LameRandomName

What I'm looking for here is the experiences of people who have already been down this road. (Putting aftermarket lights where the factory fog lights are now.) I'm reasonably sure that I can't possibly be the first one to contemplate doing this and I am hoping that at least a few of my predecessors are here on this website and can give me the benefit of their experience.

...^ttt^...

2000 Forester with ~50,000 miles, and I just recently brought it in for the recall, where they apparently put some sort of sealing tablet in the coolant to head off the problem, and extend the warranty. I'm not real worried though... When I bought the car I also got an extended warranty, and I'm covered to 100,000 miles.

I ended up going with the stock replacement type Brembos. I was going to get them from Tirerack, but the local shop got them from his supplier for 30-somthing, and no shipping. I took a look at them before he installed them, and they were very nicely crafted pieces, at least from what I could tell by eye. The braking feel and performance it gives me are great. I highly recommend these as replacement parts for when your stock pieces eventually warp.

I was wondering about the feasibility of replacing my stock fog lights with some sort of driving light. (This is on a 2000 Forester.) I know that actually pulling out the stock lights and making the electrical connection is not that big a deal, but there are two major questions: 1) Does anyone make a better light than the stock piece, which actually fits well in the physical space provided by the stock opening? 2) Is this a situation where I can wire up new lights directly, or do I need to put in relays which would be controlled by the stock wiring and draw power from a higher capacity source, perhaps directly off the battery? One other question... Assuming that this idea doesn't work out, has anyone added an aftermarket lighting system that works particularly good and looks particularly good?

I just did a brake job on my 2000 Forester (49,000 miles) and the rotors had to be cut pretty thin. Not past spec, just close. Anyway, the right front rotor has now warped. Probably the left front one will soon. No big deal for right now... Assuming the warpage doesn't get significantly worse, I may as well use up these pads before replacing the rotors. They'll wear faster on warped rotors anyway. Which brings me to my question... What are my options in replacement rotors? If I'm not mistaken, AutoZone has cheap rotors for around thirty bucks. Subaru has OEM rotors of course. I'd imagine that SOMEONE has aftermarket performance rotors too. So, for someone who drives fairly hard, what is my best bet in replacements?

See, I like a cruise control that "hits" hard and maintains the speed aggressively. Very often, when I'm on the highway, I like to "drive" with the cruise control, doing all my accelerating and cruising with it, and only moving my foot to use the brake when it's absolutely neccessary.

OK, so there's nothing wrong with my car, it's just that the guy who engineered the cruise control system was a jackåss.

Through the whole rpm range.

I have a 2000 Forester with 5-speed transmission. Just about to hit 45,000 miles. The crusie control, well... sucks. It has since I bought it at the end of 2002 with 31,000 miles on it. Whenever I set it, the speed drops 3-5mph before the cruise "catches", and if I use the "accelerate" option on the controller, it accelerates very weakly. Now obviously, it can't downshift on it's own, and I know that the engine doesn't have all that much power, but still... Of course, the part that I find especially annoying is where it ALWAYS drops speed after setting the cruise, then "catches" and slowly comes up to the speed I set it for. Sort of. It's not real accurate. And of course there is the annoying problem where it cuts out completely if the speed drops about 9 or 10 mph below the set point. So if you have a full car and are going up a long incline, causing the speed to drop, the cruise doesn't seem to add enough throttle to maintain speed and pretty soon you have dropped the 9-10mph at which the cruise just cuts off completely and you have to manually accelerate and set it again. This is different from EVERY other cruise control system in EVERY other car I have EVER driven. Considering that I started driving when Jimmy Carter was in office, you can imagine that adds up to a lot of cars. So here's the question: Is it just that subaru's cruise control system suck, or is my car in particular having a problem?

