Replacing the PAS-Pump

I wouldn't say this was a very advanced job, but it does get fiddly working in the confined spaces so the instructions are quite detailed. Also be prepared to contort your arms into horrible positions and make sure you have a socket-set with at least 5 inches of extra reach AS WELL as a 12mm and 14mm open-ended spanner, with as low a profile as possible.

PROCESS:

1. Slide the finger-clip down the rubber-hose that enters the top of the PAS-pump. Slide the hose off the metal-pipe on the pump and plug the end of the hose.

2. Remove the two bolts holding the pulley-cover in place using a 10mm wrench, then loosen the bolt on the right-side alternator bracket using a 12mm wrench a couple of turns so the pulley-cover can be slid out. Turn the pulley-cover over and push the plastic-stud that holds the throttle-cable clip out of its hole.

3. Using a 12mm open-ended spanner, loosen the far nut on the throttle-cable where it sits in the bracket as far as it will go so the cable can be pushed back and lifted out of the bracket. Swivel the cable so it clears the PAS-pump area and fasten it with a cable-tie.

4. Using a 14mm open-ended spanner, loosen the union-bolt that attaches the metal-pipe to the port on the left side of the PAS-pump. Only crack the bolt off a couple of turns so no fluid spills, but the bolt can be removed easily once the pump is no longer fixed in position.

5. Remove the bolt that is threaded through the long adjusting-bolt that moves the alternator up and down. There is no need to slacken the adjusting-bolt - once the holding-bolt is out, the alternator should drop down fully anyway.

6. Lower the alternator until the belt becomes loose enough to be slid off the pulleys.

7. Remove the 3 bolts holding the PAS-pump in place using a 12mm wrench. There are 2 bolts to the front of the pump, beneath the pulley, which are easy to find, but there isn't a lot of room to turn them. The third, to the rear-right of the pump can be accessed from above, but you'll need at least 5" of reach on your ratchet.

8. Now the PAS-pump is free, remove the union-bolt from the pipe on the left side and lift the pump out. It's best to wrap a cloth around the union-bolt when removing the pump to catch any PAS-fluid dropping into the engine, although the pump shouldn't spill a lot anyway. **Plug the end of the metal-pipe.

9. Install the new PAS-pump, replace the pipe/union-bolt and insert the 3 bolts holding it in place.

10. Slide the new belt into position on the 3 pulleys. Lift the alternator until the belt is tense and replace the bolt that holds the adjusting-bolt in place. Now tighten the adjusting belt to the torque mentioned in the Workshop Manual [here] or just until the top stretch of the belt can be moved about 5mm up or down.

11. Replace the rubber return-hose and finger-clip to the top of the PAS-pump.

12. Snip off the cable-tie, swivel the throttle-cable back into its natural position in the bracket and retighten the 12mm nut on the far side.

13. Add PAS-fluid to the pump and allow it drain into the system and air to come out until the fluid reaches the measuring-scale on the cap.

Return of the MAF!! - Sensor Replaced!

It's less than a week since the car died and I've managed to get her up and running again, thanks mainly to a lot of help from the ScoobyNet massive. I really thought it was curtains this time - the car just seemed so poorly on Tuesday, coughing, spluttering and idling so crazily - all the signs of a generally broken engine and I would have never have known where to start diagnosing it without all the help and advice from the forum and its free - diagnostics are renowned for running up huge bills at garages, so the Scooby community really is worth its weight in gold.

With the mechanics at work all pointing to a broken head-gasket, I nearly started the horrible job of ripping the engine apart, but now I've discovered the black-socket trick for reading your own fault-codes, [which I will have to cover properly in its own post soon - I've never seen anything so trick!] I know I won't be needing dodgy opinions in the future. Much better to get info from people who know their Scoobys inside out!

By Friday I'd got in touch with a lad on eBay called BigEd4244 who had a couple of Purple MAFs for sale, and asked me to make him a serious offer. I said £70 and he messaged back to say he'd take £90 and send the unit next-day delivery, so I agreed and sure enough the MAF was waiting for me when I got home on Saturday. Fantastic, helpful service! A new one of these would set me back £289, so mine would have been literally cheap at twice the price.

Fitting it couldn't be easier. It's held in place by one of the bolts that hold the top-hat adaptor for the air-filter, which is fine if you have a cone like me, but getting the bulky, standard air-box off is a bit more involved, so check page 2-7 [W1A1] in the Subaru Workshop manual [download here] if you do have the latter. This process is the same for all Classics after MY97.

