subynut

Thanks guys! Great show, had a blast! :clap: Well worth the 3100 mile round trip! Including the power steering wiggin out, the flaky charging system out in the middle of the Nevada desert, at night no less, and trying to keep the car from cooking though the heat. We made it back at about 2:30 this morning. Car turned over 200K on the way though the Grand Canyon, too.

I know this is not a subaru, but my Kia sportage was doing exactly the same thing: Run it for a while, stop, then girgle, girgle......... I ran 2 cooling flushes through that system, improved it, but no fixy. Then, I got a leak in the heater core, it's currently bypassed right now, but my girgling is gone! Might be somthing to check out. Now, off to finish sister's Suby engine swap.............................

Here's a few numbers I kinda remember when my brother and I went to WCSS7. Headin' through the Phenix area at about 65mph and about 110 outside, my water temp was running at 230 and my oil temp was at about 280. That's with the oil cooler. Engine didn't like that after about 200 miles.

Cool, that's the info I needed. I'll see what I find at the auto parts stores for that tool.

The head that had the cracks in it was the one I replaced. As far as the lifters, I know some of them I could compress and some I could not. Stupid question time: How do I do a leak down test?

Ok, I'm gonna do a wet test, just to see what happens. Looks like I'll be tearing it apart again. Oh, what fun. Funny, it took me about 3 tries to get the Weber on there right too. Do I see a pattern here? Thanks guys!

Ok, no I did not hone the cylinders. I was told that a wet comp test doesn't work on a flat opposed engine.

Yes, he checked them for truidy before he started working on them. Funny, they weren't warped at all, but the one that was bad, had major cracks on both the intake and exhaust ports.

Compression test was done with throttle at WOT. T-belts are 180 out. Yes, I had the valves worked on while I had it apart. New headgaskets, and I made sure the rings were not aligned when I put them in. Before I cooked the engine, I was getting over 150 on all 4. I've been driveing it for about 2 weeks. I had one noisey lifter when I first started it up, the vac guage was bouncing to the tick, two days later, it dissapeared and idle improved, but still noware near what it's supposed to be. Vaccume is wandering at about 13-15 at 1200rpm, will steady out above 2000rpm.

Low compression. Even after the rebuild, I STILL have low compression: 1: 100 2: 150 3: 70 4: 90 How is this possible???? They are all supposed to be around 150. Here's what I did: Tore engine completely apart. Had heads worked on: one was bad, swapped that one. New rings. One piston had a callapsed skirt, replaced that one with one out of a SPFI engine. Cylinders still had some cross hatching on them, not much, but it was there. No signs of scratching or anything. New Napa gaskets. Couldn't afford Subaru gaskets at the time. I gots poor mileage, poor power, don't like to idle: can't make up it's mind if it wants to run at 1100 or 500 rpms. Anybody have any ideas? I'm at a loss as to what's wrong. Some people have told me that I may have bad lifters. I got's no tick. Could they be bad? At 50 bucks a pop, I dont' want to swap them unless I absolutly have to.

Hey, send some if that snow down here to Arizona! Suby's back on the road and we need some snow to drift in. Even if it's just one morning to work! Please?

Ummm just a hair too fast going into that corner? Whoops!

I own 1 and she's in the middle of open heart sergery. Total in the family: 4 running, mine, and my brother's parts car.

That's what I figured. Checker still doesn't believe me that they are the wrong ones. I pulled the pistons out of my brother's parts car, they're ok and they are SPFI too. So, I'm gonna use on of those. Thanks guys!

Wow, looks like checker screwed up. Again. Why do I even bother going there? No wonder Napa didn't have them. Ok, I'll send them back. Since they are a full set, including rings. MudIsFun: Are those pistons off a SPFI engine? I'm also gonna call CCR and see what a new pair would be too. Thanks guys!

Ok, I had two pistons that were toast, so I ordered a set from checker. BUT, they look different from the ones in the engine. I'm not sure they are the right ones. They're a BeckArnley 012-4968. Here's a pic: What gives? I talked to the guys at checker and he says that's the only set for both the ea-81 and ea82. Are they just a generic type of piston or what? I don't get it. Help?

Closest I've been to tipping a roo over was when I was doing a 35mph slide sideways. Was doing great till I hit a soft spot in the dirt and caused her to hop twice on two wheels. Blew the front tire off the bead. So, I swapped tires, in the dark of course, and went on my merry way never to go fully sideways 12 hours after a rain storm!

Only one. My borther can't make up his mind as to what to do with it.:-\ So, for now it's sitting in the pasture where the horses play with the winshield wipers. Why? I havn't a clue.

With only 9k miles on it, they shouldn't have too much blowby on them. Yeah, they look fine to me too. I took one of them to the machine shop today and he said that the skert has callapsed slightly. He also noticed that there was scuffing on them too, possiby because the piston was rocking slightly in there. He said that will not allow the rings to seat properly and may cause trouble down the road. I took some more shots of the other three. The middle one deffinately has some scuffing on it. Like I said earlier, the cylinder walls look fine. Or are they? I'm really not sure. Prolly will take the halves down there and see if he sees anything funny.

Hey, your lookin' like my house! Soobs all over the place!

I FINALLY got those pistons out without splitting the halves. I picked up some steel rod and ground the edge out and used that to get them out. The pistons all look the same and there's no sign of breakage that I can tell. The cylinder walls look good. However, I did have a cracked head and will be replacing that one with one off the parts car. The guy at the machine shop said that the valves had scuffing marks all the way around them. He also said a number of them were burned too.:-\ Here's some pics of the pistons. I'm going to take one to the machine shop and have him look at it. He sould be able to tell if there was any damage. http://usmb.net/gallery/view_album.php?page=1

Funny, how that song fits Subarus playing in the dirt better than the vonage ads. Great vid!

My current engine state: http://usmb.net/gallery/view_album.php?page=1 The heads are currently at the machine shop having the valves looked at. Why I didn't have them looked at before....donno. Now, if I can only find somthing to get those wrist pins out. My current large nail clamped with a visegrips only worked for one pin. Oh, what joys! Took piston no 3 out and the rings look ok to me. Corse, do I even know what I'm looking at? No, but I'm going to learn!

Great stuff!

Man, I thought I was hard on my Suby. Good times, tho!