cal_look_zero

I'll save you a 3 hour trip. 2002 and 2003 WRXs had the "glassbox" transmissions. If that's the original tranny, it will be looser than, well... Think hotdog down a hallway. It has a BOV, an inlet and hot air intake. It looks like it's been run hard and put away wet. The cone filter is dirty which implies lack of maintenance. Everything from a stealership is going to appear cosmetically sound; it's the little things to look for. Going off an average 10 year old exterior/interior and assuming tires are ok; I'd pay maybe $6500 for it. I'll buy 200k+ NA subarus alllllll day. I won't touch a turbo with over 80k. Run. Far. Buy a nice clean 97-01 Impreza. Go for a 2.2, they're more noob friendly. I understand the turbo appeal, but not that one.

Well now... I guess they are significantly different in construction...

From having done enough buy n sells on Subarus, I know that the Fram filter for both the 2.2 and 2.5 engines is the 3593A; also the same filter as my Montero Sport. Bearing in mind, I don't personally run the Frams, but they're good enough for cars I'm selling. Anywho, I have been running the Purolator 14459 on my 2.2, when interestingly enough, it's a 14460 for my Montero Sport. I can't say what the difference between the 2 was, but I go with what the fitment chart tells me to. Fast forward to my frankenbuild, I spun a 14459 Purolator on and thought nothing of it. Mostly out of complacency, I never thought to see if the 2.5 used a different filter. The 2.5 uses the 14460. Here's where I get confused. The Bosch filter is a 3310 for both the 2.5 and the 2.2, but is a 3312 for my Montero After seeing a bunch of wet spots on the driveway, I checked the filter and it had a droplet at the bottom. I tightened it down a bit more but it has a drip about every 30 seconds. I'm obviously going to change it out tomorrow, but does anyone think this is a fitment issue, or a quality issue? I guess I'll pay more attention next time...

Yeah, if I put my foot deep into it, it gets out of it's own way in a hurry. Unfortunately, that means about 1000 usable RPMS from 3-4k currently. Decided to hold off on hitting 5k for 1000 miles. Can't hardly wait until 1500 miles so I can really flog it...

650 miles in update: I still think I'm chasing a fueling or ignition issue. Either that or the cams really shifted the power band. It's a dog under 2 grand, and a rocketship from about 2200 forward. Getting way better gas mileage than the old 2.2 on my commute, and it's definitely a lot more fun to drive. The 2.2 would register a load % of 75%+ going up the big hill, whereas the new engine only reads about 53% I'm still thinking of going a step colder on the plugs due to the much higher CR; thinking that my low rpm flat spot could be the knock sensor as a result of predet from the hot plugs. It's an $8 experiment, so I'll give it a try after I pull a compression test this week. My plugs looked a little lighter than I like to see, so I'll attribute it to that for now. If not, I already have a call in to FTW to look into a tune/injector upgrade. All told, I was about $1400 into the build including a lot of new parts I didn't anticipate having to buy. Had I hunted down a good 2.5 short block and used good 2.2 heads, I would have been closer to $800 in, but now I have freshly ground rods and crank, all new bearings, all new valves and seals, and peace of mind.

Just wondering if I should switch from the stock BKR6E11 to a 7 or even an 8? Seems like it would be a good idea with the higher CR the engine sees. Thoughts?

Should be here Thursday. $12 more than the :horse:parts store ones.

Well, it wasn't the timing. And it wasn't the crank or cam sensors. As a last "eh, what the hell?" effort, I put the old plug wires back in. Runs like a top now... Needless to say, that is the LAST set of Borg Warner wires I ever have the misfortune of running. Kind of awestruck that a brand new box of wires could be bad, but I guess stranger things HAVE happened.

It threw a cylinder 4 last night, but I had been jiggling wires and messing with injectors so I attributed it to that, flashed it, and kept scratching my head.

pfffft, threw a cylinder 4 misfire on the way to work today. You're psychic. Ok, guess I'll re-time it tomorrow before work.

Yeah, no. Still gutless under 3k and falls on it's face like it's running on 3 cylinders. All the plugs are good and have nice light brown coloring, all plug wires are good, injectors are all plugged in, no CELs... this is getting ridiculous. I'm trying to rack my brain on this, but I'm so frustrated with it right now that I have tunnel vision of a waste of tons of hours and money. Could the lash adjustment really cause that much of a stumble? I'm going to pull timing covers tomorrow and look, but if I'm off by even a tooth, won't I have bent valves? (I'll rage, I just put all new valves in to the tune of $240)

In my not-so-expert, expertise, I've only ever seen a 4 cylinder misfire from jumping time or soaking the plugs.

