pontoontodd
-
Posts
1872 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
39
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Store
Posts posted by pontoontodd
-
-
B and I weighed his blue Forester and my green Impreza loaded with our usual off road trip cargo but no camping gear.
Blue Forester weighs 3739#. With both of us sitting in it, 4126#. Either way it's super close to 50/50 front/rear weight.
Green Impreza weighs 3714#. With both of us sitting in it, 4102#. Either way about 150# more on the front than rear. I was a little surprised it was that heavy, with no cargo it was 3245# a month or so ago. So we started unpacking it, with a few bottles of oil still in it we got it under 3300#. So we had over 400# of tools, spares, recovery gear, tow bar, etc. This stuff really adds up. Just a couple folding recovery ramps and a couple straps was 30#. Definitely not as much volume as we used to pack in the black Outback but apparently most of the weight. Will have to keep working on packing lighter.
Lateral bumper support tubes rubbed a little on the front tires and the tires aren't fresh so I wanted to add some clearance.
Gas tank guard has already been put to use.
Looked over the front end of the white Outback. It's been shaking increasingly worse at certain brake pressures, seems like both the front lower control arm bushings in the aluminum brackets are sloppy. At some point I'll probably replace those and the rotors.
B replaced the LF rear lower control arm bushing in the Forester, it was shot.
I noticed as we were driving home from the UP the LR of the Forester would change camber occasionally, maybe when cornering but it was hard to tell. We noticed this.
B took the link out, replaced the bushings (bolt was frozen in one), welded that piece back in and ground it flush, welded and painted a thick washer over the top, and reassembled everything.
-
1
-
-
Drove up to Z's Friday night. He noticed one of the brake lights in the Impreza was (artistically) burned out so we went to Oreillys and got a pair of bulbs.
B met us at Z's, we headed up and camped in northern WI.
Saturday morning we headed north and Z took us on some ORV trails north of there so we headed north on those. Within four miles we saw a black bear and a bald eagle and some other wildlife.
The main one Z had intended to take us on is ATV only. So we just drove up to the UP. Started out in an area north of Norway we'd only been through once and found some other trails and potential campsites there. Next two pictures are of one of the fairly long rocky hillclimbs (by UP standards) we did that weekend.
Saw a wolf pup(?) walking down a side road, took a few pictures and let it be and got to the (nearby) dead end.
Found a hillside with some big sandy hillclimbs so I tried one but stalled out and backed down when it got too off camber. Hit a different one and made it to the top. Found a human shaped sculpture made out of chainsaw parts.
This sign was a bit misleading, while the road was rough by many peoples' standards, it was about average for what we drove on that weekend.
Got to a man made dam that appeared to have blown out and then repaired by beavers.
At the bottom where we had to drive by it there was a big leech sucking on a dead crayfish.
Forester had been making a lot of exhaust noise under load so we stopped to fix that. One of the bolts had fallen out of one of the exhaust flanges so we found a nut and bolt and B got it back together while I cooked some burgers.
Z spotted a big Eastern Fox snake in the trail.
Wandered north and hit a bunch of trails and found a giant pile of potatoes in the woods.
About a mile from the nearest farm, not sure if it was just a handy berm construction material or if they just needed to dump a bunch of potatoes. We had decided to go up to Craig Lake as B and Z hadn't been there before. Drove up to a campground and stayed the night.
One of the random assortments of decorations we've seen in the UP over the years. This is miles from pavement. This weekend was a good demonstration that you never know what you'll find in the UP.
Came across several beaver dams that were flooding old roads we were trying to follow. Got to a wetlands reserve and hiked in there a mile or so. Unfortunately we got up near Craig Lake to find that it's closed for the summer for maintenance. Hit some trails and did a little hiking and then camped in that area. Saw a ruffed grouse alongside the trail. It was jumping around and fanning its tailfeathers etc.
It was on the passenger side and I looked out the drivers side while Z was taking pictures and saw what looked like a mouse on the ground. I went to take a picture of it and realized it was a chick so we continued on.
Monday morning we went down a snowmobile trail to start wandering back home, it was eventually flooded so we found a different trail and headed south.
Hit a stunt area we found last year and did a few hillclimbs. Impreza had a lot of wheelspin and rev limiter in first gear climbing a fairly steep one. Saw a turtle wandering around.
