GeneralDisorder

No one makes a harness. You have to pull one from a scrapped car. And the 90 to 94 stuff isn't worth having. Use a 95 or 96 harness, computer, and manifold. GD

The performance sucks. GD

Yeah I mentioned that in post 6. GD

Guessing that a year and a half later it's probably been dealt with one way or another. GD

Use the donut spare. Flip it around backwards if you need to. Drop or drive it on set of ramps. GD

Once upon a time I was a younger man and made an honest mistake that cost the company more than my monthly pay. A crusty old shop foreman swept it under the rug for me and kept me from getting fired. I try to return the favor. It would depend on the tech of course. If they made a regular habit of fastener abuse or hammer & chisel apprentice work they would be pushing their toolbox down the sidewalk. GD

I mixed up the intake and exhaust cams on a 25D a few years ago - of course it had to be the driver's side head. Distractions abound when you are trying to run a shop and wrench at the same time..... The engine did not run well at all this way but was completely undamaged - of course I rotate them over by hand to ensure there is nothing binding so no interference took place. I had to swap the cams around after it was in the car and we had attempted to run it. That's a frustrating event for sure. Put a major F*ck in my day and the schedule. Customer was a good friend though and didn't mind the delay. Because I we do it professionally though.... not many mistakes get made around here. Half the jobs we are on auto-pilot because repetition. Most of the "problems" we run into are getting the wrong parts, or not being able to get the parts in a timely manner. I had a friend/customer who installed a short block I supplied to him and called me saying oil was everywhere and it was flowing out of the block like a faucet. He installed the head gasket upside down with the oil port hole on the wrong end. Oil was erupting from the joint between head and block like a volcano. I had a block come in from another shop with THREE stripped head bolt holes. I guess they accidentally bought DOHC bolts for a SOHC engine. What I don't understand is who keeps torquing the bolts after one of them strips? Let alone THREE of them? Just a single bolt hole being stripped will ensure a blown gasket almost immediately. Let alone three. Why keep trying to go through the sequence? It's not an easy repair - I charge $100 per hole for the pleasure. I would have demoted that tech back to sweeping and mopping if he worked here. GD

Don't bother. They are junk. Save up and install an EWG. GD

That's possible I suppose. Don't hookup goofy electronics to the ECU. I've seen a mis-wired secondary O2 sensor cause the ECU to freak out and randomly idle at 3000 RPM with no codes or other reasonable explanation as to why. Honestly it took months to figure out what that idiot had done wrong. It was hidden and made no sense. GD

It won't. We have never seen that. One quart in 3k is about what we usually see. Subaru extended the warranty to 10 years / 100k anyway so your covered if the consumption does get too great have the short block swapped before you hit 100k. It's simple really - ask for an oil consumption test. It's free. They will mark the drain plug to ensure nothing changes while you drive. If the consumption isn't quite high enough get a vampire oil analysis pump and suck out enough through the dipstick tube to get over the finish line. New engine block. Done. Trust me the dealer wants the work. Even warranty work. Keeps the service department in business. Technicians got to eat too. GD

MPG is highly subjective to driving conditions and behaviors. Oil consumption due to low tension rings reduces the primary component of engine friction (ring to cylinder interface) and under the right conditions will yield higher MPG. That's a well known fact and it is THE overriding engineering principle behind thin, low tension ring sets. Regardless of your highly comprehensive statistical sampling of *one* car, the science behind this situation is well known and understood by all automakers including Subaru. GD

Low tension rings are the new now. Thank the Obama administration and their EPA guidelines. Enjoy the MPG benefits. Top off as needed. It's normal and expected for modern engines to use oil. If you "fix" it you will lose MPG's from "enhanced" rings the simply add friction and reduce efficiency. What's the problem with adding oil? When you get right down to brass tacks the issue is a complete lack of understanding engineering principles and trying to apply pre-concieved notions of what is "normal" to machines that no longer follow the 1990's rules of engine design. Subaru's mistake was not increasing the capacity and desensitizing the oil level monitoring so that it doesn't show low till more than 2 quarts down. GD

That's all cute and academic and so forth. But the reality is there IS NO REV LIMITER @ 4k on the stock ECU. Ya got that? Jeezuz. Look - I understand the frustration but I build these cars for a living and one thing we do after every water pump, or HG job (like three a week for many years now) is rev the engine to clear air pockets in the cooling system once the oil temp come up. We rev them past 5,000 RPM's about 10 times while in neutral on the lift. So I can tell you with 100% Absolute authority that there IS NO REV LIMITER on a 98 Legacy @ 4k RPM. GD

Subaru's of that era have no software imposed rev limit. Even in neutral. In fact Subaru has never really put in a soft touch rev limiter. It will hit a hard rev limit but that's certainly above 5500. Probably around 6k. GD

Correct.

