Tlag

It sounds like your rear brakes are sticking. It can be cured by taking the pads out and cleaning the slider mechanism. Grease the rod before putting the caliper back on. I've only ever experienced it on front brakes, but the way you describe it, it sounds like rears.

Yay, Christmas/postman arrived, :) And the contents: Gaskets and heads have been dropped at the machine shop. They are going to fit the work in around other work so it can take up to two weeks. That's fine by me. Over the next two weeks, I won't have a lot of time to work on it anyway, and doing it this way, I'm getting a bit of a discount.

We have booked to go to the states in September. We are going to drive most of old Route 66 and once we get to the west coast, head north on the pacific coast highway to San Francisco. Have to say, I'm really looking forward to it. Also, probably going back to the Nurburgring in May. That's not a holiday though. That's just R&D :)

Those three items: Burning it = blue smoke, Dropping it = oil on the floor under the car and/or car wet with oil Head gaskets= milky, mayonnaise type stuff in the oil filler neck, and oily film in the coolant, Are about all that can happen to oil to make it disappear. Have you got tinted rear windows, would you notice blue smoke over ordinary coloured smoke?

I've gone for the 4032's for exactly that reason. I can't stand piston slap, although it s a different type of sound, every time I hear it, it takes my mind straight to big ends knocking.

Living room time complete. :) Orders placed so I just have to wait for the post for the next few days to see what turns up. Then I can get the heads off to the machine shop. Ooh, getting exciting now To get this moving along, I have ordered some Mahle powerpak pistons, which come with pins and rings. Cosworth head gaskets and ARP head bolt set.

The twin turbo vac system is way over complicated. The simple way is to simply rip it all out and instal the tiny vac system from an Impreza. The twin turbo loom can be very simply converted to single turbo by changing four wires at the ecu. (I have a friendly guru with more knowledge than me on that) The ecu I already have is one that can be readily converted by ESL so that's not a problem.

I've not done one but I have read about a few conversions. Apparently, you can get an adapter plate that mates the subaru engine directly to the VW gearbox. Most of the ones I've heard about are non turbo engines, although I'm sure a turbo version has been done.

You can. Well, you can in a bus anyway. Not sure if you have the room in a beetle.

Well done. Glad to hear it's fixed. If there's one thing I hate working with, it's gearboxes so fair play to you. :)

The standard legacy injectors are 440 which should be ok for the base map. I will need larger ones for the mapping session though. I already have a higher spec fuel pump and am expecting to need a swirl pot/extra pumps when I go to second phase. We'll have to see. It's not that easy finding larger side feed injectors. Converting to top feed may be the way to go, as well as parallel fuel rails. especially as I already have some freshly flowed 660's The SCD should be good for my aims. The problem may be that that my aims get bigger eventually, but I'll cross that bridge much later on :)

It's just the ball joint. You don't need a wishbone

As promised. Next update time :) First some info before news of the work. I've managed to obtain the rotated up and down pipes required to cope with the GT35. I still need an exhaust manifold to suit and a wastegate. I have now decided to do this build in phases. In the first phase, I will build the long motor and configure it to run a single TD series turbo with standard pipework. Second phase, once the I'm happy with the motor pulling good and strong, I will pull the pipework and turbo off and fit the rotated pipes and the GT35. Whatever I do from here on in, I will need to have the ecu sent away and an ESL board fitting to allow mapping. It will come back from ESL with a base map which will simply allow the car to run off boost. It can then be mapped for the TD series turbo and later, the map can be tweeted for the GT. Doing it this way is a win win situation. It means I get the car on the road this spring, all things being equal. It also gives me time to run the engine without putting excess strain on it from the start. It also gives me more time to find the right parts at the right price. So, onwards to today's work. :) Pulled the EJ25 block out of storage and mounted it on the engine stand. It's still wrapped up to protect it for now though. For the eagle eyed amongst you, the black crank is visible which can only mean one thing. It's a nitrided item :) Next, I unwrapped the heads to be stripped down. I needed to remove everything from them so that they can be sent to the machine shop, so here's the first valve coming out. Here's a shot of the mating face of the head, as it is now. So, the next steps will be done from the comfort of the living room. Ordering bits :) I need to order some forged pistons. The block I have has the original subaru ones in, but I'm reliably informed that these particular ones are about at there limits at 350bhp. Once I have made the decision on which pistons, I can then work out which thickness of head gasket to get. Once I have the head gaskets, the heads will go the machine shop and the heads will be machined to suit the block, all internal sharp edges you can see in the picture will be feathered and smoothed to avoid hotspots and then the heads wil be skimmed, polished and ported. Oh, yeah, I think I forgot to mention. This will be a 2.5 bottom end with 2.0 heads, which is why they need so much machine work.

