went to the junkyard and pulled a head offa my dads old xt i knew that it was good at one point but it still has a crack in the exaust port. so should this be a less cause of concern since its a gen 3?

Are you sure it goes up into the exhaust port? Never seen a gen3 do that, but I guess its possible.

well

looks like that but on a smaller scale

it's not nearly that long. just worried im gonna spend money on pretty much nothing cuz im gonna get it back together and rip it back apart if it leaks. and i deff. dont wanna do that

Ah, got it now. When you said exhaust port I was thinking in the valve area. I've never seen one cracked that bad and dont know what kind of effect it would have.

But it doesnt look good :-\

I didnt get a chance to look at the one I have, will do it tomorrow.

if you can find it PM me with the price. im actually loosing sleep over this. its bothering me i cant seem to make a decision and have a feeling im going to go over budget and i have a big trip planned to bellview soon.

I've cut a few of these apart. I'd say only about half of the ones with visible cracks actually where cracked through to the water jacket. It may not be too bad.

 

It would be a risk, but I have been running a motor with terrible BTV cracks and some small signs of the exhaust port cracks for about 20k hard miles now. Every so often I think I smell burning coolant, but I never have to top it off.

 

There is alot of grey area with Subaru heads. Only heads I know of that can have crack like south central and still be in OK running condition.

 

But really, If you want it fixed, talk to some local dirt oval racing guys. They need to weld their aluminum small block heads all the time. There has gotta be someone near you that can weld that crack.

:-\ well i plan on taking it down today and getting it pressure checked and if it checks out im going to put it on and not look back