davcoz

Final Update: Made a friend of mine a deal. If he payed for the parts I'd help him fix the car and I would sign it over to him. We got the head off Friday and one of the exhaust valves was sticking. It was $25.00 to fix the head and $207.00 for the gaskets and belts to put it back together. Can't figure out why the valve would start sticking. That also explains why the problem was intermittent at first. I picked up a 2008 2.5i Outback last week. What a beautiful car. My seventh Subaru since 1982. Thanks to everyone for your help.

Checked timing belt and it was fine. Ran #1 to TDC and rigged up system to put 60 pounds of air into cylinder. Air came out the exhaust. I removed the rocker arms to get the cam and valve lash adjusters out of the equation. Air still came out of the exhaust, and I mean a lot of air. Valves are no stuck My exhaust valve/valves are shot. Don't understand the intermittant part though.

Thanks to all of you for your advise. I'm going to try the compressed air test after I check the timing belt. Still can't figure out how a timing belt could affect one cylinder and not the others. I guess I'm just hoping. The compressed air test will tell me where the problem is. I will let you all know. I've owned six Subarus since 1982. 1982 4wd wagon 126,000 miles, sold in 1987 1985 4wd wagon 278,000 miles, drove to junk yard in 1996 1990 2wd Legacy Wagon 210,000 miles (only automatic I ever owned), gave it away in 2000. 1996 Legacy Outback 180,000 miles, body is excellent, this is the one with the problem. 1998 RS wife's summer only car. Only 30,000 miles, still own it. 2003 Legacy Outback Wagon 54,000 miles, still own it.

The valves are working. I saw the actual valve stem. Had to use a mirror to see the exhaust valves. I gently placed a long slender screwdriver on top of the piston and cranked the engine. The rod is intact.

I've been trying to find one. So far no luck.

The car still runs. It just runs rough. The number one cylinder is completely dead. When I remove plug wires from the three other cylinders I get a noticable drop in RPMs. When I remove the plug wire from number one nothing happens. I will check the belt tonight. What I don't understand is how the belt can slip and not affect the other cylinders? Believe me I hope that's it!!!!!!

The engine has 180,000 miles on it. The belt is not very old. I had my wife hit the starter with the cover off the right bank and looked at everything working. It all worked just like it is supposed to. The engine never overheated, never ran out of oil. In fact it has never gone over 5000 miles without an oil change. I'm hoping for something like a bad valve lash adjuster or something simple like that, but I'm afraid it's a hole in the piston and I'm not going to split the case. I'll replace the engine.

Checked number one and number three at least three times. 0 from #1 and 180 from number 3.

Let me tell you the whole story. This engine has always run incredably smooth. So smooth that a few times I actually didn't know it was running. I got a check engine light the other day. The engine started running rough and then cleared up. The next day I drove to work and it ran fine. It started running rough again and the check engine light would blink. It stopped blinking when it started running OK. I checked the OBD and found it was missing on #1. I changed plugs, wires, checked both sides of the coils, checked the injectors and all was fine. Checked compression on #1 with throttle wide open, 0 compression. Checked the compression on #3 and got 180 lbs. Removed the valve cover and all valves are working. Can the belt slip and screw up one cylinder and not another? Tonight I'm going to bring the piston to TDC on number one and put compressed air into the cylinder to see if I can find out where it's going. If it comes out the exhaust or air intake I'll replace the head. If it bubbles out the radiator it should be a HG. If it comes out the dip stick hole I'll be looking for a new engine. What do you think?

My 2.2 Outback has 180,000 miles. I got a 201 code for misfire #1 cylinder. Checked all the usual stuff. No good. Checked compression on #1 and I got zero. Valves do not appear to be sticking. Haven't noticed any problems with oil, coolant, or overheating. Any ideas? Thanks, Dave