PROCESS:

1. Disconnect the battery earth-terminal.

2. Unplug the wiring-socket from the near-side of the MAF-unit by depressing the clip and sliding it out.

3. Remove the air-filter by undoing the jubilee-clip with a screwdriver.

4. Remove the four bolts holding the top-hat adaptor for the filter onto the MAF-unit using a 10mm wrench.

5. Undo the jubilee-clip holding the MAF-unit to the turbo-inlet hose and gently lever the MAF-unit down into the gap below until it breaks free of the rubber-hose.

6. Wipe around the mouth of the rubber-hose and the terminals on the MAF wiring-socket and reverse the previous 5 steps to install the new MAF-unit.

I am now reveling in smooth-running bliss. The engine feels so content through the rev-range now that I can't help wondering if the MAF-sensor has been on its way out for a while, becoming more and more noticeable with the cooler weather. I'm well annoyed that this £90 couldn't have been spent on improving the car elsewhere, but I guess keeping it on the road comes first. Cars eh?

MAF Sensor Trouble, Car Dead!

Oh my days, I've had so little to do on the Scoob lately that I have almost willed something to go horribly wrong. And it has. The MAF [Mass Air-Flow] sensor, which sits just behind the air-filter and gauges the amount of air coming in to the engine so it can prepare the right amount of fuel, looks like its thrown its hand in suddenly and for no good reason. Its a notoriously hard to come by part too and the worst bit is my baby is off the road until its fixed. Oh well, I was hoping when I did get working on the car it would be to upgrade it, but hey ho :)

FAULT FINDING:

The car started juddering on Monday morning at about 2500 revs so I let it warm up and it was fine so I put it down to the cold weather, but the judder has continued to get worse. When the turbo was kicking in the engine was going to pieces. Once the car was warm though and I managed to get past the rev barrier, the turbo was running fine.

I asked around on ScoobyNet and everyone suggested the MAF sensor, but to know for sure I'd need to plug-in and read the fault-code. I don't have a diagnostics-setup to hand myself, but I was amazed to find that Subaru have a built-in workaround for the layman. Under the steering-column, behind the dash, are a couple of black wire-connectors. When they're plugged together and the ignition is turned on the Check Engine light will flash a sequence like morse code. The series of long and short flashes corresponds to an error-code - a seriously cool bit of gadgetry that! I got 2 long and 3 short flashes, which is a code 23 and, of course, the MAF-unit. http://www.scoobypedia.co.uk/index.p...odeDefinitions

At the time that sounded great because I was fearing a blown head-gasket again, but its turning out to be a right bugger to get hold of. There are quite a few types of MAF-unit for the varied Imprezas and you have to get the right one. Each model variant has a corresponding coloured label on the MAF and most people were telling me to buy an Orange one so I had to get mine off to see.

Lucky I checked as it turned to be a purple one! I'd found someone with an Orange one to sell me for £70, but it looks like the Purple is a more elusive chap. ImportCarParts do have a few brand new Subaru's own Purple label MAFs in stock, but you pay for the convenience at £289!!

I've made my plight known on ScoobyNet and it seems the purple MAFs are popping up often enough so we'll have to wait and see what comes up because I just can't afford to shell out another 3 ton on repairs this close to Xmas.

*UPDATE!* 6/11/10 - I have obtained a purple-label MAF unit and it seems to have done the trick thank heavens! Info + How-To is in this post - MAF Sensor Fixed! Phew!

Painting the PAS-Fluid Cooler + stuff

While I had the radiator out I noticed that the cooler for the power-steering fluid was a bit rusty. This is basically a pipe that runs along the front of the radiator, catching the incoming air and cooling the fluid inside, but its obviously caught its fair share of salty crud over the years too.

The pipe is still sound and the cooler still works of course, but I thought it best to give it some fresh protection while I had the chance. I scraped off all the surface rust, gave it a good rub down with emery-cloth and wiped it off with a damp cloth. I then gave it a good, thick coat of black Hammerite. Shame about the hammered finish, I'm sure I had some black Smootherite lying round, but its high-heat resistant none the less and looks a damn sight better.

While I was at it I thought I'd spruce up the battery tie-down as well and finished it off with two nice, shiny new nuts. Every little helps!

