pontoontodd

The Vegas to Reno was quite an adventure. I've raced in over a hundred off road races in at least six organizations in about ten states and I've never seen anything like it. Thanks to everyone here who's given advice over the years, some of it has been priceless. My friend stopped by Monday night after work and stayed the night. We left Tuesday morning for Vegas. I was reviewing the GPS track they gave us for the course on the tablet on the way and one thing I noticed is that it seemed to be difficult to get the tablet to get a GPS signal. After a while it seemed to be working if we started the tablet GPS when we were stopped. We were making good time when all of a sudden the car started sputtering in eastern CO and my friend pulled off on the next exit. He stopped at a stop sign and then the car died and wouldn't start. We tried a few things like unplugging the MAF sensor and the car would run a little bit but kept dying. We pushed the car off to the side of the ramp. Seemed like it wasn't getting fuel at the engine. Pulled a hose off the bottom of the surge tank and nothing came out. The transfer pump seemed to be making noise but didn't seem to be pumping fuel. We switched the inlet hoses on the pumps so the high pressure pump was drawing directly out of the big fuel cell. We went to an O Reillys and found fittings and some other things we needed to use our spare high pressure fuel pump. We used that in place of the transfer pump. By that time it was dark and we decided to just drive past Denver and stop at the next open hotel (most were full for some reason) for the night. The next day's drive was more scenic and uneventful. The section through Glenwood Canyon and into Utah was very cool, haven't been that way in a long time. We realized the tablet GPS wasn't working at this point so we ordered a bluetooth GPS receiver to be shipped to the hotel on Thursday. We checked the fluids at every gas station and one time the overflow bottle was empty. Stayed at the same level at all the other stops. Used about a quart of oil every 500 miles as usual. We got to Vegas at about 3PM and stepped out of the car. It was HOT, I think about 110F, a shock since we'd been blasting the AC all day. We parked in the shade and put in the door bars, corner windows, number stickers, checked all the suspension bolts, etc. I got ahold of a friend we used to race who lives in Vegas and he met us at the hotel and took us to dinner. We talked for hours, he told us all kinds of racing stories and gave us advice about trying to finish V2R. He didn't believe we'd driven the Subaru out and were planning on racing it and driving it back. He had also never considered just trying a desert race to finish and have fun, he's always trying to win (in class). The next morning we went to registration early and got in line. There were 343 entries, but I think the trophy truck and class 1 teams had registered earlier since they had qualifying the day before. Casey Folks, the owner of Best in the Desert, thanked each person in line for being there. He asked one kid in line in front of us if he was going to be riding during the race. Casey told him when he goes to school next week and they ask what you did over the summer, tell them you were in the longest off road race in the US. The other kids will say they got to play horseshoes. We signed up and got shirts and hoodies. Went out to the parking lot and got the Subaru in line for contingency/tech. Trying to pull into the parking lot to stage for contingency, the security guard was blocking us until we convinced him that we were racing. Baja pits, the pit service we hired for the race, was back there so we talked to them and tried to figure out our pit strategy. When we went to pull in the lot for contingency, the security guard would not let us in. I told him we were racing and he said “this is for race vehicles only” so I told him this is our race car and he finally let us in. Tons of people in contingency loved the Subaru, took pictures, laughed, gave us high fives. At least one guy told us were his heroes, insane, but still his heroes. They were also jealous that we had air conditioning. The racing trax guy gave us a tracker and thought it would be best to just stick it on the roof. It wouldn't get power with the ignition on. My friend realized the rear lights weren't on so we spliced them and the tracker into the old wiring for the rear fan. That switch goes directly to the battery (fused) so we could leave the tracker on all day like they wanted. Hours later we got to tech and as I was giving the suits and helmets to one guy, the other guy told my friend he thought our car would be a nightmare to tech but it looked like we had our spoob together. Thinking we didn't have much else to do before the race, we drove down to Fremont street and wandered around. Ate lunch at a buffet, saw the shark tank, world's biggest gold nugget, a million dollars under glass, guy making paintings with spray cans, container park, etc. Headed back to the Aliante for the driver's meeting. Took longer than expected and there was probably at least a thousand people in the room. They presented Casey Folks with two helmets that all of the drivers (including me) had