Went through an area we'd been years ago that looks significantly different now, some berms gone, other berms added, trees growing up in areas that had been clearcut, etc. Found one stretch that would be good for suspension testing/tuning. A mile or so with decent sized dips and bumps and another section that's quite rough with holes in between small logs. Wound up taking a few narrow trails that went on for miles and surprised me by connecting to main trails. We took a tour of an old iron mine that was interesting. Drove through part of the southern UP we hadn't explored before with some decent camping areas. Saw a lot of turtles and some muskrats.
Aired up and drove home on pavement. Lots of rain on the way home. I'm a little surprised the Impreza doesn't seem to have any leaks or electrical problems even driving through heavy rain for hours, I've done it a few times now.
Overall a good weekend. No major issues, never even got stuck or got a flat tire. Impreza is great on the trails. Not used to having good rear visibility, way easier to back out of trails and the shorter wheelbase and rear overhang make it easier to turn around in the woods. The 60% rear bias and light rear end and open center diff make it handle almost like a rear wheel drive car. It was never close to actually spinning out but it has power oversteer in second or third or even fifth gear sometimes off pavement. Surprised me once in first gear on wet pavement. Steering seems to be a little quicker than the Outbacks which helps in those situations. There was one time on Saturday when B was driving it and he got stuck in a soft muddy trail. I could see just the rear tires spinning. He locked the center diff, all four tires started spinning, and he was able to drive out. It's easiest to lock and unlock when moving, never makes any grinding noises, helps to pump the clutch. So if we were in a really rough or muddy or sandy section I'd just lock the center diff for a while until we got back to some easier trails and then unlock it. Never used the low range all weekend. There was at least one hill I climbed in first gear high range that B had to use low range in the Forester to climb. Some things I like about it aren't from our doing but just because it isn't as beat and rusty as the black Outback. You can drive around with the windows down without choking on exhaust fumes, drive through all kinds of water and rain without getting any in the car. Found myself keeping it under 2000RPM most of the time and it had plenty of torque for normal trail riding. Fans ran more than I expected, when we'd start going really slow or stopping and starting the temps would creep up and at least one would kick in and then basically stay on until we shut off the car for a while but temps never got much above normal. As soon as we were moving the temps would drop back to the normal spot. Wondering if this is partially caused by our current tune being lean at part throttle at 2-3000RPM in an attempt to save fuel. Seemed like it would run a little cooler at 1500RPM where it's probably running richer. Probably a couple times a day after nearly stalling the engine it would start running rough. I just shut it off and restart it and then it would run smooth. Impreza might get a little better fuel economy than Forester on the road but worse on the trails. Might be something wrong with the fuel filler on the Impreza, on the last couple fillups it didn't seem to actually fill the tank. I've noticed recently you can feel crosswinds push you around. Not dangerously like an air cooled VW but something I never notice driving Legacy Outbacks.
-
4
-
-
Installed V band clamps on the headers.
Turned some aluminum slugs to align the various pieces.
Mockup assembly, I had to cut the Y pipe back beyond those grooves.
Siliconed some pieces of silicone under the C shaped pads I'd welded on the crossmember to keep the top of the exhaust from denting. Meant to do this a while ago, hoping it minimizes the noise of the exhaust banging against things.
V bands welded and exhaust assembled.
Exhaust is much quieter now on the throttle, seems to have eliminated the raspy exhaust leak noise. Still sounds good under load though. At about 60mph the exhaust is so quiet you can barely hear it, at least over the tire/bearing noise. At about 80mph you can definitely hear the exhaust but it's not obnoxious. I did get a slightly longer muffler I want to try out sometime too.
-
1
-
-
Just made this shock tuning video public. Best jump starts at 0:27. Stay to the end for a laugh.
-
I replaced the front shock hose on the Impreza. Seems like that spring perch just rotated out of place, hopefully won't be a problem in the future.
We took it and the blue Forester to our friend's little jumps. Forester seemed to jump a little better than Impreza. Impreza seemed to nose over more and was probably bottoming out the front suspension on landing when hitting the jump fairly hard. Also got video driving over parking barrier as a baseline for shock tuning. Did all that with 40psi in the Impreza's front tires though.
