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My suggestion is: don't replace either one. The plug wires are not a failure point unless run with bad plugs (excessive gap) or soaked in oil from plug well seals leaking. The coils almost never fail unless treated similarly or allowed to corrode from lack of dielectric grease. NGK for wires, OEM Subaru for coil pack. If you must. Don't fix it till it's broken - change the plugs, clean and lube the coil terminals. Done. GD

Yes but it's nowhere near 200 HP. Especially with 2.2 heads. We built a full EJ25D with high compression (STI block, pistons, and rods), and used adjustable timing idlers to get the timing spot on. With the 25D ECU in a 98 5MT Forester we made about 145 AWHP. That's about 175 crank HP which is 10 HP over stock for a 25D. It made crazy amounts of torque with a very wide power band - something like 4500 RPM of nearly-peak torque. Pulls hills like a beast. It's not even close to 200 HP though. 2.2 heads will just severely restrict the RPM. It will die off on power above about 5k. Cams..... never had good luck with doing that on the NA Subaru fuel injected engines - it screws up the fuel injection and they throw misfire codes. About all you can do is shift the power up or down - you can't make more of it. And Subaru engines make such huge low end torque that the only worthwhile direction to shift it is up... unfortunately that means generally more overlap, low manifold vacuum and intake reversion which screws with the MAF and you get a rougher idle and misfire codes. It's totally not worth it without the ability to tune and that's not happening on a 96. GD

What engine? Hook up a vacuum gauge to the intake. See if the popping is going into the intake, gauge shows sudden high pressure.

You can't do anything for power unless you put in a 25D complete engine or use the 2.2 heads on a 25D bottom end.

The VP of LINK for North and South America (Jason Oefelein) personally tunes on my DynoJet and helps build our base maps, provides tech support, etc. He is local to us and formerly operated Portland Speed Industries - whom we bought our Dyno from when they closed their doors last year - he liked the product so much he became their VP. He has about 20 years tuning experience and has been using LINK since the early days. Look for a lot more applications such as a likely adapter harness for the 95 to 99 car harnesses, and I'll be bringing LINK to the Domestic vintage GM TBI and TPI applications such as third gen F body, TBI cars/trucks, and C4 Corvettes, etc. LINK has an amazing following and a superb product but has, till now, no presence in these markets and very little North American presence in the Subaru market. Tuning with a LINK is like a dream come true. Once you try it you will never want to go back to anything else. GD

Check for a broken CV joint or shaft not fully seated.

Glad you got it! I love how easy these engines are, especially with a Weber. I have pulled the engine enough times now that i can go from running to completely out im 45 mins by myself. My wife and I have a personal team best of 33 mins. We timed it

Should we applaud or what ? Sorry , but what about this magic box? I have a factory parts manual from 1982 here at home if you need a little help.

We have been working on this for a bit now, and have several units in the field along with a growing library of base maps for running the OBD-I harness EJ engines (turbo and non) on a plug-and-play LINK ECU. With minor changes to a few pins, and running a vacuum line to the ECU you can be up and running with no codes and modern full programmable stand-alone features in a matter of minutes. LINK developed this board for the V1-2 WRX/STI over in Europe, Australia, and Japan. It happens to share the same basic pinout as the USDM EJ22 and EJ22T cars (Legacy 90-94, and Legacy Sport 91-94). The LINK supports full motorsports features such as: G4+ PlugIn Key Features Up to 6D fuel and ignition mapping Precision closed loop cam control (four cam, independent control) Sequential fuel delivery Digital triggering, all OEM patterns OEM idle hardware supported 5D boost control with three switchable tables Motorsport features - antilag, launch, flat shift Continuous barometric correction (on board) CAN port QuickTune - automated fuel tuning Individual cylinder correction USB tuning cable included Stats recording into on-board memory Gear compensations for spark, boost and fuel Real time selectable dual fuel, ignition and boost maps Sync and crank sensors can be a combination of Hall effect, variable reluctance or optical Boost control referenced to gear, speed or throttle position Up to 32Mbit internal logging memory Staged injection Knock with "windowing" This is the ECU we use for this application: http://dealers.linkecu.com/WRX2Plus Our kits also include a 3-bar map sensor, and the expansion loom for adding inputs such as wideband O2 (highly recommended), fuel pressure, EGT, or any other input you would like to map to an ECU function, alarm output, etc. Included in our package is our dyno derived base map library for the EJ, as well as technical support, and 1 hour of remote tuning assistance to get you up and running and driveable to your local dyno shop or on the street tuning either professionally or personally. The tuning software is completely free and there are no licensing or other fees associated with the software. EVER! You can freely download the latest version from the LINK website anytime even if you don't own a LINK ECU. The software is very user friendly and has amazing documentation - right clicking on just about anything brings up a help window. Tired of those expensive MAF sensors? Throw it away forever. LINK can run speed density, or use any MAF from thousands of other newer vehicles - frequency MAF from an LS? No problem. Throttle body not large enough? Bad TPS? No problem - adapt a newer model. You can change any sensor to anything you like from any make and model supported in the software. Just pull from your choice of car in the junk yard and change a few ECU settings. NO LIMITATIONS. Tired of the limitations of the OBD-I factory ECU? The LINK ECU package with included MAP sensor, XS Loom, basemaps, and remote tuning assistance are $1499 Here's a Dyno sheet from our shop's 1991 Legacy Sport Sedan. This car is 100% stock with only 3" turbo-back exhaust. Factory rated at 165 crank HP on 8 psi. This is @ 16 psi with a LINK ECU, and redline bumped up to 7200: 176.11 AWHP, and 196.17 AWTQ. Corrected for drivetrain losses that's about 210 crank HP from the stock EJ22T with only exhaust mods. Please feel free to contact me either here, or through Facebook or email for any questions, etc. GD

