idosubaru

you said 250 miles - that's more than 10mpg. your mileage is also off if your tire size is bigger than stock. your odometer will read lower than you're actually traveling, but probably not much? google miata tire size calculator to check differences. dragging brakes can impede mileage. the calipers slides need to be cleaned and greased. a lot of folks don't do it and that car sat for a few years. i would check the spark plugs? air filter? sounds like you covered some things, folks will pipe in with all sorts of possibilites, runs about as many as you have time to sit and conjecture.

most 15+ year old engines have leaky seals, Subaru's just tend to ACTUALLY last that long with a high number of miles and usage. other makes have the added "feature" of not being able, or asked, to do that. subaru's do have twice the number of parts than many cars since they're horizontally opposed - twice the number of valve covers, grommets, cam seals, head gaskets, etc compared to most cars. on a serious notes, it's usually a good idea to reseal the motor once and for all. rear separator (if the engine is coming out) valve cover gaskets, cam seals, crank seal, and resealing the oil pump. you might want to consider doing the oil pump while it's out of the car and you're in the middle of this. the pump is sealed to the block with anaerobic sealant, there's one o-ring and the backing plate screws are usually loose, tigthen them with locktite on the threads. now to add more work and parts but i'd do it now personally rather than have mostly new seals and a few that are 15 years old and sat in a yard not running for who knows how long.

thanks for sharing. i and others often recommend ATF on here as well. i've put at least up to 2 quarts in before and run it for like a week or light duty driving. should'nt be necessary on the average engine that just starts to show issues though. more extreme cases require more extreme procedures. lifter ticking can be so sporadic that it's hard to tell right away whether something is solved or not and sometimes ATF takes awhile longer to work, i've never seen it work that fast as you're indicating. so future readers of this should not despair if it doesn't go away immediately.

Good luck, should be easy to tell where the leak is coming from. A leaking seal is going to be obvious when taking the motor apart. An oil pump, cam seal, or headgasket will show obvious signs of leaking at the leakage point while tearing it down. If those are all clean - reseal the oil pan - basically just labor, not too expensive but they dont' leak often.

You probably know this, but just in case. Any machine shop can rebuild your heads. Been awhile since i've had a complete head job but it's usually only $200 or less, being DOHC yours might run $300 total for both heads to be resurfaced, valve job, and pressure tested. Probably save at least $500, if not a good bit more. i'm not surprised there's no compression in all cylinders. the valves are at an angle and interfere with each other, not the pistons. so they run into each other, it's not surprising both get tweaked. doesn't take much to keep the valve from seating and sealing compression. that's what makes this an easy repair - the valves just get bent with no major damage like pistons, cylinder side walls, etc that happen on piston-to-valve interference engines.

Subaru exhaust manifold gaskets are excellent quality, they can often be reused. For exhaust manifolds the fel pro's are fine. There are a handful of fel-pro seal issues with those leaking. I have a fel-pro or Corteco exhaust gaskets I'm getting ready to put on my XT6 and they're very high quality - look very similar to the Subaru stuff. One gasket that's best to use from Subaru is the older gen intake manifold gaskets, the fel-pro's suck for those, as do most aftermarkets for that one.

fel pro makes a PermaTorque head gasket that doesn't require retorquing for the EA82. it's widely recommended in the Subaru world - if they make one for the EA81 i'd go that route as well if you end up needing head gaskets. EA82's are really easy to do in the car, just don't try it if you have a bad back.

C-clamp to compress - very slowly and don't abuse it. i use an allen wrench as well to hold it in place. i never file them down,just use one small enough to fit. be mindful that whatever you stick in there will have to be extracted one way when you remove it, don't have it facing the block or something.

sweet, i'll try that next time. seems like newer gen bearings fail much more often, so i'm sure i'll be seeing this again. actually i'm fairly certain they're failing for the 3rd time on my daily driver Legacy.

boo for that. replace the TOB, pilot bearing, and both clutch clips with every clutch job. the clips are the same across tons of models so usually they have them in stock.

nah, i think nearly every EJ25 i've pulled has the plastic. did a 97 yesterday, plastic.

Typical head gasket jobs run $1,000-$1,500. Yours having already had the timing and water pump addressed should run on the low end. Dealer charges roughly $1,000 for head gaskets only. Add to that cost any machine work - if you have the valves repaired that's going to cost additional in parts/labor to install/seat the valves. Or cost for used heads to drop in.

Ended up getting it out. Nut came right off, bolt wouldn't budge. Soaking in penetrant, and finally getting it to wiggle back and forth and eventually it came. Interesting design.

