GeneralDisorder

I do HG's all the time with ALL the trimmings for $1200 to $1400 depending on which engine and if it needs a clutch or not. Find a good honest independant in your area to take care of it for him. GD

Yeah that's a problem. Get a new coil - and not one of those aftermarket garbage coil's either. Either get a real Hitachi/ND coil or get an MSD, etc that's still made in the US factory. GD

Yep - bolts right up and runs fine. Talk to Whitedog - he just did one in an '03. Use the flywheel and clutch from the 2.5. It will work just fine. You *may* have to drill and tap the EGR port on the 2.2 if it doesn't have one. It's a pretty large metric tap and they aren't cheap. The set I bought for the phase-I engines was over $40 for a tap and bottoming tap. The phase-II's are larger and more expensive still. GD

That's the biggest problem I have with those plates. That's going to cause uneccesary stress on the input shaft bearings on the MT's and on the oil pump on the auto. I'm in the process of refining my plate design and it will have reemed dowel pin holes that are a net-zero fit with the pins. It's also aluminium and less costly. The problem is that he has the dowel pin holes cut with the laser - same as the rest of the plate. Laser isn't accurate enough and leaves a hard slag on the surface so the holes have to be enlarged. Our plates are water jet cut and then the dowel pin holes are reemed to an exact match. GD

Unlikely. The chamber size would probably be too large to insure proper sealing of the fire ring from the smaller cylinder diameter. You could likely use EJ20T heads though if you wanted more flow. Still a waste of time though. GD

EJ22 rebuilding is simply not viable economically. Buy a used one with 120k on it for $500, do a timing belt and WP and be done with it. They are not expensive enough used to consider rebuilding. EJ25's..... maybe. Depends on the condition. EJ22 rebuild (anything involving the bottom end) is silly and a waste of money. GD

It's an EA82 - run it till it blows up. Not a serious problem. I've seen this on many engines with failed HG's. Doesn't seem to affect them much. GD

For best HG adhesion you *should* deck the block. If your machinist can't do that - you need to find another machinist. Mine rebuilds Subaru engines just about ever day. He decks 100% of the 25D blocks he does. He says he's had problems prior to this policy. GD

It's an EA82. There's a reason most of us dont like them. They are a low point in Subarus history. EA81's are much simpler and thus more reliable. And EJ22's are also simpler and thus more reliable. It's just the nature of those cars. No one ever puts the EA82 into another body. It's always being replaced by EA81's and EJ22's. Now you know why GD

The key is having the right solder, electronics grade flux, and a good adjustable wattage iron. GD

My machinist does them for me. He does Subaru engines quite often and grinds cranks, etc. http://stevesprecisionmachine.com/ GD

Do the plug wires go through the valve covers? If so its a phase-II. If not its a phase-I. 98 2.5 is solid lifter. Bucket/shim. GD

That really depends on how well it's been cared for - mostly as that applies to oil changes, etc. I've got customers with over 300k on EJ22's that are still perfect inside due to excellent maintenance and the use of synthetic oil. Though it *sounds* like it's been basically abused and neglected so that statement is probably true in this case. GD

Generally speaking - on the 60k belt cars I use the Mizumo kit. I have one customer that (despite my warnings) has been running a Mizumo kit for 80k. Not a single issue. The only problem I have had with their kits is that the "Kabuki" piston type tensioner rollers have a sleeve that's too short - you have to use the old sleeve from the original roller. No big deal since that's not a wear item. And they invariably include four cam seals in all their kits regardless of the kit being for a SOHC engine :-p. I never use their WP gaskets - I use Anearobic for both water pumps and oil pumps. Again - apart from these two idiosyncrasies, I have used at least THREE DOZEN of their EJ22 kits without a single failure. The single bearing idlers are not a problem if you change them at every belt change. This should be a no-brainer for $110 to $120 shipped for these kits. They aren't going to fail in 60k. Just not going to happen. The mizumo kits are by far the best deal going for EJ22 non-interferance 60k kits. RUN, don't walk, to this deal when you need to do a timing belt job on one of these cars. The parts for a 60k non-interferance EJ22 simply don't need to be of amazingly high quality - they are going to get changed again in 60k! For the 105k belt cars (97+ and '96 EJ25D's) I use NTN and Koyo idlers, NPW water pumps with the cast impellers, and Mitsuboshi timing belts. These I get from my local supplier that deals only in import parts and all components are Japanese. I don't mess around with the interferance engines. For jobs that don't require immediate parts aquisition I also have bought the kit from theimportexperts that has the Aisin water pump and Mitsuboshi belt. ALL of the kits I have ever bought from EVERY supplier both ebay and local purchased have had idlers with Japanese bearings. Usually NTN. GD

Count the teeth between the marks. If you haven't done one of these before that's the quickest method to check your work. GD

That won't neccesarily show a valve that's just been slightly bent at the stem just below the face. They will still seal but the flexing back and forth durring closing and opening will cause the head of the valve to break off some number of thousands of miles from now. The engine is an EJ22 Phase-I and it IS interferance. If it ran decent before this then just do a HG and timing belt job on it and check out all the valves. GD

Yep - any synthetic will get you beyond 300k on a non-turbo. As for the turbo's - Mobil 1 or Rotella T6 are the best choices - commonly availible, inexpensive, and both get good oil analysis results. GD

The Subaru dealers ONLY pull heads with the engine in the car. They must spend a lot on those lower back support belts. I wouldn't do it but many people have and the dealer does them that way. Personally I'm not in that much of a hurry and I prefer the overall higher quality job that's done by pulling the engine. GD

Mobil 1 is good stuff. It's run sucessfully in Subaru's all the time. A freind of mine has 100k on Mobil 1 in his 350 HP STi and it looked like the day it was made inside when we did the t-belt job. He and I have both switched to the Rotella T6 synthetic though. Better additive package. GD

You really want to risk having a slightly bent valve that may break in 10k miles and destroy the engine? For the price of $100 in gaskets and possibly some $15 valves? You are a bigger gambler than I. GD

Valves are almost certainly bent. If you can't get the pulleys lined up for a belt install you will have to pull the heads to find out the extent of the damage. If you are lucky you will just have to replace a few valves. If you can get the belt on it you can do a compression test. But that's not always definitive. If a valve is only a little tweaked the seat and spring will pull it into alignment every time it closes and eventually the head of the valve will break off from the constant flexing of the stem. Then you will have to find another engine. Once a valve gets sucked into the bore - it's over. Broken/cracked pistons, gouged up cylinder walls, etc. GD

It won't fit. The Outback uses an all-metal radiator with different mounting holes on the top and the bottom. Cooling capacity wise it would be fine. But I wouldn't do it - brand new radiators are about $80 to $100 shipped on ebay. Sometimes less. Not worth the one-off factor. GD

That's a turbo distributor. Can probably make it work but I don't know which of those goes to the coil and which go to the knock detection box.... GD

The whole deal about the cometic gaskets and "optimized" coolant flow is just smoke and mirrors. The FM hasn't got any trouble cooling itself using untrimmed Subaru OEM gaskets. The whole point of this build is that it's cheap - can't do much in the way of special parts without ruining the price/performance ratio. Though I suppose if the cost isn't too much higher than OEM then it probably isn't going to hurt anything either. GD

Means the transmission type doesn't match the MAF type. Either you have a MAF for an auto with a manual ECU or the MAF for a manual with an auto ECU. GD