+1, dislogged it once while working, thought engine was toast.... rather fat rubber hose should attach to a stub in the manifold casting.

tnxs fairtax mine is a AWD reflects what i see on the street.... so many legs kinda sit low on the back. i am located in italy so USA/Australia suppliers would be expensive shipping for me. But turbo impreza springs do come up every now and then on ebay here, any chance that these could fit? (assuming they are a stiffer rate than mine)

ok, tnxs!

did some pocking around, and it looks like much of the stuff is for serious lifting at both ends, whereas i am looking only for just a little bit more at the back under loaded conditions. The car sees only paved roads and i am not a beer drinker (i load it up mostly for motorcycle road racing weekends, not a good mix with alcohol ) .... so not really seeking more suspension travel looks like my setup is going to be stock struts, maybe stiffer springs and DIY 1" lifter blocks. Will do the blocks during this week, and will give them a try in the weekend before ordering the shocks. can anybody say if ill be able to slide them over the struts with them in place? was thinking of simply unbolting the three M8 bolts, lifting the car, let the struts drops a bit and see if i can fit them in. Doable?

ok, thanks guys is there any online catalog/list that has strut and springs lengths for reach model? that thread cited some minor differences in the struts between Leg, OB and forester, any show stoppers in there? cheers TG

I often run the car fully loaded and with trailer, and rear shocks gave the ghost car also seemed always to sit a bit low at the back, specially compared to my gen 1 that was actually higher there. (boy, how i miss it....) so it sounds like a slightly stiffer spring and longer strut is what i need. now then, i tried to read through this thread http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/146192-lifting-my-95-legacy-sedan/?hl=%2Blegacy+%2Brear+%2Bspring&do=findComment&comment=1227928 but couldn't understand the bottom line really... sounds like by mixing the right stock subaru components from other models this can be achieved but not really sure which car is a european 1995 2ng gen leg 2.0L 5MT SW, normal suspension. i use the stock 14" rims with stock sized winter tires and alloy 15" with 195/60 summer tires. lets say tire internal clearance not an issue. whit the car sitting low at the back, i do get some light rub on the outside when bottoming, another reason for wanting a higher/stiffer rear end. can anyone describe clearly how to make this type of upgrade using outback/forester stuff? I always have the option of simply turning on a late a 1"-1.5" spacer to put above the spring as a DIY solution. tnxs in advance!

not worried about bending valves, as i said before, one bank was advanced one tooth to begin with for quite a while and no damage occurred. bending valves in tuned motors (like in one of texans' links) is related to retarded exh closing with hot cams, i know this from my bike race motors that are really on the limit in that sense. that shouldn't be a problem with ADVANCED timing. being a single cam motor, in/ex overlap is not changing either, so no danger for valve clash either. Only showstopper is how will the cam sensor / ECU react. I dont mind living with a red light in the dashbord for an error code, but not with missfiring.... so fairtax, essentially you are saying that the one tooth advance at the cam wheel will cause a misfire? interesting as over the life of a belt there's surely a bit of de-sync occurring as the belt stretches and the tensioner takes up the slack... I believe that the cam sensor would have quite a high tolerance for allowing that. so here's the one thing i cant find the answer for: What's the REAL task of the cam sensor? the spark event is surely timed off the crank sensor, I bet my you know what on that. There's no way spark would be allowed to drift according to belt wear. So to me it looks like: Option 1 - it's a safety thing that just tells the ECU cam is waaayy off or not turning. Option 2 - The above + it also times the injection event. Actually in the second case, it would be great as it will maintain the right relationship between injection timing and inlet valve open/close. But surely if it will cause a misfire it's a no-no....

ok, finally the hot topic,,,,, the cam sensor though i for one think that it is the crankshaft sensor that sends the key ign/inj timing event and that the cam sensor was more for a warning in the event of a belt failure. this also makes more sense to me as if the cam sensor was controlling spark and injection, any elongation/wear in the belt would send them off spec.... by your logic, those belt tensioners linked by lucky texan would throw everything off tune. so here's a more focused question to the experts: what is the task of the cam sensor? is it just to control that the cam is generally rotating or does it also send a timing signal? and if off by 7-8 degrees, then would it confuse the ECU ?

hei fairtax when you think about it, al there is to it is calculating how much bigger the tensioning roller's diameter need to be in order to pull the belt the ammount needed to create the advance required and simply turning on a lathe a bigger sleeve. Y've done something similar on a Rotax 500 single motor for flat track to compensate for lower deck height, it also has toothed belt cam drive.

those adjusters are sure neat. could easily be of use to get less or more. i've counted the teeth on the crank sprocket from a picture and it seemed like 25 = 50 at the cam, i might be wrong of course. surely the beuaty of my proposal is that it's zero cost. Maybe this wasnt so clear in my post: The car HAS been already running for something like 15K with one side advanced, (belt was replaced by PO at 55K and i bought the car with 70K) no damage to the engine whatsoever, after setting the timing right, i've done already another 50K. Car doesnt consume oil, does 26-27 mpg. If the advance would have done any damage it would have shown by now. pretty tempted to try but keep your thoughts coming

tnxs texan i relate the bit lumpy idling to the fact that it was only one side that was advanced. I agree with the compromise thing, essentially saying that in my case, since i am often towing a trailer with a bike + car fully loaded, i'd rather compromise top end a bit for better low end.

ok, here's the story When I bought my 2nd legacy almost three years ago, car drove really great (still does), pulling better than my previous 1st gen, the only gremlin being a slightly lumpy idle (which changing plugs didnt cure). oh well i thought, can live with that with the car being a super clean 2nd gen leg with just 70K on the odo. A month later, while taking the timing belt off to replace the leaking dreaded o-ring seal at the oil pump, I discover that one bank of cylinders had the timing pulley advanced by one tooth....(i.e. intake open earlier, exh. closing earlier) I happily restore everything to stock, thinking about how incompetent some car mechanics are and how much better it will run now. well, after the work it indeed idled perfectly, but..... what do you know, pull from down low was actually better before fixing the bad valve timing... at least by seat of the pants it went back to pulling as my previous Leg did. And yes, i checked a few times, it is rightly timed now, it was 1 tooth off before... 50K on, the car is still a great runner but i thought back at the time that considering i dont give much importance to top HP , i'd be happy to have more torque down low. So why not advance valve timing for the complete engine? after all, even with just one side advanced i could tell it was pulling better at low-medium revs. As i tune road race motorcycles, building my own motors, i am quite used to cam degreeing and usually retard cams for better top end power. so essentially i want to try the opposite. could even bring the bonus of better fuel economy. I am near now to the car's second belt change at 120K, so really willing to give this a try on my 1995 european 2.0 5MT, the camshaft pulley has 50 teeth, so a 1 tooth advancing equals 7.2 degs, not a whole lot actually. ignition and injection events are governed by the crank sensor, my main doubt is if the cam sensor will "fell" something strange. What do to the motor masters among us think? pros, cons, risks (engine is definitely non interference) or will it end in tears? tnxs in advance for your feedback

ok, thanks

mmm.... cant find this area in opposed forces online microfiches.... this shot is taken form the worskshop manual anyone knows the part number for o-ring number 2? + any links to more complete microfiches would be welcome Grazie mille TG 95 2.0 leg SW

well, it's been a while but while searching for pads, came across this german site who serves all of europe and prices for most consumables like CV's, bearings, belts, filters are REALLY cheap, like cheaper than int'l ebay stuff http://www.pkwteile.de/ just choose the right flag

tnxs guys, useful info seems now like they are common with toyota and others cheers and ciao TG