Leaderboard

The motor is low in the door under water for sure. Pull the door card and pull the motor out. Multimeters can lie to you if there is no load on the circuit. Check out LoadPro on youtube. Amazon has them. The LoadPro should be in everyone's toolbox.

I have good mid pipes if you want one. You pay shipping from 80919 Colorado.

Replace your headlights already. The lights that came out where probably from the early 2000's so maybe 20 year old, Sylvaina ExtraVision The seal that attaches the front lens to the rear reflector had failed and the reflective coating was mostly gone, probably due to moisture getting inside it was a wonder they produced any forward light at all. The lights pretty much fell apart when I took the bezel off. Lesson is sealed all glass beams don't stay sealed forever. And they made a really cool crashing noise when I threw them in the garbage. And standard issue replacements are ridiculously cheap. Has me wondering how the center light will weather the test of time since finding replacements for that is probably next to impossible.

nels and heartless are right. If it reliably starts in N, some kind of neutral safety issue. But, a 20 year-old car could easily need new contacts and maybe plunger in the starter solenoid. parts are available and maybe 2-3 youtube videos. Cheaper and better repair than typical rebuilt starters too. Sometimes, you whack the starter with a piece of 2x4 and it will start. That would point to a solenoid issue and not neutral safety.

I disagree with that so much, I deleted it when I quoted your post. EJ22t is definitely not the best Subaru engine ever made. I've owned several high mileage 00-04 Ej25s. Never had coolant leak out the block. They all leaked oil externally. These use the exact same head gasket as the 05-09. Now, of course, we're talking about ~20 year old engines. There are soo many variables in maintenance and care that have a bigger effect on the future running than any design changes. For example, I have an '02 Outback H6 that's been clearly beat up, neglected, and left for dead, and it has a dead cylinder, at 130k miles. And my daily is a '00 EJ25 with 355k on it, that runs beautifully.