secretly signed during registration. We headed back to the hotel to find out that the bluetooth GPS wasn't there. It was already 7PM and it was still supposedly going to arrive by 8PM but the hotel manager said their shipments usually come in the early afternoon. Package tracking said it had left Phoenix at 6PM so we didn't see how it would be there that day. We went to Fry's, they didn't have any bluetooth GPS so we checked out the tablets. They had a couple of 10” tablets with GPS on display but apparently none in stock, so I bought one of the display models, so they had to get a manager, etc. Lower resolution than the one I had, but it worked. We were up until about 10PM transfering over the maps, tracks, etc getting it to work how we wanted it and getting back to the hotel. We had hoped to get to bed early. Got up early Friday morning for the two hour drive to the start of the race. Put on our driving suits, packed things up, and headed northeast. Filled up with gas in Alamo and got to the start area. There were hundreds and hundreds of trucks, trailers, and RVs lined up for at least a mile. We parked near a port a potty and put the rear number plate on, aired down, pulled the air bag fuse, etc. It took hours to start all the cars and trucks, they start the TTs and C1s a minute apart and everyone else 30 seconds apart. There were about 3 trucks behind us so we were starting almost last. Just before the start I realized the windshield wipers didn't work. The start of the course was fairly fast and smooth, then we got to the silt beds everyone had warned us about. For about ten miles we must have passed fifty trucks and buggies that were stuck, broken down, or rolled over. We weren't on the course most of the time since it was full of stuck vehicles. Many people looked up from their trucks to cheer us on or give us a thumbs up. A bunch of times it was so dusty we couldn't see anything, probably not even the end of the hood, but it's not a good idea to stop. We got to one place where a wash crossed the course and people were trying all kinds of detours. Some guys pointed us to a gap that dropped into the wash and back out the other side. As I was going down into it we saw a truck that had started behind us coming down the wash from the left. I stopped to let him by and then crossed out the other side. Another time we were driving in the dust along the course and all of a sudden there was a fence in the way. I looped back around and went around the end of the fence. Eventually the dust and traffic mostly cleared and the course smoothed out. People told us the next day that was the most carnage they've ever seen at the start of a desert race. We were going well until about the 30 mile mark the car sputtered to a stop. Didn't seem to be getting good fuel flow/pressure when I pulled the hose off at the engine. After we switched around the fuel lines it seemed to be getting fuel again so we kept going. While my friend was working on that I checked the fuses and the wiper fuse had blown, which is probably what the rear lights and tracker had been spliced into, so I replaced that. After another five miles the engine died. More fuel line diagnosis/rerouting. It did this a couple more times and every time it seemed that both fuel pumps were running. We eventually figured that the fuel pump was just getting too hot. We had to put it close to the rear diff when we replaced it with the wiring and hoses we had, and the diff was super hot. The whole fuel tank was hot. By the time we got to the first road crossing they told us the first pit was already closed and we should just drive up to Tonopah on the highway. We drove down to Ash Springs for gas and to check over the car. A guy there said their motorhome was overheating and would have to be towed back to Vegas. Finally got ahold of Baja pits and they said we should go to pit 2 on the highway and see if his guys could help. They couldn't and that pit was closed so we drove up the highway to Tonopah. Going up a long grade the car died again, I hopped out and dumped a bottle of water on the fuel pump and it fired right up and ran fine the rest of the way. Went to the finish line to tell BITD that we'd timed out but were going to start again on Saturday. We moved the pump to the top of the fuel cell in the parking lot of the Clown motel and rerouted the wires and hoses. Checked all the suspension and subframe bolts, lug nuts, tires. They didn't have a room for us so we drove to camp adventure and found a place to park and set up the tent close to a port a potty. Slept fairly well, got up the next morning to pack up and check over the Subaru. Here's our campsite: Saturday morning again a ton of people stopped by, impressed that we were going at it again the next day and that we planned to drive it home. Another long wait in staging for the start of the race. Parked by a port a potty again since we were there for hours. Went to the rescue truck so they could bandage up some minor burns I'd gotten on my arm. Some guys in staging said they'd been desert racing for 20 years and Friday was the most challenging race they'd ever had. Saturday we started dead last, but there were supposedly only about 220 entries still running. Here