1987 subaru: dual range

[Barry Donovan]

another 2 weeks.

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time flies when the truck has a/c.
who cares about the "other" vehicle.

blog post #1314

its not daylight , that is lightning at midnight.
Big hit last night, withing 100feet of the subaru. The fire alrms triggered in this 25 unit building.

Gave the subaru a run, fuel is normal, charge. A circuit is still incomplete due to bad battery.
Not sure why this subaru needs june every year. I swapped all fuel system materials, no old rubbers left.
At least it runs in normal numbers.

Was tempted to go to wicked big meet as southern new england has other places to go.

But...
I'd rather the freshly built air conditioning in my 5000 pound truck for 700 mile journeys.

This subaru on a long trip. It needs strong. The frequencies of the ten gear awd alone. Manual steer and no power anything. No A/C.

The last I remember clear roads, I was maybe 5 years old. Things rapidly changed in the 70s...nasty. First edition Cat convertors etc.
I do remember like a boyish dream, a deep breath. A time when windows down was a/c. A time when a hitch hiker could be spotted, and not even unhealthy.

Something big happened, and no one is talking. This subaru is for a past that no one remembers.
The beetle people had a heads up. Engine in back, no sugar fluid cooling the engine or eating your meal for you.

This subaru is the blind devil, the tease of clean and economical. It is the world today.

the journal is so large now, I donot know what is public worthy.
I'll get to that chore some day.
Need a lot of quiet time.

It was quieter near the airport in my 1.5 inch walled hut at 7 feet wide in a mobile home park.
out here in the woods is lost dreams making noise, brain disorders down to doppamine slamming cabinets and doors.

Bacon all cooked with bad eggs, the bacon is still good.
I am going to have to move yet again.

with the beetle thought,
found this incredible one.

my subaru is very close to all set for dual turbo... I want the cheap 400 dollar ms1 without ignition control.. save that for msd 6530.

Injection bungs in place, it is simply very close to doing something outrageous.
if they made 192hp in 1986.. what would today do?
just the modern ramp alone would sustain that for days.

optical ignition is endless.
hardly a daydream. I'll surprise instead of make a journal for the next build.

[Barry Donovan]

why would this video be here..

speaking of tell all.
the right bank runs so lean with all years of all makes of camshafts available..

I left the two intake as solid on passenger side.

all else is hydraulic.
they did not mention some designs act as little oil pumps.(most do)

on the subaru, the dramatic valve ending is passenger exhaust. Leaving two cold intake as solid forces more to the exhaust lift..which is always exchaning like a little pump as hydraulic.

my natural draft subaru secret. 2 problems fixed , one solid lifter.

of course dual bank monitoring, advanced obd2 and multiport... hydraulic is the real world for all cylinders.
and when engine is cold, the hydraulic has patience to wait silently for proper oil temps.
I lived it with subaru engines.
v8 is even more dramatic...but does not need to play games with mismatched lift.Although there is a secret for some cam makers.

what they did not mention is the hammering of more than lifters.
it can take out anything it wants to eventually.
oil pump, bearings.. disty...even the block lifter holes.
anything that spins around or moves up and down.
not sure why they like solid.
rather bizarre.

living 1320 feet at a time is a plague.

[Barry Donovan]

ej16

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ej 16 is the 5 main bearing with injection, and 1.6 liters.
america does not get this one.

the video is made by
subaruLT
He is another one I have been aware of for almost 10 years.
what he did with subarus..
fabrication, engine workings.

took my own out today, it has been sitting in heet (pun) to clean up some gas.
seems the oldest rubber chain is finally gone.
my subaru now sounds like a throaty beetle.

timing ramp very gentle, very retarded.. it may be ready to go back to even more animal.
that made my year today.
this was a very risky build on extinct one of a kind heads.

this photo..
the focus is the chain. not the subaru.
the camera is teaching me something every time I use it.
Easy to fathom award winning people out there.
the dslr stuff needs skills...and when to do not so obvious things.


A longer run revealed this is not ready yet. Every once and awhile an incredible sound and stoich correct.
most of the time it isn't.

battery is shot on the ground side.

it is fun to pull in to a gas station and request 9 dollars...
120 miles later ask for the same.

I drove to lincoln, where there is one car in the dunkin donuts.
the 1 employee.

the mill is buttoned up, grass already invading the road that carried millions of tons.
It is scary. Like detroit..
people hanging onto the nice places that big business built, but it must have to fade away.