New Koyo Alloy Radiator

FAULT FINDING:

I check the coolant level reasonably regularly, but one night the temperature-gauge went upslightly over the norm and after a while kept on rising so I banged the heaters on full blast and managed to limp the car about 2 miles home. Next day I discovered that the coolant had nigh-on disappeared! I filled the system back up with water - it took about 5 litres - to check for system failure and ran the car fortheweek,butthewater level stayed up and no sign of a leak. With no obvious evidence of failure my dad immediately suggested the head-gasket was blown and the coolant must have slowly gone through into the cylinders :( The mechanics at work backed up his claim and said that, because of the boxer-engine with a cylinder-head down either side, it was a nightmare job that needed the lump lifting out to do. I reckon I could do it without lifting the engine, but it would involve removing almost every other item from the engine bay. Rather that though than forking out for a professional to do it - I shudder to think how much that would cost. This could have been a killer blow for the Scoob, but all the other symptoms of a blown head weren't there - no oil in the water, mayonnaise in the oil, loss of power or rough-running.

At this point, with the levels staying up in the header-tank, I had to add coolant to the system to stop it rusting up, so I drained the water out, flushed it out with more water to get rid of any floating crud and re-filled it with a half and half mix of water and 3L of Halford's Advanced engine-coolant, which wasn't cheap at £24 (£7.99 per litre). I then checked the header-tank daily for a week with no change in the level.

Another two weeks of harder driving went by and I checked the coolant again. This time there was a definite drop in the level - the tank was only about a quarter full so I'd definitely hit a problem. Now I spotted the radiator. Its always looked battered but showed no signs of being split - I guess the old leaking coolant couldn't be seen as well as the fresh bright-pink stuff. By the look of the pink patches though, the radiator had burst in three places so it had to be replaced asap and I didn't know whether to be gutted over this or elated that it wasn't the head gasket...

NEW RADIATOR:

I had intended to put an all-alloy racing radiator on at some point, but these cost £130-£300 so to fit one now would kill my chances of buying brakes and stuff any time soon and I've got to move forward with the car. The OEM-spec radiators are all-alloy themselves [although not as chunky obviously and in a mild-steel surround] and less than half the price so it was a no brainer really to get the leak fixed. I scored one for £50 including next-day delivery off a guy called [dilley3613] on eBay - laughing. It's no cheap Chinese piece either, this is made by Koyo in Japan and, although its not quite as sturdy as the original one, its still looks a decent-quality part.

Fitting it was not a hard job at all. You only need a couple of spanners and there's not a lot to undo. There's plenty of space to work in a

nd the radiator lifts out clearly. Our only setback was the two bolts holding the radiator top-mounts were rusted so tight they snapped on the way out so we had to drill through and put a new bolt in with a nut underneath, which took ages. The top-mounts are all that hold the radiator on so check them for rust and WD40 them for about a week in advance to try and avoid the hassle.

PROCESS:

REMOVAL:

1. Jack the car up and remove the front under-tray by the two 10mm bolts on either side and the two 12mm bolts front and back. Lower the car.

2. Remove the radiat

or/header-tank cap to release pressure from the cooling-system.

3. Drain the cooling-system by placing a plastic-tube over the spout of the drain-valve at the bottom left of the back of the radiator and opening the valve. Drain into a clean bucket if you're re-using the coolant as I did and cover it straight afterwards.

4. Disconnect the fan wiring-socket by sliding a screwdriver down the slot in the connector until the two sides can be pulled apart.

5. On MY97/98 model cars the overflow-pipe from the header-tank is a thin metal tube that runs along th

e top of the radiator - later models won't have this. Disconnect

the overflow pipe from the system by removing the finger-clips and sliding off the rubber-hoses at each end.

6. Disconnect the rubber-hose from the overflow pipe at the top-left of the r

adiator by removing the finger-clip and sliding it off.

7. Disconnect the two large hoses from the top-left and bottom-right of the radiator by opening up the jubilee-clips with a flat-screwdriver. They will be sealed on tight, but should wiggle off easily once the seal is broken by pushing against the edge gently with a screwdriv

er. [It's worth putting a tray underneath the lower hose when you disconnect it as there will be a bit of coolant still pooled down there.]

8. Remove the two 12mm bolts holding the radiator top-mounts in place and tilt them up out of the bushes on the radiator.

9. Now the radiator can be tilted back, remove the single 10mm nut holding the PAS-fluid cooler in place. This is the two pipes that run over the radiator and

down the front. There is no need to disconnect the hoses from the PAS-coole

r as it can be tilted well clear for the radiator to be lifted out.

