Pleides

Surgeline also uses the AEM pumps for Legacies, FWIW. I have one in my car and no issues.

6 hours ago, laboixlacroix said:

Yeah I know I'm for a treat with how hard these cars are to maintain hahaha I have moments where I feel in over my head with it. For now I'm planning on getting it running with stock parts and upgrading the turbo oil lines( I hear those are prone to going out). I'm going to try and keep the same engine for now then taking your advice on a new engine block and look at getting beefer parts. Yeah I don't know much about the last person that owned but they had it for only 10k miles and was bought from a dealer last year for 6k. Also what does "while you're in theres." mean? never heard that one before hahaha

"While you're in theres" are just the parts that should be replaced or upgraded if you plan on doing them soon-ish as you've already got the major parts that are in the way out. IE if you're replacing the shortblock you might as well replace the valvetrain components with nicer ones (nicer valve springs, valves, etc), or while you're replacing the turbo you should upgrade the inlet pipe as they're known to tear. Stuff like that. Good luck, and definitely keep the Avalon around.

Do you plan on keeping this car stock? Cuz if not, that's a lot of "while you're in theres."

These cars are old now and incredibly hard to keep running without a lot of care. You will need to regularly check your oil level and use premium fuel without exception. With the price you paid for the car, if it's on its original engine I would start saving up for a new one. Can knock out all that much easier with the engine out of the car, apart from the struts which, if you want to upgrade the handling of the car, definitely inquire here.

Gotta say though... whoever owned your car prior did not take care of it if the intake cam gear is rubbing on the timing cover... wondering if they maybe hit something and replaced the bumper?

Take it to a shop and have them test it for vacuum leaks. It almost certainly has a massive one if the car stalls idling.

If anybody asks I'm a size 18*8.5+44 Volk CE28.

On 12/21/2022 at 12:15 PM, SubOperator said:

replacing old power steering fluid will help if you haven't done that in a while. Even getting most of of the filling tank and replacing that with fresh will have noticeable effect. Do it few days in a row after driving and you'll have much more quiet PS.

22 hours ago, Febreze Mee said:

@Pleides check out that o-ring atop the PS pump.

Power steering fluid is one year old roughly and the o-ring was replaced around that time too, maybe a bit before then. Drove her today (sitting at Surgeline right now, I see your car here @shralp) and yeah, she's definitely gonna need some PS work. Might just be an excuse for an STi rack finally.

4 hours ago, KZJonny said:

Yeah, that sounds pretty normal to me for extreme snow days and driving through them. (Originally from snowy Sudbury, in Central Ontario.) Pressure washing (if it is a rare warm winter day), or scraping out your wheel wells is a pretty normal winter event, and if you don’t get all the snow and ice out, if feels like a very badly balanced wheel, as you discovered.

Most people with sports cars, or whatever you classify our modified and often lowered cars as, have a beater for that reason. I’d say it’s more common to just go around kicking the snow off than finding a car wash usually. You don’t end up with ice on your wheels that way.

Hopefully there isn’t any long term damage to the power steering, but I sort of doubt it? The last car I had up North during a full winter didn’t have power steering  so at least that wasn’t an issue!

34 minutes ago, SubOperator said:

It absolutely is. One needs to remember to clean the wheels and wheel wells as much as possible before parking overnight outside - even snow with salt and chemicals will freeze if the temps get too low. When that happens it is a bad morning for you and the car...

Good to know. I've lived in the Portland area my whole life and even the worst snowpocalypse (2008 and 2016 were pretty rough) didn't create issues like this for us. It was so dang cold up in Cashmere! I don't think they salt their roads up there so the stuff doesn't melt on your wheels at all. I will keep all this in mind next time I stay in a snowy climate.

My power steering unfortunately just feels heavier after that drive yesterday. My power steering has started groaning a lot more in the last few weeks as it has gotten colder and my now chunky winter tires rubbing all the time definitely doesn't help. Such is life with an old car, though. It's the original pump and rack.

Made a trip up to Leavenworth/Cashmere on Friday and drove home today. Never driven in snow that severe in my life. We don't typically get anything like that in the Portland area. Had a slippy incident and almost hit a guard rail... phew.

Found that sitting outside in the snow and driving around in it left a shit ton of the stuff in my wheel wells and the wheels themselves. The former made my power steering groan all the time as the tires rubbed like crazy and the latter made my car drive like it had poor wheel balance on the highway. Pulled over in Yakima on the way back to a self-service pressure washing station and blew out all the snow and the car drove like new! I think my power steering is not quite as effective as it once was though

Is snow packing into your wheels and causing issues a normal occurrence for those of you all in snowy climates? The car drove like it was broken and I was pleasantly surprised that my assumption that the snow was screwing up wheel balance was the issue after washing it all out.

I'd really recommend buying them ASAP. The aftermarket doesn't seem to produce them and Subaru seems to have decided to end production of common parts for our cars after COVID. I believe I was the last person in the country to get a certain exterior trim piece (I believe it was the driver window trim that seals the exterior against the window). You can't buy trunk lining trim anymore either.