When we got home I put softer springs on the rear of the Impreza. Only sits about 1/4" lower initially but will probably settle down a bit after some use. Replaced one of the rear CV boots that had a little rip while I was at it. Didn't get back out to test jumping for various reasons, curious to see if the softer rear springs help.
The gas pedal in the Impreza seemed too far to the left so I tried to just bend the rod to the right. Was working for a while until the plastic barrel it rides in exploded. So don't do that. Got it super glued and safety wired back together and seems to work.
Surprisingly open design.
Gasket on the black plastic part probably seals against the sheet metal.
Bought a used replacement off ebay, guess I'll have a spare.
Meanwhile B's main project on the blue Forester was removing and replacing the stud for the lateral links out of his knuckle. Welded a 14mm nut to an acme nut and used my hollow hydraulic cylinder to pull it out.
I'm working on replacing the two bolt flange connections in the Impreza exhaust with V band clamps. Will post pictures when that's finished.
-
1
-
-
I've owned the green Impreza for (checks notes) 22 months now. Definitely the longest I've ever had anything on jackstands. Happy with how it turned out though. The power to weight ratio makes low range almost unnecessary but it's nice to have that for when I need it. The big front axles, bolt on wheel bearings, and real parking brake with the billet knuckles definitely gives me some peace of mind too.
I just updated the EZ36 swap page too. Still have some photos to add there and once I finish the wiring I'll have to update it again. Also have to figure out some way to share the base map, a lot of this info is kinda useless without it. Worst case I'll share it on my website. Tell me if there's anything I should add/edit on the swap page.
-
Will try to find/post better pictures eventually but for the cooling system we settled on a modified Miata radiator.
Pushed the condenser as far forward as we could with minimal cutting/bending/hammering. Flipped the condenser brackets IIRC, put some rubber in between it and the body. Seemed like a stock H6 radiator would have fit but it would have been rubbing on the timing cover. Cut and welded some water necks on the Miata radiator to fit the H6. This is one of my biggest disappointments of the swap, it might be worth using a second gen Impreza just so you could run a stock H6 radiator. While we had the water necks cut off it seemed that part of the tube they welded in might be blocking flow.
So we ground that out.
Probably won't matter but I want as much cooling capacity as I can get.
Used a cheap universal fit coolant overflow tank, I've used these on a couple cars/trucks and they seem to hold up. Swapped to a 13psi cap from the 20psi cap the radiator came with and the level in the overflow seems to go up and down with coolant temp as you'd expect. Using two pusher fans.
For the intake we just modified a Can Am airbox to pull air in from the scoop. One downside is that filters are fairly expensive and not really available retail. Put a water repellent filter sock on it too. Installed the grommet and air intake temp sensor for EZ30 in it. Also have a couple cone air filters. Plan to eventually test them on the dyno and then cut the baffle under the hood scoop appropriately.
-
1 hour ago, el_freddo said:
That rasp in the exhaust is normal for the H6, they sound like an angry swarm of wasps I reckon. Very different to the H4 burble.
Glad to hear it ran well at the 4wd park. How did the hose on the shock kink? Easy fix I hope.
Cheers
Bennie
Hose clearance to the spring perch is pretty tight, seems like maybe the spring perch rotated (we cut some extra clearance on the side with the hose). Easy fix but will have to see how it holds up long term. Should be the same as our other cars and we haven't had problems with the hoses on those for years.
-
I don't think it was the injector being clogged but probably a loose wire connection. The engine harness connector just doesn't seem right. There's 54 pins in five rows and the three small rows are difficult to insert the wires into without kinking. I'm thinking about replacing it, maybe with a few 20ish pin connectors (open to suggestion there). When you flex it around it will cause the engine to run well or poorly. I got it to run decent and taped that connector up and it ran well for a few days. We've been planning on going to the Badlands off road park today for a month or so now. This weekend they allowed 2WD buggies which they normally don't. One of our buddies we used to race with was planning on bringing his buggy so we wanted to meet him there.
Yesterday B's blue Forester was running rough again and he eventually noticed the fuel coming out of the fuel filter looked like coffee but the fuel going in to the filter looked clear. So somehow the fuel filter had started pushing dirt into the engine. He replaced that and the complete intake with injectors. Then it ran fine.