I'm looking to have this one re-made to say "2.5 litre"

So the new engine is absolutely freaking gutless til about 4k rpm (which is as high as I'm revving it for the first 500 miles) I know the timing is correct, new pulleys and tensioner. The glitch (I'm hoping) is that I have an "EA82 with an improperly sealed oil pump" amount of valve noise. I'm running the Delta 200 cams, set my valves to .008 intake and .010 exhaust. I caught wind that it should be .004 and .007 due to the cams from a random post on rs25, but never heard anything like that from Delta. Is there any chance that the current valve clearance and cam set up could be causing that ridiculous powerband? Or should I be freshening up my old engine to stick back in?

I let it idle without touching the throttle for 30 minutes and then changed the oil (Rotella dino oil) The next 500 miles will be varying RPMs without going over 4k. Deliberately lugging it on hills some to really load the engine and seat the rings. Change the oil again. To 1000 miles without going over 4k, but I can actually drive on the freeway now. Change oil again. To 1500, nothing over 5k, change oil again. 1500 on... flog it mercilessly. No synthetics or syn blends until 7500 miles. This is the method the PRE uses on their 500whp+ engines, so I figure it's good enough for me. Luckily I don't have to worry about keeping it out of boost. SLAs, roller rocker assemblies, and it's pretty noisy in the valve train, but idles smooth with only a little lope over stock. As for how it sounds? Beastly.

Aside from a few quirks, everything went perfectly smoothly. Need to hard wire in the oil pressure gauge and begin the break in driving tomorrow.

The build I copied put down 203 crank hp to the 165ish that a stock 25 puts down. The 22 heads up the compression ratio to 11:1 or so. Throw in torque cams, phenolic spacers, and a mild valve job... Gotta run premium, but it's worth it IMO.

lol, the oil is my #1 paranoia with this engine, but I've definitely overlooked glaringly obvious things in the past.

Should be going in tonight, possibly wait until tomorrow morning. I'm cleaning up the crossover and I/M... May go ahead and paint the I/M and give myself a sleep to make sure I got every gnat's rump roast detail down. Thankfully my oil pressure gauge showed up, so I can get that all wired in and ready to go for my prime. It's one of those things where I'm excited to stab it and fire it up, but I know that I need to take my time and triple check everything!

Well I'll throw the curveball and say that since you're probably liking the EJ25 for the extra ponies, that you can drop an EJ25 shortblock in under your stock EJ22 heads, and have even more power than a stock EJ25 puts out; without having to screw with wiring, ecus, etc. It's been my experience that if the headgaskets are done right on the 25 (after the OEM ones are replaced) that there should be pretty much 0 issue. I'm about 3 hours away from stabbing my 25/22 hybrid in, and after buying the engines, heads, camshafts, and other goodies; I'm less than $1500 in. And that was way over budget because I opted to buy another set of heads so I could build the engine and have less than a day of downtime. I should see about 200hp at the crank, so an extra 65hp over the stock ej22, for $1500... well...

Doubtful that 17" rims will be required unless they're sticking Brembos on it. Even if so, CRV 17" steelies clear just fine. I think the inexpensive argument went out the window when Legacies started to cost $30k

One of my biggest peeves on the newer EJ cars is the lack of a proper oil pressure gauge. By the time that idiot light comes on, your rod bearings are already toast. Being that I refuse to let something like oil pressure kill my brand new engine, I was looking for options of reliable gauges. Defi seemed to be the brand that the 500+hp guys on nasioc were running. However at $160 for the gauge, plus the sender, the adapter for the engine... too much money. Another name that I'd come across on there was ProSport. Initially, the feedback was bad for them, however it seems in 2010 they turned their act around, and people have been very pleased with them from 2011 onwards. So I purchased a 52mm "Performance" oil pressure gauge, and the oil galley plug. http://prosportgauges.com/green-white-oil-pressure-gauge.aspx http://prosportgauges.com/subaru-oil-galley-plug.aspx Including shipping, it was about $80, and should be here Thursday. I'll report back with fitment, installation, and how well it works after I get it all installed. Also I'm curious what other people are using for monitoring.

Duplicolor engine enamel. I actually started with BBQ paint but it was way too flat and would have soaked up oil, so I went with the enamel. Left the oil pan in BBQ paint though. I don't believe that having a less efficient cooling system is "smoke and mirrors" but to each their own. If I'm going to pay nearly $100 for factory head gaskets that don't quite line up, I may as well pay another $14 for ones that align the water jackets and don't give the engine any more reason to run warm. In any case, it's going in this weekend. Long block is all assembled, just need to put the timing belt on, adjust the valves, and try to find my timing covers...

Brake light sounds like the switch for the parking brake Cruise issue sounds like an issue with the speed sensor or a tear in the cruise diaphragm somewhere CEL could be a number of relatively easy things. Things that someone else besides me will be along with shortly.