RallyKeith

I wouldn't call those phase 1 heads. You might be able to persuade me to call them phase 1.5, but they went from dual port exhaust to single port and the loss of flow created some problems. It's not super common but it is something to keep in mind. It is very hard to diagnose which is why I brought it up. We spent months chasing a misfire that in the end was a dropped valve guide. It was only after talking to a friend who is a Subaru Master Mechanic that he brought this up because it is something they see. I agree that since it moved from one cylinder to another it's not highly probable, but it is as I said a possibility on that engine.

I know everyone here is going to say I'm totally off, and for your sake I hope I am, but it's possibly an issue with dropped exhaust valve guides. Somewhat common problem on the 96-9 single port heads. We had it happen on my father's 96. Shows up as a misfire code and it will come and go. http://allwheeldriveauto.com/subaru-service-seattle-dropped-exhaust-valve-guides-explained/

I'm less inclined to believe it's the ignitor since that part didn't change between motors, but the coil pack did so I guess that could have somehow damaged it. I should also mention that the crank sensor is corroded in the emboss so badly that we weren't able to get it out last night. We sprayed it with PB blaster and plan to come back to it no matter what.

I just swapped a 96 EJ22 in place of a dead EJ25 in a 98 Legacy Outback. Dropped the engine in and it started just fine. Then after a few minutes the idle started to droop and come back up until after a minute or two it stalled. Wouldn't restart and when I pulled a plug wire and checked for spark I had no spark. Interestingly about 1 second after I stopped cranking I would get one spark on the plug. So I swapped the coils pack and no difference. Once the engine cooled down it start up and ran again. I didn't let it run long. What could this be? My first thoughts are bad crank or cam position sensor. Thanks, Keith

In General, I have yet to be disappointed by any Beck/Arnley part. I just bought a Beck/Arnley timing belt for my 2005 and it was a really high quality belt with all the timing marks and even included a windshield sticker to record the mileage. I also bought a Beck Arnley Thermostat and it was pretty beefy, at least matching the build quality of the OEM, and it included the rubber seal.

There was a seal on that tube in the pan, but the pan was an aftermarket pan. The original was heavily rusted. Since it was rusted so badly and filled with metal bits from the bearing that failed I chose to just buy a new one. Fit and construction seemed fine.

Good point Gary... Now I'm thinking twice about it. Here is another interesting thing, I just checked the oil level over lunch. I've got a nice level parking lot and the car was sitting for 4 hours and the oil shows as being just a bit over full. Front of the dip stick is right on the dot and the back is just past it. I'm wondering if I had it overfilled enough from trying to prime the pump that I upset something or if it made the level high enough to pool up behind the piston as suggested?

With no seals on the intake it will suck oil when the motor is in vacuum. I've got a miata with bad valve guide seals that blows a huge cloud of smoke after I coast down a 1 mile hill in 5th gear on my way home. As soon as I step on the gas all of the oil that's been being sucked in while in vacuum ignites.

Thanks for the input guys. My first steps will be compression and leakdown. Car didn't show any signs of this issue before the rebuild. It was being driven by the previous owner and I had put about 25 miles on it before deciding it had to be rebuilt right away. My gut says I screwed something up with the valve seals since the smoke was only there after it sat overnight. Rings don't let oil leak into the cylinder while parked. When I get home tonight I may rotate the crank so that all the valves are closed, let it sit, and then pull the intake manifold off to see if there is oil pooled up on valves. That would be a sure indication of it being the valve seals.

Gary, the '05 motor is a one off. It did not get the VVT. As for the valves being bent I don't think so. I re-lapped them and checked a few with prussian blue and everything looked fine. Also absolutely no evidence of there ever being any interference. If I didn't get all of the lapping/grinding compound out of the valve stem tubes, could that have caused them to fail? I ran a pretty good brush through each tube with water (water based grinding compund) when cleaning up. I used a seal kit from subaru. There was a small concern because it came with the wrong exhaust manifold gasket and was missing the spark plug tube seals but the kit part number was what is in the subaru system and my local dealer said they have seen a few kits come in with small mixups like that. They also said the thought pretty much all the valve seals were identical across most engines.