C and I headed down in the green Impreza. Aside from the lack of cruise control, AC, a speedometer, etc. our drive went fine. We're pretty sure the rasp in the exhaust is one or both collector gaskets, I want to replace them with V bands. At light load there's no rasp and the exhaust is actually fairly quiet. We got a message on the way down that B's Forester started running like crap or not at all after they filled up with gas. C told him he'd had the same problem with his Subaru Baja and he just had to run it at full throttle when it was full of gas. We're guessing it's getting fuel in the vent/evap system and flooding the engine. B was able to get it going again. Meanwhile C and I checked in and started wandering the off road park looking for J. The green Impreza has no problem cruising around the tailing piles (similar to pea gravel). I was mostly cruising around in second. Only a few times all day did I need to use first on some fairly steep hills. B had to use low range on at least one of those. I had the center diff unlocked all day and it got quite a bit of rear wheelspin.
It will slide the rear end out a bit but nowhere near enough to spin. I didn't think about it until we got back but I should have tried locking the center diff and seeing how it did. We eventually found J and followed him around a bit in his buggy until B showed up. We mostly drove around on the tailing piles as J's buggy is too wide for some of the trails but we did hit some of those too. J's buggy can easily eat up the rolling whoops at high speeds. We swapped back and forth to the different cars during the day. After we'd been riding for a while Z was driving the Impreza and said it started running rough. I was able to push the wire harness into the connector and get it to run smooth and taped it in that position and it ran fine the rest of the day. With the heat in the engine compartment that connection had gotten significantly softer than when at room temperature, something I should keep in mind. The light weight and high horsepower/torque of the Impreza was great for just getting around and climbing hills. I exceeded the limits of the approach angle a few times but just in the tailings.
We'd noticed a looseness in the RF corner of the Impreza and eventually C noticed it was leaking shock oil. Went back to the campground and took the shock off and the hose was kinked and caused it to start leaking. We were running out of time so we headed into town for dinner. Drove back home fine.
We were disappointed that only a few buggies showed up to the park that we saw but glad we got to ride in J's. Probably drove over 500 miles and burned about 25 gallons of gas, overall a solid first run for the Impreza. Also the first real test of the billet rear knuckles / front CV axles in rear setup. Even at about 10 degrees at ride height and some occasional wheel hop in the tailing piles they survived the day. I will probably put slightly softer springs on the rear to cut that down a bit.
-
2
-
-
I used Raptor headers that we shortened about 1" for more ground clearance. Extended one side with stainless for better clearance between axle and O2 sensor and flange. Not hard to believe these headers add about 10% more power over stock. A better solution might be to build a set with primaries that are all next to and level with each other for more ground clearance.
The Y is constructed out of 2.25" 4130.
The middle portion is 2.5" 4130 with a V band to a resonator. Should have used V bands for the ends of the headers.
At light loads the exhaust is pretty quiet but at anything about 1/4 or 1/2 throttle it gets raspy. Sounds like it's coming from the header flange gaskets. Will probably replace those with V bands, thought about doing that from the beginning but they already had the flanges welded on them.
-
Used the Impreza lines from the rack and bent them around and used 2013 Outback pump and hoses and reservoir for the power steering.
To be safe I used this drop in DeatschWerks fuel pump. I've read the turbo Subaru fuel pump is also adequate.
I used an adjustable fuel pressure regulator and set that so we're at about 70% duty cycle on the injectors at WOT and high RPM (about 35psi with the engine running).
Drilled and tapped the fuel rails for return lines as the EZ36 is returnless.
Routed AN lines to fit under the injector covers but this does make the injectors difficult to unplug.
-
I thought the best place to put the ECU would be behind the passenger side airbag panel so B made up this mounting plate for the ECU, fusebox, and dual wideband.
DBW pedal wasn't a direct bolt in so we had to make an adaptor plate.
-
Turns out part of the "clock spring" cancels the turn signals. And the one off my 96 Impreza was either broken or different than the one on the 98 (green) Impreza. So the signals don't cancel. That part of the clock spring from the 98 cancels the signals on the 96. I'll probably just get a replacement for the 98 and swap them back.
B did a little work on the exhaust hangers and breather hose on the green Impreza.
B and I worked on cleaning up the wiring on the green Impreza. Planning on going to an off road park soon so we want it fairly watertight.
