I dunno, I just cringe when I see people do work to like 1 cylinder or 1 side of the engine when gaskets and seals are so cheap these days and an n/a sohc subaru engine is so easy to work on

 

Good point. I too cringe that I didn't do the damn headgaskets before dropping in the motor, ESPECIALLY after looking up the replacement procedure for the SOHC. You don't even have to pull the cams or cam gears

I've got some thinking to do I guess.

 

Yeah dude, its super easy. And headgaskets on older ej's is a well known/common problem with high mileage

 

This motor was actually from an 2006 2.5i, which "should" have the revised headgaskets. The motor also supposedly had 70k on it, which is why i didn't touch the headgaskets.

I mean this thing was on the stock timing belt, and that belt had plenty of life on it. Also stock clutch, which had tons of meat on it still. I'm not starting to think it was in a wreck, destroyed the radiator, and sat idling for a while and overheated or something. I don't know :(

Like i said though, live and learn.

 

:( Hope it works out dude!

 

Thanks! I don't have a machine shop that will deck engine heads for a reasonable price locally here, but I came across this:

DIY Head Resurfacing... or "Post-apocalyptic machine shop techniques!" - Old Gen.: 80's GL/DL/XT/Loyales... - Ultimate Subaru Message Board

I've got a good 5/16th piece of glass and I'm thinking about setting up this rig to do my heads. What do you guys think?

Looks like this would work well with subie heads, motorcycle heads, turbo flanges, etc. but not so much a standard I4 head due to the size.

 

Its possible. I know because I've successfully done it before (shhhhhh don't tell anyone)

Be very careful though. And check that head with a feeler and straight edge like a bajillion times after you're done.

 

Okay, just got back from the shop playing with the scoob and I'm at a loss.

When I start the thing, it DEVOURS oil. Like, if i started it for 20 seconds the garage would be completely smoked out.

I proceeded to do a leakdown test, with less than 15% leak on all 4 cylinders on a dead cold motor. The only air escaping could be heard from the throttle body and the oil fill cap (gurgling noise).

So to me, those are damn good leakdown results for an old dead cold subie motor. I checked the radiator and no bubbles, etc. when the cylinders were pressurized.

So good leakdown, tons of smoke = bad oil control rings? WTF else could it be? I'm going to pull the motor and see what else I can find later this week.

 

Man I wish I could help. I only know TDI diesel engines well. Finding and squashing leaks is my biggest pet peeve.

 

subies are known for melting piston ring lands, but that's more on the turbo ones

 

Yeah, I thought the leakdown test would tell me something for sure. At a loss now until I tear it apart at least.

 

Well its not machined, but its certainly better than Billy-Bob using the belt sander at the local hot rod shop.

 

Now you have absolutely zero reason to half *** things. Tear it apart, put it back together properly with good parts and enjoy an awesome dd for the next 200k miles

 

When you're right, you're right. Looking into rebuild kits now. I'll get some picture updates for you guys soon.

thanks for the advice and whatnot as always.

 

Just ask, WWJD, and then scale it down about 50%
(what would Jeff do)

 

you're tempting me to pick this up and be DD buddies hahaha

99 Subaru Forester s all wheel drive

 

DO IT. I was amazingly surprised with the torque this thing had for the 20 minutes it was running decently

Also, another point of info, did a compression test too. As you know the leakdown test was pretty much equal on all 4, the compression test shows otherwise.

Compression shows the pass side (one i suspected HG issues with) is 160ish PSI on both, drivers side 130ish PSI on both. Again, cold motor. I'm thinking the oil might be leaking into the pass side cylinders and bumping compression - but that's all speculation still.

I started the motor again, and it obviously is oil that is burning. Blue, smells terrible, etc.

It will likely be a quick rebuild, but I can't get the idea out of my head of dropping in some STI internals into my ej251 block for boooooost.

The motor would be cheap to build, but getting the car setup for turbo power would be the expensive part. ECU, turbo parts, yada yada. Plus i love that na reliability for long trips.

 

Building addons for an STI powerplant is $$$$. My dad built his STI up to 400 hp and it got expensive fast.

And that was starting with the STI drivetrain!

 

Yip, n/a subie **** is $$ even. Awesome machines though.

 

Have not been playing with the miata, but here's the scoob updates.

The ej253 waiting to drop in, new belt and tensioner.



Success! So I thought at the time at least.


Oh wait this thing sucks. Craigslist shady deal of the century, glad it was a $300 motor.


As you may have read before, the symptoms of this thing were: The car ran for a good 20 mins with bad smoking, but not BAD smoking if you know what i mean. While idling randomly the car became a smokescreen machine, something gave or got worse dramatically. Shut the car down asap when that happened. Let it cool, restarted it and drove it into the garage (30 seconds, max),

Got the motor out today and this thing was drowning in its own fluids. Oil all the way up in the throttle body, intake manifold, POOLED on the intake valves (lol), POOLED in the exhaust and dripped out the muffler (double LOL).



Exhaust ports and header:




Back to square one:



Actually feeling pretty good about this, despite the $300 experiment. Will tear into the engine asap for some gory results. Taking bets on what I will find as of now. I'm going with... oil control ring fuckery. I really don't know how this engine had <15% leakdown on all 4 and ran so well still, lol.