I bought an '05 Legacy 2.5 with 161k and a knock. Tore the engine apart and found a bad main bearing and a pretty warn rod bearing. Rebuilt the motor but never touched the pistons or cylinders. When we split the block we left the piston assemblies in. Bought an engine gasket kit from subaru and rebuilt everything else. I was very careful, at least I thought, to follow the factory manual and installed the green seals on the exhaust valves and the gray seals on the intake valves.Everything was fine on first startup where I let the engine run for about 15 minutes at idle to bring everything up to temp. Let it cool for about an hour, then started it and drove it 15 minutes to let it set over night. Started it the following morning and drove it an hour to work. No issues during any of this. Drove it back home another hour and ran a few errands last night. This morning I started it up and got a big cloud of oil smoke out the exhaust. Shut it down and checked the oil and it was about 1/4 quart low. Drove it the hour to work and never saw obvious smoke. This screams valve guide seals to me but I wanted to get some other opinions, and even ask if anyone has ever had any follies when replacing the seals or even had bad ones from the dealer. Thanks, Keith

Miles, Oil filter always gets filled up. It was just an issue with priming. It wouldn't build pressure or flow at all. Finally got it to flow and build pressure on the starter by filling the pump through the where the oil pressure switch goes. Once I did that it built pressure just from cranking. Started it up and everything is fine.

BTW, I've got the coil pack unplugged and fuse to the fuel pump pulled. Last thing I need is to be dumping tons of fuel into the exhaust or risk having it get past the rings and dilute the oil.

It's actually my motor he's talking about. I cranked it for about a minute. 10 seconds of cranking, 5 second pause, repeat, for a total cranking time of about 1 minute. Light never went off. Before putting the oil pan on I filled the oil pump and pickup tube to try and get oil in the pump. The switch for the light is supposed to go out when it's above 2.1psi. If I do some math and assume a linear relationship between the speced RPM and pressures in the manual I should be able to get around 10psi while cranking. I will probably try starting it and if the light doesn't go out within about 5 seconds I'll kill it.

The tensioners are very touchy. You have to compress them extremely slow or you will blow them out. I've only ever lost one so far.

Unless I've missed something over the years there are no known issues with '05 and newer head gaskets.

What level of wrenching are you comfortable with? If it's just a bottom end failure and the heads and intake are fine you can get a new short block from subaru for around $3500 I believe. If you're only comfortable with a complete engine swap, www.car-part.com is a junk yard search engine. You should be able to locate a decent unit but for something that new expect to pay at least $2000. Plus be prepared for the possibility of needing to replace the oil pan, and you will need to swap all of your accessories like powersteering pump alternator and air conditioner pump over to the new motor. Unless the car is totally beat it should be well worth putting a new engine in. As long as it's a lower mileage engine you should be fine. How did your engine fail?

Definitely check compression. We had an issue like that in a 96 that turned out to be a dropped valve guide. Is it worse when warm?

Where did you put the jack stands in the rear? Many years ago a made the mistake of putting the rear jack stands on the plates that the rear diff carrier bolt to and I belt the plate up. This caused the plate to rub against the carrier during the right loading.

Sorry, but the tone wheel being magnetic in any way shape or form is completely false. The ABS sensors are inductive proximity sensors and they purely sense the presence or lack of metal, hence why it's notched the way it is. Just cut the tone wheel in two relatively adjacent low spots. I've done it on three different cars now with absolutely no issues. Keith

No, that's the right fluid as far as I know. It's GL-5 and 75W90 which is what the manual calls for. I was just concerned that at 4.1qts it might be a little low. Have you checked the level again since changing it and driving it?

What happens if you put the center diff in manual mode and set it to the most open setting? This might help point the issue to the center or front diff. Also, 05 WRX Sti should be a 6spd, which the PDF in the attached link says takes 4.3 US qts for the transmission alone.

I would find that hard to believe considering the press release on the king website about the design of these bearings for subarus. Could be wrong though.

Looks like these are fairly popular over on NASIOC. I may just be giving them a try.

Does anyone have any experience with ACL Main and Rod Bearing Sets? http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=400555257467&globalid=ebay-us I'm in the middle of rebuilding a 2005 Legacy 2.5i EJ253 that lost a main bearing. My problem is that Subaru OEM bearings are $300 shipped, and my other choices are ITM "brand" or DNJ "Brand" from Rock Auto. These are the only other thing I've found. Reading their description they seem decent. Keith