NorthWet

I have been told by parts counter persons that many/most/all Bosch direct-fits for Subarus are repackaged NDs... the sensor has ND logo on them.

If you did it wouldn't effect anything. Any "excess" coolant in the expansion tank would just overflow until things reached a balance.

Sorry for being so "last-Millenium", but that works out to be just under 0.003inch, right? How was oil pressure at warm-idle? Seems to me with showing decent pressure 3thou isn't that much... but maybe the tight clearances are how Subaru gets away with low oil pressure/flow at idle. Was there a difference in clearance front/mid/back?

Defroster, heat, bilevel, AC, Off.

Is it coming out the port or just down the stud? Stud could be anything leaking. If it is coming out of the port it could be intake manifold gasket. As GD typed, exhaust-port crack is unlikely unless MPFI/turbo head.

Welcome! If you ever get into the Puget Sound area, might be better to just buy the JDM engine there rather than dealing with eBay and a shipper. I have had good luck with JDMs over the years, but some others have not. having lived near port cities msot of my adult life, I hadn't even considerred eBay as JDM source. As far as JDM or rebuild, depends on what is wrong with the non-runner. Usual "deaths" are timing belt (easy) or headgasket (not to bad). Piston and crank issues are almost non-existant on these engines.

My guess (the crystal ball is clearing! ) is that some PO changed the axles (since NAPA stickers are still visible) and yanked the stub axle with the drive axle. Clip popped off either inside or fell off/removed while stub was outside. Stub was reinstalled sans clip, and stub started working its way outward until inner edge was ground off. Hey, am I psycho or what?

My first impression was a poorly sintered sintered-metal part (I know it isn't, but couldn't think of anything else that would like that). Certainly didn't look like wiping wear.

I have one of these for my autos. It came with a JDM tranny (I hadn't thought of it myself). If you do a lot of serviceing you can get a set of tranny caps for not much money. Or... novel thought... just drain the oil and refill with nice fresh clean oil when you are done. If this hasn't been done recently it would be a good thing.

Tune-up first (my turbos have been sensitive to good plugs and wires). Like the others have said, adding boost is not a good idea... yet. The stock turbo is probably not good for much more flow that stock boost will give anyway. (You might get more "boost" but it will be mostly due to heating the existing airflow.) Get the engine running right before you try to mod it. As daeron touched on, make sure that your cooling system is first-rate before modding or you will end up with dead headgaskets. A new radiator and t-stat are good, cheap insurance. The 3-speed (3AT) does not tend to "slip". It likes clean, fresh oil and will gum-up a critical part that controls automatic shifting; it has a couple other common issues. The 4-speed (4EAT) can have all sorts of issues caused by dirty ATF and/or electrical problems. Daeron commented on relative gear ratios, but forgot to factor in torque multiplication in the auto; not much difference in effective gear ratios between the autos and manuals.

(deep sigh) I am sorry that I brought this up. There is a general misunderstanding of the meaning of the term "torque split", so any discussion of this seems to start an argument. Any discussion of what has how much torque split falls into meaninglessness because of this. 50/50 split means that if one wheel slips then the others will essentially stand still: Small amount of torque (maybe 1-5ft-lbs) to keep the wheel slipping and THE SAME FORCE to the other wheels. All of the rest of the "power" doesn't exist; an engine in neutral at 4000rpm isn't transmitting any power, and an engine spinning a wheel with an open diff isn't developing any more power than to spin the wheel. A vehicle with a locked differential/transfer-system can have a 100/0 (or 0/100 split). Simple (2WD) example: Welded rear end, one axle pulled so 0-torque goes to that wheel and all the torque goes to the other wheel. The auto's transfer clutch pack is capable of 0/100 (3AT allows a "lock" by nature, 4EAT if the TCU allows it), as is the FT4WD manual boxes with locking diff.

Just woke up so my mind is a little foggy... Are those 5-ish" or 7" headlights? IIRC, not too many options for halogens for round lights, as they started to go out of favor about the time DOT started to allow halogen headlights. All of my "vintage" round lights were "offroad use only".

No advance mechanism at all. The distributor just contains a crank angle sensor (slotted disk and optical emitter/detector). The ECU manages all ignition timing variance from base timing.

