GeneralDisorder

Waste of effort. There are no longer parts availibilty to feed the necessary R&D by trial and error. Have you ever successfully rebuilt a Subaru bottom end? It's not a simple process. There are too many variables and it's untrodden territory. The number of failures required to work out the magic combination exceeds the available parts supply and I'm guessing your budget as well if you are even considering putting a used turbocharger on a newly rebuilt bottom end. Will. Not. Happen. GD

I've had at least three occasions where fuel pressure was low but still present. It can happen. I've had improperly installed pumps partially blow the hose off their nipple, there's the infamous cracked pressure cap issue on the early 2000's fuel pump assembly, and I've seen the turbine wheel strip it's D shaped drive inside the pump and spin but not produce any pressure. Seen various other slow and intermittent pump due to brush issues. *usually* *Subaru* pumps either work or they do not. But it's not a 100% guarantee that if fuel pours out an open line the pump is good. It's best to actually check the fuel rail pressure. And if possible to watch the current draw of the pump, calculate it's RPM, and compare to a known good scope reading.... if you have the information and ability to do so. GD

Rebuilding Subaru automatic is not the best idea. Automatic rebuilds on much simpler transmissions goes awry frequently. Used with a warranty is much better for all parties involved. As your mechanic noted, failure on these is rare. Used will be cheaper, and will mitigate risk all around. GD

The P0171 is simply a vacuum leak. It's causing the MAF reading to be low and the closed loop O2 sensor readings are causing it to add a bunch of fuel to compensate unmetered air getting into the engine. You can watch fuel trim to see this - it will be high positive at idle, and will come down closer to zero as you rev the engine. Some hose is disconnected or loose most likely. GD

Do you have the fuel inlet and return swapped around? That will act just as you describe..... GD

Diagnostic plugs, and accessories you don't have. The only ones useful to you will be the green connectors. Those put the computer into D-check mode for running diagnostics. There should be a white or black pair nearby for reading and clearing stored codes. The rest.... If you have to ask they won't be useful to you. GD

This many years later - who knows. The thing probably has detonation from any number of electrical gremlins, carbon build up, poor flowing injectors, etc. Unless you can monitor the knock sensor I would err on the side of caution and run the highest you can get. These engines don't have particularly robust rod bearings and it *is* a turbocharged application making it much more violent should it get into serious detonation territory. For the sake of 30 year old unknown fuel/ignition system on a turbo car - run the highest octane you can get till you know for certain it is ok with something less. GD

The dealer wouldn't know what to do with an XT. Half the time they don't know what to do with modern Subarus. Pull the injectors and have them cleaned and flow tested. There should be an injector shop somewhere near you. Or you can send then out to places like witchunter, Southbay, etc. It's just a good idea to know where you are at with any injector that old. GD

My guess is - somewhere in Japan. Since I, and most of the members here don't live in Japan or speak the language it's going to be much harder for us to find one than it will be for you. That country is replete with crazy electronics. You can probably buy one at your local gas station - from a vending machine - right next to the shrimp ramen flavored used panties. GD

Its not at all hard to find. You go to the web site I listed, punch in what you need, sort by distance, and call whoever is close and has the right price/mileage/warranty. We buy imported Japanese transmissions all the time from out of state. My shop is in Oregon and I have bought transmissions from Pennsylvania, California, and Canada. It's usually between $75 and $125 for freight. This is NO BIG DEAL. Shops do this all the time. National junk yard chains do it. I have a used steering column on order right now that's on it's way from Nevada. Used car parts are an interstate and even international market. There is no reason that just because its a few hundered or a few thousand miles away it cant be at your door in 5 business days. GD

As mentioned you aren't going to hurt it. Don't use any additives. Your issue is not fuel related. It's sh*tty old EA82T fuel injection related. Do a tune up, pull the injectors and clean them, and hope the head gaskets last a while. When (not if) they blow and the heads crack right half in two - swap in a real engine from a donor Legacy. Parts availibilty for that engine is basically non existent. You can't buy oil pumps for them anymore - or most of the internals. Forget about fuel injection parts. Used is thr only option. Basically they are a dead platform and suitable only for collectible status starting real soon here. If you actually want to drive it then a more modern power plant will eventually be needed. GD

If you want to put it on a pallet I can assemble it for you and ship it back. Price will depend on what machine work has to be done. Could do just the short block and you can bolt on your own heads. GD

