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My LGT has that same 4.44 transmission. It's not bad. The 5speed (and maybe auto, dunno) forester XT has a 4.44 viscus LSD rear you could swap in. Then you can do the center clutch pack lock mod for the transmission. Essentially gives you 4wd.

Bosch platinum. It was the same length as a stock spark plug. So there is no way it could have been hit by the piston, other than the plugs the engine was in really nice shape with about 95k miles on it. Changed to NGKs, and never had an issue afterwards. Three of the for looked like that, one was just severely worn. No idea why it happened. But I drove it on the NGKs for about 30k till I sold it without one issue.

Does the knocking noise completely go away when it's warm, then it runs nice and smooth? If so, probably what we call piston slap. Engines can have it for hundreds of thousands of miles, won't hurt anything. My 2.5 does it so bad you'd think it's going to throw a rod any minute, then it quiets right down. Gas mileage in the winter will go down on every car. They use a different gas in the winter (assuming you live somewhere cold). It's not as efficient, so you burn more of it. Letting the car warm up uses gas. Also, it takes the engine longer to come up to temperature, so it's not running as efficiently, burning more fuel. What brand of plugs and wires did you use? Subarus aren't always happy unless you just use the cheap NGK plugs and the NGK wires. Here's what happened when I tried to second guess making my car happy. Wondered why it was running like crap about 4000 miles after replacing the plugs.

that's pretty awesome! Why the SOHC intake manifold though? The way it sounds when it shifts sounds like an auto. Are you leaving it, or swapping it to a 5speed?

Dunno, all I know is he did phase2 ej22 to phase2 ej25 swap. And it works fine using the 2.2 manifold on the 2.5. It doesn't ping or anything like that.

I've seen more stick really tight than I've seen come off with ease. Probably has to do with living in Maine, working on cars up here requires quite a bit more abuse than it should.

I've put about 2000 miles on my cobbled together franken motor. It kind of makes a lot of loud knocking and banging noises. But it seems to work alright, just a noisy suby engine.

Not really, for the most part they have a set cruising RPM. Sure they can slow down to fly over some place to do pictures, or survey or whatever, but usually you just cruise at speed. Drag, etc have nothing to do with running a certain RPM. But my point is, these engines run very happily at higher RPMs.

99 SOHC is kinda inbetween. Friend of mine got a 99 to install to his 01, and it didn't work. The intake was different (because 99 uses MAF), and the cam and crank gears had to be swapped off the 01. We had to swap the intake manifold and gears, then it worked fine. The longblock is the same, just the gears and manifold differ in the 99. It's a weird transition model. I wouldn't know this unless I had to deal with it.

The airplane people run them at like 5k RPMs for what's equivalent to 100,000 road miles. Then rebuild them whether they need it or not (Blown airplane engines can really ruin your day...). These are tough motors made to rev.

The way I tighten the axle nut is stand on the end of my 2' breaker bar. So that's my weight x2. Then jump on it till I can get the pin through. Rear bearings have been fine for three years. Because there's the spacer in there, you can't over tighten the bearing. The spacer sets the pre-load.

I usually do the passing... I set the cruise control and cruise The ej25 franken motor is nice and powerful, doesn't complain about even the biggest hills.

Why mixed stuff on cam/crank pully swap? I have a friend who swapped a 99 SOHC 2.5 into his 01 impreza that had a 2.2. The 99 is an oddball year, uses MAF, and has the old style crank and cam pullys. He swapped them over, and it worked fine. As did running the 2.5 on the 2.2 computer. I don't think you can run those 2.5 heads on the 2.2. Why hell bent to do a trans swap? If it works, run it till it stops working... If you're tight on money, just drive it...

To get rid of any confusion... Does the engine start making starting noises as soon as you turn the key? I've seen a few posts lately where people say "It takes 5 seconds to crank over" or whatever. What they really mean is "it takes 5 seconds of cranking to start". If it's the former, engines don't like starting when they're frozen. It takes a bit more time.

