GeneralDisorder

It's more than an opinion. I'm the only one in this discussion that owns a chassis dyno. And it's a fact that the EA82 is fragile and lacks replacement parts. GD

We are already seeing this on 2011's and 2012's. 10 years is about the useful life of a plastic radiator - especially with the new OAT blue coolant. Seems to be causing softening of the plastics. We just saw a lower tank failure on a 2014 a few months ago. We are now telling people 6-8 years is time for replacement. Also we are now mandating all plastic cam sprockets be replaced if we touch them. All are now 10 years old and we have had a few just come apart. One flew apart and bent 8 valves in a 2010 Forester about 11 months after a head gasket replacement. The plastic sheared off of the steel sprocket it was molded around. No appearance of cracks or damage on the remaining "ring" of the sprocket. Had a 25D sprocket explode a few years ago also - found all the pieces and nothing missing or chipped. Welcome to plastic. GD

You go on ahead and ask a machinist. They will also LOL at you. You're really going to sleeve an engine for which you can no longer buy an oil pump? Talk about a stupid waste of money. WE DO sleeve EJ's for performance reasons. The cost to INSTALL and machine for the sleeves (not the cost of the sleeves or the block itself) is about $3,000 GD

Supercharged Subaru engines suck. The engines are too small, and the parasitic loss from a supercharger is too much for them. Every BRZ we have ever tuned with a Supercharger ends up pulling it off and going to a turbo, or selling it. It's not a good idea - they feel like they do nothing till you get up higher in the RPM and then you get a little burst of power before you hit redline...... Especially on the EA82T which is a fragile engine that has no support or parts availability. Superchargers are the realm of big V6's and V8's for a reason. They give a linear power response, are a big parasitic load, and they need an engine that makes a lot of power down low to brute force their way through the drag. You can make a lot more low end torque and control the power output better on a little Subaru engine with a turbo. GD

LOL

Yes you need a new crank sprocket. GD

Used pistons are fine. Get new rings. Either NPR or Subaru. Pistons should swap without issue. Use the 770 turbo head gaskets. GD

Pressure. The wastegate actuator works on pressure. About 7 psi. GD

Swap the pistons. GD

We use Amsoil waterproof grease (the blue stuff). It lasts a long time in this application. GD

That's a crack. Whether it occurred during manufacture or later when it was running is anyone's guess - probably from cooling when it was cast. The EA82T heads are prone to cracking into the cooling jackets though if pushed hard. I wouldn't run them particularly hard. Anyone that has attempted more than 150 WHP from the EA82T has not had it last long. They just weren't up to the task. Properly setup and monitored though they can last a decent amount of time at stock power or slightly over - 120 at the wheels for example. The biggest problem is now the lack of parts and the frustrating complexity of the whole assembly compared to an EJ that can quadruple their performance with ease and are much simpler overall without the tendency toward ticking lifters, cracking heads, etc. GD

Subaru has more than one belt supplier. Mitsuboshi is one of them. Aisin makes great water pumps. They are owned by Toyota who owns part of Subaru. But the factory pump are not usually Aisin. Some may be but as with a lot of things - Subaru buys from multiple sources. Most I see are Yokahama branded. Most of the rest of the stuff is NTN. GD

My local wholesale pricing isn't that great - not compared to online pricing. That's why shops charge so much for parts. Our local suppliers deliver to us - we have about 9 deliveries each week day from two different wholesale suppliers. We get decent prices but there's plenty of online sources that will meet or beat our pricing - we just generally can't wait days for parts. We usually need the stuff right away and sometimes we are waiting on parts to arrive even though the wait is only an hour or two. GD

Always clean and grease all contact points in the clutch release system. GD

We buy the individual parts from the OEM manufacturers and one of those is Aisin (water pump). It's cheaper generally on the wholesale side to piece them together. GD

None of the fuel lines are aluminum. And rotted out fuel lines are ridiculous. If you experience this you clearly live in a vehicular wasteland very close to the gates of hell. GD