I thought of the times my dad would visit in his rig. We always lived in a quiet place with my mom. Southern new england.
We could hear him coming, we could hear him leave, long time. He'd be gone a long time too. Sometimes years.
Back to silence. I'd rather the noise of business sometimes.
A wise face, looking too old for his age. Words were few, he was nothing but action for days at a time on the road.

I wonder how many lincoln people feel bad like that.
I'd move on like a trucker that knows...
keep on trucking.

there is no subarus like mine. No one cares to look at it either.
I did see many old pickups, in the years of mine.
welds, some looking good.

I bet they laugh at frame chores like I do.
Even when there was money.. this place has an ethics. It is different.
I learned from it when I was young.
I'll take it with me, wherever I go.

I joked to call the subaru the future.
maybe it was derived from lincoln maine...as if it was the whole country and economy.
I know better.. but it is strange how long I hung on to car I hated.

this is what happens to roads less travelled.
it aint so bad.

there is a bigger one not far off. All roads lead to another one.

[Barry Donovan]

efi plans

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ebay ECM.. optional ignition control. I should go for the full control. this thing can kill a 750CCA as it is.(may sell my 400 dollar msd 6530 soon)
need 1 more o2 sensor
I have installed, some of it sitting dead to the carb runtime:
map sensor,
coolant sensor
injection manifold, injectors.
15 psi fuel (1985 multiport injection)
dual bank exhaust for dual o2, (split injector feed like obd2)
hall effect disty (genius.. also 1985)

installing one o2 and tps..
I want to hack the rochestor carb to be a throttle body, hide the tps in the float bowl on the needle mechanism.
43mm throttle already...(speed the 280cfm draft up for natural 10 to 1).
it really is that simple.

I do not want the maf version. let it ride map and hard path.


I was watching this go kart video, have been since the first build with carb.

blew my mind. Even the clutch rheostats its way to super.. in a hurry.
just watch the boosted before injection videos.

this one showed up today in my swamped you tube list (vid was made in april).It seems the right bank still has problems.
30 years later..the kids think they got something huge there.

something funny...the knock sensor has been in the same spot since 1985.

[Barry Donovan]

a wicked big meet video.
I don't believe I will ever go to one.

it is not like chevy and all american..
all years have a knowledgeable clan.

my subaru and I go alone.

[Barry Donovan]

inspecting steel

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first weld was 2007, a rear quarter.
it needs another one, as they both died again 5 years later. One is stainless steel already, stopped in time. This routine is not stoppable..behind rear tires. This subaru is an animal with the IRS keeping its footing at all angles and strains and bumps.
Quite a switch to get out of the truck into this.

I'd much rather my truck.

I also forgot about hydrogen bubbles in the summer needing to get out of the coolant. The over bottle is in place and burping of course. little tiny perculator. This never stops. Aluminum in contact with h2o creates it. First real summer day at 82F since... long time ago. Subarus and maine are so unlikely..and there is that LL bean story.
strange flip on truth.
Found one small vacuum leak on a tube, exactly in a way to bother map sensor tug. Got that filled in.

I have no clue how I went from 1997 to 2015 with this one model era of subaru.
It even gives chest pain, onset of summer months. That is the gas leaving the alloy.

Sad to be bitter, the fuel mileage for power returned is sweet.

I turned fuel way down in a panic last summer.. 2 summers ago, because there was a chunk of debris stuck in my avatar.
As math plays out, this should need 11-12 psi on the full return line system. Turned that back up today, added permanent fuel psi gauge.The small fuel lines do not bother it much, as this engine is so small.. the AFR gauge verifies that stoich happens. The old rochester ended up using the same pressure as factory, times 2... for the return.

[Barry Donovan]

suby in the river!

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animals take a similar path, and it is easy to find sometimes.



this was my favorite sitting spot , me and my subaru..the same ramp, when i lived in brewer maine.
I never did leave it there for the tide to come and drown it.




the 395 bridge down river from here, where it was struck by lightning, had a subaru burn to the ground halfway across.

the house I was living at to make this ramp close by also burned down, and there was victims.
if a car was an animal...
it too would see what survives and dies.

my subaru would have "ptsd".

this song, it is stuck in my head.

