Couple of Newbee Engine Questions

[Wageslave]

Lets start with I a newbee to Subaru's as in I know nothing but I do know enough about engines to do what ever work I need to. I purchased the coupe as a "nearly ready to register" car but nothing could be farther from fact with the work I'm having to redo. That being said.

I removed the upper section of the intake, above the TGV's, to find a coolant leak on top of the engine. Never found the leak so I replace everything, hoses, clamps, o-rings etc. Now I'm reinstalling the intake. I've found one of the wires for the purge control solenoid is broken off at the plug. I have read posts about deleting it to simplify things and terminating the wires but what does "terminate" mean and how do you terminate them. I understand this will throw a CEL which I can remove with my COBB tuner, which I have never used and have no clue how to do this either. There is no evap system to speak of on the car.

I swapped the original fuel lines for a Boomba Racing fuel rail set up which went fine except when I was attaching the vacuum line to the regulator, the end of the regulator with the vacuum attachment spun, is this normal or even ok?

When I was bolting the intake up I found when I went to torque down the two center bolts on the DS of the intake that they were stripped. Without these two bolts will the intake seal or do I need to pull everything back down and start over? The engine was rebuilt at about 50,000 miles, don't know by who but their detail work was not good. Stripped bolt on the turbo coolant tank, loose fasteners everywhere, missing hose coolant clamps.

Any help will be greatly appreciated

[Innkeepr]

To be safe and assure a complete seal, yes I would take them back off. It is an easy enough job to tap new threads into the aluminum and use new corresponding bolts. Just take it slow, I personally wouldn't use a helicoil on aluminum - others may have had success, again my own opinion.
Deleting the purge control like this < is just eliminating possible vacuum leaks

67172

[STiPWRD]

Removing the purge control solenoid just means capping all of the ports on the intake manifold to block air leaks. You can then use your AP to reflash the ECU - what this does is disable the ECU from generating emissions related CELs. You can disable multiple CELs when you do the reflash.

I'd definitely try to repair the threads. If they are stripped beyond repair, an insert should work fine. Otherwise you won't have a great seal at full boost.

The fastest way to tell if your fuel pressure regulator is working properly is by installing a fuel pressure gauge. You could run the engine and monitor AFR. I'm also using boomba rails and will be installing an aftermarket regulator. If you have an aftermarket fuel pump, it may be too much flow for the stock regulator at full power.

Also, I'd suggest downloading the FSM for your engine. It has tons of useful info for rebuilding the motor as well as torque specs.

[Wageslave]

Gentlemen,
Thanks for telling me what I already suspected, repair the threads. I think I'll take it one step further and install threaded studs, they would hold up better than a bolt. Can't believe all the threaded connections on this aluminum engine, VW uses studs or bolts on most of the connections on their aluminum air cooled engines and they hold up well.

Guess I need to read up on the Cobb AP, this computer stuff kind of freaks me out, hate to wind up with a brick for an ECU if I do something wrong.
As far as terminating the wires for the PCS, it just a simple snip off the plug and insulate the wire ends then?

I already have a Service Manual for 02-03 turbo and NA engines, someone on the Forum posted a download link. It has all the torque specs etc. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I'm more worried about the FPR leaking than I am not working properly, the engine ran fine before I started chasing coolant leaks. I didn't notice the vacuum diaphragm housing turning until I tried to reinstall the fuel return line.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to shelve this project\repair for now, the weather has changed and it's time for me to start the paint and body work on my Hudson. It's priority ONE right now. Got three years in it and I can see light at the end of the tunnel.
Thanks again