For my Forester, I'll just continue using the premium gas at the pump, which gives me slightly better mileage. For my hotrod though, the toluene method is for damn sure cheaper than buying 100 octane CamII at the station down the road.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that an engine rated for 87 octane is rated under optimal conditions and when new. Honestly, it's a good rule of thumb to go up one octane rating in real world conditions, especially if you do a lot of city driving in traffic. Plus, many engines are tuned to run on 87 and made safe that way by the use of a knock sensor. I'm actually unaware of ANY new car that doesn't do knock sensing. There might be, I just don't know about it. I have found, with several different vehicles, that running 92/93 octane gas lets the engine management systems run the timing up enough to make a small but noticible difference in the seat-of-pants feel and a measurable difference in gas mileage. On my 2000 Forester I have actually seen a 3mpg difference going from 87 to 93. Finally, you can actually make your own octane booster at home. Well actually, you don't make it, you just by Toluene at the hardware store and add it to your gasoline. Since the gas companies already add toluene to gas to enhance octane you should stay below a 4:1 mix (20% added toluene. If you're in a country that has that cheap 80 octane straigh gasoline, you can go 2:1 (33.333% added toluene. Here are some links you may find to be interesting: Rocket Fuel FAQ An Audi Site A Turbo Buick Site

Wait a minute... Cop pulls you over, talks with you and then lets you go without writing you a ticket, and you're annoyed? Believe me... If he really wanted to write you a ticket, he would have. He would have found SOMETHING, some excuse to write you.

Except for one thing... Most cars these days have an anti-kock sensor that backs off your timing if it senses detonation. THAT is how higher compression engines can run on relatively low octane in modern cars. Just because a car CAN run on (is rated for) 87, doesn't mean that it SHOULD be run on 87. You bring up a valid point about the psychological impact of using higher octane gas, but if you run several tanks of 87, then run it almost dry and start using 93 octane, and then your mileage goes up, it means you should be using higher octane gas.

That used to be true but modern engines have tighter tolerances and a different hone pattern. When I built my harley, which used old fashioned iron jugs and old style rings, with a manual hone pattern, the break-in was done in 500 miles. In modern engines the breakin takes 7500 miles or even more.

I've noticed that octane has an impact on gas mileage. I usually use 87 octane and get 20mpg in mixed driving. Recently I accidentally filled my tank with 93 octane. Or rather, I BEGAN filling it with 93 octane and when I noticed a few gallons later I decided to just fill the whole thing with 93. The very next time I filled I decided to use 89 just for the hell of it. When I got done topping off I found that my mileage had gone up to 23 in the same mixed driving. On the next fillup I discovered the 89 octane got me 22mpg. I'm going to test this with different octanes for a while and see what kind of results I get, but it SEEMS to have an impact. I'm guessing that like most modern engine control systems, ours modifies the spark advance based on the octane of the gas available by running it forward until it senses knock, then backing it off. If that's true then basically it's worth running the higher octane gas because the mileage goes up enough to recover the extra cost.

Make sure that whatever filter you choose it has at least as many little holes around the perimeter of the mounting surface as the stock one does.

Not such a dumb idea. Your cold air vent wont produce enough cfm to keep up, but it if you built an intake system with an evaporator INSIDE it, you could get some good results. I don't know that it would be worth it unless you were using it as an intercooler, but I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work. As far as the intake... In an absolute sense you could probably size an intake to create a tuned ram effect at certain RPMs, but as a practical matter I can't see it being worthwhile to bother. Just make sure it's big ENOUGH, Aand leave it at that.

There's three important things to keep in mind about nitrous: 1) Your engine must be built to handle the power it makes ON the nitrous. That sounds obvious, but people forget it a lot. It means that if you have a 200hp engine and you add 100hp worth of nitrous, which gives you 300, your engine must be built as if it were making 300hp all the time. 2) If something happens to your fuel supply and you go lean while on the juice, you probably wont be able to get off of it in time to save your engine. So choose injectors that lock in the open position if they lock up at all and use a fuel pressure cutoff switch that kills the power to the nitrous solenoid if the fuel pressure drops too low. On the same subject, I personally will NOT build a nitrous system that doesn't have it's own independant fuel system, to include it's own fuel cell that I can keep stocked with 100 octane gas. (100 being the highest unleaded octane I know of) 3) An engine can only "eat" enough nitrous to add about 50% more power. That means that if you have a 200hp engine, you can add another 100hp in nitrous, IF your system is well designed, maybe another 110 if you're lucky, but you are NOT going to double your power or even come close.