We use copper washers. They are reusable. And cheaper. https://www.buyautosupply.com/products/bas03546-m20-copper-drain-plug-gasket.html As stated, you CANNOT reuse the factory crush washer. They are designed with a bubble that conforms only once and then must be thrown away. If you use them they will generally leak or if not they require much more torque than they should which can damage the pan. The copper washers will conform half a dozen times. After which you replace them. They can be annealed if you absolutely must by heating to cherry red and allowing to air cool. GD

Dorman sells a box of 20mm washers but, yeah, you could just buy a several next time you're at the dealer too. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001SNRGAA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

How's the level in the reservoir? Do you loose fluid? Your's sounds like a fluid leak. Any other symptom I can think of would yield a spongy or hard pedal, but still functional. These are somewhat notorious as they get old for rusting out lines above the fuel tank, so look for brake fluid leaking down from that area, usually on the passenger side.

fix the headgasket, sell the car, buy a turbo Forester to play with.

In my opinion the way to do it would be to forget about the factory EZ30 harness and all the codes you will fight trying to swap it to a 96. Cut it on the body side of the bulkhead manifold harness plugs and wire up a LINK ECU to it. You can get a LINK and wire-in harness tor about $1500 and they have the trigger setup already programmed and they just work so well and are easy to tune. But if you aren't doing it yourself, it's going to cost far more than just buying a low mileage H6 Outback that already has this engine. GD

The dudes are right, 250hp for low budget on a smaller displacement engine is near impossible. Usually requires advanced knowledge of tricks and techniques to make it happen. It frequently results in a severely shortened engine life. If many swaps is your cup-o-tea, go for it. Worst you can do is waste money and blow up engines? Idk...not my cup. I installed an '02 EZ3.0 in a '77, with thebone stock Ecu, and a '92 Loyale trans. 215hp overnight... Well, over 2 weeks. Anything can be done if you are willing to do the research into what it will take. My total cost into the build thus far is just shy of $1500, including the engine and tires. Engine came from pull and save, for a whopping $200. She runs, drives, and has a few thousand miles on it now, including one 1000 mile trip. That being said, I AM a mechanic. If I was to do that for anyone else, it would be astronomically expensive, primarily due to the labor cost, time is money and the research into it was extensive. A 96 body will fit an EZ30, and will bolt to the trans. You said you did the clutch, if you have, then you know how to pull the engine. Procedure is *almost* the same for the physical engine swap. Would need to switch the radiator, which is a bolt in, and have the exhaust mated to the new engine. And... iMO - Your Primary issue is Wiring. The EZ30 runs a different (although physically similar) ECU. It has more wires coming from the engine, because more cylinders and more sensors, which means everywhere the wires run between the ECU and engine (dash, bulkhead, footwell, etc) is also different. To make it work you need to either swap the whole harness, Pay to have someone else do a harness merge, or do a LOT of research, pull out a multimeter, and do it yourself. Its a learning process, and most people quit because they didn't take the time to learn first. I am a dumb carb guy. I knew nothing about ECU wiring when I started. If I made it work, so can anyone. There are many good writeups on that swap, and if you are willing to do all the legwork yourself to find the wiring diagrams, learn about them, and then replace the right wires then you can do it. There is no reason it HAS to be expensive, but you really need to look up everyone's experience. Take good notes of what went wrong for them, and how they fixed issues that will bite you in the wallet. I spent 3 weeks reading every ez swap I could find just so I wouldn't have any issues on my daily when I did the swap. It worked. No codes, no horrible failures, just some cooling kinks from cheaping out on pipe clamps. BUT it's done for less than what most people pay for their engine alone. So decide what you want to do, then to heck with peoples opinions of the idea, get out there, learn what you need to know, then a whole bunch of extra, and make it happen. Sry for novel.

It could be a sticky IACV. Also a good time to check for any stored codes, this might give a clue as to what could be part of the issue. Cheers Bennie

reminds me of my son. He's 10 years old now and wants to drive my car.

Secondary Effects of this Setup: SOUND: Since There's No Mechanical Fan, there's no Noise from that... I've never imagined how Noisy that fan was untill I Removed it: The EA82's Boxer Rumble sounds Clearly on Low and Medium RPM's like Never Before; the engine's Sound becomes more Solid, like an impreza Somehow... FUEL USAGE: I've Noticed a Fuel consumption Drop, but I'm Still not sure about the real Amount; it is Small but noticeable for Sure. A/C: This twin fans improves a li'l amount the Coolness of the A/C Performance: Two are Better than one! ENGINE PERFORMANCE: Better Throttle Response, faster acceleration and other minor advantages. MAINTENANCE: Now becomes easier to work on that fans and also in the Area nearby, like to servicing the Timin' Belts. All that let me Think Why I didn't this setup Before? It seems complicated reading it First, but is very Simple once you're Doing it; the Harder part was to Find the Proper Replacements and figure out the Wiring, but I've already tell you how, here; in this Writeup. I Hope this can Help. Kind Regards.