I would say there is very little truth to that. The pump is cooled by fuel and you may get a slight temp rise right at the moment it runs out of fuel. In addition the total volume of fuel in the tank may rise a few degrees as it cycles through the system and passes through the pump more quickly than a larger volume would. But overall these small temperature changes would have little effect on the pump. Once the pumps sucks air the engine shuts down and when the engine is off, the pump is not running. And I've seen thousands of cars that are probably run very low all the time. I have never seen a pump failure I could attribute to this. GD

Yep..... although with Subaru's it's almost never the pump. I have seen it but then I see thousands. I've actually seen a 95 pump with the screw terminals fail too. It's an older design and may be more prone to failure. But really I've probably only replaced less than half a dozen for actual failure in the last 15 years. It's extremely rare. If it was a Chevy - it's always the pump. Put it this way - I own a Subaru specific repair and performance shop. I've replaced more GM pumps than Subaru pump by a very high ratio. And I usually only work on GM stuff for myself or friends and family. Just the way things go. GD

You really don't need the rubber isolator with the new turbine style pumps. I've installed many right on the metal bracket. They are virtually silent. You can carve up the old one with a utility blade to make it fit as well as possible, and anchor the pump to the bracket with a standard hose clamp. Splice the wires and drop it in. That is assuming it's bad. You can bench test it but that may not tell the whole story - once you disturb the pump they often will work again. So since you are this far you should 100% replace the pump to rule out an intermittent brush contact issue. GD

You can use a generic pump. They come with the connector and the pickup sock. We routinely retrofit high volume pumps into all kinds of cars. Just get a deatschwerks or a AEM kit for an 02 WRX. It will fit fine. GD

Yes unless you have a surface grinder with a magnetic chuck, you're not going to grind the shim truly flat. Which could cause camshaft lobe wear issues. I would not attempt this. I have tried lapping them and you might as well be trying to lap diamond. They are quite hard and silicon carbide made no noticeable change to the thickness after several minutes of work. You could soft-jaw it up to the lathe or even super-glue it to a mandrel and use carbide tooling to thin them down also. But that's way beyond the scope of what is sane for most people. I certainly wouldn't bother. Grinding the stem in a fixture or even by hand while turning it against the grinding wheel is sufficient and quick if you are careful. GD

Is that the code for the converter lock up? If so not critical for operation. I would just drive it. It could be a bad TCC solenoid, or a bad TCU. GD

You unplug the relay to the fuel pump and jumper the two relay connector pins that have the large wires going into them. Test tor power first (while cranking). If you have good 12v and ground then jumper it and crank the engine - pump should run while cranking. There's a lot more to diagnosing the fuel pump control circuit but that's the first step. If it works but doesn't with the relay installed test the relay. If the relay is good then you will have to diag the relay control power and ECU relay ground circuits. You don't really need the pinouts. The big wires going to the pump connector are power and ground. The little ones are fuel level, fuel temp, etc. GD

Lots of engines have been built this way. It's not unique to Subaru. The newer ones use shimless buckets and you have go buy the whole bucket. Or cut the stems/seats till what you have fits. It's a lot easier if you invest in the proper spring removal/installation tool. IE: the ValveMaster: https://www.toyotool.com It's still less difficult than measuring for pushrod length on a SBC... but I would still rather be doing the SBC. lol. GD

Some heads you can't really get the chuck down in there. The oscillation of the special adapter tool is very fast - it doesn't makes complete revolution before switching directions. Just like hand lapping with the suction cup stick. GD

The heads get noisy at higher lash. Also things tend to loosen up once they are running and forces are in play. Thus I generally like my lash a little tight. I have set some to 8 and 10 and had them give some ticking from the heads. GD