we are waiting to start Saturday: They were taking down the signs as we pulled up to the starting line and then we were off. We quickly caught up to the guys in front of us in the stockish Ford SUV but it took a long time before I got close enough to get them to pull over so we could pass. We were running a 37mph average pace which we thought was good. Had to average 30mph including stops to hit the pits in time so we wanted a little extra time. This meant I had to push the car harder than I really wanted to but it seemed to be taking it. Every five miles or so we'd catch up to someone and pass them and a few times someone must have gotten their car running after being broken and passed us. The course had some very fast sections but a lot of it was about two foot deep ruts. Some were in silt, some in rocky river beds, and it was always almost impossible to stay out of them. Early in the day we went up a long grade up a mountain. It wasn't very rough but I had the throttle wide open for maybe 20 minutes. In third gear it would slowly lose speed, so I'd have to downshift to second but didn't want to run too high RPMs for that long at full throttle so I'd hold it around 4500 in second. At the top of the mountain was a narrow, rough, rutted pass that went by an old mine. Going back down the other side was a pretty smooth long run we did at about 70mph. We eventually passed pit 7 and some of the people working on their trucks stopped to cheer us on as we cruised by. A couple of times in the silt beds we'd be cruising along through soft silt and suddenly hit a big rock. At about mile 70 we realized we had two flat tires. The course being so soft it was hard to tell when the tires were going down. We only had one spare in the car. We could still hear the left front leaking so we jacked up the front end but couldn't find the leak. The left rear wheel and tire were both completely destroyed so we put the spare on that corner. Here's what was left of it: This all took an eternity with our bolted in spare and jack, maybe a half hour, plus we got stuck for a little while before we got back on the course, had to do some digging and used the sand ladders. We knew it would be difficult to impossible to make pit 8 before it closed but we got back in and hammered down. After another five miles or so the front tire was clearly shredding apart and the car shut off, everything went dark. Popped the hood and saw the alternator belt was off and figured out the positive cable was loose. Fixed those and eventually got back on the course, difficult in soft terrain with no left front tire. By the time we got to the public road crossing before pit 8 we were out of time again. Eventually the guys from Baja pits showed up with a couple of our tires. We replaced the front tire and put the other one in the back of the Subaru for a spare. Baja pits noticed the LR was missing a lug nut and others were loose. I probably never tightened them when we were rushing to replace it and get to the pit, so we jacked up that end of the car and tightened them down. We headed towards Tonopah on the highway, they were going to help us repair the exhaust back in town where they had more equipment. As we were getting close to town something bad was clearly going on in the rear and we smelled burning rubber so I pulled off on a big gravel shoulder. We replaced the LR wheel studs and wheel and tire. While it was jacked up and apart they straightened out the LR rear lateral link with our bottle jack and by supporting the bottom of the link with their bottle jack. Another guy and I bent the driver's wiper arm away from the windshield, it had started scraping the glass by the end of the race. We also noticed the windshield was cracked. This was a dust storm blowing in while we were doing that: We drove a few hours to Ely, NV just to make some progress and stayed at a Motel 6. We got some decent sleep and kept heading north to 80. On the way home the LF tire (one of the old ones we'd shipped to Baja pits) was leaking badly enough that we had to add air a few times a day. The overflow bottle would also randomly empty completely or overflow. With the high pressure fuel pump just pulling from the RR of the big fuel cell, when it got down to about half a tank it would start to die on right hand turns or hard braking, so we had to stop for gas every 150-200 miles. Went across UT on 80, got to see salt flats and lakes. By the time we made it home there was some kind of rattling noise coming from the rear we could never figure out. Got home OK though. The course was much rougher than everyone we'd talked to beforehand told us it would be. The race was a ton of fun. I knew it would be different but not running laps is so much more interesting. Even the 50 mile course in Texas was great but after a few laps you usually know what's coming up next. At the V2R you just keep going and going and going, never really knowing what's around the next turn or over the next hill. Working on cars in the middle of the desert isn't my favorite activity, and it was a big disappointment that made us time out both days, but it really adds to the challenge and adventure, rather than just waiting for the tow truck to take you back to the pits.

