Balewolf

I replaced my 2.2 in my Subaru (1997) Outback Impreza. I was running like a top, when all of a sudden, it started getting noisy. I purchased the engine from a mechanic who assured me she had replaced the water pump. I believe she was pulling my leg. There are no oil pressure problems, no rise in engine temps, but my gut feeling from where the noise is coming, that the water pump will soon fail. I checked the alternator and ac pump already and they both check out fine. Question is, while I am in there, should I look into replacing the oil pump since it will all be apart? Robert:-\

GrossGary, Thanks for getting back to me on this. I was afraid I had wasted a ton of money and time, but if what you say is true, things will turn out well. I will try this tomorrow and post my results. Balewolf:)

I'm snake bit. I wrote sometime back about my dead 1997 Outback Impreza. The timing belt left the building with Elvis and the valves got hammered. I went through a lengthy debate on whether a 97 2.2 was interference or free spinning. Let me assure you, it is an interference. I searched high and low for a 2.2 to replace it. There were very few in my price range that had less than a bazillion miles. Finally one turned up on Craig's List for $350. The mechanic was a very bright ASE cert. mechanic who was going to put it in her son's car. The son bought a Bronco and the motor just sat. She decided to put it out for sale and when I contacted her she offered to put a new timing belt on it for $100 extra. Two weeks into the install and I find out that it is an EJ18 and not the EJ22 I thought I was buying. I thought things were strange with incompatible exhaust and different emission features. Now that I have all the stuff fit in and working, the wiring harness connects are seemingly from different universes. I can't start the engine without it being hooked up. I thought I might hardwire around the connects, but the wire color coding shows no similarity whatsoever. I am beyond my ability level. My mechanic buddy is clueless and says that there is no way a 1.8 will ever work. What am I missing here? The damned thing is installed. Is there no way to reconcile the harness wiring?

Thanks very much for all of the valuable feedback. I have now become 99% sure that I have a dead, slightly hammered EJ22 with 218K on her. As has been pointed out by all of you, if I am going to keep her, I need to find a suitable replacement engine. I have looked at JDM on eBay, but I do not know if that is easier than some other engine company. I also need to find a decent Subaru mechanic in the Colorado Springs/Denver area to do the work without exacting either, a.) an arm b.) a leg. I am a retired school teacher so I don't have a lot of extra cash. I am mechanical and do work on my tractors, but swapping an engine into my little slice of the Tokyo dream seems a bit daunting. Any suggestions?

I bought my Outback in May of 1997. We had just moved into a rural part of Colorado and needed to do a 100+ mile commute on dirt roads into Denver. That car took everything we could throw at her. Two years ago, on a trip to Cripple Creek, the timing belt broke. I had her towed home and my local mechanic who did my regular service told me that because it wasn't a Chevy, he had to defer to a friend of his who was a Subaru mechanic in Denver. The Outback had 218,000 miles on it. The Subaru guy said the motor was hammered because it was an interference engine, never bothering to open her up. He then made me a lame offer of $450 bucks for the carcass. I told him thanks but no thanks. She has been sitting next to the barn ever since. I am dabbling in distillation of ethanol and thought I would convert her over with another engine in the future, but never got around to it. Two weeks ago, I decided to put her on Craig's list for $900. She had some nice American Racing wheels with new tires and I thought I might get an offer somewhere near $700. To my surprise, I had a ton of responses for full price. Ironically, I had mostly mechanics contacting me. I had put the the timing belt story in the ad and it was drawing a lot of questions. Finally, one mechanic wrote and said that the 2.2 L in that model was a non-interference engine and that the first mechanic was just trying to get one past me. He said that I could have her back up and running for a couple of hundred bucks. I was born yesterday, but not last night. I thought I would research my engine and see if it was a non-interference. I have read so much conflicting information on this model, I can't be sure who is correct or not. If I can get her running, I would pay for it in a heartbeat, and if not I'll let her go. Can anyone tell me the best way to determine which type engine this is? I don't want to lose my offers if in fact she is hammered. :-\