My daily driver, 94 Subaru Legacy 2.2L, suffered a loss of power in late 94. I knew it was hitting on three cylinders but I thought the problem was a blown head gasket. Anyway, I drove it for another 10K miles because in the interim, I'd found an 84K mile motor (mine had 145K miles on it) and decided to just swap the darn thing out. The newer motor ran like a champ (did the swap in June 05) but I had the old motor laying around and finally got around to getting rid of it but I pulled the head to verify the original problem. It was ugly. This is the passengers (left) side head closest to the firewall. I now have 185K on the replacement engine and guess what.... it's missing like a banshee! I pulled the spark plug on the cylinder on the drivers side closest to the firewall and it's covered with gunk. I was getting some blue smoke at startup as well. Looks like I'll be pulling this engine as well. I'll be having the heads done this time. Does it ever end?

 

Greg

 

Looks like a burned exhaust valve, no?

 

**** ******!

Yeah, that exhaust valve is toast.

 

These engines tend to build up carbon if they don't get run hard every now and then. It's also a good idea to run fuel system cleaner every now and then.

These engines tend to build up carbon if they don't get run hard every now and then.

 

then my engine in CLEEAANN

curious about cleaner, how often is 'now and then' ? every few months? weeks?

curious about cleaner, how often is 'now and then' ? every few months? weeks?

A bottle of Techron once every oil change is a good rule of thumb.

 

Regarding the burned valve, Subaru began touting "Stainess steel valves" in their literature at some point. I wonder if it's in regards to a previous issue with valve integrity.

 

**** ******!

what freaking causes that burnt valve?

i've dealt with the older EA82 and ER27 motors for years and have never seen that even on abused, over heated 200,000 mile 20 year old vehicles.

Well if you've ever had a local buildup of carbon around the valves, you stand a pretty good chance of burning a valve eventually. THe carbon is an insulator (more so than the metal of the head) and so heat builds up in the vicinity of the deposit. Too much carbon and you'll burn the edge off a valve -- though I've gotta admit that I've never seen one THIS bad before!!

Well if you've ever had a local buildup of carbon around the valves, you stand a pretty good chance of burning a valve eventually. THe carbon is an insulator (more so than the metal of the head) and so heat builds up in the vicinity of the deposit. Too much carbon and you'll burn the edge off a valve -- though I've gotta admit that I've never seen one THIS bad before!!

 

BINGO!

 

And that's why I said you need to do the italian tune up every-so-often and run some fuel system cleaner.

 

As for frequency of the italian tune up......depends on how much you drive.....every other week...once a week.

then my engine in CLEEAANN

that's one thing most good subie owners don't have to worry about. running it hard! what to drive; turbo subie's.

You don't need to run a turbo EJ22 to run it hard. About once a week I will run my NA EJ22 in the 6k RPM range for a couple of minutes (3rd gear does it very well and it runs great at that RPM) and it seems to help. The car seems to run smoother for awhile after doing it.

Nice valve. If you were listening for it, I'll bet you could hear the exhaust going, ffffft, ffffft, ffffft. . . . .. as the combustion gasses shot through that exhaust valve on each power cycle.

 

Jack