10. Slowly lift out the radiator, working the lower-bushes clear of their mounts.

11. Separate the fan and overflow-pipe from the old radiator by removing the two 10mm bolts at the bottom of the fan and the three 10mm bolts along the pipe at the top of the radiator. Also remove the top and bottom rubber-bushes to be reused.

REFITTING:

12. Bolt the fan and overflow-pipe to the new radiator using a 10mm wrench and re-insert the top two rubber-bushes.

13. Replace the bottom bushes to their mounts on the chassis. [The pins on the radiator are easier to use as a guide than putting the soft bushes on first and having to force them in.]

14. Lower the new radiator into the engine-bay, pushing the guide-pins firmly into the bushes.

15. Bolt the PAS-fluid cooler back into place, with the pipes over the radiator, using a 10mm wrench.

16. Push the pin on each top-mount back down into the bushes on the top of the radiator and replace the two 12mm bolts.

17. Push the two large rubber-hoses onto the new radiator [a tiny bit of washing-up liquid might help] and tightly secure them with the jubilee clips.

18. Push the rubber-hoses back onto the overflow at the top-left of the radiator and either end of the header-tank overflow-pipe. Replace the finger-clips.

19. Refill the system with 6.5 litres of a half water/half coolant mixture using the spout next to the battery or the header-tank and letting it run through.

20. Replace the header-tank cap and the front under-tray. You're done!

Custom Cold-Air Duct + Some Engine Dressing

I've never felt that the standard cold-air feed has been good enough to feed the induction-kit. The OEM duct consists of 4" wide plastic pipe that feeds the airbox, which has two inlets that join in the O/S front-wing - one comes up from a vent somewhere in the front-bumper and another that just catches ambient air at the side of the grille.

The car isn't exactly gasping for air, but with the straight-through exhaust and induction I think its time to rethink the bumper inlet and fit a bigger, more direct duct. For the meantime, I've thrown in an extra temporary duct-hose to aid the air flow a little. I found a nice length of flexi-hose that fits nicely between the cone and a gap in the grille, but its not much more than 1" in diameter so I'm not expecting a great improvement in performance. It's some more air flow none the less.

*EDIT: Just found out that the flexi-pipe is the heater-duct from an LDV Maxus van so we're now rocking British Leyland parts on the Hamamatsu bad boy - how quaint!*

In an attempt to catch more air for the rear of the filter I have started to develop a custom cold-air box around the cone. The exposed filter also has the downside of sucking in hot air from the engine while the car is standing still and the box will also hopefully help to prevent this somewhat - only time will tell.

So far I've installed a back for the box made of plate-aluminium. I got hold of a nice big sheet of the checker-plate and I'm making a few nice bits with it for the front foot-wells and made the piece for the airbox from an off cut. It does look pretty sweet and I've seen alloy used for these before, but ultimately carbon-fibre insulates heat much better so I'll be moving to it, or kevlar, if the design works.

I just cut the plate about 18"x 8" and bent it at a 45° angle halfway down so it curves underneath the cone. I then cut a small metal 90° bracket down to fit and fixed it to the inner-wing using one of the existing wing bolts. I drilled a hole in the top left corner of the plate and attached it to the bracket with a nice yellow allen-head bolt.

Great looks and a nice bit of engine dressing at zero cost! Great, but whether it is functional is yet to be seen. To complete the job I'll add a angled side piece to the right of the plate and some rubber strips to the underside of the bonnet to create a complete air-box.

I've also plenty of checker-plate left over so look out for a host of nice little alloy touches for the interior!

Braided Hose - Engine Dressing

I noticed a metal cooling-pipe at the bottom of the radiator was corroded quite badly and although it is still working fine and will last a while, the whole outside and both collars are well rusted and it looks near impossible to replace, so I thought it might as well be better protected from all the grit, salt and crap coming up through the bumper-grille.

I figured that rather than just painting it, I may as well do a bit of engine dressing while I'm at it so I cut out a piece of stainless-steel braided hose-covering to give the engine a bit more shine and made two collars to fix it to the pipe with ally-tape.

First, I pushed away the flaking surface metal and gave the pipe a rub down with emery cloth, not to the bare metal, but enough to remove most of the surface rust. I then wiped it with a damp cloth and gave the pipe a good, thick coat of Finnigan's No.1 Rust Beater. I wrapped the braided hose-cover around the pipe and looped some aluminium-tape round each end to hold it in place. The stainless-steel cover fits like a glove and should repel most of the grime, hopefully giving the pipe a much longer lifetime.

