nipper

go to the dealer you may be covered under the emissions warrenty of ten years 100k miles nipper

cool wonder if it works the same with leather (dont mean to hijack the thread .. sorry) nipper

i meant the proper offset, sorry. i have always agreed with that, it goes away when warm, just drive the car. i never even started thinking about it untill the threads appeared more and more. Basically my cars gone 180K with slap, at the next 180K ill worry about it. i'm more upset that my heated drivers seat isnt working right then piston slap nipper

one can dream

you wont cause there is no choke plate Another possability is a bad ECU engine temp sensor. nipper

be interesting to see if it goes away when the weather is warmer (not because your not using heat) nipper

From an automotive engineers persepctive (mine) the shorter skirt is there for several reasons. It is there for gas mileage and for more power. When you reduce the engine mass, you reduce the Horsepower that is required to turn the guts of the engine. The engine revs faster. It is also there for emissions, as less mass means the piston warms up faster. It is also done to reduce NVH (noise vibration and harshness). Pitson slap can be reduced by slightly offsetting the wrist pin, why they dont to this (its done in motorcycles) i dont know. When one says it is there fo gas mileage, its not there for the individual owners benafit, but its there for the fleet benafit (cafe rating). that .2mpg gain may mean nothing to you, but it means a lot to the manufacturer. Also the other thing that blows your opinion out of the water, is that ALL engines have smaller or non existing piston skirts for the same reasons. The reason why it is so much more obvious on a subaru is because the engine lies on its side, and gravity has some say in the matter. Again for the 20th time a link i post with topic Worst case scenario and a cool test http://www.pistonslap.com/whatisit.htm WHy http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/jk/020320.htm Parts of a piston http://www.hastingsmfg.com/Service%20Tips/piston.htm Excellant picture http://www.drive.subaru.com/SubaruDrive-Sum02/Piston-Cranky.asp and yes they did remove too much material on the skirt (im shocked, first good picture ive seen of it). nipper

your off by at least one tooth on the timing belt. The spark system is a waste spark system. the two cylinders connected to the one coil fire both at the same time. What your seeing is the timing that is off is causing too many fires of the coil. nipper

That may be done for the reason that more often then not there is only the driver in the car as opposed to a driver and passenger. I think its made that way. as the control doors are way far away from those ducts. nipper

It takes time, space, and you need to be anal retentive to rebuild a engine yourself. you can do it, but also another key to the rebuild is a good machine shop. Machine shops are disapearing as cars become more of a throw away item. It's not that difficult to rebuild an engine, but what may take you 2-3 weeks to do yourself. Buying a rebuild reduces the time to 2-3 days sometimes less. nipper

Sounds like for some reason it ran very rich, almost on the verge of flodding. i agree about the MAF sensor. Is this a constant problem or intermitent nipper

Fisrt thing i would do is remove the HVAC control, and find out what cacum line goes to the heater door motor. Remove that line, place your finger over the vacum port. With the car running turn on the heat while your blocking the port. If you get no missfire, you found your problem. BTW, when the heat is on, are you getting hot air out of any other vents or the defrosters? nipper

i have a 97 outback with 182,000 on the car with piston slap. The car runs like a top. Its all original. i had a 98 legacy that got smashed. At 180K that had slap too and no problems. Its just a subaru thing. nipper

The way the subaru heating system works, is that it has a fixed water flow rate and temp (not adjusted from the drivers seat). You have a air mixing door that regulates the air temp. There are a few things it can be. You can have an air temp sensor out of calibration. You can have the blend door that needs adjustment. Finally it can be a too hot a thermostat. nipper

Does the car have any forward gears without slipping, especially second gear. But i do agree its time for a replacement. nipper

You may want to check the resistance across the blower motor terminals and make sure its wothin spec. You can have a blower motor on its way out, then toss in tired resistor blocks, you may eat them up. Also make sure there is plenty of airflow across the block, otherwise that cause burnups also. Check the terminals, but on my older sooby i went through three blocks in a relativly short time. Problem went away when i bought a new block. nipper

Thats a good price to get the system rebuilt. i was going to say you may have damage to the clutch pack with the dead solenoid, but the point is moot now. nipper

How long has it has this condition? nipper

This is all weather related. The more agresive tires have higher rolling resistance, winter fuel has less power density, and warming up the car can put a big dent in it too. nipper

OK the AWD has been disabled by the computer because its confused. The constant speedometer reading too high is enough to make the computer kill the awd. Alot of subarus shift hard into second. When you say it feels like its loosing power, does the engine rpm increase also? im curious as to weather the tranny is slipping or if the car is bogging down in second. i think in your year car one of the VSS is in the spedometer head. The car usses two VSS Sensors for the AWD. If the Computer does not see one spedd sensor catching up to the other it will kill the AWD to keep the transmission from committing suicide. This may also have something to do with shifting but i doubt it. What condition is the tranny fluid in? nipper

There are many reasons why the shifter wont go into park, none of them having to do with the tranny itself. Disconnect the linkage and see if it will go into park then. i would snag the tranny for 25.00. Even if the tranny is bad at that milegae the AWD clutch pack is still good and thats a good chunk of change right there nipper

My ears are burninig...... You have torque bind. You dont have it for the usual reasons, but the flashing tranny light is telling you that you have a failed tranny part, and in all likelyhood it is the Duty C Solenoid that has failed. You did a pretty good job of figuring out what it is. I dont know the code, but all your symptons are the failed solenoid. The solenoid energizes to disconnect the rear wheel drive. Installing the fuse essentially does the came thing. Since you have no change when installing the fuse, im 95% sure the solenoid had failed. i cant say 100% since i dont have the car here to test. Electrically there arent that many things to go wrong that will trip a code in the tranny. This is the most common. When they do service this, tell them you want a tranny flush too. nipper

This is easy, but weird. The heater controls are vaccum actuated. Aparently you have a vacume leak under the dash, then when you switch to heat, is leaning out the fuel mix and causing the missfire and the CEL light. This should be easy to find, as its under the dash between the heater control and heater door motor. nipper

The two things combined will kill gas mileage. Ideling the car to warm up knocked 20% of my mpg. Winter tires will kill mpg, then add winter fuel.... everythig sounds normal to me for wimnter driving in extreme cold. How far is your avg trip in the car daily? nipper

no incorrect logic. Could be the duty C solenoid is stuck, the valve seat is eroded to the point that pressure is leaking through, or dirt in the valve. COuld also be a bad speed sensor, one or both of them. If you had a bad clutch pack you would know it. Its not pretty. nipper