Did a bunch of things over the weekend. I'd noticed some backlash in the driveline after our UP trip, just a few times when downshifting and not matching the revs closely. Crawled under the car a while ago and noticed that the front u-joint was a little sloppy, middle one slightly, rear one felt fine. So I replaced the u-joints again, it's been about a year and a half. The front one was quite beat, I don't think it was going to break any time soon, but I'm glad I replaced it. They all had grease and I could have left the rear one in, but while it was out of the car I figured I'd do them all. I should probably grease those at least at every oil change. My friend brought over his headlight polishing kit. That was surprisingly fast and effective. He also put in an HID conversion kit I got for the main headlights. If these seem to be annoying to other drivers I'll switch back to halogen after the race. He replaced the MAF sensor with a new one, we're keeping the old one for a spare. I also got a new TPS but we were unable to get the screws loose on the old one so it's staying in for now. He also put our race radio in place of the CB. I didn't take any pictures but I ran the wiring for the tracker we need for the race so that should just clamp on and plug in. Again, no pictures, but we put new tires on the car and shipped the old ones to the pit service so they can have them at a few of the pits for us during the race. We'll be carrying the best spare in the car.

That would be cool. I always wanted an XT, needless to say there aren't any left around here. I have seen SVXs on the local CL pretty often, sometimes under $1000. Surprisingly not much lighter than an OB. A long travel SVX would be a real off road sleeper.

Supposedly the 05-09 have more ground clearance and a lower center of gravity. I do know they have bolt on wheel bearings in front from 05 to 09, up to 04 they were press in. The spindles can be swapped over easily though. I think the engines made more power and a little more torque too.

$3000-$4500 would be a great price for a rust free 2005-09 H6 Outback from what I can tell. Let me know if you see another one. I'd rather just buy an H6 car than do some kind of swap. Plus I would like to have a car with a rust free body, bolt on wheel bearings, etc.

Good to know. I'd been considering getting a six speed if I did the swap. I can't imagine that breaking with a stock H6. I'd be more concerned about the rear diff and axles then, especially if I had a low range.

Ya, got a MAF from a local junkyard and put it in, car seems to run fine but haven't driven it much yet. It will run with the new (to me) MAF plugged in and the TPS unplugged, but again not perfectly. I'm going to get a can of that MAF cleaner from CRC and see if it fixes the old one. Pictured rocks and Porcupine mountains are scenic, that beach we found along Superior was amazing, it would be cool to camp out there for a day or two. Mosquitos and flies aren't too bad if you're riding a bike or driving a car, but they can be terrible when you're on foot. Glad you like the build. Maybe as soon as this winter we'll see what a low range and/or H6 does. If anyone finds a good 2005-2009 H6 OB, I'm seriously looking for one for my wife and then one for me to replace the Impreza.

Thanks, glad you like the video. It really does ride as well as you could ever hope for a station wagon with 12" of travel. I think the lower center of gravity helps with that, it really doesn't hobby horse or porpoise much at all. There were a few sections where I found myself thinking I wouldn't be going much faster in our off road race buggy. Except for that first jump in the video, you can hardly even feel the car land when it comes back to earth. I'm with you 100% on the H6 and low range, more power would be great, especially in the sand. Looking for a rust free 2005-2009 H6 OB right now and plan on making a low range over the winter. Honestly with an H6 and the long travel I'm not sure you'd need low range. At least for any of the stunts we've tried to pull within 1000 miles of home.

