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^^^^ what Larry said, plus, weak tenisoners can sometimes knock. drain the oil and drag a magnet around in it too.

I'd at least pull the timing belt covers off. I picked up a 2001 that sounded like a rod knock. It turned out to be the timing belt cogged Idler bearings were gone! I'm still driving that $400 car.

OP's first picture sure looks like it is a (rusty) spring+bolt connector on one side so ... flex joint? The further aft junctions don't use springs as posted by Imdew. That being said, the collars are pretty shabby and might still leak around the donut. BTW, I have an issue with my 08 where the rear pipe Vs off to the rear mufflers and have bought time using furnace grade high temp caulk from Home Depot.

What do you mean by "my engine blew"? That could describe a lot of issues...some of which could be fixed more easily or more cheaply than installing a new motor.

it is a donut type and they are pretty common as for the old bolts, cut them - angle grinder would be fastest, saws-all, even a jigsaw will do the job if you can, go in between the two pipes to cut, but if not, then get as close to the existing flange as you can.

Really good info with the knock sensor, I'll have to look into that. And I didn't know that about the altinators, starters and fuel pumps! That's insane. That's alot of travel my man. I certainly don't put that kind of mileage on. I can see why you try to stick to oem!

MTs get torque bind too. VLSDs in the center fail to locked, vlsd rear diffs fail to open. The best thing you can do for reliability is to stop working on the car and do a brush up on Subaru maintenance. A mid 90s EJ22 is some of the easiest, inexpensive, most reliable 200,000 miles you can get. Do it right. Trans - change the fluid often. Assume at some point in its history it wasn’t and some extra changes or higher end fluid is worth it. I’d use redline or whatever GD runs at his shop. If those aren’t Subaru parts then you’re throwing away quality precision parts and installing garbage. Not only once but you’re basically doing a complete Advance Auto Parts mobile test bed. You must like gambling !! Hahaha Subaru parts also are not only far less likely to fail but less likely to fail catastrophically. Subaru tie rods bearings ball joints and bushings will give noises and show play for thousands of miles before failure is even remotely possible. Aftermarket have a much higher probability of failing instantaneously with flair. A wheel bearing blowing out while driving down the road on a Subaru is 100% of the time: 1. an aftermarket bearing or 2. installation error Subaru axles are one of the keenest examples. Regrease and reboot original green cup Subaru axles. Don’t install aftermarket they fail *all the time*. Sure 7 out of 10 peole get away with aftermarket axles. But they’re usually not putting many miles on them and the other 3 end up with time wasting break downs. And your car has a slight lift I think from forester struts. That’ll eat aftermarket axles. There’s almost zero chance they last 5 years and blowing up while driving down the interstate at 60 mph isn’t surprising either. I’ve seen it. oEM axles never do that ever unless you ignore noises for 20,000 miles There are no functional “heavy duty” parts for Subarus like this. They’re all inferior to the OEM Subaru parts. Every single aftermarket axle is garbage and it’s well known and documented.

Boots can be changed. It's tight, but you can do it. Sometimes it helps to drop the Y-pipe a bit. I pin punch the tie rod nut and then use a pice of wire to record the lenght the nut is off the inner tie rod. It allows you to put it back to almost aligned. Unscrew the inner tierod, remove the nut and replace the boot. Put it all back together and get an alignment.

Fix things when they fail. Hope you did the cam and crank seals as well as the oil pump seal and rear plate screws when you were in there for the timing belt. If not, leave them until they start leaking. Rear Breather plate reseal, when you do the clutch and flywheel. Great car. Keep the fluids full and clean and you are good to go. NGK copper core plugs and wires or Subaru wires. Enjoy!

Grab a long screw driver, put the handle against your ear and start touching the engine all over to find where the knock is coming from. I have a few running EA81T longblocks, if you need a replacement.