Well it looks like it's time to change the dreaded head gaskets on my '05 Legacy 2.5 GT Wagon. It is my daily driver and all stock. I don't have any plans to significantly raise the HP other than maybe a down pipe,exhaust and maybe a tune. So I won't be needing any exotic parts for this repair. With that said I have a couple of questions.
1) What is the best brand head gasket to get? I want to do this one time and be done with it. So quality over cost is what I'm looking for.
2) What is the best complete engine gasket set to get? Might as well replace them all while I have it apart.
3) What is the best timing belt set that includes all the pulley's and water pump? I bought the car in Dec. with 132,000 miles on it. I'm not sure if this stuff has been changed either. Might as well get it while the getting is good.
4) Where is the best place to buy all this stuff? If there is an advertiser of the site that has all this then I'm down with supporting them.
5) Is the fancy Subaru cam pulley tool necessary to get the pulleys off? I plan to send the heads to the machine shop to get them checked. So I will be tearing the heads down before sending them out. Again, I want to do this job only one time.
Any tips or tricks for doing this job would be greatly appreciated. I'm a newb to Subarus but been around cars and race cars my whole life. So I'm fairly mechanically inclined and don't think this will be too terrible of a project for me.