2000 Forester, that lower lateral link bolt in the rear hub - the real long annoying one. i got the nut off but the bolt won't budge at all. it's been soaking for days in penetrant. it won't turn or come out with repeated beatings, threads are mangled no doubt. can i melt the bushings with a torch, will that help? i did that with a rear diff one time. not sure the two arms connecting tot he body will come off, those bolts are rusted too or i'd just remove the hub with those attached.

i figure the WRX springs are going to be a good bit different than L model 1997 Legacy wagon springs! i've got both so hopefully they work?

glad you're almost done, that's awesome and just in time no doubt. you did the right thing by following the best recommendations you could find and not hosing yourself or shortchanging. but for future reference: replacing everything is a sort of "one size fits all" suggestion. it certainly works 100% of the time. it also has a ring of emo talk from folks that want to retain credentials and market share or just like to argue armchair mechanics. once you familiarize yourself with the various failure modes and a/c systems you can start to make case specific decisions. sometimes that means everything, but not always, and actually not usually.

i'd definitely repair it. they only bend valves, they don't actually damage anything in the engine. i would avoid a used EJ25 like the plague, that's a horrible option, particularly for a horrendous price tag like that. the car is hardly worth it and you'd be paying top dollar to keep it running with a risky motor. bad option. two options i can think of - buy a set of known good used heads or just repair the valves that are in there. if you did the timing belt yourself you could *consider* doing the headgasket yourself. if that's the case, source a set of used heads with good valves and go to town. i even have a set if you were interested. unfortunately that motor, while possible, is annoying to do headgasket on while in the car. do it right and you got a good chance at another 105,000 out of that motor before it needs the next timing belt. new Subaru ONLY headgaskets (they redesigned them, don't use aftermarket), and an ebay timing belt kit with all new pulleys and tensioner and water pump. or - ask the mechanic to do the head job for you.

Actually I just did one last night and I'm buying a bag full of bolts next time I'm at the hardware store. The bolts for the new metal plates are just regular metric threaded machine screws. I think 6x1.00 mm maybe? Just take one of the old ones to any hardware store and get a regular machine screw - that's all they are, they're not special like the old school tapered fit bolts. And the one screw that's a different part number is the same screw with red locktite on it. Although it's not a structural part, the tapered bolts would probably hold it!?

friend of mine has a broken rear spring in her 1997 Legacy wagon. at least, it makes lots of noise and when i grab the spring it's loose - guess that means the spring is broken? i have a pair of 2002 rear WRX springs sitting around and would like to help her out - can i just install one of those in her rear 97 strut?

glad you got that bolt finished off, what a mess. ez outs are one of the worst tools available, i learned the hard way. if something *actually* comes out with an ezout then it would have come out with other better methods too. an ezout never gets out the really hard stuff, they only work on easy things....maybe that's the genesis of their names? good left handed drill bits are the bomb for extracting bolts. you would be fine to just replace the compressor but seems like that's not your style since you want to replace all this stuff, so doesn't really matter.

some folks want to tinker, novelty, etc. like intake, exhaust mods, expensive spark plugs, tricked out, etc. gains on NA engines are tiny by design. you can't "make" an N/A car fast on a budget. if that's what you want, then just do whatever it is that you think is cool and you want to play with. intake and exhaust are a good place to start. if you really want power, like an actual fast vehicle, then reread the replies above. you can entertain the idea of installing a turbo on your current engine, it's been done before. monitor it very well or you'll grenade it running a turbo on the high compression pistons of an NA block. read about others that have done it and see what you think (and go get a spare block ).

FSM shows two 180 loosen steps as well but hardly seems necessary. they snagged the two steps from the fsm probably?

best bet is to read the code. advanced auto parts, autozone, and other national chains read the codes for free. be sure to post back here exactly what the codes are, not what they're interpretation of the problem is. at that age and mileage there's any number of common check engine light codes and almost all of them are easy fixes.

yeah sounds like FWD only, rear 4WD stuff is hosed. swapping rear extension housing bits is much easier as the trans doesn't have to come out and the parts are far less expensive than a trans if you can find someone with a bad trans, but good 4WD stuff. swapping a trans is the for sure fix if you can find a suitable donor.

if the AWD isn't working the front tire should spin easily even the dinky 1.8 liters will spin out tires easily. it's not obvious for you? when i switch to driving my FWD subaru (i converted it to 1.8 liter and FWD trans), it peels out really easily compared to my AWD subarus - and it has a much smaller motor. my FWD has a 1.8 where my AWD's have 2.5, 2.7 6 cylinder, and 3.0 6 cylinders. the difference is huge, the FWD even with the much smaller motor peels out all the time.