Fairtax4me

In VA if there is a light of any kind on the car it has to work, or it has the be covered/removed in order to pass state safety inspection. I haven't read through most of them but this site has info about equipment laws from every state. http://www.liftlaws.com/

Did you spray the exhaust valves as well? Those would not leak into the cylinders, but small amounts of oil dripping into hot exhaust would still burn off and cause it to smoke.

He's not too worried about it no matter what you say, so save your fingers. And he did ask about cost to evacuate and refill which gives the impression he intends to empty the system the environmentally friendly (legal) way. R134A (EPA mandated in the US in 1994 for all motor vehicle AC system use) is a Hydrofluorocarbon, whos detrimental effects to the Ozone are negligible. It causes global warming instead.

Rear main leaks on these are the only leaks that are NOT common. Entirely possible, but it would not be my first suspect. Usually leaks at the back of the engine are due to the oil separator plate seal. This is a much discussed topic here. The oil separator is part of the crankcase breather system. At higher RPM there will be more oil vapor floating around in the crankcase, which is filtered out (somewhat) by the separator plate, before being pulled out through the PCV hose and fed into the intake to be burned off. That extra oil vapor will condense and run down the plate, as it normally should. But when it gets to the bad seal at the bottom, rather than run down into the oil pan, it drips out the back of the engine, down to the center of the bell housing, and drips out right into the middle of the Y pipe. I've never noticed my 96 "whistling" at high RPMs. Any accessory or idler bearing on the front of the engine might make whining/jet-like noises at higher RPM though. How many miles on the car? When was the last time the timing belt was changed?

Good info Fuzpile. I dug into the FSM after reading your post. Here's what Subaru has to say about that:

It sounds like a bad slave cylinder or a leak in the hydraulic line for the clutch release, but I think 98 still has the cable operated release. Without being there to tear it apart and look, we can really only speculate about what happened, but it doesn't sound good.

Well!?!?!?! Don't leave us hanging!!! The suspense is killing me! There was a gadget that was really popular a few years ago (might still be I don't know) that mounted inside the car, had a little screen and some buttons. You put in a bunch of numbers (weight, gear ratios, etc) and it would time you for 0-60 or 0-100 and tell you all the same stuff that software does. Can't remember for the life of me what it was called though. Might try starting a new thread about it to get some other opinions from people who might not have the patience for a thread of this length. There are actually quite a few programs like this floating around that deal specifically with subaru. I used to have some bookmarked, lost them the last time my computer crashed. :-\

I'm no expert, but I'd be inclined to say valve stem seals are your culprit. It sounds like the internals are in good shape, and with no other obvious signs of wear the chances that the rings are worn seem pretty slim. Unless you can find some pretty big score marks in the cylinder walls. But I think cylinder wall damage would have been evident in the leakdown test. If the PCV valve is clean and in working order, did you check the breather hoses for obstruction? (i'm going to guess they're clear)

They actually do safety inspections in WV? CEL doesn't mean anything in Va either. At least not where I am, dunno about up north. But it will fail emissions with it on. EGR faults are mostly "two trip", except wiring things. If the car never moved it didn't complete a "trip" so it probably never noticed there was anything wrong. I guess it depends on what you plan to put the other engine in. If you put it in a 95 non-egr car I can't imagine it would know the valve was missing. These things aren't that smart!

I would have checked the PCV and breather system before tearing the engine down. Did you happen to notice any oil on the valves? That might indicate the valve stem seals are leaking. The oil control rings don't really affect compression as far as I know. So it could be that they're allowing some extra oil past. Do the rings move freely in the grooves? They're not all clogged up with carbon? 5% leak seems fairly high to me for an engine in good working order. Not sure what Subaru specs are for cylinder leak down, but most that I've done the 2-3% range is acceptible, and anything higher is usually worn rings or cylinder wall damage. How does the rest of the crankcase look inside? Is it clean? Is there any goo/tar like substance in the corners? How does the hone in the cylinders look?

Unplugging the MAF puts the ECU in "Limp" mode. It will run but won't be too happy about it. Basically it ignores all of the sensors on the engine so if one is way out of whack you can still manage to drive the car to a safe location (shop, home). This doesn't automatically mean the MAF is bad. Just means that the ECU is ignoring everything else when the MAF is unplugged. Double check all of the hoses that attach to the intake tube, to make sure they're all tightly attached and clamped where needed (such as on the throttle body).

I asked one of our techs about this this morning. This is right along the lines of what he said. In Va at least, there is no law requiring reverse lights, but if the car has them they have to work. Fog/driving lights are the same story, whether factory installed or after market. He told me the reverse lights don't have to work, but you would need to cover the lenses (tape, paint, etc) and remove the bulbs. I tend to think people should be able to tell if a car is moving forward or backwards without having to look at some little lights on the back of it.