One of the last wiring steps was to power the family band radio. I used the power and ground from the door buzzer (which got unplugged a long time ago, it normally lives right under the steering column). Spliced some wires from that part of the harness over to the radios with a couple spades. That seems to work but unfortunately it seems it, the turn signals, and the Haltech are all on the same fuse. Fine for now but I thought that fuse had only gone to the airbags. I'd like to have the Haltech on its own circuit so a short in something else doesn't kill the engine.
Wiring bundled up for dash installation. Those wires on top of the Haltech might get used fairly soon so I left them out.
If I ever do this again I'm not going to leave so much extra wire. It's just kind of a mess and we had a heck of a time getting the glovebox back in. This first time though I didn't really know how things were going to get routed so I didn't cut any wires in the premade loom short.
Looks like a car again. A little hard to tell but the passenger airbag cover doesn't quite sit flush, I think we need to trim a rib on that. B did a good job lining up the Haltech and fusebox mount with that opening. Will probably make a different tablet mount. Still need to find a shift boot and trim for late first gen Impreza.
One issue I had before we started reassembling things was that one of the injector seals was leaking. Replaced that and eventually got it to stop leaking. Unfortunately that injector seems to be somewhat clogged now. Richened it up and got the air fuel back in line for a quick drive around the block but it's still not running right. Ordered a couple injectors and seals to replace that one and have a spare. Got the cam PID tuned in fairly well. Ordered an IO expansion module from Haltech so we can wire in cruise and AC. Got some AC wiring connectors so I can make a little jumper harness to put inline with a stock EZ36 compressor so we can drive that around and see what the old CANbus is telling it to do. Still need to figure out the speedo eventually, sounds like some Dakota Digital black box is the answer there.
-
46 minutes ago, Crazyeights said:
If I may ask, your posts are always loaded with great pictures. How and where do you host them and get them to show as pictures in your threads instead of links to an off site picture on Google Drive or similar. Did you purchase more storage space at USMB?
Thank you for all of your content - I enjoy following your threads.
Thanks, glad you're enjoying it.
For the first eight(ish) years of this thread they're all just saved on my personal website. The last couple years USMB hasn't been conveniently linking to them so I just upload them to the general gallery. As long as they're under 240kb it seems like you can upload as many as you want.
-
1
-
-
Working on getting cruise control set up. Swapped over the stalk from my red Impreza to the green one. Not too bad but I wasn't getting continuity/switching at the base of the steering column. Turns out the rotary coupling for the steering wheel on the green car was broken. We took it apart since it was already broken.
Not a design we were expecting to see. Guessing someone put it together a turn or two off center.
I swapped in the one from the red Impreza which was a bit of a project. Hopefully it's on center. The wire plugs for the airbag are different (red Impreza is a 96, green is a 98) but most of that has been removed already. Hooked it back up and the horn works and we seem to have continuity at the base of the column now.
B replaced the washer pump on the green Impreza, it was leaking at the bottom of the body. The best replacement I had was the one in the black Outback.
B swapped some city boy tires on the black Outback.
Then he swapped the less worn mud tires that had been on it on my green Impreza.
We rolled the rear fenders for a little more tire clearance at full bump. B also hammered a few flanges behind the tire for clearance. Articulation picture below, probably not as far as it can stretch. Three wheels still on the ground. Trigger warning slammo, rear ABS cables laying on the floor never to be reinstalled.
It was a good thing we did that because we learned a couple of things. One, the parking brake cables were pulling tight on suspension compression. Rerouted them and we seem to have enough slack now. Two, the wheel weights were hitting the strut brackets. We don't normally run them at max negative camber and the old wheels apparently didn't have weights on the inner beads. Ground those down and repainted them.
We also did a little PID tuning on the cams and looked over cruise control wiring. Some updates in the EZ36 swap thread.
-
2
-
-
Leaving this open for cruise control/wiring. B and I were looking over it on the Haltech and you need three safety inputs - brake switch, clutch pedal switch, and neutral switch. All on separate inputs. On a stock Subaru the pedal switches are just wired in series so if one of them goes open it shuts off cruise control. Not sure how they do neutral. Wondering if I can tell the Haltech it's an automatic and wire the switches in series.
The Haltech uses one input wire for the various cruise functions, then you wire in resistors so each button sends a different voltage.
