spec.B Dream

I got 2 sets of flare nut wrenches. One with a lifetime warranty from Advance Auto that began rounding the nuts within 10 minutes of use. The next set I bought was Craftsman, and that set completed the job. The problem with these wrenches is that they are relatively small and flimsy compared to the torque required to break free the nuts. That vice grip appears to be a much stronger unit that would allow for much more torque before deforming. And the bleeders on my wife's Outlander are 6 or 7mm and I'd rather not have to buy a whole additional set when one tool would work for all.

Subscribed for review of that Vise-Grip. I damn near destroyed the lines when I put on my ss lines.

Congrats! Mine is due June 19. Let me know if you decide to suck it up and do the gaskets yourself. It really isn't that tough if you have help. Also, I've got an extra TB-IC hose and OEM hose clamp you could borrow if you want to try the dealer route again.

Sounds good. I hope all works out. Let me know if you end up needing assistance. Be sure to say hello if you can make it to one of the Tuesday J-Birds meets.

Paycer, you in or near Omaha? I can help you replace the IMGs, they're like a total of $10. Also, if you need to go back for warranty work, try another dealer. There's a thread on nebraska-subaru.com with several huge rants about a certain local dealer's service department. Again assuming you're in/near Omaha, once you're out of warranty, Russ Garage is the best place to go for any Subaru issues.

The original pics might help, but the gaskets are different on the 05-06, not the rings that the 07-09 have.

Excellent points, especially on cost benefit when parts don't all work together

Thanks. If you can pull together peak boost and timing at peak boost, those numbers could help too. Also, I wouldn't say you 'need' a catback for any turbo. I'm on the stock CBE on a BNR68 with e85, and my car is great. I know I'm leaving some on the table, but it is quick enough, and I haven't been able to find a wife-approved CBE. If you're going to continue scenarios on the stock block and 93 up to 400, I would be interested to see where meth is required.

Have you seen the pipe bomb work in a subaru? It is my understanding that our tpms only worked when the sensors were rotating in the wheel.

RomRaider's Road Dyno. 335whp/385wtq. E85. Stock catback. Notes: RomRaider does not have a setting for the 08 spec.B so we used an STi profile to get the 6 spd. Obviously there are variations that were not accounted for so it is really only good for run-to-run comparisons with my car.

My IDC is mid to upper 80s on e85 with the BNR68 and DW1000cc injectors. Perhaps I should look into this. I have a multi-meter but not much experience electrical trouble-shooting. Can someone walk me through exactly what I need to do to test this?

I was pretty much in your boat. I feel like I can do anything myself, and I'm stubborn. If I had help, I would have been able to get it done in a weekend. I did it partly to save the $ but more so to learn about my car. I'm not looking forward to doing it again, but I'm glad I did it once.

I think I've read this whole thread and didn't see much about the flywheel or bolts. I just finished my clutch install, and the spec.B 6mt and STi use 14mm heads on the flywheel bolts. Another benefit for those doing this swap is you no longer have to worry about the 5mt Torx 50 Plus flywheel bolts.

Thank you so much for this video. I finally got everything bolted back up under the car and got it off jackstands at 12:30 this morning. That was day 5 and 19 hours of work (not including breaks and several runs to the store for the 14mm hex socket, torch, and putty knife/chisel/prybars). 9 of those hours were spent wrestling with the trans/engine connection, 4 to remove and 5 to bolt back up. I am working alone, so it could potentially be faster with an experienced helper, and it will go faster if I ever have to do this again. I just have a couple house left with the top side of the engine, and then I should get to drive her today, day 6. I can't wait. Carpooling with my wife to work sucks. So much for getting this done over my nice long holiday weekend.

Also, knocksum randomly increments during cruising. It drove me crazy at first, but I have now learned to accept it. Your wot pulls are free from knock, so that is good. As long as LearningView is clear you have a healthy running car (from a knock point of view).

Yep. Resetting the ECU (and also every time you start your car) knocksum is reset to 0.

I don't recall seeing FBKC w/o knocksum incrementing. I have seen plenty of ks increments without FBKC/FLKC/IAM. Honestly, I've messed with my car/tune so much that I haven't experienced a seasonal transition without flashing a new map, so I'm not sure if I'm seasonally affected. Hopefully, I can get my final tune in the next few weeks and then stop buying parts so I can start enjoying just driving my car. I've spent way to much time in the garage since I've bought this car. Now that I think of it, I did get a stage 2 tune from Shamar in the summer '09, and it was clear of knock. I stopped logging for a while, and when I did a log in December '09, I was getting 2+ knocks per wot pull. Maybe that was this seasonal shift you're talking about. I started changing parts again throughout 2010, so I can't comment on the resolution to the 'seasonal shift'.

Absolutely time for e85 then. I got one bad tank of gas, and my IAM didn't go back up on its own after two weeks on the next tank. I used LearningView to reset it and it didn't drop after that on the same tune.

Hot Damn, Rob! Crazy helpful posts.

I've never been able to get in touch with Mark when I need to (only tried a couple times). I've found Tom (tank) to be a great guy, good friend, and very responsive (especially at 2am when I have car problems). Good luck with your car. You need to make it to a J-Birds meet one of these days.

Time to switch to e85? Paul, hit up tank from Explicit Motorsports on NSOC. He'll do a road tune with you and walk you through what he's changing. It is great for the newbie tuner looking to learn the tricks of the trade. I've done a few road tune sessions with him now and have learned so much. I could probably tune my car completely by myself now, but he owes me both stage 3 91 and stage 3 e85 tunes, so I'll let him do those. Also, it is great to have someone watching the laptop while doing the pull. I had a line blow off my IM during a pull, and he saw it instantly and told me to let off right away. If he wasn't in the car with me, I might not have let off right away.

For anyone reading this not as familiar, it is worth it to read (and periodically re-read) Bill's explanation of Subaru's knock control strategy on RomRaider. http://www.romraider.com/forum/topic1840.html

Since you are in Hawaii, I doubt you are having this same issue. Are you getting a CEL?

that's what she said

One other thing to consider is whether or not your have any aftermarket wires running through the firewall. On my spec.B, the passthrough grommet most people use to run wires is occupied by the clutch master(?) cylinder. After staring for hours at the driver's side firewall looking for the magic grommet that everyone references on this site, I finally realized that it was occupied and ended up having to run my LC-1 wires through the main wiring harness on the passenger side.