Video from our last trip to the upper peninsula of Michigan: The first jump is a local tabletop, everything else is in the UP.

Thank you thank you thank you! I unplugged the injectors one at a time, each one made the engine run a little rougher with a noticeable lope/miss. I unplugged the cam and crank sensors individually, both made the engine die. I unplugged the MAF sensor and the engine immediately smoothed out and stopped smoking. It doesn't run perfectly, tends to stall occasionally, but I drove it back and forth a little bit and it is ten times better. A little weird since the reading from the OBDII seemed to steadily increase with engine speed, I guess I don't know what it should be at various RPMs and loads. Also makes me wonder how the engine runs with no MAF signal and no manifold pressure sensor, does it just go off TPS and RPM? I unplugged the TPS and the engine died. So the next question, where should I get a replacement? Is this one of those must buy from Subaru parts? They want $315. Rock Auto has them for $70-$280 depending on brand. Or I could get one from a junkyard, I think there's at least one at the local pick a part yard. Might do that either way to have a cheap spare.

Thanks for the ideas. Friend of ours who works on a lot of Subarus also suggested coil pack first, I tried a different one that worked before and it still barely runs. We put an ignition wire and spark plug on each terminal of the coil pack and grounded the plug while cranking and they all seem to be generating spark, although it's not very impressive. Didn't see any sparking at all in the dark. I guess I could still buy a new one, maybe both of the ones I have are bad. We seemed to be getting good fuel flow and pressure at the engine, tried a used but good fuel filter and it still ran like crap. We unplugged all the various hoses going to the intake before the throttle body, thinking maybe some kind of PCV is dumping shitty air and oil into the engine, taped off all the fittings to prevent vacuum leaks, and it made no difference. Checked all the fuses and fusible link, all good. Plugged into the OBDII and tried to do some diagnosis that way. Still the only trouble code is the fuel sensor A circuit deal, even after unplugging all kinds of hoses and spark plug wires. Is it possible the ECU has gone bad? MAF, throttle position, RPM seem to read properly. Front O2 is reading .9V most of the time, still smoking out the tailpipe. I'm not very good with these things but it smells and looks more like smoke from burning rich than burning oil. Any more ideas to try would be appreciated.

One of the issues I've always had with this car is it intermittently running rough in wet weather. For years this would happen fairly often, normally right when the engine got up to temp, turning off the ignition and restarting the engine would make it run smoothly again. The problem has mostly gone away the last year or so. On our trip to the UP a couple weeks ago it seemed to run rough every time we got it wet. Eventually after some diagnosis we unplugged the front O2 sensor and it ran smoothly the rest of that weekend. Got home and replaced the O2 sensor, it's been running fine including last weekend for another 700 miles on the highway. Today we had a huge rainstorm, car was parked out in the rain, and I drove the car as the rain was clearing up. I drove through a big puddle and it started running a little rough, stalled at a couple of stop signs but still mostly driveable. Stopped across town and when I got back in the car, it started but would barely rev above 2000RPM and I couldn't get it to move for a minute. Then all of a sudden it ran fine. A couple times on the way home it would start running rough, barely running for a minute or two, but ran fine most of the time. A few hours later I went out to check and clear the codes, there were many considering we'd unplugged the O2 sensor. Started it up and the engine will now barely run. Sometimes at full throttle it will run at 1000RPM. It seems to be pushing some oil smoke out the tailpipe. Occasionally I can get it to rev to 2000-3000RPM and it seems to clear out and run smoothly (and smoke less I think), so I don't think it's a mechanical engine failure. Now the only code that shows up is some sort of fuel temperature sensor circuit A, which has been showing up for a long time and might be related to the fuel cell install. I tried unplugging the O2 sensor again and it still runs rough. I don't even know where to start, any ideas?

