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