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He’s speaking from data driven, very specific experience, and has researched failure modes rather than asinine regurgitation most people resort too. You can search his past comments on them on this forum. They are very informative if you really want to know. “Garbage” is relative. I’ll over simplify. Any average daily driver Subaru will make 200k+ on ANY filter and ANY oil that’s changed often and incurs no major issues. Brand and minor weight variance doesn’t matter. your experience with 3 Subarus is a prime example. Correlation doesn’t mean causation. I’ve maintained dozens of Subarus past 200k and they’ll do fine on the cheapest filter off the shelf. So that’s all anecdotal. Given that you seem on top of maintenance and incur no extreme use or issues you would have made 200k on those cars with any filter in the store.people do it all the time It’s the norm. I help people with Subarus and most people do not ever read a car forum or care what brand filter they get. That’s a lot of people - they routinely make 200k without blinking. Since that’s true, Subaru filters offer no advantage for that nominal use and you can easily make 200k running them. So does everyone buying the cheapest filter on the shelf. The assumption that Subaru filters are better in this regard doesn’t hold water. What happens when oil changes are extended or a vehicle sees above average use (towing, racing, aggressive driving, 400,000 miles, performance, aggressive off-roading, etc), or when complications arise (oil loss, headgaskets, missed or extended oil change intervals, overheating, cylinder misfires, knock sensor failures...etc), can lead to excessive heat and systems degradation in the engine...chiefly oil overheating, localized overheating within the engine, and debris contamination. This is when differences in oil and filter matter the most. Not during nominal daily driver use and oil conditions. Most conversations conflate all those things and ignore those contexts and everyone is right and every is wrong all at the same time. That’s why oil conversations and discussions and opinions are nearly worthless. Which filters offer better protection under those extenuating circumstances is when the actual data driven differences between them matters. And Subaru filters do not win the day there. They will “work” on the most basic level. No one is suggesting they cause issues. But compared to other filters and the outlier circumstances where filters would become an issue...Subarus aren’t a prime choice.

First post reported reman injectors installed. did the 301 symptoms stay exactly the same before and after the injector swap? I find 2005-2009s rough idle sometimes after battery swaps, low batteries, etc. compression will test fine. Test them all identically with full battery charge and all other things equal (don’t test one with plugs all out and another with the rest all in, throttle body, etc) and see what variance you get - it’ll be a few percent different between cylinders or identical. Almost no way you will have a dead cylinder unless that engine saw some weird things in the past. You can swap plugs wires and injectors to test

Is it consuming oil? Replace PCV with Subaru OEM. It won’t help but it’s easy and cheap and routine maintenance anyway. check fuel pressure. Shouldn’t impact one cylinder, but #1 is furthest from incoming fuel line.... I had a misfire on a 2003 Forester that wasn’t fixed with plugs/wires/coil. I had an extra intake manifold and swapped the entire thing and that took care of it. No idea what it could have been. Vacuum leak/hose, throttle body, coolant temp sensor (though I can’t think how that could impact one cylinder... Ideally you find a way to test. Yes it’s my understanding (which isn’t very good on this point) that coil issues usually result in multiple cylinder misfires...but I’m unsure. I’ve never seen it happen.

try swapping 1 and 3 wires to see if the fouling travels with the wire.