Prodrive [TSL] Sports-Cat - Emissions Sorted!

The last thing on my MOT list was the exhaust emissions, my total de-cat pipe was desperately in need of a catalytic-converter. A standard one would be £140 new and the right length to meet the joint on my Peco, but joining a pipe of less than 2 inches to a 2.5 inch big-bore would be an interesting challenge. I then found out the OEM system relies on 2 cats, doubling the price and forcing me to buy a whole new back section as the 2-piece Peco would have to be fully removed.

If I was going standard then I'd need a full system. The simplified design of the straight-through Peco replaces 4 OEM parts on my 98 model and tracking one down that looked as if it would fit was a pain. Although I could find used 'full systems'

on eBay for as little as £80, they just didn't seem to be everything I needed [from the back of the turbo, right to the tailpipe]. I'm not sure if the exhaust differs much from year to year on the WRX as most upgrade parts fit all classics, but some sets had both cats under the car, some had one cat on the downpipe and some had no downpipe at all. To guarantee the right fitment I turned to new exhaust suppliers, the cheapest quote being from Kwik-Fit @ £850!, so that was right out.

I'd heard about sports-cats, which fit onto a big-bore system and replace both cats with a single concentrated one, but at around £250-300 they seemed too dear. With the price of an OEM system sky-rocketing though it now seemed like a good idea. The ones in my price range looked pretty naff though to be honest, but I stumbled on a second hand TSL one, highly recommended and used by Prodrive, which was a snip @ £235. Of course there's always the worry that a used cat off eBay might be wrecked, but the guy selling it was none other than scooby-leicester who supplied me with the fuel-filler pipe in April, so I figured it was worth the chance just to keep everything on the car top-notch.

The sports-cat is excellent. Not only did it more than half the emissions figures and pass the MOT, but it's reduced the noise a bit too and got rid of the racing-car crackle and the pops when letting off the gas, which is great news for my neighbors and passengers, even if the car has lost a wee bit of character. The engine seems to be ticking over much more smoothly and evenly too, there's less vibration in the cabin and there even seems to be a little increase in power at low-revs - the car seems peppier anyway and I'm finding myself pulling away in 2nd now at times when I would have reached for first. The only downside to the sports-cat seems to be a loss of power at high-revs. Where the car would scream the entire way up the rev band before, there's a feeling now like something is tugging on the power when you get right to the top. It's not a great loss, the car feels just as quick where it counts and it's a bit more useable day to day now and at least I still have the de-cat front pipe there, ready for trackdays...

FITTING: [This covers replacing the front-pipe of a big-bore system (de-cat to sports-cat or vice versa), although the standard front-pipe (1st cat) is very similar to fit.]

It wasn't a lot of work to fit the sports-cat, just undoing a handful of bolts and the pipe is a doddle to replace, provided you can safely get right underneath the car, as a few of the bolts are too hard to reach otherwise. The exhaust bolts are constantly heating and cooling and they shouldn't have seized on too tight, so the job should be over in 2 hours.

1. Lift the entire front of the car, but don't use axle-stands - you'll need to do some heavy bolt twisting right underneath the car and axle-stands just aren't sturdy enough with both front wheels off the ground. The wheels don't need to come off so use ramps if you have them. Be sure to get the handbrake well on and chock the rear-wheels front and back. [We have no ramps and drove the car onto a couple of large concrete-blocks, which worked really well and large wooden blocks would be just as good, but I wouldn't advise using house-bricks or breeze-blocks.]

2. Get the front under-tray off by removing the two 12mm bolts on the cross-member and front-lip, then the two 10mm bolts on either side.

On my 97/98 model, among others, the Lambda oxygen-sensor is located on the right side of the down-pipe collar, just behind the turbo.

3. Unplug the Lambda sensor from its wiring-connector, by inserting a slim flat-head screwdriver into the sleeve that runs along the bottom of the plastic-clip. Slide the screwdriver down the length of the sleeve until the connector-plug can be slid from the socket.