[Barry Donovan]

journal post #1316

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got a good run in today. milo to winterport, to brewer, back home.
35+ mpg.

the battery is near shot completely.
will get to that sooner than later.

a shot of rain on the way home, lucky wipers worked. this took power from the engine, but at least they worked.
not sure where the crack is internally for battery, I am guessing it is running on 200cca or something silly.

I also showed the car to a subaru fan of the 2.2 outback wagon sport..
treat these all the same..
mind boggling is a real 35+ mpg.
the battery is very very bad, not going to go out with it again like this.
needs the bump to 750cca while I am at it.
the AFR guage and MSD is extras enough to leave the original numbers behind.
these were so smalled, 450cca or less ran them with a 50amp alternator.

I know its old now, more than several looking it over.
I could have guessed this would happen.

A cool thing I noticed was the eye opener response to the dual range, the outback driver never saw one.
funny old subaru.

[Barry Donovan]

natural mpfi passenger side head

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found this on ebay. I'd rather the turbo passenger head as natural..but this is interesting.
only found in the "XT"

dual port,untapped coolant for turbo line.

I could say in subaru language , I built an XT engine out of an RX to put in my GL

I also did something spam like, as I was accepted for some ebay partner program. I do not have an audience, or logos or banners..but signed up anyway.
Took less than a minute. Simply a logo that was aimed my way, so I clicked it.
This year is 15 years with ebay..
I use ebay for a lot of subaru stuff, all my computing, video, photo, and now my truck.
I remember subaru stuff being predominate so I am making a banner for my private journal.
No one sees it, but it is there.
I may let that go public some day.

meanwhile, the battery went to the point of losing ignition yesterday.
unhooked it. Won't be driven until a new one.
Taking my time.

This is also a scenario this week to be able to at least witness the landspeed runs at loring. Records still show no G class.
might check it out for myself.
Thus far, this forecast is way off.
the summer is outright cold.
Today was a quickstab at 87.. maybe an hour, and the wind never stopped, from the east.
the east is a frigid ocean here.



Thinking back to the last time, was 2001 and/or 2.. and that coincides with solar minimum setting in.
Frost in august it was.

The truck is getting its right rear cab corner buttoned up this weekend, final welds.
Today was nice to kick in the monster air conditioning for a time, but certainly not deadly hot.

The high heat summers is genuine 90s in the shade, dead clam, crispy trees..
and the highest temp I saw at midnight was 81, just before the hurricane came crashing through.

never enough of them. I wish we'd get 5 a year.

An odd thought for once young getting older. I mentioned showing the old subaru to my nieces boyfriend, as he drives one. It occurred to me, my brother took a photo, ten years ago.. his daughter was a little girl sitting in the back...barely looking over the tiny height of the tiny doors to look outside. Today she is in thoughts of college/school and love and adulthood on its way.
Even if you are not sure why people hang onto stuff... everything changes around it. Something to remember, start with respect first.


edit:
proof read the dead clam.

a hot summer in maine is dead clams and crispy trees.
supposed to say "calm"

[Barry Donovan]

doug demuro on maine.
great vid.

I never assume myself "mainah".
I guess it is in that way, I became one.

They do not stop at world standards of things failing prebuilt. That is my love of this place. I fell right in.
A lot of sayings beyond memory.

"God is weld's quench". No doubt my favorite.

[Barry Donovan]

offer on the subaru

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A guy pulled in the lot while I had the truck and subaru open. the painting chores.

He asked if I wanted to sell, and assumed it to be my truck.
I rambled on for some time before he said, "I meant the subaru."

That was an eye opener.
I think I lost him after dual port, optical disty and a digital ignition control that uses a lap top.

He said he was from alaska, and looks identical to a crew chief I knew in tech school decades ago...also from alaska.
Blew my mind for a moment.
Even had the same teeth problems.
I never forget faces.
I told him the story of my subaru being titled to an island off the coast of alaska.


He does all his own work too, said to stop by and get a look at the chevy venture he keeps going.
I am assuming he just wants to trade to have something different.

I may go check it out..
I have not had the full reward of the subaru yet. Don't want to part with my 5k pile of stuff.
Needs the big new battery. I delay in summer times for important things.
Antique registration has rules, and driving whenever I want is not allowed.

I went for a cool walk, just happened to hear the truck let out a creak to the 55F , clear skies and vivid full moon.
The depth of black gobbles it up down low, I thought of my monte carlo.

A gothic old tough one.

Assuming people sucks, I could never run from myself.
The subaru was quite a stretch for me.
Realizing size is not the real win, among other things.. self balance etc.
My attempt at nerd is my subaru...
and it still has ten gears like on old chevy AWD. Similar lever.