We figured out the pinout/continuity for the cruise stalk for set and resume but not for cancel. Not a problem but weird.
At this point I'm out of inputs, the Haltech has ten analog inputs and four of them are for the drive by wire. Four digital inputs but those are all used by the cams and VSS. So I need to get an expansion module. Something I didn't fully consider when picking an ECU.
On the plus side with a little trial and error and math we have the vehicle speed on the Haltech agreeing with GPS now.
-
Leaving this open for AC wiring/control. Haven't found anyone who knows how the EZ36 compressor is normally controlled. So I'm going to make a little jumper harness to plug in line with some long wires going in the car and drive around a completely stock EZ36 Outback and see what kind of voltage it's giving that solenoid. If I can figure that out and the temp/frost sensor on the evaporator I should be able to have decent AC.
-
My first thought on the speedo was that Subarus are Legos so that should be simple. Unfortunately not. The automatic appears to use a 2 pin reluctor (VSS2) for the speedometer. The 6MT has a 3 pin Hall effect sensor VSS. First step was to wire the 6MT VSS to the Haltech (SPI4 in my case). From left to right looking at the wiring harness plug with the latch on top, colors are Haltech:
pin 1 GyR (large/shielded, inner wire is orange) signal SPI4
pin 2 BW ground
pin 3 GyR (small) +12VDC
Have to calibrate it but that seemed to give us a vehicle speed on the Haltech. Need to take a picture.
Next step is to set up one of the outputs of the Haltech to get the speedometer working. I think I know how just haven't done it yet.
A few weeks ago we got the reverse lights working. Spliced a connector on the wires (GB pin 9, BrY pin 10) that normally go to the 12 pin gray auto trans connector to pins 3 and 6 of a connector that plugs into the STI 6MT harness. Both reverse light bulbs were a little corroded so we cleaned those up. Then it seemed like we had to shift it in and out of reverse a few times before they'd consistently light up, maybe the switch on the trans was a little sticky or dirty.
-
Leaving this post mostly empty for future gauge cluster updates.
EZ36 has an oil level sensor so I figured, why not run that to one of the unused idiot lights? It's pin 16 of the EZ36 engine connector (white wire). Spliced it to the AT temp light since that's no longer a concern. Unfortunately the oil level switch is apparently closed when the oil level is normal. So the light is basically always on. It does turn off while turning left or braking hard. If anyone knows of a simple way to switch this to be normally open (without a relay or something) I'm all ears.
Z and I did a lot of probing and testing of the fuel gauge circuit and long story short he eventually noticed that the ground for the sender goes to the engine. We grounded that pin of the original engine harness (black red, pin 16 of the 16 pin EJ connector shown below) and the fuel gauge seems to work well now. I think it's also a ground for the temp gauge. Certainly makes the temp gauge read higher when grounded (see above).
Cleaner wiring below
-
Z and I did some more wiring on the Impreza, will update the EZ36 swap page shortly.
Non-engine swap related wiring, modified the fog light wiring a bit so they only come on with high beams rather than just with low beams. Makes it easier to switch the light bars on and off. Spliced in an extra wire to the red wire (pin 1 of connector shown below) that's grounded with high beams on over to the fog light switch.
Spliced that in to the yellow blue wire (pin 5 connector shown below) that normally is grounded with low beams on.
Power locks hadn't been working because the lock timer module (or whatever it's called) was still bolted to the dash. Unbolted that and plugged it into the harness and now the power locks work.
RF power window doesn't seem to work at all but other than that they mostly work. The switch on the driver's door doesn't hit a couple directions so that should eventually be replaced.
B fixed the broken rear washer fluid hose and modified the air box a bit more.
Got the parking brake working. Z and I machined up a couple barrels for the ends of the stock parking brake cables.
B welded and painted some pieces of tubing on the strut brackets. Not much clearance there to the wheel and tire but there's already less clearance elsewhere. Easier than expected really.
We took the car for a test drive and tried to do a little more low RPM high load tuning. Maybe improved things a bit in that region of the map but probably not much left to be gained. Can slightly accelerate up a fairly steep paved hill from 400RPM in third gear.
Parking brake works fantastic. Put maybe half effort on the handle and it locked up at least one of the bald mud tires on dry pavement. Should actually work decent as a handbrake but definitely as a parking brake.
