GeneralDisorder

Doubt it would be more than $1000..... But.... trade ins at dealers are usually a very poor idea. They work the numbers around and add it to the back end of the loan or other unsavory financial trickery that basically ends up with them getting your car for free or extremely low cost. Then it either will get fixed if it's nice, or thrown to the auction. I have bought plenty of trade ins from my dealer friends and I rarely pay more than $500. Highly doubt that's what the customer thought they were getting for them. GD

No the bleeder is at the top of the radiator on the passenger side. It's either a Phillips plastic plug or some are square. It is there to "bleed" the air out as you are filling. GD

It's just inexperience. We do this (fill Subaru cooling systems) about 3-5 times a day at my shop and this never really happens. 1. Do use a fill funnel that raises the level above the filler neck. 2. On a cross-flow system (yours), remove the bleeder screw and fill till it pours out this port then plug it. At that point the system is pretty much full. 3. Run the engine and once the oil has warmed (about 10 minutes), rev the engine repeatedly to 5k RPM. 4. Continue revving the engine and also massage the upper hose to clear air pockets. 5. When you feel the left radiator tank get hot it is starting to flow. Once both hoses are hot keep running it till the fans cycle on and then back off. 6. Cap the system and fill the overflow to about 1-2" above the full mark. That's really all there is to it and you don't need ramps or any special equipment. This is not difficult at all. Just takes patience. GD

Who knows really. The 05/06 Legacy turbo models were worse. Guess they don't go back that far. There's no real difference between 8 and 7.... and 9 got an updated engine but internally it's essentially the same so not really sure. We honestly don't see many problems with them except the turbo models which need extremely careful maintenance and attention and eventually internal upgrades to be happy past 100k.

The test mode (D-Check) connectors are plugged in causing the relay to cycle for testing purposes. It has nothing to do with the idle speed or the running behavior. Once the engine is running, even in D-Check, the relay will not cycle. GD

Cylinder pressure seats rings. Ring manufacturers recommend 2/3 throttle and varied engine speeds. Honestly I typically go WOT after about 50 miles of 2/3 throttle, and closed throttle coasting. There is NO break in for bearings. There should not be any contact on bearing surfaces EVER. GD

Almost every dealer has a drawer full of these. They fit all the way up to 2009 - after that they went to the gas hood struts. MSRP is $3.25 https://parts.subaru.com/p/__/49257414/57253AA010.html GD

Buy something newer. Pass the Brat on to someone that can put in the effort. Besides the engine, that transmission is likely not long for this earth. Once the pump shaft splines strip out it's all over for that 3AT and 200k is getting to be borrowed time. EA82 and EJ22 are not swaps that will be easy. They would likely be more difficult than fixing the EA81. If you must, pull the EA81, rebuild the heads, give it a new set of rings, and put it back in. No need to do a complete rebuild if it's not knocking. GD

Optima batteries ARE crap, but your problem is the stereo. The 05 to 08 Legacy platform stereo's are known for solder joint problems. The only fix is to send it to Panasonic through a dealer and have it refurbished. The cost is somewhere around $650 and takes 3-4 weeks. There are NO aftermarket stereo options for that car due to the HVAC controls being integrated. Half the time it's the HVAC controls that go on the fritz not just the stereo. This will get worse over time and may really be a problem. I would highly recommend having it refurbished while that program still exists through Subaru parts. GD

Maybe. Try it and see. Takes what? 10 minutes?

The real questions is why are you replacing the injectors? These almost never fail - as close to never as is possible while still having happened..... once. Just get some used ones if you really need injectors - but I am HIGHLY skeptical that you need injectors. Clean them and put them back in. Your problem lies elsewhere. GD

Subaru of America is it's own entity and they could have had them made for our market if the demand was great enough. They have oil filters made here for example. To avoid importing them by the truckload from overseas. Honeywell makes them for the US market while Tokyo-Roki makes them for Japan. Or they could have been repackaged possibly. The distribution warehouse can print those stickers with any part number they want on them. May simply be a reprint and all their labels say that. It honestly means nothing.

