chaz345

Subarus are entirely comparable to those other cars you mention, both in terms of cost of maintenance/repairs and in terms of how often they need repairs. You can always find some parts that are more expensive than other cars and some that are less. But how that affects actual costs is how commonly the parts in question fail or need replacing.

Why replace the whole starter when the worn contacts cost about $12 and do not require any special tools or experience to replace?

If the torque bind has been going on for very long, it can put a lot of extra stress on the driveshaft u-joints so it's not really all that strange that they think it needs a driveshaft. The combination of torque bind and failing u-joints can create some very violent "juddering" and clanging and other mayhem. But like someone said, failing u-joits will manifest when driving straight too. But it can definitely come and go. The thing is, the dealer price on the driveshaft is stupidly high when one can be pulled from a junkyard for like $40 at most. The transfer clutch valve assembly is the Duty C. At this point though, I'd definitely suggest finding an independent, subaru specialist to do the work since $1500 is WAY too high foe what we're talking about. Even "shotgunning" the problem and replacing the Duty C, the clutch pack and the driveshaft, should only be about half what they are being quoted. Duty C and valve assembly should be bought new and they run around $160. Clutch pack also new is like $200. Junkyard pull driveshaft, both pieces, $100 at most. So, rounding up it's $500 in parts and it's only a 2 to 3 hour(at most) job so even at $100 per hour labor $800 total is at the high end.

What I've seen, and I'm currently driving a bit of a leaker, is certainly noticeably darker than what you get if you are burning coolant in the exhaust. Maybe not black and certainly not the "oily" black like a diesel, but defintely not the almost bright white one gets from coolant.

I don't know about the newer generation having an FWD fuse, but I'm currently running my 93 Legacy without the rear section of the driveshaft because of intermittant torque bind and because one of the u-joints is failing and I don't want to have it break on the road. Had that experience once, not fun. You should be able to have the transfer clutches done for a LOT less than that. Heck, you can have a whole used transmission put in for less than that. I've not done it myself but replacing the transfer clutches on a 4EAT isn't all that hard, you only need to remove the driveshaft and the tail section of the transmission. While you are there, check the Duty C solenoid too. Even if it's not bad to the point of throwing a code, it still might be sticking and contributing to the binding.

Could be a difference in the older versus newer generation. I've only had a 91 and a 93 where it's not the AT Temp light that flashes but the power light so it's entirely possible that other parts of how it works electrically were changed too. Having the FWD light not come on when the duty c is bad would be an excellent diagnostic if they did that intentionally though. I'm currently running without my rear driveshaft installed because one of the u joints was going bad and I was having torque bind. With the FWD fuse installed, I have consistent FWD light but also intermittantly have the flashign power light on startup so it would seem thsat the TCU doesn't like something.

Not necessarily. The FWD light will come on just with the fuse present in the holder. But the torque binding going away with the fuse installed does suggest that the duty c itself is OK. I had a 91 Legacy that had an intermittant torque bind problem and an intermittant flashing "power" light. Sometimes torque bind and flashing light even with fuse installed. Known good Duty C, known good TCU. Turns out that it was a bad wire from the TCU to the duty C.

Cheap internals will result in a cheap and probabbly less reliable engine. Since the majority of your $$ spent is going to be on labor, spending a few more dollars on quality parts makes sense if you intend to keep the car for any lenght of time, which given that you are doing a whole rebuild, I assume you are.

Not to mentiont the fact that even if we're talking whole "new" engine, $6k seems a bit steep.

Owning/rehabbing an older Subie is an excellent way to learn about auto mechanics. The only problem is that Subaru does a lot of things a little differently(usually different in a very good way) so when you transition to working on other cars you'll spend a lot of time thinking "why they heck did they do this this way". Of course the alternative is to only own and work on Subies, that's the choice a lot of us here have made.

Defintely since you have to pull the timing belt off anyway.

Any oil on the exhaust smoke I've seen is usually not white but more black.

No need to pull the engine to do the timing stuff, just remove the radiator. And since you need to remove the timing belt to remove the heads anyway, no reason not to do the timing components at the same time. In fact it would be silly not to. Only case where I'd think not doing it would make even a little sense is if money is extremely tight and you know it's been done recently.

I'm not intimately familiar with how things are wired but given that collection of codes, I'd strongly suspect a plug connection somewhere that's not connected completely or a ground somewhere. Those sorts of things being missed after an engine has been out are pretty common. Look at a wiring diagram and find any points where the wiring to the TPS, and crank angle sensor and fuel injectors come together as a starting point.

Compression ratio and a little more displacement is basically what you get with a frankenmotor. In your position that would be the direction I would be looking. While it's not quite as simple as taking any 2.5 lower end and any 2.2 heads and slapping them together, it's not hugely difficult either. There's more than enough info here in the frankenmotor threads to get you going.

In terms of 2.2 heads on a 2.5 block, look through the various "frankenmotor" threads here. There's a ton of information. Most any head will physically fit on most any block but because of various variations through the years, some combinations result in an almost unworkably high compression ratio. In terms of the block fitting in the car/attaching to the tranny, it's pretty much a bolt in operation. As for the AWD, under normal operation with no slippage the front wheels are doing most of the driving. To lock it into 4WD, which will give you a 50/50 power split, you just need to wire a switch in to interrupt power to the duty C solenoid. Sounds backwards but the way it's built, when the duty c is not energized is when the most torque is sent to the back wheels. Simply wiring in a switch to kill power to the duty C will accomplish what you want but the transmission computer will be upset and flash the AT Temp light on startup. For your use, it should be no big deal though. If you wanted to go all out with the tranny, it's possible to essentially take the transmission computer out of the equation and rig up paddle shifters.

Lucky or it's not the original motor so it's not an interference one. One way to tell, do you have solid or hydraulic valve lifters? If solid then it's an interference motor and you are incredibly lucky. If hydraulic then all you need to do is replace the cam and pully, re-time and you should be on(or off) the road in no time.

If it's the original engine then being a 97 it's interference and therefore is probably toast. You can pick up a good used EJ22 for under 500 and can probably install it yourself. One question, were you running without timing belt covers? For your use it probably makes sense to have them, it's not like they weigh all that much.

Why does your cat need syncros? Is the exhaust note out of synch with the road noise? :-) Sorry I couldn't resist, my smartass filter seems of have failed.

Dealership probably isn't going to be interested in doing a real pre-purchase inspection because they would rather sell you a car themself.

Check Engine Light

Only way to check the u-joints on the driveshaft is to remove it. Not hard at all to do though.

Given that torque bind symptoms and rear drivetrain symptoms can be rather intermittant, you can spend a lot of money chasing down the cause at a mechanic. The part about it acting like the parking brake is on is definitely torque bind related, I had my 91 do that a couple of times, clang/clunk included. Definitely do yourself a favor though and have the rear driveshaft checked, both universal joints and the carrier bearing. Like I said before, it's not likely to be the whole problem, but it can be contributing and the results of letting it go too far are very much not fun.

Given that the problem goes away completely when the FWD fuse in in place this ins't likely but it's worth it to pull the rear driveshaft and check the carrier bearing and the universal joints in it. If one fails, especially the front one, while driving, bad things happen. VERY unlikely that this is all of the problem since the FWD fuse alters the symptoms but given how easy it is to pull the driveshaft and given how large a pain in the butt it is to do on the side fo the road, not to mention the damage caused if it let's go at speed, it's worth at least checking.

Possibly relevant/helpful: http://www.etischer.com/914xt6.html