What non-interference engines? AFAIK all versions of Ej25 are interference design.

It's practically right next to it. The plug for the switch is in the same area as the one for the neutral switch on the passenger side of the bellhousing. I don't know off hand which one is which but you can figure it out since you just replaced one of them.

Might be the switch. Did you unplug the reverse light switch for any reason? However. This throws up a little red flag. I'm not aware of any DOT law that requires you to have reverse lights. Might check the inspection laws for your state, they might not be allowed to fail it for the reverse lights.

All of the documentation I can find says exactly this. But the differences between the three are still minimal. Lots of parts interchange, and the ones that don't directly swap generally will after very little modification. I thought I had put in a snippet about the local market, guess I cut it out somehow. Anyway I did do some checking around for other Foresters in the area. Of the few there are, asking prices are all over the map, many of them insanely high. Blue book says it might be worth $900 or $2500 depending on trim and condition, and which site you look on. I was thinking $500 myself, just wasn't sure if anyone else was paying less for these. For resale, the best I can come up with is between $1500 and $2000, again depending condition and trim. (Obviously an S model would have more "goodies" and might fetch a bit more.) That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for profit after the fact. With 200k on a manual trans, pretty good bet the synchros are worn, will have some wonderful noises starting to come from the bearings and diff, and will probably need a clutch. Plus stuff like wheel bearings, struts, brakes? He did say it had "new" tires though. Thanks, I really appreciate the input guys. Any other thoughts ( like some other major issue I might be forgetting), I'm all ears.

Sounds like airlock. The tank vents through the evap system when filling. I'm not sure where the evap hoses are routed on that model year. But some cars had the evap charcoal canister at the front of the car hidden behind under the hood somewhere. Might have accidentally crimped one of those hoses during removal/installation of the engine. My other thought would be something down in the filler pipe, or the filler pipe got crushed somehow.

Might buy this car. Dunno if I want to keep it (black isn't my favored color), but it depends on what kind of shape it's in. I might drive it for a while and resell it, who knows. 99 Forester, MT, 200k. Black on black/dark grey. It was apparently taken on a two and a half hour trip, and something happened to the engine. Owner had it towed all the way back to c'ville. (roughly 165 miles, talk about an expensive bill ) Have not seen the car in person but am told it is in decent shape body wise. Hoping to know more about what happened and get a location for the car to go look at it sometime this weekend or early next week. I was wondering if any of you "flippers" here have an idea of what these are worth? And what you might offer for one depending on condition?

I did not catch the "S" on the end of that first time around.

03 has the easy bolt on bearing assembly. You might have to persuade the hub (part with the wheel studs) out of the bearing. But the knuckle does not have to be removed to change this type of bearing. And you don't have to mess with the strut either.

Not that much of a problem? When Subaru acknowledges that there is a problem (which, comparatively speaking, rarely happens with any manufacturer) there is a problem. From what I've read, and heard from Subaru technicians, is that this is an almost guaranteed failure on the phase 1 ej25. Except they will not be in direct contact with this design. That's why the coating is there. DuPonts page about Viton coated head gaskets. http://www.dupontelastomers.com/Products/Viton/head.asp Sounds like a good setup to me. More and more manufacturers are using gaskets just like this on all aluminum alloy engines and they don't seem to have any trouble with them.

Smoke is normal after major engine service. It's oil and whatever else got spilled on the engine in the process getting burned off. I consider it the (bitter) sweet smell of success because it's running. 75°C engine coolant temp is still "cold". Normal warm engine operating temp is in the 190-200°F range. (about 85 - 90°C) The fan will not come on until the coolant temp reaches ~ 210°F, 95°C. If outside air temp is 75°F there may be enough cooling effect due simply to heat radiation to prevent the engine from reaching the magical 210° temp needed for the fan to come on. Let the engine warm up with the hood closed. It will also help to hold engine speed around 1500 rpm rather than letting it remain at idle. edit: FSM says fan, with AC off, should cut on at 203°F, which is 94.9 °C I did my conversions wrong.

Oil pressure switch. Pretty sure that's a one wire deal. The Crank position sensor would have no reason to "leak" because there is no passage inside the crankcase for oil to exit from. The power steering pump commonly leaks and drips right in that area as well. But that will be more towards the passenger side head. The oil pressure switch is closer to the center of the block.

That rules out most wiring related problems for the fans. The secondary fan will not turn on with the AC switch if the AC is un-operational. Fuse getting hot sounds strange. That would indicate that there is a load on the circuit. The fan obviously works, so maybe there is a very small high resistance short somewhere along the line. You're trying to get the fan to cycle while idling the engine correct? Are you testing with the hood open or shut, and what is the ambient air temp when testing?

Good stuff! Thanks for updating with the ultimate fix.