There may be a patch harness required. That would be my guess anyway. Look at junk yard cars and see if you can follow the harness back to its origins. In order to work it would have to interrupt the ignition switch harness so if it's on the passenger side it is most likely going to be a long harness leading to the driver's side. Either that or there was a different mounting location and wiring for dealer installed vs. factory installed systems. GD

There is a second port on the side of the EA81 oil pumps that is used for the pressure switch on DL and STD models, or digital dash cars that are not equipped with the pressure gauge option. This port is usually fitted with the square head pipe plug that is 1/8" BSPT thread. Remove this and install an adapter such as this one: https://www.amazon.com/GlowShift-Female-Sensor-Adapter-Reducer/dp/B00NWZ3TUI And from there you should be good with any mechanical shop gauge as most will handle 1/8 NPT out of the box. That said, you probably need a new sending unit, and it is technically acceptable for the gauge to read 0 at hot idle. Says so in the owners manual even. The sending units are crap especially when old. Generally speaking you want at least 10-15 psi at a hot idle. The general rule is 10 psi per 1000 RPM of engine speed. Subaru engines are usually higher than this though. GD

Looks like it would take a standard cap for either a 90's era Subaru or Honda or Possibly Toyota. Really hard to tell and basically pointless because..... It's plastic and obviously quite old so it's garbage. Useful lifespan on plastic radiator tanks is 8-10 years. Hit up a radiator shop and have one built to those dimensions from aluminium. Problem solved. Have the inlet and outlet moved so you can use some off-the-shelf Subaru hoses instead of that corrugated disaster it's got going on. Sadly that is the absolute worst engine Subaru ever made, and a flapper-MAF version at that. Extremely distasteful. That thing looks like a great way to look awesome while being broken down with a cracked head in a cloud of steam. Break out the bathing suits and you can film hot bodies covered in glycol steam on the side of the road with the "trunk" up pouring Fiji water down it's fill hole. Point is - you DO NOT want to overheat that abortion. In any case plan for an engine swap to something newer. GD

Some Legacy parts are USA made - I think they started making the headlight assemblies either here or Mexico, etc. Saves on shipping from Japan since the plant is in Indiana. I've never encountered anything for EA's made in the USA. Subaru didn't start building cars here till 90. GD

Call Lithia Subaru in Oregon City, OR. Ask for Matt in parts. He has the book. GD

Do a compression test.

Seems like the factory assemblies last about 10 years. You can get cheap ones on ebay and put sealant on them before installation. GD

Hhhmmm - no codes from the ECU? Could be noise in the cam/crank sensor signals also. I've seen that a few times and being a swapped car the harness routing is always a question mark. And the older stuff had really bad shielding especially on the cam sensor. We see problems with cam sensors signals on the 02/03 WRX's and it's a real pain in the a$$ to troubleshoot and track down the source. Can be as simple as grounding or bad alternator diodes, or just random interference from solar flares and passing airliners. GD

Funny. We have never seen that here. I would lay odds that no dealer has either. No rust! GD

Are you positive you don't have any boost creep? I would go one step colder on the plugs and gap them as suggested. GD

These are 80% FWD. They have to sense slip before they will transfer power. Could also have a transfer clutch issue, etc. Pull the TCS codes, or pull off the transfer clutch housing and have a look. FWIW the auto transmission is FAR superior to the 5MT. Much smarter, more reliable, and no clutch the wear out. If properly maintained they are lightyears ahead of the manual. GD

High load/high rpm cutout is probably the ECU cutting off your fuel for bringing in too much boost with the MBC.... or it's bad coil packs. ESL isn't difficult to tune. It's basically just like an Access Port. Jarad (PDX Tuning) does our tuning if I don't do it personally. We will be getting a 2000 HP DynoJet in the Oct/Nov time frame from a well known shop that be phasing out full time operations. It will have its new home in bay #1 at my shop. GD

There is no need to do that if you get ESL for it. Those older WRX systems had factory 3-port boost control like the 91-94 Legacy Turbo. We run 20G ECU's all the time and have yet to use a MBC or standalone EBCS on one. GD