Ozsubie

I've got a MY06 Impreza and for a new car it has it's fair share of rattles, but hey the 90's Imp's may be better put together, but definitely take some for a test drive to see for yourself. Also if you're going to be towing it may also be worth checking out the mid to late 90's Liberties and they also seem to be a bit smoother and less prone to rattles than the Impreza's. The 2.0 in the MY06 is adequate and can be got going quite nicely, but it's not going to win any traffic light drag's, but again the 90's Imp's are better as they have less weight to haul around. Also, watch out for the road noise level's in the Imp's as they can make a bit of a racket on our australian coarse chip bitumen roads.

Is the car manual or auto? If manual, are you fully releasing the clutch while reversing, or are you slipping it? The clutch can give off a burning smell if it gets hot due to excess slipping.

I've got a 06 Impreza that's doing nearly exactly the same thing, haven't taken it in yet to get it fixed under warranty. OK when cold, but start up hot (usually worst after about 10 minutes standing while hot) and it hunts around at a very low idle speed, if you bring the revs up with throttle usually it will stall when you take your foot off, very annoying!! Seems to sort itself out though after you drive off, so problem only shows up just after starting while hot.

Also, the oil pump seals may break or wear causing air to be drawn into the pump and aerate the oil resulting in tappet noise.

The knock control unit (as found on the flapper type EFI systems) probably wouldn't cause the rich air/fuel mix even if it wasn't installed. It's only function is to retard the timing if it detects detonation, it doesn't have any control over the air/fuel ratio. I had rich running on my EA82T (flapper type AFM) caused by a half dead oxy sensor in the exhaust. Note that I said half dead because it wasn't dead enough to throw a fault code, but it was dead enough to be giving a low voltage output which the ECU interprets as lean and then throws more fuel in to try and correct the apparently lean mix. Other than that I'd be checking things like the engine temperature sensor is within specification.

It might just need some more cranking. I knew a guy that started a EA82 that hadn't been run for ages and it didn't want to go, but it turned out the hydraulic lifters had "un-pumped" while the thing was standing and the valves weren't opening properly. After a fair bit of cranking and getting some oil pressure up to the lifters it burst into life. Hopefully it is as simple as that, good luck!

Maybe a big pair of Vice Grips?? I think that what those locking plier things are called?

Well, unfortunately it's certainly sounding like a cracked head or head gasket, but Northwet makes a good point about the intake gasket. I've heard of people adding some sort of conditioner in the cooling system to try and seal a cracked head or leaky head gasket, but I've never heard of any success with this method, usually just clocks the radiator and other things you don't want clogged up. Probably best to save your money and not bother with it. On the suggestion of using water instead of coolant, the only reason I can think that you'd want to do this is to save some $$$$. You'll probably find that it will start drinking a bit of coolant now, and it can get expensive to keep adding more coolant, where as water is cheap to use as a top up. Using water isn't going to do your cooling system any good in the long term, but sounds like this motor hasn't got much time left anyway. Also, water will be no good if you are in an area where the temps drop below freezing. Providing you can still get the motor started and keep it topped up with coolant you could keep driving it, won't really matter too much, just as the crack/head gasket leak gets worse it will get to the point where you won't be able to keep any coolant in the motor because it will just blow it all out the overflow

Does the engine run rough for a short time after restarting? Are you having to top up the coolant?? Just thinking along the lines of cracked head/head gasket and getting water in a cylinder while it's stopped, and then getting hydraulic locking when cranking on the starter.

Doh, for some reason my browser didn't load all the replies and I was going to mention the belts being right the first time, but looks like you already know that. For the other problem I'd check the choke isn't stuck on for starters. Good Luck

Hmmm, well if the timing is OK I'd check for any vacuum leaks as this will make the motor run lean, although I'd expect you'd have noticed problems at other RPM's also. One problem I had with mine was the diaphram in the vacuum advance broke and this did funny things with the timing, plus created a vacuum leak, although symptoms weren't the same as you're describing. You can check the vacuum advance by disconnecting the vacuum advance pipe and putting another piece of pipe on the fitting then trying to suck air back though it. You shouldn't get any air, if you do the VA unit needs replacing (and good luck finding another one!!) Other than that the only other thing that has made mine cough and splutter at RPM but run fine at idle was condensation under the distributor cap.

Mick, I'm from Oz also. Depending on which EFI setup you've got on your turbo you might not have a TPS. The early EA82T's only used a switch arrangement on the side of the throttle body rather than a TPS that appeared on the later turbos. The switch setup is probably more common in Australia as the later series turbo's were never sold by Subaru here, but of course there are some around that have been imported. If you're running the older EFI system you'll notice that the distributor has a vacuum advance unit on the side of it. If you have this type of distributor then I'd check the timing and make sure you're not running too much advance.

Just to answer your question about the coolant being right up to the cap in the radiator this is how the Subaru should be. If the coolant isn't right up at the cap that's when you've got problems.

Removed the Valvoline filter last night and put the Ryco on, and it made absolutely no difference to the lifter tick, which I guess I had fairly much expected. I'm a bit more confident in the Ryco being a better filter than the Valvoline though so not all is wasted. The Valvoline filter is nearly half the price of the Ryco so you'd sort of expect it to be not the best quality. I'll probably just let the lifter tick go for the moment and see what happens, as it's really not bad enough to worry about subjecting the engine to the ATF trick. Thanks Skip for the link to the oil filter test, I'm suspecting the Valvoline filter may be similar to the Penzoil filter in that it's a rebadged Fram. If I get bored one day I might open it up and see if it's got the tell tale cardboard ends. Also... was reading a repair manual and it said lifter tick could also be caused by a loose cam belt??? I don't think the belt would be loose, but I'll check it soon, but I can't figure out why a loose cam belt would make the lifters tick. Any one seen lifter tick being caused by a loose cam belt?

Thanks for the comments. I'm in Australia and normally use a Ryco filter and have never had problems with them. The valvoline filter has made in USA on the box, but that's about all the info it gives. Searching on the internet it seems Fram and Valvoline are quite often mentioned together, so I'm guessing the Valvoline may be a re-badged Fram. I'm getting the general impression Fram is not highly regarded so I'll probably ditch this filter in the next couple of days and go back to my regular Ryco filter.