4. Unscrew the Lambda sensor from the front-pipe collar using a mm open-ended wrench.

5. Remove the 2 large bolts and the 3 guiding-stud nuts that run around the collar and fix the front-pipe to the back of the turbo, using a 14mm wrench [although one of our stud-nuts underneath was a 13mm fit, but I don't think this is standard]. The upper ones are easy enough to get to, though all but the bottom right one can still be accessed, just, from under the bonnet. That last nut can only be reached by lying flat under the car and reaching up into the engine, [quite scary if the nut is hard to budge at first]. The guiding-studs will hold the pipe up when you unfasten it from the centre-pipe so there's no need to leave any of the collar-bolts on to hold it.

6. Remove the 2 long bolts from the bracket that joins the front-pipe to the centre-pipe, halfway down the underside, using a 13mm wrench.

7. Remove the 13mm bolt from the pipe-bracket, just behind the front wheels. The front-pipe should now be free to lift off the studs on the turbo and out under the car.

8. Wipe off around the back of the turbo and the centre-pipe inlet, as well as each end of the new pipe. Give the metal gasket from the back of the turbo a good wipe, apply a little exhaust-sealant paste [we did, but not essential if your gasket is in good nick] and replace it.

9. Lift the new front-pipe up from underneath and replace it over the studs on the turbo. Re-insert the 2 top collar-bolts and tighten them enough so that the pipe moves up to align with the centre-pipe. The gap in the rigid cross-member is a tight fit, so the pipe is confusing to align without guiding it with the collar-bolts.

10. Seat the front-pipe into the centre-pipe and replace the two 13mm bolts onto the bracket. The big-bore system has a resin gasket so no need for sealant, but make sure the bolts are wound tight. Then replace the 13mm bolt to the hanging-bracket behind the front wheels.

11. Replace the 3 nuts onto the collar-studs on the turbo using a 14mm wrench and fully tighten them along with the 2 bolts at the top.

12. Give the Lambda-sensor a quick wipe and screw it back into it's hole on the collar of the new front-pipe using a mm wrench. Plug the sensor wiring-connector back into it's socket and you're done.

Engine Cleaning + Dressing - Part I

I've wanted to bling up the engine bay since the day I brought the car home and finally got prompted to this afternoon as I fixed the under-cladding on the bonnet. It was now hanging by a thread and I don't want to chuck it so decided to stick it back up with some aluminum tape. This is great stuff that can be moulded to the underside of the bonnet and its heat-resistant so it won't come loose sat next to the engine.

I started by cleaning the dirt and grease away from a small patch for the tape to stick to, but soon got carried away and ended up polishing the entire underside of the bonnet. I wiped the whole area down with a damp towel, getting rid of the surface dirt but leaving large oily swirls, so I used a mixture of Carb Cleaner and WD40 to cut the grease and get it shiny. Its now a million miles from the tatty mess it was this morning... though it'll shitty up again before you can blink!

The aluminum-tape also served another useful purpose in properly fixing the grille in place - I ran a strip of it along the back of the grille holding it to the slam panel.

The actual reason I chose this rather than screwing through the broken clips is because I've seen a 'Cooling Panel' from GReddy that bridges this same gap behind the grille.

It's made of carbon-fibre and will set you back £145 from Flat4Online.co.uk! [here if you don't believe me] In their words this "increases the amount of air going through the radiator leading to cooler engine temperatures". I'd argue that mine is even better at doing that and cost sweet FA! [tape filched from work of course] The shiny tape also looks cool so while I was at it I smothered the flaking V-belt cover too! [eat your heart out SpecR XD]

Anyway, what good is all this on a grubby engine? I now began the laborious task of cleaning the mechanical stuff [deeper than I have before] and am impressed with the results!

I first removed all the dirt filler-caps and gave them to my dad, who very kindly bathed them in white-spirit and painstakingly brushed the grease from the detailing - they're now reflecting the flash!

I then used more turps to clean the crud off every pipe, hose, wire and lead, as well as the cam-cover, radiator, intercooler, everything... I then rubbed tyre-dressing into all of the black rubber-hoses to get them looking a bit fresher.

As a finishing touch I took the dump-valve off for a polish, but most importantly to turn it round so the Bailey logo is facing out!

Very surprising that the Demon Tweeks mechanic would fit it like that - unprofessional I think, because any person shallow enough to buy a loud, hissing dump-valve would want to see the logo!

Cleaning the Air Filter

I wouldn't say the engine was suffering too much, but the K&N filter has always looked a bit gunged up so I decided to whip it off and service it, just to tick one more little bit of maintenance off the list.

