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moved to Montana I understand....the rest moved to California.

could get a buzz off it... Who am I to talk, many of my generation tried smoking bananna skins???

this also would not work well in San Mateo as you might hit a gang banger.

proportioning valve. Any good race supply shop will have them. When you start messing about with brakes you often end up with a bias one way or the other. The factory will have worked weeks on setting up the original system for a proper bias and when we fit other componants we must compensate.

Anything with a 2.5 phase 1 is at risk for the internal expensive failure. Perhaps a real Subie expert will help here, but I think they ran from 1997 to 1999 in the Legacys.The first safe one would be a 2000 model year. For some reason the Forester got the phase 2 a year early in 1999. this is why I have a 1999 Forester as folks on the board warned me about the phase 1.

these days in many areas it is not a responsible method. In urban areas like mine the anti freeze ends up in the storm drains and so in our water. Pets think it's great and lap it up and die. I sure remember lots of folks doing this up in Maine when I was a kid. If it is warm when you start trickling the water the water will eventually come out clear.

and lose compresion a bit faster. Nothing catestrophic. We just have the equivalent of rebuiling a bit worn engine with loose piston skirts. I don't care for my slap on start up but it is so minor here in CA that I don't notice it anymore except when I am in or parking building with the windows down.

what is excellent on a race course is not always the best thing to run in a half worn out engine on the street. In a race engine you look for low drag and resistance to high heat and load. The hotter the engine the closer to a hand grenade it is, and the more one experiments with lubrication the closer you get to not finishing the race. I had one friend who was the National hydroplane champ for many years in his class. His motors were truly hand grenades and he got one practice and one race out of them. On a street engine we are looking for a whole different set of characteristics from our oil. I have friends who are thrilled with Redline, but they use it on a race course.

and odds on I would buy that kit Subaru is supposed to offer that also offers a cam sensor. They are pretty cheap and I almost think they would be good maintainence items as they have a moderately high rate of failure. These are cheap and easy to do for the novice.You might do a search and you should see how to change them.

I got a water pump, tensioner, had the oil pump pulled, tightened and resealed,and had all the seals on the front replaced. I figure its easy when it's apart and all of those are items that commonly cause trouble. I hope not to go into the front of the engine again for another 90,000 miles. Keep in mind that I am a fussy ex mechanic who likes my car to be reliable.

there have been some upgrades. My first Forester clutch was done at about 88,000 miles and I have the new numbers now. Gets rid of the chattering too. If you can't find the numbers on the board for the new kit I can look them up at home for you.

Castrol Syntec. At least that is what I have heard on the Internet and you know that info is always accurate. I figure if you can trust it in a $12,000 engine for extended intervals it should be fine.

take it to a tranny shop for diagnosis. Internet does not work very well on noises.

in a running Subaru. I have a heck of a time checking it with the engine off.

not actually burnt first. Sometimes they look fine and are fried. Before I pulled the switch I would test it to see if power was coming out of the dash light reostat. The other thing I would do first is make absolutely sure you don't have a short that would burn it up again. Yesterday I had this system out on my BMW but I have not done it on a Subaru. I am sure that switch should be fairly easy to change. The BMW has a lighted shifter knob that is famous for shorting out and taking out the reostat which is part of the switch. I gave the shifter knob its own fuse to prevent that.

the dash lights to power its lights. If you shorted this wire out the best thing that can happen is you blow the fuse to your dash lights. The worst thing is you can blow either the dimmer switch for the dash lights if it is seperate, or the whole light switch.

you may have actually lowered the oil pressure and could cause lifter noise. An Aussie complained of this problem a while ago and said after fitting a new o ring his was cured.

and change as much rubber as possible. In Maine when I was a kid rubber used to suffer at the temps we reached at Moosehead Lake and it should be colder there. Radiator blind?

if you have the phase 2. The goop seem to take care of possible leaks. I had the organic clutch in my 99 Forester and it was done at 85,000 miles. when the organics are in there the car seems to usually have chatter on clutch release. If you have that it probably means you will have early clutch failure. The good part is the late clutch kit works, but my##@$%%^& dealer did not replace the pilot bearing and that just had to be done 16,000 miles later.

sometimes when you put in cleaner it can turn deposits to sludge and clog an injector.

after that I would suspect oxy sensors.

on Internet Explorer seach and there it was.

around here. Most of the good shops seem to be BMW and Mercedes, and Porsche locally. There must be somebody who knows Subarus north of Palo Alto. At least Carlsen mostly does it right.

you can't beat an inexpensive and easy fix.

since you say the car is still nice. At least it would get the heads checked for flatness and while they were out the valves adjusted which is due. This car looks like the most miserable car to adjust valves in I have ever seen. It would be pretty easy with the heads on the bench.With the new gaskets I would think you'd be fine for the remaining engine life. The other possiblity would be a whole new CCR engine with new clutch, hoses, belts, etc. This would be expensive but would be a really solid power plant.