Numbchux

Removal of the engine doesn't [necessarily] change anything with the transmission, axles, or driveshaft. Still have to disconnect the driveshaft from the rear diff to do it correctly.

Transmission, engine width, fueling, wiring, cooling, etc. All peanuts..... Fabbing a modified-MacPherson rear suspension onto a unibody designed for transverse torsion bars and trailing arms.....that's the nightmare. With no payoff. By lifting it, you're completely negating any geometry advantages you might get. XT6 rear hubs are tough to come by, but get your hands on a set of those, and you almost completely eliminate all fabrication (and you'll be able to sell the arms, knuckles, hubs, and struts off your donor car....probably still come out ahead).

You're in for a huge project. Almost this identical project (full drivetrain/suspension swap) has been talked about hundreds of times over the years. To my knowledge, it's only been finished once. I recommend you spend some time with the retrofitting faq, and the search tool. There are recipes for a similar result that require hundreds of hours less fab time.

You can, it's not all going to be exactly the same, but most should be close enough. I know the driveshaft will not be the same length. And the gas tank will most likely not be identical (that's not to say it can't be made to work, but probably won't be a direct swap). Outback suspension will be taller, may or may not be what you're going for. Probably have to swap the Impreza rear strut tops onto the Outback struts. Brake cables will probably be longer than necessary (need to swap to correctly do the drum-to-disc conversion, which I think all FWD Imprezas were rear drum, and the Outback will definitely be disc), but some creative routing will probably get around that. Or don't have an ebrake. The FWD Impreza might have 13" wheels ('93-'94 definitely...), which may or may not clear the rear discs. But if you've got a donor car and using the taller suspension, the stock wheels/tires on the Outback will be fine. Swap the larger front brakes on there while you're at it.

Based on the information given.....I'm going to say, somewhere where it doesn't pinch, chafe, interfere, or compromise any seals.

All the FB cars have low oil lights, except 11-13 Foresters.

Most are diagnostic, indeed. I assumed those would be pictured when I saw the thread title.... The white circular one looks like the 4WD solenoid connector. Is your car 4WD? Does it work?

This is not relevant, as the EJ255 is tuned for premium fuel only. So yes, never run anything less than that if it can possibly be avoided.

No If the ignition timing is not tuned for high octane, it will not be better. Putting 110 in a car tuned for 87, turbo or not, is not better. That said, if you're tuning for it, yes, higher octane is generally better for a turbo car. But a stock EA82t is not a high performance engine running on the edge of what's possible....far from it. I don't think the Ethanol they add to the fuel now is comparable to what was available when that owner's manual was written. I wouldn't (and haven't, although I've never personally owned a turbo car) worry about 10%

No. You'll need hubs, knuckles, axles, parking brakes, rear struts, front rotors, rear brakes, probably more. Axles are designed for a wider track width, so you'll either need custom axles, or the GD suspension arms. Gloyale is right, '05-'07 STi is your donor window. All the other 5x114.3 Subaru applications are very different.

I'm not in service, so I don't know much about warranty stuff... But, I do know that we have replaced short blocks under warranty for several cars that weren't in the VIN range. If it's feasible, you might want to try a different dealership. Or get Subaru of America involved. If the vehicle is under warranty, it should be covered....

When I did it, I tapped the frame rails for bolts to hold the mustache bar (rear diff mount crossmember) in. Worked fine for more than 100k miles. I also swapped the entire rear suspension, including the crossmember that the trailing arms bolt to, instead of modifying for the diff mount. That was bolt-on. Depending what transmission you're swapping in (non-turbo), the front axles will work, although the original 4WD ones are more beefy. Several ways to do the driveshaft mount, I ended up having a custom one-piece one made. You will need transmission crossmembers for the manual transmission conversion. Also brake/clutch pedal assembly. Suspension components are different height for 4WD vs FWD (ride height is lower for FWD, but because of a change in the trailing arm mounts, the rear shocks are actually taller), so you will probably want to swap the struts.

I cannot support this post enough. You have a car with a quarter of a million miles on it. Things fail. The only way for a shop to prevent related failures, is to replace every part they touch, which would have to complaining on the internet at least as quickly. It is possible that it was due to neglegence on their part, and the fact that they didn't charge you full price reflects them taking responsibility for that chance. But it's impossible to know one way or the other (certainly from the lack of description provided). Maybe the last guy screwed it up, and put it together by massively overtorqueing and threadlocking it on. Maybe it was just due to fail.

Yep, look for blockage in front of the radiator, and back flush it for blockage inside it. I'd also do a chemical test for head gasket leakage.

It definitely is a 5-speed dual Range. I'm not sure I know the center diff housings well enough to rule out an RX FT4WD trans, which would be a 3.7. Those are very rare.