We did that on the front of my car, fitting a ball joint and making steering clearance was a real pain. It basically worked but the subframe/body definitely wasn't designed to be loaded that way. You're constructing all that from scratch so you wouldn't have that problem. If you do that there's no reason to use a strut, just use a shock. I'd recommend something adjustable even if it's cheap. Overall I'm much happier with the long travel struts than the a-arm setup we made.

205/70/15 tires fit my stock 96 Impreza with a little rubbing. You're more limited by the spring perches than the wheel wells if you do at least a 1" lift. 215/75/15 tires fit my 99 Legacy OB before the lift with a little rubbing. Supposedly the same struts as the Forester. I think Scott is right, go with the Forester struts and you can probably go up to 215/75/15 tires. Even 1/4" wheel spacers will help. You work at a tire shop, get an old one and see how it fits before you buy a set. Test fit it with the spring and bump stop off and steer both ways. If it rubs a little bit, don't worry about it, you won't often be at full steering and bottomed out. Keep in mind the taller tires will make the gearing worse for low speed off road use.

So you're going to run EA rear axles all around? You should do a little more digging on struts, maybe you can find something that would be an easier fit or have even more travel. When I was looking, Monroe had some info on their website but it looks like they've taken it down. KYB has this for shocks: http://www.kyb.com/knowledge-center/shock-tech-for-pros/dimensions/ If you click on the link you can look up by application and then see length, stroke, etc but I couldn't find a chart with strut dimensions. If they do have one, let me know!

The EJ (Legacy and Forester at least) rear struts definitely have a lot of travel. Can you put an EA hub in an EJ knuckle/wheel bearings and see if/how it fits? It sounds like you have both. My guess is it's smaller than the EJ hub, do you have access to a lathe so you could make sleeves? I can't remember, are you using an EJ engine/trans for this? Wondering what axles you're planning on using and how that would work with your hub choice.

Went through all the struts yesterday. Replaced a few wipers and boots but these bushings are definitely working a lot better than the old ones. One of the reservoirs had a big gouge on the inside of it for some reason so I'm going to replace that. Otherwise everything seems good - wheel bearings, ball joints, etc. One of the front control arm bushings that's in the aluminum bracket seems worn so I'll replace that. Going to replace rear pads and shoes before V2R as they're fairly worn. We took out the hose going to the rear heater and did find a hole in it near one of the driveshaft u-joints, so that explains that problem. I also flushed the power steering system, the fluid was black and stinky. The pump has been whining, even after the flush, so I put on another one from the junkyard and it is much quieter. Here are some pictures from our UP trip. It will probably be a while before I can edit the 10+ hours of video down to a reasonable length. Bond falls Pictured rocks: Grand Sable lake overlook: beach along Superior:

Way too high, probably around 50psi. That's normally what I fill them to, they all leak after the Texas deal with all the thorns so usually if I check them every few weeks they're down to 30 or so. We did think about airing down and even had a decent 12V compressor but decided to just get out of there. Looking back on it I wish we'd have tried to air down to see how much it would have helped. We've set the OB down with those mud tires at 0psi and they're only about halfway compressed, so we could probably get away with super low pressure. Glad you liked the story, one of, if not the, best offroad weekend I've ever had.

Yes, didn't have to add a drop all weekend after that.

