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First start after a headgasket job is sorta normal for it to blow weird smoke. When you take it apart you got oil and coolant and crap in the cylinders. Even if you clean it out there's some oily coolanty shop dust stuck around the rings and whatnot. It just has to burn off. Bubbles are normal when you just fill up a coolant system. There's still a whole bunch of air in there that has to get out. Especially if you just filled up the radiator and didn't fill the block up through the top hose. Felpro gaskets... EHHHHHHH. Good luck there. I used felpro MLS gaskets on a franken motor build because it was an experiment with all junk parts. When it finally died due to low oil pressure (bad bearings everywhere and stuff) I tore it down. The gaskets looked like they had 100k miles on them. I had put maybe 10k miles on it.

Hmmmm. Interesting. So I was just out in the garage. The original 2.5 from my 98 legacy is an 8 bolt bellhousing. Unfortunately I don't know the manufacture date of that car since I've sold it, but iirc it was early 98. I know for sure it had a 4 bolt bell housing, though. I can't figure out how to see where the thrust bearing is... All I can see from the bottom are crank and rods.

I guess it's possible that late model year 98s have a phase2 block. Do you know the manufacture date of the car the 2.5 came out of?

I clicked like. Is that all I have to do to vote for it? I'm pretty bad at facebook.

According to cars101, the 05+ sti have a 2.6 turn lock to lock steering ratio. Probably 04 as well, but the way cars101 is laid out is a bit funky for the impreza. But it does have that listed for the 05 and 07.

The first thing I noticed was that VW 23 window. That shell is worth literally thousands. Like $10,000+ in that condition.

Oh nice! your implementation is really clean. If it works out for you over a few hundred miles definitely put it in the USRM.

Does anybody have any current ones that work? Everything I'm coming up with only lets you search vehicles that the dealer currently has in inventory.

The STi head gasket part number: 11044AA642 is a MLS gasket that makes it so the 2.5 doesn't blow headgaskets anymore.

You can let it go a while as long as you keep the fluids topped up. If the job is done CORRECTLY with the STi gaskets, it shouldn't blow again. If the shop does a bad job it will blow again. Simple as that.

Just be sure to mark which way it goes back together again. It's balanced as a whole unit, and if you put it back together incorrectly it'll vibrate.

The way I got those out. I take a bolt with a 14mm head. Then weld a nut to the threads. Use a socket that's the size of the nut and it pulls the plug out. It's pretty simple to make out of your spare nuts/bolts collection.

Oh wow, those came out fantastic. I always had blue in my 2nd gen, but went with white in my 3rd gen. And they are awesome.

NO NO NO NO NO don't re-use headgaskets.

He has a very cool collection of pictures. Being a huge stage rally fan, I love this! A friend of mine is gonna be driving his car in NEFR this summer and I'm head mechanic for the team. Rally owns :cool:

Did you select the aux input on the head unit?

Well the engine doesn't matter it's the body style. I have no idea about ea81 cars, it wasn't listed in the post what year it was. So I assumed. Oh well.

A nice writeup with torque specs and procedures would be cool. Tips and tricks. Things like knowing that you should torque the water pump bolts twice, not compressing the tensioner too fast, how to hang the timing belt, etc would be good tips for beginners. Also that 2.5 SOHC engines have a timing belt tooth count +3 on both sides of what the FSM says, that really boggled me the first time I did a 2.5 sohc.

Correct. Using a resistor is an EXTREMELY inefficient way of dissipating current for a high load. So they create A LOT of heat. It is, however, an extremely simple design, and since power draw isn't really a concern, that's how it's done. But since it needs a lot of cooling, it has to be in the ducting. EJ ones actually have a cage around them for better protection. I keep meaning to grab a couple EJ ones and see how I can adapt it to work in the GL. Every GL I've ever seen in a junk yard has a blown resistor pack, it's extremely frustrating trying to get a good used one. I haven't even seen a junked GL for a while up here. They've all rusted out. One thing I have considered as a fix is just doing a solid state circuit like a PWM board with preset resistors that the heat selector choses for the PWM. It would be a plug and play solid state fix to this stupid problem. Because honestly, I'm tired of only having three and four.

That got there pretty quick for just $2.50 in shipping. nice! Glad it works again.

You don't have to change the switch. I'm assuming here you have an ea82. If it's an ea81 disregard. But the switch is bolted to the back of the tumbler, so unless that's the problem, it can stay. I've only ever seen one switch go bad, and it wasn't binding. It just blatantly stopped working. You can put a screwdriver in the switch and start the car.

It's probably the tumbler dying. And putting graphite in it isn't bad, there's nothing electrical in the keyhole. If you take the steering column plastics off, you'll see the actual switch is screwed to the back of the tumbler. You can take it off and use a screwdriver in it if the tumbler binds up. I've had two cars get stuck in run.

That's an OEM option on that gen outback. My family's 99 outback has that.

Winterforces absolutely rule, but it's not snowing very much. I've been fine on my outback running crappy half used all seasons. I live in an area it's not plowed much. A day or two after the storm it's stuck and I drive the lifted GL with winterforces. But after everything is plowed a bit, I'm fine with the outback. Next time it needs tires I'll just do good all seasons, they're fine for a DD if you're in an area that gets plowed out.

Wow that's clean! My ea81 leaks oil out of every possible place it could leak oil haha.