Other than that the test drive went pretty well. Still losing synch on one of the exhaust cams occasionally, doesn't really affect how it runs and resynchs when you restart it. At one point I was going too slow and stalled the engine shifting into sixth gear. When I restarted it the engine was running rough like it did a week ago. Shut it off and restarted it and then ran smooth. Sent that log to Haltech too.
After dinner we worked on the white Subarus. B replaced the front pads on his Forester. We cranked in as much negative camber as possible in the front of my white Outback, which isn't a lot. I keep wearing out the outside of my tires first on all my Subarus running them at zero camber so I finally wised up and adjusted the alignment. Then we reset the toe. After that we finally fixed the exhaust. First I made a replacement pipe for the section that was smashed. Welded and painted with some high temp paint.
Here is the smashed and leaky section we cut out.
It probably looks worse in person but might be down to half the original cross section.
B cut the hanger off the stock section of pipe and I welded that on the replacement pipe, got the replacement in place and welded it on both ends.
Quieter than before. Probably added 100hp too.
-
1
-
-
Drove the car around the block this morning, ran smooth and pulled hard. Took a log of that and sent it to Haltech, hopefully they can tell some difference between the two.
Recently finished these taller castle nuts, don't think I'd posted a picture yet. We had one strip out on one of B's ball joints a while back and it could have been a lot worse had we been going over a walking pace. About twice the thread engagement if you don't count the castellated part. 4340 steel, need to check hardness vs the stock ones when I get my hardness tester back, might get them heat treated. Since we normally have to use a washer or two under the stock castle nuts with our fabricated control arms these fit instead without washers. Put one on the Impreza when we reassembled it.
-
1
-
-
15 hours ago, el_freddo said:
I was meant to reply a while ago about that reverse gearset. The selector tabs look well chewed out, this along with the slop from the selector forks explains why it wouldn’t hold the gear. It’s hard to tell if the tabs were chewed out from rough use or from slipping out of gear as a result of the slop.
Either way, neither of those would be helping!
I hope you get that wiring sorted. Wiring gremlins are not fun. Odd about that spark timing at low revs.
That rough running issue is interesting. Thought about doing a compression check to ensure all is well internally then go from there?
Cheers
Bennie
Thought at first maybe a cam skipped timing or something but at least according to the Haltech they were still all good. Compression test isn't easy on these as you probably know.
Haven't heard back from Haltech yet, will probably call them tomorrow. Will fire it up first, wouldn't be surprised if it runs OK after sitting.
-
1
-
-
We got the Impreza back together. While it was apart I tried to do some wiring with mixed results.
We did get the reverse lights working. Spliced a connector on the wires that normally go to the auto trans to a connector that plugs into the 6MT harness. Both bulbs were a little corroded. Then it seemed like we had to shift it in and out of reverse a few times before they'd consistently light up, maybe the switch on the trans was a little sticky or dirty.
Was going to splice the VSS in but the Impreza speedo appears to take a reluctor (2 wire) signal, VSS on the 6MT is 3 wire so I assume Hall effect. Will probably run the VSS signal to the Haltech and then hopefully a signal out from that to the speedo.
I did swap the coolant temp sensor from the EZ30 in. It's 3 pin vs the EZ36 2 pin. Was hoping this would make the ECU read the temp more accurately since that's the actual sensor it's set up for but it still reads 200-210F while running which I think is higher than actual. Then I ran a wire from the other pin on the sensor to the temp gauge but unfortunately the temp gauge just reads high all the time now when the ignition is on.
So much for Subarus being Legos. At least it's not a cable speedo I guess. Will post more details and pictures on the wiring when I figure out a little more.
Still other wiring to figure out, fuel gauge still isn't working even though I don't think we did anything to that wiring. Need to get cruise working before any road trips. Also would be nice to have AC but still not sure if we can just give the solenoid on this compressor 12VDC indefinitely. I did clean up the wiring more, it's almost all in loom now, getting closer to being able to put the dash back in.
The biggest improvement was in the shifting. The reverse lockout finally works consistently. Even better than that, with no slop it's a lot easier to find the gear you want. I think before there was more slop than actual shifter travel at least side to side.