98 legacy, 243k on the ej25. I run about 75, so right around 3300RPMs. It seems to do just fine. Just did a 1000 mile round trip, and it's all happy.

The phase2 engines are better. I want to put one of those SOHC ones in my 98, reverse of what you want to do. Everyone is telling you not to do the swap, but you say you're going to anyway. Why keep asking? It's not a good swap and will ruin the value of the car. I'd probably give you $500 or $600 for it in the current condition if I was still looking. But if the wiring was hacked up, I'd walk. It wouldn't pass emissions anywhere, and hacked up wiring makes nightmares. If you really want you can run the STi oil pump, it flows more. It's not necessary, but you can if you want.

They design the computer, and the airbags to work properly together. The computer "knows" exactly how to control the airbag that's stock to the car. Many these days have adjustable force of deployment depending on the weight in the seat. If you replace the airbag with one of a different model, the computer will not know this. It may cause it not to work at all, may cause it to deploy at random, may cause it to deploy with way to much force. Think a child (obv. old enough) in the seat. Since it's such a fine tuned system, there's a good chance putting an older model airbag in there won't work properly. I doubt anyone is going to have direct experience swapping the wrong airbag into that particular car, and if they do, probably won't speak up. It's a really bad idea. It's probably safer to completely ged rid of the airbags than it is to monkey with the system. What would happen if the airbag went off at random while you were taking a turn on the highway because you hit a pot hole? I know it would probably scare the bajesus out of me, I'd probably crash. I'd start looking for another one of that year that's been totaled, but the airbags didn't deploy. Side impact or rear end may not deploy the front airbags.

Sure, the 2.5 heads would bolt to the 2.2 block. But I have no idea what that would do to compression, or anything like that. Someone should chime in who knows more about that. I do know he'd have to swap the crank gear over to make it work.

The people that are saying you can swap intake manifolds and use the same ECU are confused. With a phase TWO ej22, they would be correct. Phase2 manifolds will swap between the 2.2 and 2.5, and use the same computer. Phase1 and phase2 intake manifolds do NOT just bolt up, and the wiring does NOT just connect together. You can bolt a phase1 engine in there, but the wiring will not just hook up. As GD said, you could make an adapter to bolt the 2.5 intake onto your phase1 2.2. That would work, but you'd need to have that machined, or weld something up yourself.

If you don't get the torque converter bolts out, you have to pull the TQ with the engine. I've heard mixed stuff whether or not you can do this in car. Basically, if you can pull the engine far enough forward, or get the angle steep enough to get the TQ out. As this is a good way to ruin the input shafts I opted not to do it. Once I figured out a good method for chewing material off the motor, it only took about 2.5 hours. You are making the wiring sound a lot more simple than it would be. Also, if you have to pass emissions, likely you wouldn't be able to pass with that setup. 96, and therefor probably 95 had a problem with the computer where it never set the readyness monitors in the computer. I know that in Maine, at least, 96 subarus are exempt from emissions checks with OBD2 because of this. If you're going to re-wire for a swap that's not worth it, why not just do a turbo swap instead

There is absolutely no reason to swap wiring harnesses. You'd have to rip the dash out and re-wire the car. You could pull the engine and transmission together probably, it would be a steep angle, but probably possible. I opted for the 'cutting the bell housing off' option.

You had better hope you can get that engine to turn over again. One revolution is all you need. Otherwise getting it off the automatic is going to be hell. Ask me how I know....

The balancer didn't fail. The previous mechanic failed. This happens because the bolt wasn't tight enough.

The balancer often takes a bit of wiggling and swearing to get it off. You can probably get it to rock side do side, do that while pulling.

The 2.2 will not swap. Electrically it's completely different, the 2.5 intake manifold will not swap onto the 2.2. The 5mt should work, it'll probably only have 4 bell housing bolts, but that's not a big deal. You'll need matching rear end, crossmember, impreza 5mt driveshaft (legacy one is too long), and of course pedal box, clutch stuff, and interior trim.