Hi and welcome along. 40mpg!!!! You are just not trying are you? That car should easily be capable of 20mpg :)

Great stuff. Thanks for that. Should have another episode to report on in the next few days too, so good timing. :)

Definitely electrical. Although I'm surprised that no codes have shown up. Going back to basics, you have fuel, you must have air so the next question is sparks. Has the coil pack failed ?

I would think that unless is has an absolute cast iron subaru service history, they won't want to know. Hope I'm wrong.

Those numbers sound ok. The fact that they are so similar means the rings and pistons are in good shape. You are however losing a lot of oil. Take a look under the car at the bottom of the engine and gearbox. My bet is that you will find the underside covered in oil. If the underside of the sump is covered, I would suggest the front crank seal. If the sump is dry, I would suspect the rear crank seal. If the underside is totally dry of oil, it may be a rocker cover gasket ( although they normally just weep and wouldn't leak that much oil in that time scale.

I can almost guarantee thats head gaskets. The little copper flakes are a sign that a previous owner knew about it and threw some of that head gasket fixer stuff in to it. That stuff is only ever a quick and short term fix. (believe it or not, Subaru in Europe actually sell and endorse the stuff). If its still under warranty, they should sort that out, but make absolutely sure they skim the heads when they are off, otherwise the problem will return.

Spur of the moment actions like that are pure instinct for most of us. We just have to hope that like you, our instincts are correct at that precise moment in time. If you had braked instead of accelerated, the outcome could have been a whole lot different. Glad to hear it worked out well for you. The car undoubtedly helped, but the instincts were yours ;)

Sounds like a good project. Don't forget to add pictures as you go :)

Worn diff bushes perhaps, making the diff slide back and forth on acceleration and braking.?

Fuel economy dosnt always follow. My old 2.0 an legacy was about the same as my first twin turbo legacy. May have been something to do with my right foot though :) Seriously though. The pros of a GX: cheaper insurance, Will probably not have been ragged to death Less to go wrong Pros of a wrx/STI: Power, Looks, (personal taste) Power, Tune ability. Cons of wrx/STI: Insurance Fuel Probably has been ragged to death, Money pit, once you start modifying it. It's all down to the budget you have right now and a budget for the future.

Welcome. I doubt you would even get a skyline shell for £500, probably the same for the IS to. I would advise looking for an Impreza sport. A lot have Been made to look like sti's and with plenty around, you should be able to get one at the budget you have. The DCCD system allows you to control power to the front/rear but the models with it are way above your budget. You could go the route of modifying an Impreza to make it totally rear wheel drive, but it's not a cheap mod to do it properly.

I've never been asked that before. Several answers really depending on the actual question. If you are asking if you could fit the gl engine and run it as a gl engine, then the answer is yes but it will give you a lot of issues unless you change the ecu, exhaust and a fair few other bits and pieces, probably the gearbox and diff as well. If you are asking if you could fit it and put all the wrx parts on it, then the answer is no because the head will not have the oil feeds for the turbo. If you are asking if you could just use the short motor and fit your heads and ancillaries to it, then yes you can. I know of one engine that was used in this way. While it ran, it was great, smooth and powerful. However, it didn't last long due to the extra pressures of boost and it not being forged. Whichever of the above applies, it would probably be easier to either repair your own engine or get a replacement engine that came from a turbo car.