Engine was running great for about a half hour while we were doing some street tuning.We were lugging it up some hills (third gear full throttle 500RPM) to tune for low RPM high load. Stalled it a few times and after one rough stall I restarted the engine and it ran rough. No alarms/codes, air fuel seemed decent, cam timing looked decent. Cruised around town a bit, restarted it a few times, kept running rough. Not terrible but noticeably rougher idle and down on power.
Probably unrelated since it was doing this before it started running rough but the ignition timing only matches the map at 2-3000RPM+. Anything below that it was around 3 or 5 degrees even though that part of the map is 10 to 20 degrees. Wondering if there some correction factor I'm missing or if this all some kind of idle region where the timing isn't following the base map. We tried it with and without the long term knock correction, no difference there in timing or whether it ran rough.
Sent a log to Haltech, hopefully they see something. I did try reloading the older map and it still ran rough.Other than that everything seemed to work well, still doesn't leak a drop except from the one control arm bushing. We adjusted all the struts for maximum negative camber (didn't actually measure, probably not much less than zero since it sits so high) and the toe seems perfect at both ends. I hadn't really hit any obstacles since the gauge cluster is just sitting on the dash bar but I hit a small speed bump without thinking and the front end completely soaked it up. Rear end kicked a bit but more sound than feel (pile of plastic interior bits in the back). That will be better with a few hundred pounds of cargo in the back. So then of course I started hitting every speed bump and pothole I could find, it soaked them up nicely. It is a little bouncy on relatively smooth pavement, I think due to the relatively stiff springs for the weight. Will see how it sits loaded but might go with softer springs in the rear eventually. This set of struts has the valving a shock tuning expert suggested to us. Should be interesting to trail ride now with this Impreza, B's Forester, and Z's Forester all with significantly different shock valving but the same springs, wheel and tire sizes, wheelbase, and weight.
-
1
-
-
A few STI 6MT assembly tips and questions.
So it seems the reverse lockout arm should be spring loaded towards the front of the car as shown in the picture above. Then the cable at its normal length will hold that arm so the hole is lined up with the case and it will be locked out of reverse. Pull on the cable and the arm will swing out of the lockout position.
Had a heck of a time getting these lugs lined up to put the bolts in them through the side of the case. Finally I propped the lower one up with this little scrap of sheet metal. Got the bolts started and then opened the case just enough to pull it out with a tweezers.
Main shift shaft has this large ball spring loaded against it but no notches. Is this just to add friction? There is a mark on the shaft where it looks like the ball was rubbing before, I don't think I've assembled it incorrectly. There's a notch in it towards the top that is for the neutral(?) sensor.
Shift yoke roll pin hole is very oversized. Seems round, not worn, probably for a different trans?
Welded the holes on both sides and ground them out to about the same size as the selector shaft on the trans.
Hammered the roll pins in, no slop now.
-
1
-
long travel Outbacks or making Subarus faster and more reliable offroad
in Off Road
Posted · Edited by pontoontodd
First thing we did yesterday was swap out the long travel struts in the black Outback for some stock Outback/Legacy struts. We plan on revalving these shocks so we have a set ready to swap in the other cars for easier/faster shock tuning.
It looks like a lowrider in person now. I'm pretty sure those are stock Legacy/Outback struts and springs but it does weigh significantly more than stock and the stock springs are pretty soft.
White Outback has been shaking under moderate braking for months now. Light or heavy braking it's not too bad. Noticed a while back that the control arm bushings were shot so I replaced those.
Have had this pair of Whiteline increased caster bushings for a while. Maybe easier to install than their normal bushings since they're not flanged. Only shifts the wheel about 1/4" which works out to about 1/2 a degree of caster.
Also replaced the front rotors. Not sure if they were causing the shaking but we're going to need some used ones to turn down for rear use eventually anyhow. Replaced the air filter, it'd been 30k miles and it was super dusty. Still seemed to have good power though. Also replaced fuel filter and front diff fluid.
B replaced the taillights on his blue Forester, they've been cracked and leaking for a while. He tried replacing the AC condenser since it had rubbed through on the radiator but apparently the 2001 Forester condenser is different than the good 2000 Forester condenser he had. Also replaced his trans fluid and some other things.
Got the STI shift yoke from the dealer. In retrospect I should have just modified the one I'd welded and ground the holes on to clock it but this was easy.
Replaced the bushings.
Centered up, way less slop, can now fit the shift boot and trim on.