The unromantic truth is that they get replaced when they die. Could you test them? Sure. Is it worth the effort? Probably not. One day you go out and it either barely cranks up, or it doesn't start and you have to jump it. At which point you get a new one. That's how you know when to replace it. If you want to do it military style you replace them 2 years after installation. Regardless of condition. Any other approaches are a waste of energy. Because the ROI (return on investment) of regular testing just isn't there. For the additional short time you might get from maximizing it's life, you save only an incremental amount of the cost of replacement. $25 to $35 at most. At my shop I charge $110 per hour. The time spent testing and hand wringing over such an inexpensive disposable component is not profitable. GD

A weak battery will lose charge fast - overnight or sitting for a few days. The result will be a heavy load on the alternator immediately following startup. This puts a heavier than necessary load on the alternator. Old, weak batteries aren't just "weak but fully charged" - they discharge quickly when sitting or even when required to crank the engine for a short time. Again - batteries are cheap. Having a dead battery is inconvenient and less than ideal for the alternator. There's no economical reason for attempting to run one beyond it's useful life. You are going to get *maybe* another six months or a year out of it at which point you have spent way more time than money screwing around with it, creating frustration and potential wear and tear on the alternator, etc. The savings - if you can call it that - would amount to less than a lunch at McDonalds. It's just not worth the frustration and the time investment for the return. You likely spent a LOT more in time and gas than you saved waiting a year by having it tested and NOT replacing it, than just getting a new one when the store told you it was weak. GD

As a shop owner that routinely replaces both alternators and batteries I can tell you there is absolutely a correlation between weak batteries and alternator failures. That is WHY every alternator comes with a BIG WARNING TAG indicating that it should only be installed along side a fully charged battery. The alternator does not work during cranking. Cranking is about 250 to 300 RPM at most. At this speed the alternator is not capable of any significant output. Old batteries make the alternator work harder and more often for longer periods. This can burn up the voltage regulators. GD

By not changing the battery when it is showing clear signs of failure, you risk damaging the alternator. It's job is NOT to charge a dead battery. It's job is to top off a good battery after the engine is running and to power the electrical requirements of the vehicle once it's running to prevent the electrical system from drawing the battery down further. When the battery is low, it is an endless pit for amperage - the alternator will overheat and this can damage it's voltage regulator, etc. Saving less than $100 on a battery may cost you a LOT more when it takes out your factory alternator - for which there are few good replacements other than Subaru OEM, sometimes Denso or Hitachi remans if you can source one, and places like DC Power. In any case you are going to spend at least $200, and if you want a quality unit - more like $600 for a replacement. Is it worth blowing an alternator to try to get another $25 out of an old used-up battery? Seems like economic suicide to me. GD

Why? AAA has a lot more data than you will ever accumulate. Average life on batteries is now 3-5 years. More demanding vehicles (newer) have shorter lives. The price of a battery pales in comparison to other operational costs like fuel and fluids. You have very limited choices with regard to battery replacements and alternator choices unless you want to spend a lot of money on an Odyssey and a DC Power Engineering alternator. You can get a 10-15 year battery life if you want to spend the money and if you are very lucky. At the end of the day the battery is an $85 part. Replace it every 3 to 5 years and move on. GD

You can use a hand pump like a mityvac to test the actuator. And you can just plumb it directly to the compressor housing with a section of straight vacuum line and that should open the wastegate at 5-7 psi. GD

Wiring isn't so bad if you run a flying lead stand-alone like a LINK. You will need an engine cradle from a turbo car. Completely custom exhaust..... and lots of other stuff. Don't expect this to be any less than $10k for a job done right with tuning, etc. GD

We run into boost creep from time to time. It's not a sure thing that any one specific combo will experience it. It depends a lot on the flow of the specific turbine casting in the wastegate area. Some are better than others - in stock form they flow enough, but with unrestricted exhaust some wastegate ports can't flow enough to prevent the boost from climbing even when fully open. GD

We resurface multiple sets of heads per week for the last 10 years with that method. Never had an issue. The 2.2 has a smaller bore. You can't use the 770 gasket, etc. We use a gasket from Cometic on the rare occasion that we find the need to do the head gaskets on a phase II 2.2 engine. Surface prep on the block, head resurfacing, proper block thread cleaning, ensure the bolts are in the correct holes (washer size), and use of Amsoil assembly lube on the bolt threads for correct torque without creaking. All important aspects of this job. GD