I unbolted the cone at the jubilee-clip and laid it sideways in a shallow bath of petrol, rotating it every 10 mins. until the entire filter was soaked and the petrol had turned a thick, murky black. I left the cone to dry out and finally stippled three caps of oil over the filter-spines with an old paintbrush. [K&N recommend their own special 'filter-oil' , but my guess is that any light-oil will do just fine, so we used a nice, thin 0-40W engine-oil, sue me.]

As you can see in the pic, the plastic mounting-plate for the cone has cracked all down the left side of the mouth and it took ages to find a suitable angle for the jubilee-clip to hold the cone on tight, but only just. The cold-air feed in the bottom-right of the pic turns away from the air-box and does a 180° turn inside the wing before coming back to the filter. This extra duct is pointless so I'm going to make it much more direct soon.

I'll have to see about replacing the cracked mounting plate, but while I'm at it I might do away with the cliched 57i cone and stick on something more fitting - a HKS Super Power Flow mushroom [http://www.hkseurope.com/intake/spf_reloaded.asp] if I can find a used one cheap enough on eBay, but if I'm spending over £100 just on an air- filter then I'm going BMC carbon-dynamic all the way [http://www.bmcairfilters.com/infoCDA.asp].

Engine Mod List [+ Wishlist!]

I've never really had the inclination to fit performance enhancing parts, being far too worried about the condition of my past engines and concerned about emissions/economy, however practicality is not a big concern when driving an Impreza Turbo! Whacking on power-parts is also par for the course with these motors and, like 99% of similar Scoobs, it has been tweaked a tad...

Existing performance mods :

K&N 57i cone induction-kit. [as this is the cornerstone of any engine bay, I'd love to get something more Japanese looking in the near future]

Bailey EVO dump-valve with Samco blue hose kit. [no pips or chirps here, this is an old skool hisser]

Peco custom-built 3.5" cat-back exhaust system with 4" tailpipe. [custom-built onto the car at Peco HQ in Birkenhead]

This leaves me wondering what to throw on next... it could certainly do with some sort of remap to deal with all the extra air coming and going!

Maybe even new camshafts to give me a much needed burst of torque at low revs...

STi top-mount intercooler?? Or even a bolt-on front-mount kit...

I assume the old spark-plugs have seen better days so I will look into throwing on some NGK Platinum ones @ about £30, or if Im feeling flush some HKS S-series racing-plugs @ £75! :)

Replacing the Fuel Filler-Pipe

There was always a strong smell of petrol at the back of the car, which I put down to the exhaust system, and the petrol gauge worked very poorly, barely moving upwards with £20 in the tank. After a couple of weeks I noticed a giant pool of petrol under the car while filling up and was relieved to find it was only leaking from the feed pipe to the tank while filling up and not the tank itself. It figures, seeing as the bare steel pipe itself passes straight through the open rear wheel-arch!

I got a quote of around £200! from my nearest Scoob service-centre to fit a new pipe so I turned to the forums and found many people quoting similar figures of £180 and £190 even without fitting! eBay was a different story, with used filler-pipes going for as little as £30 in poor condition to £60+ for one as-new. I went for the latter, with a mint example off a Jap WRX @ £58 delivered. The import part differs only from my UK original in having no nozzle adaptor for our fuel-station pumps or inner-flap - it's just an open pipe to the tank.

I wonder how long before the new pipe goes like the original, which was in a sorry state as you can see below. As well as the U-bend leaking petrol, the nozzle had rotted away so much that daylight could be seen through it looking up through the wheel-arch. I take it the problem had been around for some time too - over the years it's been fixed with a welded metal plate, metal body-filler, a rubber-tourniquet, about six different types of tape and pasted in red Hammerite - all without fixing the leak!

The fitting was really not a difficult job, provided you have basic home-garage tools. Apart from a few time consuming snags we were able to get the new pipe on in about 2 hours, making it well worth the money saving!

I couldn't find a how-to-guide for this job online, so I have written this one for Scoobynet:

* The filler-pipe and fitting procedure are exactly the same for ALL models of classic Impreza from 1993-2000. *

REMOVAL:

1. Lift the car and remove the driver's-side rear wheel. [I used a trolley jack and put an axle stand under the trailing arm.] You can see the filler-pipe exposed in the wheel-arch where it passes through the body and snakes down to the fuel tank.

