lagwagon

I mentioned that in my second post that I did hear a tell tale loud bang when doing tight corners (I was actually doing u-turns around a boulevard to get that to happen), but I can't actually reach the arm rest when I'm driving or maybe I would've felt it sooner. The driveshaft specialist said he thinks the driveshaft doesn't have enough angle in the joints to stop it from binding up. Maybe it is a combination of motor mounts and rear diff mount being old that did it. This car only has 192,000 kms (120,000 miles). Not unheard of for them to go this early but doesn't seem the norm.

Driveshaft specialist has balanced the shaft, it wasn’t bent but was out of balance, and has ordered new u joints. Sounds like all the bearing caps were locked up pretty good. He’ll need to rebalance after the u joints are replaced. Hopefully I get the car back tomorrow and everything is running smoothly.

Replaced the brake light bulbs in the jdm housings on my 2005. And figured out that my OBD2 port doesn't work with my scanner, but still works fine with my accessport. It does provide power to the scanner but not communication to the ecu, this should be fun.

Quick update: had the dirty wheel rebalanced after cleaning, rotated the tires, set pressure. No changes. Plugged in the innova 3130 and it obviously doesn’t display the same data as an AP. It looks like it only displays O2 voltage and no AF learning. It shows some sort of stft and ltft which I can only assume are af correction 1 and 3 but the values don’t match up with what I would expect to see. Front O2 I s varying from about 2.6 to about 2.75 V at idle. Haven’t had a chance to drive it see what’s happening. I can do that today when I drop it off to have the prop shaft inspected. The vibration is worst from 1800 to 2300 rpm (spikes at 2300), then settles down and continues throughout the rev range. I’m thinking it might be a combination of old O2 sensor, trans mount and prop shaft and possibly the rebooted cv.

I have all Sylvania LED bulbs in my tails from CT. Haven't had any fail yet but in the last month I've had two Morimoto x-vf switchback bulbs fail. One actually fell apart, luckily in the driver's side headlight so I was able to fish it out with a ball of tape on my mechanic's magnet. I need to keep my eye on those Sylvanias now too.

Thanks for the help guys. I have a V2 AP on my 2005 but nothing on my 2007. I do have an ok scanner (Innova brand, about 18 years old now but still works, used it when tuning my old turbo neon). My mechanic has done a few test drives and logged data while it is shuddering and said nothing appears wrong from the data. I can log with my scan tool, but only one parameter at a time plots on the graph and I would need to find my rs232 cable and adapter and see if I can get it to run on a USB 3.0 port. I do have an older computer to connect to the AP but it is pretty flaky and I haven't run that adapter on it either. It won't display the logged data on the scan tool screen. I also haven't had any luck downloading logged data from the AP (may be a problem with the AP itself).

No, its all the way through the rev range from about 1500 rpm and up. If I am holding speed consistently on the highway (no major hills) there is a vibration (which could be wheel balance) but not the major shuddering that happens during acceleration. I have read some threads on the surging issue but didn't see a consistent resolution, plugs, injectors, coils, fuel pump, tgv issues etc. Do you have a link to a good thread with something conclusive?

When you say shimmy you mean the front end feels like it moves side to side? Mine feels more like misfiring would feel when accelerating. When it’s really bad it is almost what I would call bucking, but the engine is still accelerating smoothly. I don’t feel anything through the steering wheel and the wheel doesn’t shake. Car tracks well with no tramlining. It actually has a similar wear pattern on the outside of one brake disk as you had on the inside, on the front left.

Update: took it to the dealer and they diagnosed it as front wheels out of balance (more on this further down). They rebalanced the wheels and said the shudder was gone. Two blocks down the road I could tell it wasn’t gone. I took it back and they then diagnosed it as a worn rear axle. They replaced the LR axle and said the shudder was gone. Two blocks down the road I could tell it wasn’t gone. I swapped the wheels out tonight to see if it was a tire problem or possibly bent wheel. With the winter wheels it was actually worse. The kicker was the LF wheel that they said was an ounce out of balance was coated thickly in axle grease and they didn’t think to clean it off before rebalancing the wheel, WTF? There was probably, oh, about an ounce of grease in there! And not evenly coated. Anyways, I did some tight corners, both directions, and got popping, both directions, and some telltale bangs from the center console area, and the shudder is getting worse. I am now pretty sure it’s the drive shaft, and possibly also a CV (RF was rebuilt from a used oem, RR is original AFAIK). Oh yeah, the dealer took the muffler off the hanger and didn’t want to pop it back on for me before I took the car, they said I’d need to leave it with them, again, WTF? I did convince them to come out and pop it back on the hanger, in the parking lot but it was like pulling teeth.

I think that is who I ordered my tailights from and I believe it was actual Japan Direct Japanese. I ended up paying less (and free shipping) on eBay than from their store website, not sure how they can make money doing that unless their markup is 200%. EDIT: I also took my 2005 on a 350 km road trip yesterday, all was good but that heat shield rattle...hooollyyy that is annoying. Time for some cutting or aftermarket headers, and up pipe, and down pipe and...

I pulled a broken Morimoto switchback turn signal out of my headlight. One piece came out with a bent zip tie taped to my mechanics magnet, the other piece came out with a ball of duct tape on the end of the magnet. Happy it came out, is under warranty and I didn't have the take the front end apart to get it out, unhappy I had to fish it out at all.