We went to the upper peninsula (UP) of Michigan this weekend for a long off road trip. After driving about 100 miles on the highway the temp gauge in the OB started to fluctuate but stayed in the middle for a while. Eventually it started rising so we pulled into a gas station, filled up with gas, and added at least a gallon of water. After another 20 or 30 miles it started to do the same thing, we filled it up with water and hooked up the tablet with the OBD2 reader. After another 20 or 30 miles it started running hot again, bought coolant at a gas station and dumped that in. We kept trying to see if or where it was leaking but it was raining so the whole car was wet. Didn't see any steam or smoke out the exhaust. Called our friend who's worked on a lot of Subarus and he said it sounded like a leak rather than head gasket based on my description. I put the stock heater hose back to eliminate the rear cooler from the circuit. After that it ran 185F the whole way up and didn't use any more coolant the rest of the weekend. I plan on just pulling those hoses out of the car for now. We did some trail riding and sightseeing since a couple of the guys haven't spent much time in the UP. We eventually found the sandy pipeline road we were looking for in the Baraga plains. It was a ton of fun in the OB, my friend was driving and we eventually stopped at a cross road to wait for our other friend in the Forester. He said the clutch was slipping so while we waited for it to cool off I took our other friend who was riding in the Forester on a ride up and down the pipeline road in the OB. We ran about 50mph and got air off a few of the hills/jumps and I think we mostly cleared a double. At this point the Forester clutch was still slipping and it was starting to get dark so we took gravel roads to the highway and cruised on that to the hotel near Marquette. The owner acted like he was in an altered state of consciousness but set up the garden hose for us so we could flush out the clutch on the Forester. After a few minutes with the nozzle and pumping the pedal the clutch seemed back to normal. Thanks to Uberoo for the tip on that: The next morning I checked over everything and added a few fluids. We headed southeast through a bunch of trails and dirt roads, saw a couple of waterfalls, and eventually hit Manistique for fuel and stop and make sandwiches. We went to pictured rocks and then down to miner's beach. Far from there we took a sandy trail through the woods up to the lake. It ended at the top of a bluff overlooking the lake. There was a steep sandy slope going down to the beach. There was a wide sandy beach that went on for miles. There was about a 10' sandy bank with grass on top about 30' wide and another sandy bank about 20' tall with the woods at the top of it. One of the coolest landscapes I've ever seen. We stayed south of Grand Marais the second night. We didn't see a garden hose and the Forester clutch seemed good so we checked fasteners and fluids. The OB had started to run rough the last half of the day every time we went through a lot of water, by the time we got to the lodge we hadn't gone through much water but it was still surging. It would have minimal acceleration at low throttle until you'd suddenly hit a point where it would go. Very annoying. Our friend said when he was following and when it did that it smelled very lean. We hooked the tablet up to the OBD2 scanner and drove it up and down the road. It seemed to be leaning out 30% on the low speed fuel trim when cruising at light throttle, then when opened far enough it would go back to 0 fuel trim and accelerate. The front O2 sensor was reading 1V all the time, the rear one seemed to be operating fairly normally. One of the wires on the O2 sensor plug was broken, so we just unplugged it from the harness and drove it again. The problem went away completely so we cut the other wires and plugged it back in so the connector would stay clean. Ran fine the rest of the trip. The next morning we headed south on trails and eventually got to some wide, straight, rough, soft sandy roads. The Forester clutch started slipping again. We limped it out to Seney and found a gas station. We flushed out the clutch with a garden hose out front and bought gas. Headed towards the big spring. On the way we saw a sandy powerline trail on the northeast side of Manistique. We started going and it was very soft. I was driving the OB and got on the CB to see if they wanted to turn around/get off but got no response. We got about halfway down it and I pulled over in the OB to wait for them to catch up in the Forester. As soon as we stopped we knew we were stuck. Eventually they caught up and pulled off in the grass so they wouldn't get stuck. We got the OB unstuck with some digging and down onto the grass. We couldn't find a good exit so we decided to go back the way we came in. I almost made it up the big hill near the start of the trail in the OB but stalled out just as we were levelling out at the top. Backed down and couldn't steer to get in the grass. My friend was able to get the Forester in the grass after not making the hill. We decided to drive up onto the highway which was a more gradual slope and grassy rather than sandy. With some pushing, digging, and sand ladders we eventually made it out. We went around the south end of Indian lake to the big spring. Everyone really enjoyed that, I hadn't seen it in years and they were impressed by the clear water, steep drop into the spring, and big fish swimming in it. We hit a lot of good trails on the way to Escanaba and stopped for gas. Just before we got to Escanaba we were on a trail with about two foot deep whoops for a few miles we were running about 45mph in the OB. I can't describe how ridiculous and fun that was, the ride was decent but we were clearly beating on the car, a few of the deeper ones would launch us in the air and the car just took it. We went to the start of the Felch grade and got on that. There was a new trail they were working on that ran more east/west that crossed it but looked like it would be very difficult to pass on. After about five miles of the Felch grade I asked if they wanted to lead in the Forester so they weren't eating dust and falling behind and they said they'd rather just cruise on the highway. We stayed on the Felch grade for a while in the OB cruising 50mph but the yield and stop signs every mile or less were a lot more annoying at that speed than the last time we did it at 20mph. We drove the rest of the way back to the cabin where we started on the highway. Covered 800 miles according to the GPS, 200-300 miles of which was paved. We had an easy drive home, AC seemed to be working well, car ran straight down the highway at 80mph. The Forester's radiator and overflow bottle had been randomly full and empty all weekend, he went through over a gallon of water on the way home and had to run the heat at high speeds. Overall a great weekend, we had a few problems that were pretty easy to solve, covered a lot of ground on some cool trails and roads and did some hiking and sightseeing. Eventually I'll get the video edited down and posted up but here are a few screenshots to give you an idea.

