SuspiciousPizza

I went to inspect the purge solenoid. 24.5ohms resistance. Hmm the valve is good. Maybe there's an intermittent connection. Tested the engine harness. Continuity checks okay. Tested the harness between the ECU and the engine. Continuity checks okay. Maybe it's the ECU. I swapped in a different ECU. No different. Now when I turn the key to on I get a blinking CEL. CEL continues blinking when running so I only ran it for a few seconds. This doesn't change with a different ECU. And to boot, no more codes. So it runs poorly, has a flashing check engine light, and the ECU isn't giving me any codes.

Yep I spoke too soon. Went to start my car this morning before work and I got a CEL. Double bugger. Code 35, purge solenoid. So I'll be doing some tests tonight after work to see what's going on. If I need to, I'll be replacing the solenoid with the same model I used for my EGR solenoid replacement. AISIN VST-026. Boy have the price of those jumped since I last bought one! Nearly double the price.

I don't want to speak too soon but I believe I've fixed the issue. As I was going over the vacuum hoses and trying to hone in my timing I got a check engine light. Code 34 EGR solenoid. Bugger! On my other engine I was using a Toyota EGR solenoid. I used a "good" OEM solenoid on this setup. Well turns out that solenoid wasn't good. I swapped my trusty Toyota valve back in and it runs like a top. Vacuum at idle is strong and steady between 20-21 inHG. No more fuel smell. I'll do some city driving tomorrow to test it out. It likes to act up most with frequent starts and stops or rapid deceleration to a stop. :]

It'd definitely be a labor of love that's for sure. Even to cover costs, to just break even. Say a panel costs $60 not including mold cost. If someone's only willing to pay $50 to buy an unfinished panel. Then the numbers don't work. I'd have no issue making the panels and selling them for no profit. Just knowing I'm keeping cars in the community alive is worth it. But selling at a loss, that's difficult especially with the time investment. Again these are all ideas and I haven't moved forward with it but I have easy access to all the materials necessary to do so. Maybe if I'm ever in need of a body panel I'll make a small batch and go from there. I'd also love to draw up and 3D print NLA trim pieces. But I cannot afford design software at the moment. $2.5k/year for software... I have some opinions about that price and an orifice in mind they can shove it in.

If you were in the market for these parts what would you consider a fair price for the different panels? Also I'm not excluding the possibility of 1st and 2nd gen body panels. Just throwing ideas out there.

I've been talking to a coworker who does composite work on the side. Right now he only focuses of making carbon fiber parts for KTM super motos. I've had the idea for a few weeks to start manufacture of NLA body panels for these old Subarus. I talked to him about this and he doesn't have any objections to taking on the project but he doesn't know if there's a market for these parts. Making the molds takes significant investment of both time and money. Would anyone be interested in composite body panels? I'm thinking just fiberglass (to keep the cost down) but face layers of carbon or kevlar would be possible. Or even panels made entirely of carbon or kevlar would be possible. No sanding, no paint. They'd ship as bare parts to he finished by the buyer (or just throw them on without sanding or paint). If anything we'd start with 3rd Gen front fenders and hoods and we could move from there if there's enough demand. Just putting feelers out there if this would be worth our time. No ideas on a price at this time. :]

Last night I managed to repair my grille that most would have looked at and considered a total loss. The deer hit the corner of the grille and shattered it like glass. Luckily my lower valence panel caught almost all the pieces. All you need for this repair is a bottle of THF (a chemical used as a precursor for polymer synthesis) and some applicator bottles with needle tips. The THF will wick to into thin cracks where it then melts the top layer of plastic. After the solvent dries, the molten plastic molds together forming a chemical weld. To better understand and visualize this process, look up how model builders weld their models. It's the exact same process. You could also use this process to repair interior or exterior trim pieces. THF works with most plastics but it does NOT work on polypropylene (PP). Look for the plastic composition molded into the piece you're working on. For polypropylene your best bet is using an adhesion primer along with CA glue (super glue). :]

If it comes to no other options, my parts guy may have a door. I remember seeing an early 4 door he had. Was fairly clean if I remember, baby blue. He's a bit of a... Collector... So he may be hesitant to let it go. But if you need I can always ask. It may take a bit for me to get it. I'd probably have to buy the whole car since it's in decent condition and he may not want to part it out. :] P.S. I believe the car is actually a first gen. I remember it having an EA63 in it. But he may have something laying around, he gathered up quite a few of these Roos.

