legacycentral bbs

Is the battery in good shape? At least 12.5 volts at the battery with the car off, and at least 10 volts during cranking? Also, feeling the fuel hose by hand might not be an adequate test of fuel pressure; are you sure you can feel the difference between 36 psi and 26 psi? I would stick a pressure g...

My stab in the dark: it kind of sounds like it might be the water pump. When the water pump starts to go, you often get overheating at idle. The problem goes away when you're moving or the fans are on because the extra airflow past the radiator masks the problem (and also when you're moving the wate...

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the A/C section of the fuse/relay box pops out; it would have made sense to design it to be modular so they could just omit that part on base-model Legacies. I would take a careful look at the construction of the relay and fuse sockets though; the connections may en...

This isn't what you asked for, but it's worth mentioning that you can convert to a non-power antenna pretty easily and cheaply:

http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=23047

Oh, I see; you're right. I must have just gotten away with it for the compression testing.

As far as I know, there weren't any OEM Sport Sedan fog lights. You have to get them from overseas. That bumper was used on post-facelift turbo models all over the world, and, from what I can tell, was offered with fog lights everywhere in the world except North America.

You can thread the crank pulley bolt down far enough to clamp the sprocket down. After doing a timing belt job I do this so I can do a compression test before reassembling the timing covers and main pulley.

Woah, hallie, good point! I totally missed that! You could install the crank pulley bolt without the crank pulley, though, right?

It wouldn't necessarily be game over -- it's a non-interference engine -- but it would be a mess for sure.

Yikes! 50 miles is a long way to go without an alternator, even if you were able to fully charge the battery. I wouldn't try it. If you have the means to stop every 20 miles and charge the battery up, then you might be able to do it, but in the end your battery will definitely be worse for the wear....

The light blinks on other OBD1 Subarus when an issue is taking place?

The Check Engine light wasn't intended to tell you when the engine is running incorrectly; it's only supposed to tell you when the ECU is having a problem with one of its inputs or outputs. Excessive knock, and the subsequent boost limiting and timing retard, isn't a problem with an input or output.

Yes, I believe you have that all right. And, yes, turbo wagon and turbo sedans have the exact same rear (and front) calipers.

Yeah, I agree with you guys. When I replaced my Legacy with a "new" car, the only choice I really had was a GC/GF Impreza. My 99 GC is simple, which makes both driving it and repairing it a pleasure. You can fix anything you need to fix, and then when you get into it, you're totally connec...

Yeah, to me that seems so wrong! We often refer to the Magnuson-Moss Act when we talk about car modifications, which says that a manufacturer can't deny a warranty claim just because the item in question has aftermarket parts instaleld or has been serviced by a third party. Of course, they still hav...

Was there a period of time (even just an hour or so) when the compressor was knocking but you were still getting some cooling?

Dude, give him some time. He admins the BBS as a service to us, not as a job.

Yeah, R12 does work pretty great. It's just getting harder and more expensive to get ahold of. And all systems do leak at least a little over time.

I can't recall any board members mentioning refilling their systems with Freon, but that doesn't mean nobody does.

What's going wrong with your system?

Retrofitting to R134a is pretty easy to do; I've done it on two of my cars.

Are you looking at some of the hydrocarbon alternatives?

Yeah, ciper, I'm with you. I'm pretty sure the ECU does limit the turbo to wastegate boost when it detects knock. That's one of the mechanisms it uses to cope with someone using the wrong fuel. I don't know about air/fuel ratios coming into play though. I suppose it's possible. When I bought one of ...

The ECU connectors are completely different -- from the ECU wiring perspective, this swap is almost as much work as it would be to swap the EJ22T into a Nissan Sentra. Like Josh says, wIring the EJ22T ECU into the Impreza is a significant amount of work -- you'd either have to adapt the harness at t...

Ha! At first glance, I thought this thread would be about some terrible engine with the engine code H8T3RZ. But, yes, that article's message is an important one. And there's an insidious thing that's happening in the tech world that I fear will soon be making its way into cars too. We run a greater ...

It's possible. I don't know why, but the VSS does seem to influence fuel mixture somehow.

I'm not familiar with OBD1 SVX ECUs in particular, but usually even OBD1 ECUs monitor EGR function because if the valve sticks it can screw up fuel mixtures and prevent a proper idle. That's what the EGR temperature sensor is for. I look back and see you mentioned from the get-go that this was your ...

Yeah, these ECUs really do seem to need a good VSS signal to work right.