This week I have a first meeting about something I babble about...veterans stuff.
A few "ifs" take place, I am high tailing it out of here..
the subaru will indeed have to go.


Patience.
With that said, I'd put my subaru in back of my truck before selling.

hold my little kenworth, watch this:

Whenever STI does something, I admit I feel it.
I have their first engine...and since 97, where there was no manuals, it was like having a common wavelength of a crew chief in a team, an imaginary friend helping me along.

It is my weirdness. Subaru is like a fighter behind a fence. People are left to make up their own facts.
Congrats on another record.
I don't need to babble the handling traits.. its all there in the video.

The only contender remotely close would be a porsche cayman, and that is 6 cyls, and 2wd...engine behind you.
subaru is a king at something.

[Barry Donovan]

6 weeks sitting

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There is something about 2016 and this subaru.
Not a single set of eyeballs has not stared at me going by in the other direction.
maybe I should stop doing 80.

made another post for the simple subaru blog too.


6 weeks sitting..

..According to last post anyway.
got it up and running. Started right up.
The way I worked electric is the ignition is the last thing to fail upon battery cracking.

So, that is what I ran on. Fuel pump is a close second place.. all on the one big important wire. The rest is my doing for fuse panel underhood, that is all factory.
A new battery in this will be very impressive.

My brother went to north dakota, it would fill my pride to drive my subaru from maine.

It is indeed that healthy. Gotta use it more often.
This cruises at 75 easier than my truck, rather comical. the truck borders 300horses. The little ea82 and that slippery crank is always bigger than most choose to forget.

will post again when new battery is installed.

Time away reveals this car made me stay weak in my unique sickness.
My mind is sharp to analyze the whole thing in the palm of my hand, quickly today.
The truck saved my weird ass.

Unhooking battery on this one for the past 6 weeks, I am going to make a habit of it. It let go of something. Seems very natural now.
The new battery, will make it special.
8 amps will be drawn by msd for 8k rpm.
800cca with all accessories off will work.
So, it needs some special think to add a big giant expensive one to fit in its spot...
else, rpms will have to stay down.

This one at any rpms is an ear candy. Really fun.
Comically, the timing curve being so flat has had the most power. The big intake allows this engine to climb itself.
Engine build is finally seated.
A funny thought is the pressure of real battery, and adding a fast ramp to the MSD. I am in for a surprise. Will be sure to get that ride on a good video.

two new tires under my bed, the non bent peugeot rim sits in the back.. those have to get done to get back to smooth as glass.
other than that..
tack weld one of the seat latches, and maybe make the ends of rear end tube pretty. The tube is in a PSI very much unkown to subaru. It owns the body, rather than the body owning it like it used to.

This reversal is rally car grumbles until warm.. subaru 4x4 users know what I mean.
Suspension is nice and soft.
In nice weather like maine august, cool september.. I could enjoy a crosscountry ride.

here is a unique boxer that showed up random on my you tube.
the microphone is terrible..but what microphone has ever gotten a boxer correct anyway.

I'd call this bangshifty...but it is up to the ranks above.

[Barry Donovan]

boxer of the day

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aside from the car is narration. Very good video.

in the sense of man, nothing is faked.
it is attacked the most,
it is worked the most,
it is killed the most.
I still have daydreams, if all I have done came together, in a place that feeds ingredients instead of burning bare bones necessity...
it is not all a daydream..
Some people actually get fed.
A video is the past to most.
only a select few see the thread of time ahead.

I must be getting older, my time.
I pour a cup of coffee, and sometimes there is grounds in it.
I wait for it to settle...it always sinks.

[Barry Donovan]

sticky doors

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This is first I have unhooked the battery for this long.
Tail gate stuck, needed lube at latch..after crawling into the back and opening it from inside. Knowing this car inside and out. Then the rear door was like opening an old barn.

wd40, lock it back up. I am wondering where my welding goes now... in ten years it has never sat this long.
Great candidate to come out of nowhere...it tightens as it sits. No juice.

Funny enough, there is a whiff of my dad's garage, he used d-con years ago. My car still smells like it. That was from january 2015 - engine build. No critters is a bonus, but I am freakishly allergic on just one whiff.

let it go back to nature. Been a long road for the tiny car. 30 year mark, not far off.
12/86 manufacture. The last carbed subaru in the usa...I had one from june 87, also carbed, but that had an attempt at fuel metering electronically.
This one is like american 1960s.

