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About 250 miles after getting this OB running, alternator belt squeal made itself known at engine startup and beginning of turns. Found that the PS pump elbow o-rings had hardened allowing air to be sucked in. Found metric o-rings of 13mm ID x 1.5mm CS at my local Ace Hardware for $0.65 each! Added a very small bead of Loctite 517 flange sealant to face of elbow just above top o-ring groove to make sure no air gets in. No more squeal! Found that driver side crankcase breather hose connector on H4 airbox had cracked. Tried JB quickweld but that didn't hold. 30 M1 carbine brass is just right OD to fit inside this plastic nub and GOOP plastic weld bonds well with airbox. Saved a trip to find a replacement H4 California only airbox!

Like I said I prefer the exhaust as quiet as possible. I know it won't be like a stock EJ22 but for long road trips quiet is best. I am using a standalone because I wanted to use an EZ36 and as far as I know that's the only way to do it with the variable cam timing. You could maybe swap the entire wiring harness out of a donor car but the standalone is probably easiest. I expected wiring issues and troubleshooting but so far it hasn't been too bad. Overall I'm not sure which is more complicated (the first time), the harness merge we did with the EZ30 or this standalone wiring job. The standalone is more expensive but also allows you to tune the engine and do all kinds of other things. B and I did a little more tuning and then decided to take a break. When I went to back the car out of the garage it kept popping out of reverse. By trying to hold it in reverse it would kind of work but still kept popping out. I'm guessing the root of the problem is we've never had the reverse lockout working properly (in this car or the black Outback) and it's seen one too many grinds. We think we have the cable adjusted right but need a spring and probably a bracket to get it working right. We checked some things and accepted it was probably in the trans so we removed that. I had bought a mostly complete but not fully assembled 6MT from a local shop a few years ago fairly cheap. The reverse synchros and fork in that looked fresh so I figured we probably have all the parts we need to fix it. Got the trans out of the Impreza mostly apart but couldn't get the gear stack out last night. This morning I looked it up and found you have to remove the oil pump to get at a snapring that holds the input shaft in place. Synchro teeth on reverse are definitely worn. For reference, good synchro teeth. I think the biggest issue is probably the plastic pads on the fork being worn off. Even the center pad is worn. For reference, good stock fork. So I get to reassemble and reinstall that. Two steps forward one step back or something. While it's out it should be fairly easy to make a bracket and add a spring for the reverse lockout. Before we pulled the trans we did weigh the car. Fairly complete, full tank of gas, 3245# total. 1900# front, 1345# rear. About 250# more weight on the front axle and 100# more than the rear compared to stock. With a few hundred pounds of cargo and a heavier rear bumper the weight bias shouldn't be too bad. I haven't pushed it yet but the cornering seems decent. Rear brakes definitely lock up first but it has bigger diameter rear rotors than front. Will probably eventually put bigger rotors on the front (second gen Legacy/first gen Forester, same as the rotors we're using in the rear).

Likely need to swap the crank and LH cam sprocket from the old engine. The tone wheels for the crank and cam sensors are part of those sprockets, and there are a couple different patterns.