14 hours ago, Roche said:

I swear you got the most unique, reliable 2.5 gt in the world. You have a ton more miles than I last remember!

He also drove the car lengthy distances often, which helps the longevity of these old turbo cars quite a lot. My car had nothing but leaks and issues when I drove 2 miles one way to work and only the coolant would get up to temp. When my commutes were mostly freeway the car seemed to treat me nicer. I now drive ~30 minutes to work and the car has been great to me.

Oh, and I should note I have 238K miles now. Not going quite as long between oil changes as Max did, though. Never gone more than 3500, which is probably a waste of synthetic, to be frank.

Nameless makes a downturn exhaust for your car, if that's your thing. If you don't plan on changing the bumper then it's a good choice.

22 hours ago, Infosecdad said:

I have 2011 STI seats in my 2005 and they still use the same bolt pattern (plugs are a little different due to airbag and such).

If I remember correctly, 2012 or 2015, the bolt pattern changed, at least for the front seats.

I was looking at 2018-2019 seats, but learned they wouldn't directly bolt in, so that's why I went with 2011 (by far my favorite mod, so comfortable).

Did you figure out a way to wire up the airbag harness? I'd love some seats with proper bolstering but don't want to create a safety issue swapping seats.

On 11/22/2022 at 6:53 PM, BoozeRS05 said:

Any opinion. Will I want to replace the original crossmember bushings with 198k miles while I’m in there?

I also tighten my wheel lugs to 88ftlb fwiw

I used Energy bushings in the crossmember and regret it, two squeaky years later. Go OEM.

I've struggled with getting an accurate oil level forever while owning this car. Imagine my horror when seeing a dry dipstick with 4 quarts in the car after an oil change.... ugh... 

I usually have a shop do an oil change for me these days but if I do it myself I'll get a 5 qt jug of whatever 5W-30 or 5W-40 is available in synthetic at whatever store is convenient to me. That's usually Valvoline and it works fine and leaves me with some leftover.

5 hours ago, Max Capacity said:

Were you the one who pointed that out to me when I posted my wagon turned 242,000 miles ?

I don't think so. Unless you hit 242 relatively recently. Can't remember exactly when I joined the forum but you retired maybe a year after I joined here and your car was just under 300K then.

Tomorrow my car will have done the distance between earth and the moon. How should I celebrate?

My transmission has an unintentional cocktail of NAPA and Amsoil fluid (shift shaft seal slowly leaks). The Amsoil stuff made the transmission shift smoother for sure, but that could have been my transmission being two quarts low on oil when it was topped off

If you're looking the engine over then look for piston tops that are substantially cleaner than others (indicates head gasket failure as coolant will clean the surface of the piston). Could mean the engine has also seen higher than safe temperatures if it had head gasket failure.

Other stuff mentioned above is great.

Glad the shortblock will work out for you. Do a compression test if you can before buying.

No, you would not easily be able to swap a dual AVCS long block into a single-AVCS ECU OBXT.

Shortblock might be a different story. I believe it would run fine but there are different compression ratios.

I don't think my shop would even produce an invoice upon determining that a customer would like for them to install faulty parts. I see why the buyer should be expected to produce proof that the item was defective but the seller sold an item that is very difficult to prove defective without a shock dyno or such.

After I told the seller via DM that the KWs would cost about $1500 to rebuild from KW and that he might as well give them away he told me that he would opt to just rebuild them himself instead, yet the ad is still here asking $1000 two months later. Wouldn't the "right" thing to do be simply adding a note to the ad that states how much work/expense these would be to rebuild and drop the price significantly rather than sell them for an exorbitant price to somebody who didn't diligently research as I did? I'm not the one to determine what a fair price for a used item is - that's between the seller and buyer. However, it seems fishy and dishonest and the OP's previous comment doesn't seem real jolly.

On 11/12/2022 at 6:27 PM, connoisseurr said:

Are they shipping again? I bought this wheel earlier in the year from AVO, because Nengun wasn’t stocking, nor did they have any units in a queue for production (my order was cancelled). 

Ah, that I do not know. 

The same DAMD wheel shipped from Nengun to the USA is $455 NIB, just FYI. No 6-week made-to-order wait time, sure, but still cheaper and purchased new.

Get an oil dye kit so you can see where it trickles out from. I second that it's the valve cover and oil pan gaskets.

Remember that all Rota wheels (AFAIK) are technically reps. The authentic version they're based on may be abundantly available elsewhere. Not sure exactly what wheel they're based on, however.

Could it be the Advan RT?

https://www.evasivemotorsports.com/store/category/advan-rt/

I have 18*8 Enkei Raijins with H&R springs. My fronts, even with rolled fenders, do not 100% clear when I run 225/45R18s in the winter. They rub over bumps and at full turn. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but anything lower than about an inch means fender rolling time. 235/40R18s are fine with my rolled fenders and suspension setup. Not sure how the rears would do if I didn't have adjustable Whiteline control arms back there, but they're at 1.8 degrees negative camber right now and have never bumped on my wagon with the 3/8" spacer I have back there.