I tell everyone this. Fortunately for me, people in Oregon don't pump their own gas, and also don't listen to me, and end up coming to me for engine replacements because they ran it out. Hey a man's got to eat. I tell them to check it and show them how. I can only do so much. They never listen anyway. I get to replace their engine AND tell them "I told you so....". I make engines not burn oil for people all the time. It's not to their benefit financially but it's what they want. They lose fuel economy but they take enormous pride in having an engine that uses no oil. Whatever. I sell what people want. And on the older engines it is caused by oil control ring carbon buildup. People want them to be quiet (no piston slap) and not consume oil. I can do this. But at the cost of friction. And to be totally honest - none of my customers seem to give a crap about fuel economy. They don't even notice or seem to care. As long as it uses no oil and makes no noise it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. This situation may be the end of the line for the boxer engine arrangement. I can build an inline 4 that has almost no ring drag and burns very little oil. Subaru engines have to have a lot of ring friction because they get no gravity assist with cylinder wall drainage. I built my first 4G63 (2005 EVO) engine about a year ago and the Cosworth internals would allow you to turn the engine easily by hand just by grabbing the crank snout. It made near 400 AWHP from a 2.0 displacement with no effort. That's near 500 crank HP. It turns 9,000 RPM and has a power band from 4000 to 9000. It's ridiculous.... GD

It is the new normal. No matter how you sex it up, if you tell customers about oil consumption you will lose a certain type of buyer. They will run in fear. But yeah it's now the new normal. Welcome to the future. GD

Yes use the funnel.

First you need to interview the techs and find one that can run a tap in straight. Check his eyesight and give him a field sobriety test maybe. Also give them a knowledge test on metric to SAE conversion - if they know the 25.4 conversion factor and their eyes are symmetrical, and they can walk a straight line.... yeah maybe. People working on cars at random shops.... It's bad out there. I get all the screw ups from all over the metro area. Ridiculous.... GD

What you should have done, instead of turning it off, was rev the engine to 4,000 rpm a few times rapidly when the gauge started to climb. The increased water pump pressure will push the air out. Remember we do this like twice a day. Trust me. You don't need to elevate it but it won't hurt anything. Just rev the engine to clear the air pocket. I have tried the airlift. The results are mixed and it's a pain in the butt compared to the funnel and a few whacks on the loud pedal. GD

There are plenty of them used. Just have to wait for shipping. Go on www.car-part.com and put in what you need. Shipping won't be more than a few hundred. Those transmissions run around $1000 used for a good one. So figure maybe $1250 shipped. Find a mechanic to install it - or one that's willing to order the trans (there will be markup) and handle the warranty through the yard, etc. Shouldn't be much more than $2500 to $3000 this way around. GD

It's typical. Honestly people are way too caught up in the oil consumption thing. You actually lose a lot of money from dropping the fuel economy by installing high tension rings vs. just adding some oil every 1k mikes. The oil is far less expensive than the lost fuel economy. The only mistake Subaru made was in not increasing the oil capacity and changing the dipstick to not read low till multiple quarts down. In the quest for reducing friction, oil consumption is here to stay. It shouldn't have the negative connotation that it had in decades past. It's a good thing - it saves you money. These early engines just need the oil level checked more often. GD

I get all my insert supplies (including for head bolts, etc) from Chrislynn: http://chrislynninserts.com It is necessary to use red loctite on the OD of the insert. I haven't ever had one come back out. We do A LOT of 10x1.25's anyway because if there's even a question on a timing belt component we just do them all. 90 degree air drill and mechanics length bits makes short work of it. I also don't stock anything SAE. All our hardware us supplied by Wurth and it's all JIS. I used to advocate the 7/16 route also and that may work out better for the DIY I suppose. Depends on what you have access to - if the only thing around is a NAPA that carries spare corn-binder bolts and Saskatchewan socket sets then you'll just have to make do.... GD

That's pretty much the size of it. I get all kinds of technical support phone calls, and people looking for parts but have no money. My phone rings an average of once every 15 minutes I would say. At times it's every 5. Makes it really hard to get anything done. I don't have a receptionist. Honestly I'm probably going to setup someone just for phone, cleaning, paperwork, etc here soon. Screen my calls, etc. I have neither to time nor inclination to deal with people that can't spend the money on their hobby so they want it for basically free. I had to warehouse this junk for 20 years and now you want it for basically nothing after taking up an hour of my time talking about it and finding it in my huge pile of parts? Don't think so.... If your calling me it's because you can't find one in the normal channels. It's going to have to be worth my time. GD

Personally I hate having SAE fasteners mixed in with metric on an Asian vehicle. I get enough of that on my Trans Am with Australian differential, metric body, and SAE engine/trans. GD

Each coil pack has it's own ignitor inside. If it didn't kick over on starter fluid then chances are it's not your fuel pump. But doesn't hurt to check pressure. Hook up a scanner and check for RPM signal while cranking, MAF grams per second, etc. GD

Final drive ratio will be different I'm sure. GD

You just need to use the throttle wheel off a Hitachi carb. The diameter of the wheel dictates how much rotation you get for a given unit of cable travel. Smaller wheel = more degrees of rotation. GD