nhdiesel Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Hi, new member here, I'm trying to get info for my stepson's girlfriends car. She's blonde (sorry to other blondes, but it applies here...) and apparently for several weeks she's had to add "a little" oil to her car. She had a small leak I guess, most likely cam seal(s), but no problem, when the red oil light would come on, she would add "a quart". Yea. I'm a mechanic...maybe a phone call would have saved her an engine. Well now there are internal things on the outside of the engine (the way I summed it up to her). And when I looked up a used engine, apparently the interchange books show that it HAS to be a 2000 engine, and the price for these is quite high. The car is in very good shape otherwise, but does have around 200k miles, which is alot for even a Subaru in our northern climate (far northern New Hampshire). Now...my question is, can any other year 2.5 work by swapping parts, such as intake or other things? From the research I did, it looks like the same engine family was used from around 2000-2004. I'm just curious about what is different about a 2000. I had the same issue with a '97 Jeep Wrangler with a 2.5, which the interchange books showed had to be a '97+ engine. But by swapping oil pickup and pan, a '91 2.5 dropped right in and worked perfectly. I'm hoping I can do something similar here. Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subaru360 Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Hi, new member here, I'm trying to get info for my stepson's girlfriends car. She's blonde (sorry to other blondes, but it applies here...) and apparently for several weeks she's had to add "a little" oil to her car. She had a small leak I guess, most likely cam seal(s), but no problem, when the red oil light would come on, she would add "a quart". Yea. I'm a mechanic...maybe a phone call would have saved her an engine. Well now there are internal things on the outside of the engine (the way I summed it up to her). And when I looked up a used engine, apparently the interchange books show that it HAS to be a 2000 engine, and the price for these is quite high. The car is in very good shape otherwise, but does have around 200k miles, which is alot for even a Subaru in our northern climate (far northern New Hampshire). Now...my question is, can any other year 2.5 work by swapping parts, such as intake or other things? From the research I did, it looks like the same engine family was used from around 2000-2004. I'm just curious about what is different about a 2000. I had the same issue with a '97 Jeep Wrangler with a 2.5, which the interchange books showed had to be a '97+ engine. But by swapping oil pickup and pan, a '91 2.5 dropped right in and worked perfectly. I'm hoping I can do something similar here. Jim You have a phase 2 2.5 Most of the differences in the phase 2's are the cam and crank gears for the timing belt and the intake manifolds and sensors. If you want to use a different year phase 2 engine, just count the teeth on the back of the gears that trigger the cam and crank sensors and be sure they are the same, if not re-use the originals. If the intake is different just swap that over too. Watch the water pump too, there are 2 different ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nhdiesel Posted March 30, 2009 Author Share Posted March 30, 2009 So as long as I stay within this engine family, I should be fine. The used engines sold up here typically come complete, with all external parts except possibly the accessories (alternator, etc.), so I would have the parts from both engines I could use, depending on what is different. The plan is to use the replacement engine as complete as possible, only using parts from the original that are necessary to make it match up to the car properly. I'm just looking to make this as simple as I can without spending huge amounts of dollars. About the only thing I would be doing to the replacement engine are cam seals, just because its so much easier while the engine is out anyway, and of course timing belt and water pump (unless the replacement looks fairly new). If anyone else has more info to add, please jump in! Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtdash Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Same question popped up about a week back....HERE. Should help, too. P.s. Check the rear wheel bearings, too. Good luck, Td Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mellow65 Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 99+ forester and impreza and 00+ outbacks have the phase 2 ej25. as subaru360 said really the main differences through out the years were the crank and cam teeth numbers. what i would do is take the new motor down to a long block. take the intake off your old one and just bolt it on. then really you need to count teeth at that point on the cam and crank gear between both motors and see if they are the same. if they aren't then you need to swap cam gears and crank gear and i don't know about the different water pumps. maybe between turbo or not but from what i remember the main difference was the thermostat housing was different between the autos and manual. the autos foresters had extra nipples to run over to the factory oil cooler. but all that can be moved around to where you need it to be. but as you get playing with subarus you will find everything fits everything. ej motors bolt into anything that had a ej motor. hope that helped Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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