I used Lemforder 3015501 boots. I just replaced them a month ago so I cannot attest to their durability. They did feel and appear to be of OEM quality. They withstood my manhandling when installing (IYKYK) without cracking or tearing.

I got a bumper but the only one available is in very rough condition. The car it came off of clearly had a front end wreck. The metal has a lot of deformations. So I may not use the metal of the bumper. I'm thinking a rectangular tube structure that uses the bumper mount locations. The bull bar is mounted to this structure with the bushings. Then I'll modify the plastic portion of the wrecked bumper to fit over the rectangular tube structure. This way it looks like the factory bumper, but it uses a different metal reinforcement. I'd probably make this out of aluminum. I cannot find the clips on the inside of the door. They're covered by a stamped piece of metal that runs the length of the door.

I've been looking at the rally Leones and their brush guards and I was thinking something inspired by that. Something that mounts to the bumper and wraps around the side to cover the running lights. I'm buying a spare bumper from my parts guy so I don't have to modify my factory bumper. I plan on using industrial rubber vibration dampeners (originally designed to be placed between heavy machinery and a concrete pad to absorb vibrations). Hopefully these will act as a bushing to absorb impact. Otherwise I'd have to figure out some sort of suspension system for it. The rubber dampeners seemed to be the simplest solution. Otherwise I could make the mount out of aluminum tubing and bolt that to the chrome moly guard. The aluminum would act as a sacrificial absorber.

I believe not all SPFI cars here in the US came with an O2 sensor. California has more strict emissions regulations than the rest of the nation. The California cars got O2 sensors, the cars sold in all other states do not have O2 sensors. I believe. Regardless, not all SPFI cars have O2 sensors from factory. I have found it interesting that despite my car originally being sold in California, it doesn't have California-spec emissions equipment. It has the national standard emissions equipment. I believe the national standard is just an EGR setup and a charcoal canister. No O2 sensor and no EGR temp sensor.

I do not have an O2 sensor nor an EGR temp sensor. My coolant temp sensor is a good quality sensor and it's basically brand new. New doesn't mean good, I haven't tested it but I'd be rather surprised if that was the culprit. The car has always had a fluttering idle, even with a completely different engine. Also it's a D/R so there's no 4WD vacuum assembly like on a SR4WD. I wouldn't be surprised if the HVAC system has a leak. I'll give the hoses behind the dash a look. Interestingly the vacuum flutter on cold start isn't as bad and subsides much more quickly if the oil was preheated. Maybe one cylinder has bad rings? I brought the timing up to 15deg and I was pinging on regular. No issues with pinging when running premium. The heads have been resurfaced for sure once. No clue on their prior history. I'm not sure how the ECU learns mixture and timing curve but perhaps the ECU is expecting SPFI cams and the carb cams are making it freak out? I doubt this but it's a thought I had.

Coming home from work this weekend I smoked a deer. Luckily my headlight took the brunt of the impact but the deer spun around and caved in my driver side door. It ripped off some of the side protectors and damaged the protector on my door. I'm talking about the 2.5" wide black plastic pieces. Are these pieces held on with plastic clips/rivets or maybe a double sided tape? How would one remove them? I'll be installing a "new" door in the coming weeks and once I get my hood straightened out I'll be back on the road. Next summer I'll get my door fixed and a buddy and I are going to repaint the car. I also will be welding a bull bar from chrome moly tubing so I don't have to worry about deer as much in the future. Thanks :]

I've been driving around with the vacuum gauge installed for a few days and here's what I've found (other than the constant roller coaster hills in my area destroy my fuel economy). On a cold start the vacuum seems quite low (13-15 inHG) and it flutters (correlating with a rough idle on cold start) within a range of 1-1.5 inHG. After the engine is at full operating temp, at idle it'll sit quite steadily at 20 inHG. However, my idle has a rhythmic roughness where the vacuum will drop about 1 inHG and it'll flutter slightly more when it drops. The rhythm is about 2 seconds smooth idle then 1 second rough idle, smooth, rough, smooth, rough, etc. My vacuum seems on the low side so I'll get some fuel pressure gauges spliced in and see if advancing my timing to the factory spec of 20 BTDC smooths anything out. Any ideas or thoughts are appreciated. :]