So my 2007 GT 5eat has been having some issues with shuddering. I handed it over to my wife in March so I'm not really sure when they started. I had rebuilt OEM axles installed in March and everything seemed good when I gave it to her. Fast forward to July and I drive the car and feel a shudder/vibration during low rpm acceleration. It gets worse on the next drive so I take it in and replace one axle (torn boot, no grease) with another rebuild OEM from Subaru (no new axles available in Canada anymore). That helps out somewhat and shudder is pretty minor when the car is cold and without any load (wife, kids, stuff etc.) The shudder is slowly getting progressively worse so we flush the trans. No debris came out. Fluid was old/slightly burnt but otherwise clean. Not sure if filter was replaced, I'll need to check the work order. No change to the shudder after the flush and it is still progressing. Two weeks after the flush and it is now shuddering during almost all acceleration and vibrating at the same approximate frequency almost all the time. The "all the time" vibration is still pretty minor but noticeable, much more noticeable when the car is warmed up and loaded with weight. Its still minor when cold and/or when only one person is in the car. In cruise, the transmission shifts fine and the tc locks and unlocks fine. There is no change to the vibration/shudder while it is shifting either in auto or manual mode. In neutral at highway speeds, the vibration is still present (I braked from 110 km/hr to a stop). There is a slight vibration in neutral that has been there since I bought the car (2 years ago). Seems typical of auto trannys to me (nothing extreme). All the suspension was replaced in Feb/March other than the steering rack/outer tie-rods, rear upper links and trailing arm front bushing. Everything drove great after it was aligned, which also came it almost dead on spec, not even high or low in spec. Tires are Nokian Entyre 2 with 7/32 all round and no unusual wear patterns. My regular mechanic doesn't think its the transmission or differentials. They think it might be a bent drive shaft or failing u-joints but based on what I've read, that doesn't seem likely. They are also not very sure if that is actually the problem (they aren't Subaru specialists). Its going into the dealership on Monday to see if they can figure it out. Anything I can check into in the mean time, or any thoughts on what it could be?

Circumferential spec on tires is all within 1/4” (6mm). Two tires at 70% and two new will almost certainly be out of spec. It might not be causing the vibration (check suspension bushings) but it will eventually cause problems with the differentials (a/t and m/t) and/or center clutch (a/t).

I’ve had the tail lights off on both my 2005 and 2007 and I don’t remember any differences. They use the same bulbs in the same locations. There might be some minor differences in the moldings but I didn’t notice them. When I did the jdm face lift swap on my 2005 I took the lights off the 2007 and 2005 to compare and make sure I cut the harnesses in the right place.

It was the front driver side hub. I think that axle was rebooted recently (before I bought the car) but I believe the hub is original. I've watched some videos on the replacement and if I had air tools or good battery powered tools I would definitely tackle it myself. I am actually considering buying a compressor and some tools. Its always been a question of how much will I use it and how much would I save over paying somebody to do the work over a period of a couple of years.

I took my car for a drive after new tires were installed and noticed a bit of imbalance around 60 km/h. I remember one of the wheels not sitting too nicely when I installed them two weeks ago (yes, I am really not driving much at all these days). I pulled off the wheel and checked the bore and it had some peened out material in the center of the bore surface. Cleaned that off with a polishing stone and tried again. Wheel still won't sit flat on the hub. Pull it off and check the hub only to find that the centering ring has been bashed pretty good with a hammer. Clean up the bore again and start cleaning up the obvious high spots on the outside of the centering ring on the hub. About 5 rounds of grinding/polishing later and checking using tape to indicate the high spots, the wheel finally sits flat...but only in one position on the hub. Rotate it one lug stud over and its the same story. I ended up testing it out in the position that sits flat and there are no more vibrations up to about 90 km/h (was really only vibrating around 60 so should be ok faster than 90 as well). Never having changed a hub, why would somebody need to bash metal on metal to get it into the knuckle? Wouldn't a piece of wood help cushion the blow? Aren't there drifts for this sort of thing? Mind you, I don't have any service record showing that this hub has been replaced, other hubs yes, but not this one. Maybe pulling the axle out?

Add Silvers to the list. They have different height options like BC’s extreme drop and Feal’s max travel. I’m sure FA, ISC, D2 and others can do that sort of thing as well.

Does the low beam/high beam reflector divider interfere with the projector output? The projector looks slightly hidden behind it. Want to do a retrofit for my BP5?

I'm pretty sure you need to grind those clamps down a bit. Mine are ground down just to get them to fit.

Slapped some JDM forged BBS wheels and new tires on. The wheels are a little rough but they should serve for the summer. If I still like them by Fall, I'll probably have them refinished.

You should still check the alignment when you lower it. Changing the ride height (while still within factory spec) doesn't guarantee that the alignment is still in spec. Usually both toe and camber will need to be adjusted. The rear might not change if all you lower is the front but still get it checked. I'm guessing you want to lower the front to get rid of saggy butt. You might want to consider replacing some rear suspension components (springs, shock mounts, bushings) and consider saggy butt spacers to get the ride height level instead of simply lowering the front. If its for other reasons, disregard.