GeneralDisorder

The most direct way would be to make manifold adapters to mate the intake manifold from the 2.5 to the 2.2 Generally not worth the effort. The 2.5 is better suited and doing the HG's is less work. If they are done properly there should be no additional failures. GD

The ECU's in those cars are routinely bad due to solder joint cracking, etc. It may not even be a legitimate code that needs to be addressed. Those 90 to 94 ECU's were very primitive and don't have a lot of codes to display in the first place. The most recent 90 I owned had about 6 codes that would never clear - replaced the ECU with a LINK standalone and manifestly there was no issues at all with the wiring as the LINK runs perfectly and has no complaints about any of the sensors (still original). GD

We don't have such imperial entanglements here in most of the US. Some places like California and states that mimic their laws are strict like that but even there I believe once it's past a certain age testing is no longer required. GD

Too bad the reviews are so bad. Not a viable option for us . GD

MUCH easier to install and easier to acquire. No dash pulling to get a harness - just attach the LINK harness directly to the manifold harness and mount the LINK in the engine bay (waterproof). Also no MAF anymore which makes intake plumbing easier, and no need for ANY of the superfluous sensors or any emissions garbage such as fuel temp and tank pressure, EGR, EVAP, etc. All that is eliminated. And no need to run 30+ year old electronics that are difficult to replace and suffer from capacitor leakage, cracked solder joints, and WAY more complexity than is needed for a simple EJ swap. GD

Megagarbage and all that open source junk have terrible support for the Subaru style triggers. Really any of the Japanese style triggers that are sent as raw sensor output directly to the ECU are difficult for the GM inspired open source stuff. If you buy a LINK package through my shop I can supply excellent maps for the EJ22 that are dyno proven and road tested to provide 26+ MPG in a VW van with an Espresso bar in it (imagine the weight of this unit!) GD

Any of the LINK ECU's. Depending on if you are using a stepper or PWM idle control will determine which one. The older engines with PWM can easily be run from the entry level LINK Monsoon. We use them all the time for swaps. Seems like about once a week or so. Lots of sand rails and VW's. GD

While I'm sure the Amsoil coolant is excellent quality, and of course I'm an Amsoil dealer and use their oil exclusively in our engine builds, I can't imagine that there's any significant benefit to overall cooling system performance with Amsoil coolant. It's great for cast-iron engine blocks and preventing corrosion, etc - but there's no significant benefit to the Subaru platform..... It's not going to make any real difference in system performance. GD

Nice. Yes we have also ran into this. Nice to know you have had luck with replacement solenoids - mind sharing where you procured it? Subaru's official stance on it is to replace the entire valve body - which isn't difficult but it's costly. GD

The radiator is not your problem. Ensure you are using the correct factory thermostat and you have proper airflow. What do you consider "not cutting it" ? What temps are you seeing and what evidence do you have that it's unsatisfactory? GD

Subaru may or may not attempt to order more from Japan. And that order may or may not be fulfilled. Depends on how many orders are outstanding and what the recent sales history is - as well as stocking levels in Japan and ability/desire to produce additional inventory. It's basically an unknown to us mere mortals. Maybe. Maybe not. GD

Just an FYI on those ULEV engines - the catalytic converters for those cars are now $10,000 from Subaru. So make SURE it doesn't ever misfire and damage them. GD

That's a 98 if it's a dual cam. The seal surface looks serviceable with a properly installed Viton seal. One thing to note in the future - since the cam sprockets are plastic we have seen a number of them catastrophically fail due to age and since they have to be held by the plastic to torque the bolt.... this can lead to unseen stress fractures that lead to failure months or years down the road. We have had two such failures - one on a 99 Outback (25D) and one on a 2009 Forester - both resulted in bent valves. Unfortunately I'm told we just purchased the last set of 25D sprockets in the US for a Gyro-copter engine we are building at the moment..... not good for the future serviceability of those heads. GD

R12 is out there for sale. Current pricing is about $2000 for a 30lb cylinder. I know where I could lay hands on about 120lb of the stuff for the price of asking. It's not as rare as you might think. As for filling R134 - it's done by weight. When that isn't appropriate or possible it's done by system pressure which varies based on ambient conditions. It's not that difficult really. Being a shop owner I invested in a $4,000 AC machine so I can have my joe's recharge systems and be fully compliant with the laws of the land. Don't wish to engage in any imperial entanglements over not properly recovering refrigerants. GD

The heat shields are there so you don't start a brush fire when you drive over some tall dry grass and park a 750 degree cat on it. They perform basically no other function. They help keep the heat in to an extent and keep direct airflow from cooling the cats under cruise conditions but the effect of their absence doesn't seem to trip any codes if the cat's are working correctly. GD

The new style (one piece tensioner-roller assembly) bracket for the 98 is available new from Subaru for $36. Then you just use the NTN tensioner-roller instead of the piston style. GD

Black or body color only. GD

There's no knowledge to gain here. You might get away with it and you might not. Depends on the surface condition of the block and heads, and how accurately the gasket is located with respect to where it was the last time. The gasket is there (obviously) to take up imperfections in the surface of the block and the surface of the head. That's it's job. If the surfaces were *perfect* then no gasket would be required. In fact many nitro-methane top-fuel engines don't use gaskets - they use highly accurate and highly engineered mirror finish surfaces instead. So if the gasket surface is uniform, the gasket is located exactly where it was the previous install, and the gasket did not experience plastic deformation - you will be successful. If one or more of those qualifications is not true you won't. There is NO mystery here. It's a bad gamble, and one that you might win or lose. But a gamble not worth the $100 savings for the loss of two days worth of work if you lose. There's no significant data to be gathered from one trial of this hypothesis. You would have to repeat the experiment many times over to have any useful statistics - which you clearly are not in a position to perform. One anecdotal success or failure does not a scientific theory make. It would therefore be a waste of time. GD

Who's time is worth this experiment? You are going to risk ~16 hours of labor for $100. What's your time worth exactly? GD

Highly suggest you toss the Hitachi over the fence. Put a Weber 32/36 DGEV on it and be done with it. GD

We have used Foreign Engines Inc. in Lynwood, WA on many occasions. GD

Amsoil Break-In oil: https://www.amsoil.com/p/break-in-oil-sae-30--brk/ GD

Me either. But common sense would say that if you have *never* heard of someone not adhering to the new car break in procedure and thus causing some kind of failure or voiding some kind of warranty then clearly there isn't one. With millions of cars sold annually there would be a LOT of problems if a specific break in procedure were required on the part of the consumer. GD

We don't break them in at all anymore. Now that we have a chassis dyno in the facility we run them about 10 miles on the dyno (after several heat cycles during start up testing) and then we tune them at WOT and hand the keys to the customer. We do this with break in oil in them and ask the customer return in 500 to 1000 miles for the first oil change. We give no stipulations on how they should be driven other than they should not be timid with it. There's no "break in" on a new car from the dealer is there? Why should my engines be any different if they are built to the same or better quality? GD

The blue filters made for Subaru of America are made by Honeywell. The parent company of Fram. WIX is made by Affinia. GD