Big rain for this place on the way.. but it seems an overestimated forecast. Good for it.
I have faded away from the desperation that kept me in this generation of subarus. I only need to see it and sit inside to remember.
meanwhile, in another realm turning 20... the obd2 gmc is shining. I watched a video where even a yuppie used his 96 mustang as a pristine example of buffing the paint and waxing, a lengthy how-to with pride.

this subaru never got a lot things. Respect was one of them. 20 years old was just another hard time at state inspections, like day one.
Antique status is more than a lemon car thing to get away with...no more inspectons. Some don't even know how these models got allowed in the usa...way back then as brand new.
lucky old wagon.
I think of this subaru as the dawn of the internet.
I had an ad in 1998 for my first one.
From there on out, a strange ride. I was hurled into some media based realm, before you tube began. Ideas were churning....some actually succeeded.

I do not boast of videography.. but sure caught on to some things.I have a nature...and even that reels in time. I kept pioneering stuff in realtime... I knew mobster stuff would take over - millions of people just like me.

I'll keep going random. Can't nail me down that way.
I remember when that adsense stuff disabled claiming invalid click activity. I got 50000 views in one day for a retarded video.. no clue how it kept happening.
I won't say which one it was.
my tornado video is more than half million.

the net is so young, I even found the color of gold...after making it.
This subaru, to stay robotic, no people.. as at the heart of it all.

I'll keep using it for my imaginative ideas. analogous.
This month, ten years ago... my very first video.

An 84hp subaru loyale rowing the gears.

[Barry Donovan]

battery!

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I was reading other threads.. i do not feel upset for ignoring this project for more than a month at a time.

I recently went to Cooperstown new york in a 2015 chrysler 200. Drove several hundred miles of it. Jackhammering like a 1983 escort on the highway... they did not fix my "torque foot ability" even with the D9 top gear giving it 90mph and 2k rpm..
I make a jackhammer out of an inline four. Don't ask me how.
I can't answer it.

the reason I hated every inline four since my time started with a chevette, 3 ford escorts, and at the helm of a rabbit diesel, and nissan diesel..
all realms in other words.
I hate the jackhammers... tall gears, short gears..any gears at all.

the 32-34mpg in recent trips, including today driving my neighbors saturn ion to the veterans hospital..
212 miles.


I thought of this little subaru and my recent year long ignorance. A fresh motor sitting in the engine bay...
and the reason I kept it: The balance.
This will take any throttle setting and sound like a little locomotive.
It felt good to drive the 40k miles I got on just this one..

I am taking my truck battery with screw in side studs, converting it to posts and mounting terminals in a way the subaru hood with 3 feet of snow on it won't short everything..
and then giving my truck a new battery instead of the subaru.
This will prove my theory..
the word "subaru" and "1987" gets a pansyass battery that should not be in the market at all...every time I go to get one.
The good truck battery and good brand will prove it.. I am certain of it.

I have not heard this run yet with real battery power, the new engine, or timing ramps.. fuel settings.
This usually smokes the home made underhood panel for a whole minute before getting the runtime.
hence the heatsink custom build...
New battery routine..newer engine.

Will post how it goes.

I am enthused by the long trips in the modern little cars.
Nothing like a 3 main boxer.

Seeing the tropical troughs climbing in .. I gave this a last runtime on the bad battery today. I forgot I built this to freight the back. Front honda civic springs, progressive. Rides nice with the welder and generator, peugeot wheel with tire on.. all in the hatchback. The static pressure of new battery, going to leave all that in until I know it is ready on the new one.

The 38mpg... really playing my mind. This coming month is my favorite to drive this around.


$8.95 on ebay. A lead post to screw post convertor.

measured up the battery in the truck and the max for the subarus dimensions.
it will drop right in, 1/2 shorter on the length...same everywhere it was.

725cca.
when these arrive, I'll go get a new battery for the truck, and give the old one to the subaru.
I am temped to go exactly back to 600cca for the truck. That is factory claim on manual tranny.
That would be something...
The LED lamps alone is a big trick on lowering amps.

the subaru needed more than the truck.
in fact my subaru alternator is 140 amp, the truck is 100.
the 1996 gmc really is a modern think.

This swap should bring the subaru to life, as normal.
A riddle:
I will set max rpm to 7250.