I now have the rear heater core hooked back up with stainless braided lines in the back of the car and normal heater hose routed through the trans tunnel. Put a stock thermostat from the dealer in also. It gets up to temp much faster now. Today was about 80F, mostly sunny, picked up some parts and then went up the interstate a bit. Ran about 185F while moving, regardless of whether the AC was on or the rear fan was on. As soon as the car stops moving the temps creep up, eventually stabilizing around 210F, both fans run whether or not the AC is on. The air coming from front or rear radiator with fans on doesn't seem very hot. When I refilled the system after I replaced the thermostat I filled it through the upper radiator hose and it started coming out the inlet of the radiator, and I've driven it a few times since so I'm pretty sure the system is full.

I rerouted the coolant lines to the rear heater core to the trans tunnel, just haven't hooked them back up yet. Going to replace the rearmost part that's still in the car with braided stainless. We pulled a strut off and checked the new bushings. They are staying in place, greased, and not worn, so hopefully they'll last longer than what we used before. I made up this panel under the bumper out of 1/16" 4130. Doesn't seem to make the car run any hotter.

Drilled a bunch of holes in it. I'll have to put in 50/50 for the winter anyhow.

Ya, now we'll probably have to run the AC to keep the engine warm. I'll put a stock thermostat back in it at the end of the summer.

I took the Outback for a test run in 90F heat today up the interstate at 70-80mph. First run was normal, stock hood, rear heater core not hooked up, fans plugged in, AC on, ran about 180F. Unplugged the fans, made no difference. They kick in over 190F but do run with the AC, not a surprise they do nothing at highway speeds though. Turned the AC off, ran about 170F. With this arrangement (fans unplugged, no rear heater core, AC off), we were running 230F before with the bad headgaskets and stock dirty radiator in 80F heat. Taped on a piece of cardboard covering the area between the bumper and the lower radiator support. AC on, back to 180F. Surprised that didn't make it run hotter. Definitely going to make a sheet to cover this area, should keep the condenser from getting beat up by sticks. I had noticed that the passenger side fan was never on, so when I got home I let it idle until it got hot enough to turn on the driver's side cooling fan (about 200F). Unplugged the driver's side fan and the passenger side fan never turned on, even at 220F. When it's slightly unplugged it seems to work at a similar temperature to the driver's side. So I'll probably wire another plug in for that. I put the vented hood in the basement. It didn't seem to drop the temps much. I also realized that if it did work it would be feeding hot air into the cowl inlet for the HVAC, which would definitely not help cool us off.