You'll never get that car up to a speed at which Ram-Air would become effective. Of course, if you're just trying to do a cold air induction, that's a different story.

Such is life.

Nahhh... I'm too old and decrepit to work on cars anymore. Now I pay people to work on them for me.

Cookie - What you say is absolutely true. One difference between then and now was that back then cars came off the floor with a tremendous amount of unrealized potential. I remember one case in particular that illustrates that. The 1969 Z-28 camaro came off the showroom floor running 14's and spinning it's bias ply tires all the way down the track. We scrapped the exhaust manifolds and bolted on headers. Changed the rear gears out for something stiffer. IIRC it was 4.11 from the factory and we used either 4.56 or 4.88's Other than that, the distributer was re-curved and the carb was re-jetted. The car then proceeded to run low 11's on 9" slicks. You can't get that kind of improvement on todays cars without going into major money, because todays cars are already so optimized. For instance, on the 69Z we put on headers. But today's cars don't have the restrictive exhaust manifolds of the old timers and their tubular exhaust manifolds flow almost as well as headers. Years ago with we would take the old fashioned ditributors and change the weights inside to alter the advance curve. Today, the computer controlled electronic ignitions in modern cars outperform anything you could do with a distributor, essentially allowing the advance curve to change "on the fly" Changing jets in the carb? Not anymore. Computer controlled electronic fuel injection takes over and meters more precisely than a carb is capable of doing. Tires are another thing that's completely different. In the old days you might come out to your car in the morning and find your bias ply tires flat spotted from sitting overnight, and you'd have to drive with the tires making thumping noises until they warmed up and became round again. Traction? Fuhgedaboudit! The end result of all this is that you can't really compare new cars with the old muscle car because they are such different animals. For "off-the-showroom-floor" performance, todays cars win hands down. But if you want to hotrod your car, the old muscle cars have an advantage that new cars just can't compete with. Cubic inches. To put this in perspective, I've got a long term project going on for my Caprice. The engine that I am planning for it is a Gen IV big block chevy. Nothing exotic... I'll be buying an off-the-shelf 502 short block, bolting on "as-cast" AFR 305 heads and, admittedly for looks, a low rise dual quad manifold with vacuum operated carbs. This motor will have a mild cam, 8.5:1 compression, will run on 87 octane gas and idle down to 600rpm. it will also make over 600hp, based on results from other real world motors. AND the entire motor, start to finish, will only cost about $7,500. Sounds like a lot but anyone who has ever built an engine can tell you that $12.50/hp is dirt cheap. And you know what? I had actually backed off my original plans, which were to run a single 4 barrel carb with a Vortech blow-through supercharger running about 7-8lbs of boost. (keep in mind that with a centrifugal supercharger max boost is at max rpm and at normal driving speeds it would make 3-4lbs) You know why backed off? Because that simple setup, which would have run right about $10,000, would have made over 1,000hp and frankly, I would have to spend about 30,000 on the rest of the car to beef it up enough to let it live under that kind of abuse. And, not to put too fine a point on it, that's $10.00/hp, which is even cheaper than my current plans.

BECAUSE I drove one. I've been VERY clear that I am willing to believe that the particular car I drove had issues and that I'm willing to reserve final judgement. However, if the auto version really is running mid 16's then there is NO WAY the car will run high 13's just because you put in a stick. You can jump up and down and scream about that all you want, but it isn't going to change anything. Wishful thinking doesn't have ANY impact on the laws of physics. And excuses, like "it had a slushy" don't have any impact on me. The car either has the stones to run high 13's or it doesn't. PERIOD.

13.8 is fast (if it'll really do that), but don't get carried away.