Glad you found the problem. When you drained the diff fluid (which I assume that you did), how did the oil look and how much steel debris was stuck to the drain plug magnet? Basically, I wonder if the PO knew of this problem and had already removed clip (and stub debris) and changed oil.

Not necessarily. I just had to add 8 quarts when I changed mine. I was doing valvebody work and removed the cooler-line tube and got a lot of drainback from the TC. Some trannies will drainback on their own, causing total change amount to be more than 4-5 quarts. Keep adding until your dipstick registers.

Pistons are cast, and I am pretty sure so are the rods.

The clip is a compression-retention clip, so it is meant to allow the axle to come out with some force. From what I understand (no first-hand experience yet, but am disassembling a 4EAT with a pulled stub) the clip can fall off inside of the diff, requiring it be fished out (drain plug is magnetic), or it can stay on the stub-axle. Others have recommended that the clip be replaced with new before reinserting stub back into the diff. The DOJ's cup is part of the axle assembly, so all of the normal axle options are applicable. If just hyperextended you can unclamp the boot and put everything right, or you can replace the axle. It the DOJ cup is broken replace the axle. On other makes, the outer CV can also hyperextend; the ones I have dealt with on Soobs seemed too tight to do this. Another possible problem is that the differential portion could have broken (spider/side gears or shafts). Again, other parts are likely to break first.

Slightly OT, and not wishing to start a discussion/argument, but this is technically not correct. It is 50/50 until the viscous coupling gets involved, and then the "split" shifts in favor of the non-slipping wheels. Technically, a vehicle with an open center diff that has one wheel spinning and all others sitting still has a 50/50 torque split.

As I understand it, yes, there is a Loyale RS. I think that it was mostly comfort and trim options rather than performance options (may be way off on this). Kind of bringing the trim level of the Loyale back up to the level of the GL/GL-10.

The inner "CV" joint is technically a Double-Offset Joint (DOJ) and not a Constant Velocity joint... semantics, sorry. 1) The stub-axle that goes into the tranny and to which the DOJ is splined-and-pinned is only retained by a little internal circlip, so it is relatively easy for the axle to get pulled-loose by less-than-careful maintenance and maybe by other forces. If it has pulled loose no power can be transmitted through it, which will cause no power to go anywheres. Pretty easy to eyeball this one, as you will see too much of the axle showing (should be hidden by the DOJ), and the DOJ will be too far away from the tranny case. 2) The inner DOJ is a sliding joint. It is possible for the joint to come apart if the axle is slid too far outwards. This is a little harder to eyeball as the rubber boot hides the "dislocation" (medical analogy, not automotive term ). Look for a distended/elongated boot area as compared to the other side. 3) The DOJ cup (attached to the tranny-side) can crack and let the joint's internals roughly spin.

I doubt that this seal is an issue as it should be an ATF seal, not a gear oil seal. (It definitely is on the later 4EATs; can't say for sure on the 3ATs.) If you do the stub-axle seals, remember to do one at a time and mark/remember the positioning of the side bearing retainer (which, IIRC, needs to be removed to access the seal). Not doing so can screw up the diff settings.

The general concept is close to what you said: Given any set of engine mechanicals, RPM, load, fuel, and temp there is an optimum amount of ignition advance. The mechanical advance tries to deal with RPM variances and the vacuum advance with load variances (based on what the manufacturer expects the engine to be like and what fuel will likely be used). The manufacturer can't anticipate individual situations of engine wear/mods, temperature variation or fuel quality. They handle this by making the timing curves conservative so that detonation is unlikely to occur. Recurving allows you to adjust things closer to the ragged edge, risking detonation to do so.

I discovered that the manual will not move with the rear driveshaft removed (for towing) while the auto will. This *may* translate to what happens when one rear wheel slips.

The transmission's connectors are the 2 large rectangular-ish ones just rearward of the engine/tranny "dogbone" link to firewall. There is also one minor connector (off of the tranny's harness) along the side of the tranny for the rear speed sensor

Short stroke = happy RPMS Should be no problems running the stock engine at 7500-8000rpms... except stock valve springs probably float before then. As other have typed, the cooling system is the important piece here. Also oiling, as I suspect that some of the "boredom of the rod" incidents that I have seen was a seizing rod bearing and a high-angularity rod... SNAP!