Agreed. The non-turbo 5 speed has excellent gearing. Cruising at 80ish, even on stock tires, is no problem. The RX 5-speed that I had in my Loyale for many years wasn't so great. Even with the oversized tires (215/45r17, usually) and EJ22, it felt like I was pushing it at 75. The 3AT that was originally in my Loyale (and for the many many years that it was my dad's Loyale) wasn't great. IIRC, we tried to keep it to 65 or below for cruising. We lost 3rd gear in the original trans in that thing, but we were pretty heavily loaded at the time (IIRC, parents, me, dog, clothes, tools, bed on the trailer behind, and 20ft extension ladder on the roof headed to the cabin).

Dealerships are basically a franchise of Subaru corporate. So they're connected, but the dealership has a lot of freedom to do things their way (to some extent, of course), and corporate will not look at every transaction. This means there can be some serious variation in service quality from one dealership to the next. So yea, it sounds like you need to go over their heads, and get corporate involved. You could go to a different shop, and start over. But they started this mess, and didn't fix it, a good shop should fix it with a considerable discount (if not for free) moving forward. But you might have to put some pressure on them from above to get it done.

This! It is completely possible, and understandable, that a mechanic would have trouble with something like this. Intermittent issues can be a complete nightmare to diagnose. I work in parts at a fairly large dealership, the one mechanic that was around when first-gen Legacies regularly came in is paid extra as a trainer for everyone else. It costs the shop considerably more to have him working on something. So either they had someone less experienced working on it (to try to save them, and therefore you, money. Or because they don't have a master Subaru tech), or they did have their most experienced guy on it, and that's expensive. The OE parts catalogs for those are very different than we are used to (Not too bad, if you've got a parts guy who's been in Subaru since the '70s, and still has the old paper catalogs, like we do. But without that, yuck), and the parts are less available. So it's very possible that it took multiple tries to even get the right parts, and/or the right part might take a week or more to arrive. Which could explain for a serious delay. Obviously I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, that they really are trying to do right by you, maybe that's not accurate, but I'm certainly not comfortable trashing a shop from across the country based on one side of the story. BUT, they obviously have not communicated this stuff to you. Maybe they've spent a lot of time/money on it, and aren't charging you for it. It's certainly possible that the huge bills you've had are still only a fraction of full price. But they need to be clear with that, and it doesn't sound like they have been. So yes, get in touch with corporate, and get someone looking over their shoulder.

Yep, and I know a guy who bought a Nissan SR20. He pulled the valve cover upon arrival, and found it packed with sludge. The supplier said he voided any warranty by removing the cover.... JDM engines CAN be a great option, but be very aware of the source.

Copart won't help much, but www.car-part.com probably will.

Many different catalogs list them differently. But technically, Legacy is the model, and Outback and Limited are trim levels. This page is already linked here, but this will take you specifically to the section that refers to the Limited, VDC, and LL Bean option levels. http://www.cars101.com/subaru/outback/outback2003.html#03features For the purpose of finding front body parts, 2000-2004 Legacy Outback stuff will all fit. It wasn't until 2010 that they made the Outback exclusively a wagon, and Legacy exclusively a sedan. 99 as well.

No, forget that wheel selection, it's terrible. Loosing an inch off the width doesn't change the almost 5" change in offset. Find some used 15" Subaru wheels, and use them. I think 235s on stock Subaru wheels will clear the strut, but it's close. And with just a strut lift you may have to cut the body.

The local offroad park had their annual open-house last weekend. Pretty cool event. I went early and rode along for some gnarlier trails, then after lunch my wife brought up the Outback and our 3 month old daughter to ride along. We rode some mild trails for several hours, and she slept away in her car seat (we used a halo head support that we don't normally use). Obligatory group poser shot: 20170520_142939 by Numbchux, on Flickr

Correction, Impreza got the FB in 2012, but Legacy and Outback didn't until 2013. That would have the 4EAT.

Yea, your wheel/tire selection is way out of whack. 265/70r15 is a pretty wide tire, I probably wouldn't recommend that. But that calculates to a 29.6" tall tire. That could probably be done with stock-backspacing wheels. 225 or 235/75r15 has been done hundreds of times with just Forester struts. You're going from a +55 offset, to a -69.8 offset (-19 + 50.8 for the 2" spacers). That means you're moving the center of your tire out over 4.5" from stock. Holy chit. The outer edge of the tire will be 6.5" further out than stock. When people talk about mild extra bearing wear, we're typically talking about a change of 20mm or so, not 124.8. So yes, bearings are a huge concern. Scrub radius is an even bigger concern, the distance the tires travel front-to-back will be a huge problem with fender clearance, and will put huge load on your steering system. For comparison. Here's a Legacy with Outback struts (slightly shorter than Forester), plus about 4" lift, stock Outback wheels (same offset to the stock 14s), 2" wheel spacers, and 31s (I don't know the width, probably 10.5") IMG_13875 by Numbchux, on Flickr at full lock: IMG_13867 by Numbchux, on Flickr