2. Remove the plastic protector from around the filler-pipe by first removing the one or two screws holding it in place using a 10mm wrench. [Subaru provide suitable spanners with the car's toolkit, but some of the screws and clips are quite hard to get to without a socket-set with some reach.]

3. Open the fuel-flap and remove the fuel filler-cap. Remove the three 4mm crosshead screws holding the nozzle of the filler-pipe in place, shown below. [Mine we're seized on so tight that I eventually stripped the screw-heads and had to drill them out. These little screws are made of some remarkably hard steel and I ruined several HSS drill-bits while barely cutting the screws. In the end I bought a HSS-CO bit for £8.99 from my local B&Q, which did the job with plenty of oil - so make sure these screws can be removed before disconnecting anything else!]

4. Squeeze open the finger clip at the top of the vent pipe and slide it down out of the way. Slide and twist the rubber vent hose down off the filler-pipe vent. [Or if it is too badly corroded as mine was, it may be necessary to remove the rubber-pipe from the vent-pipe on the chassis first and retrieve the rubber-hose once the filler-pipe has been removed.]

5. Underneath the car, just as the filler-pipe passes under the rigid cross-member, you should see the start of the rubber-hose connecting it to the fuel tank and the jubilee-clip. Loosen the jubilee-clip using a 10mm wrench and slide it down onto the filler-pipe. Press the edges of the rubber-hose to loosen its seal before the filler-pipe is unfixed. [It is difficult to loosen the jubilee-clip without a socket-set with about 10cm reach. The jubilee-clip is also hard to keep in place when it starts to open, but its awkward to get two hands into the gap and you may need someone else to reach in through the wheel-arch to grip it.]

6. Remove the one or two screws that hold the filler-pipe onto the chassis using a 10mm wrench. The filler-pipe should now be free to move around and held in place only by the rubber-hose joining it to the fuel tank. [Mine only had one screw and the head sheered off so was forced to drill out a new hole in the bracket and insert a 4mm nut and bolt.]

7. Slide the filler-pipe out of the rubber-hose now that the pipe is free to rotate. The pipe’s U-bend retains a cupful of petrol so hold a container below the lower spout to tip the contents into. Lower the filler-pipe until the nozzle is free from the chassis and the filler-pipe can be removed through the wheel-arch.

REFITTING:

Reverse the removal procedure to fit the new filler-pipe.

It is unnecessary to replace the black plastic that surrounds the nozzle of the filler-pipe, although most second-hand pipes I've seen come with one. It contains the opening mechanism for the fuel-flap and a drain-pipe that are both inside the bodywork and very tough to get to so it’s not worth bothering, although it might be worth replacing the steel mounting-plate within the plastic-surround if you get a new one with the pipe.

The new pipe was bare metal, probably good for the remaining life of the car, but I sprayed it with a quick coat of zinc-primer anyway before fitting and rubbed some copper-grease over the main rot point on the base of the U-bend.

I also replaced the three 4mm screws I drilled out from the filler-pipe nozzle with some much milder steel ones, bought for 50p from a small hardware store.

Power Steering Whine / Workshop Manuals

There has always been a whining noise from under the bonnet while turning the car at very low-speed, even though the steering feels fine. I first checked the power-steering fluid level, which was just under the maximum, so with no Hayne's manual available for the Impreza I tracked down some manuals on the internet from a great site called PDFTown. Links below:

MY97-98 Subaru Service Manual - http://pdftown.com/PDF-Subaru-Impreza-1997-1998-Service-Manual.html

I cant find a more detailed Subaru workshop manual for my MY98 car, but there is one for MY99-00 cars and most of the parts and fitting are still identical - http://pdftown.com/Subaru-Impreza-1999-2000-Workshop-Manual.html

All other Subaru manuals are here - http://pdftown.com/Pdf-eBook/Subaru.html

After a bit of research the most optimistic explanation I could find was that the V-belt, which drives the power-steering pump and the alternator, was loose. This is simple enough to tighten up by winding a tensioning-bolt, which I did to the recommended 8mm play in the belt, even though mine is a little cracked and worn. We also fed a little oil into the centre of the power-steering and alternator pulleys and turned the engine over for a while.

This has certainly improved the whine, but it can still be heard inside the car when maneuvering. It could be a failed bearing in either of the pulleys, or the power-steering pump or alternator itself so only time will tell. At least the steering is functioning flawlessly...

MAF Label Colour Guide

MY97/98 UK/Euro - Purple Label

MY97/98 Japan - Orange Label

Will finish soon!