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Are you sure the timing belt isn't one tooth off?

A southern EJ22 swapped 1998 Forester or 96-99 Outback is the best for reliability and ease of maintenance. Buy one of those from the south and you won’t learn much because there won’t be much to do to it. That engine and 4EAT trans will run forever. 00-04 Outback and 99-04 Forester are a close second. They have head gasket issues that can be mitigated by a DIY mechanical person and have a perfectly reliable 100k with that same bullet proof 4EAT as the 90’s stuff. Those head gasket issues make them really easy to pick up cheap. Proper repair and you’re good for a reliable 100k. 05+ is when degradations start but many are small and mostly annoyances. Drivetrain and stranding items like engine/trans is largely the same as 00-04. Same thing - get one cheap leaking oil and repair it properly for a reliable 100k. This is also when the annoying CANBUS system. Not a big deal but can’t do engine swaps any more. 05-09 outback (forester years and shifted slightly but are less common so I’m less familiar) is basically the same on overall drivetrain like engine and trans. Same head gasket points, can still get the 4EAT This range Forester or Outback with EJ25 and 4EAT is probably your best bet for newer and predictable issues and maintenance. Right around 2010+ starts to drift into CVTs, early FB engines with ring issues and oil consumption. I would avoid those. I usually recommend favoring 00-09 or getting as new as you can 2017+ to avoid 2011-2016 first iteration CVT and FB engines in Forester and Outback. But if you’re buying a low cost car needing work then sometimes that all goes out the window for a good deal. Its not like they’re all blowing up - I just picked up a 2011 Forester for parts with 260,000 miles and it runs perfectly fine. Some of us here see too many Subaru’s and have the wherewithal to be picky. I get mine from the south or west to avoid rust....but I can’t expect family and friends I help to do the same.

Make sure the timing belt is using the right mark on the flywheel. It's a different mark than the one for timing.

Wayne, if you thought the car would be off road much, the Forester has better stock approach and departure angles. Of course, Outbacks and legacys can be lifted/modded......

Agreed.

the timing belt pics look good. When the green connectors are connected, it tell the ECU not to mess with the advance, so timing must be set / checked with them connected. If you ran out of slot to get to 20degrees, the disty gear is off a tooth. The alignment setting info applies to the rotor position once the distributor is in place. If you watch closely, the rotor turns some while inserting because of the helical gears used to drive it. Since it does run, it's probably only off 1 tooth. Just pull the distributor until the gear disengages, advance or retard it a tooth, [depending on which way you ruin out of slot] slide it back down. re check the timing.

If this is an EA82 engine, ypu have to connect the green test connectors to measure and set the timing.

cyls 3 and 4 share half the coil.....

Honing hasn't been a good idea on any engine since before 1980 or so. If the bores are wrecked then you have to bore it oversized, and you finish with a plateau hone of about 600 grit (very fine). Subaru engines do not wear out their bores and if they need to be bored oversized you may as well just throw them in the trash as the machine work to do a main line hone (absolutely required), bore with a deckplate and re-finish the head mating surfaces is about the cost of a new set of case halves once you figure turn-around time and transportation costs. DO NOT split the block. If you do that you may as well just find a used block. The level of success an amateur is likely to achieve with a block split is very low. High probability it will fail in short order, and almost a certainty it would have a much shorter life than if it were just left alone. There are techniques required to properly reassemble them (or even one composed of all new parts), and very accurate measuring tools and procedures must be followed as the tolerances are much tighter than something like a GM small block due to the nature of the aluminum blocks. GD

I lean on GD for block recommendations and experience. He does this stuff all the time and has described in detail in other posts about why. Look those comments up if you need more background and fact checking. It’s enlightening and data and experience driven. Im a member of a lot of Subaru forums since the 1990s, I know exactly what you mean! Blocks are tough and I don’t think advice given is purposely misguided. There’s just not much volume to go on. Few people are doing any volume of blocks over a long enough time to make more than anecdotal assumptions, there’s no good data. And almost no one has the volume or time to do it multiple ways and compare data. GD is about as close as you can get to that anywhere online when it comes to Subaru blocks.