shmick

Sure. Might be cost prohibitive with shipping from Canada though.

The owner of the 2005 donor engine had it sitting in a 2003 impreza wagon that he never got around to finishing. I wonder if he swapped the driver side cam pulley but left the crank sprocket on, which is how I seem to have ended up with a new style crank sprocket and old style cam pulley. I've yet to find this crank / cam combo on any other forum or image search. Kudos to my local Subaru dealer tech for nailing it after a 10 second conversation.

So, the crank sprockets were the same, but there is a definite difference between the cam pulleys. She's running great now!

#1 and #3 were done. When the new belt was installed, the timing marks were compared to the old belt as well. The old belt didn't need to be replaced but it turns out that we didn't install the small belt guide properly and it started to rub/wear into the timing belt. As a precaution, we ended up changing the timing belt as it would have mentally nagged me to to end! OK, looks like next steps are sprocket swap and if that doesn't fix it, I guess I'm doing wire harness swap! Also, thank you to everyone who's contributed to this thread. Lot's of helpful folks here. Greatly appreciated.

Throttle body & intake manifold were not swapped. Only the flywheel, clutch and timing belt guide were swapped over. Once the troubleshooting for the P0340 cam position sensor began, the cam sensor was swapped over, then the crank sensor was swapped over and then the alternator was also swapped over. There doesn't appear to be any damage to the donor engine wiring harness. I did check for continuity from the cam sensor plug wires back to the large brown 16 pin E1 connector. I also checked resistance between pin1/pin2 pin1/ground and pin2/ground on the cam sensor plug. Everything is within spec. Donor engine is also from a 2005 2.5 Impreza RS, at least I'm assuming it's an RS since it's got SOHC. The seller said the engine was pulled from a vehicle that was in a rollover collision.

Yep, I swapped both the cam and crank sensors from both engines and it didn't make any difference. Both the original and donor engine are 2005 EJ253. Just spoke with the Subaru tech again at the dealer. He said that if I'm chasing down a cam sensor problem that didn't exist with the old engine, that it's most likely due to either the crank or cam sprocket. He said that if the ECU throws a CEL for the cam position sensor, that the ECU will ignore the triggers on the cam sprocket and only use the triggers coming from the crank sprocket. He also said that he's pretty certain that there are different crank and cam sprockets for MT and AT vehicles. Maybe this is a Canada specific thing?

I didn't see any differenced on opposedforces, but here's what I did find. A youtube video of a timing belt being done on a 2002 forrester with a 2.5i, has a sprocket that looks like this: Here's a photo I took of my original engine after I pulled it from the car. Youtube video:

Yep, I'm absolutely certain that the timing is ok. Timing marks on the sprockets lined up with the engine marks and I also verified belt tooth count prior to installing. It all lined up as it should. I guess the only thing to do at this point is try the cam & crank sprocket swap and see what happens. I'll be sure to take pics and report back when I get to it. Probably next weekend. Till then, I'll continue to scour the 'net to see if there's any documented difference between the sprockets.

Yep, the engine starts and runs. On a scale of 1-10, it's running at about 8.5. It hesitates just a little off the line, but it's not too bad. The timing is not off. I checked the timing on the original belt that was on the donor engine and also ended up putting a brand new timing belt on. When I went to the Subaru dealership today, I told the tech what was going on and he immediately asked if the donor engine came from an Auto or Manual and then asked me what my car is. When I said my car is manual and the donor engine came from an Auto, he said that I need to swap the crank and cam sprockets from the original to the donor engine. I'm prepared to do this, I'm just trying to confirm that his prognosis is correct before I start ripping things apart again. I've yet to find any info online that says there's a difference in crank and cam sprockets on an EJ253 between Auto and Manual transmissions.

Hey folks, new to the forum and hoping to get some clarification on an issue I'm having. I just did a like-for-like engine swap in my '05 2.5 RS. The '05 donor engine was married to an auto transmission. My car is a 5 speed. After the engine swap, I'm throwing a P0340 (cam sensor) CEL and have determined that the sensor, wiring and timing are all fine. I just got back from talking to a tech a Subaru dealership and was told that the crank and cam sprockets are slightly different on cars that come from Automatic transmissions vs Manual transmissions, and he said that's why it's throwing a cam sensor CEL. I've been trying to confirm that this is the case before I spend another 4 hours removing and replacing parts, but I haven't found anything to suggest that there is a difference between the crank and cam sprockets. Hoping someone can provide some insight. Thanks and Happy New Year!