outbacksoutback

I put the wrx wheels back on the car, went with Firestone firehawk Indy 500 tires for this set. These are stock 225/55/r17 size. After a dirt road run I've still been driving the car to work everyday, and doing 3 hour weekend trips often. I started getting an intermittent exhaust leak 3 weeks ago. It would go between normal sounding, and open header sounding randomly. Pulled the downpipe off because I started getting a CEL (lean) and it came off in two pieces. So I ordered a cobb catted downpipe and hopefully it'll be back on the road this weekend

Photos from the event:

Here is another update since I have not posted in 6 months: I parked the car back in December and took insurance off it, believe it or not I don't want to drive it in the snow and I needed to resolve my tire wear issue anyways. Most of the winter I had mismatched wheels on it, and I accidently put a fb25 oil filter on when I changed oil last (as it was parked). I was planning on driving my 2000 outback all winter, but I had a 2012 forester with a blown engine fall into my lap. I wound up putting a junkyard engine in the forester and selling my 2000 outback, then I let my girlfriend drive the forester while I drove her FWD escape for the winter so I could leave the XT parked. This obviously took some attention away from the XT but it turned out to be a good little car when I finished that project. FYI the junkyard quoted me $2200 for an engine when I told them I had a 2012 forester, but I wound up giving them the vin from a 2013 outback then they sold me a '14 legacy fb25 for $900. So there's a good tip if you have a forester with the FB25. Eventually I got to work on the XT. I discovered it already had AVO sway bar brackets on it which I had never noticed before. I installed Megan racing rear toe/camber arms, new lgt rear upper control arms, a whiteline (21mm?) rear sway bar and moog endlinks. The toe adjustment bolts were rusted so my dad cut the arms off with a torch for me, and helped me do the bushings in the hub where the toe arm bolts. I just replaced the toe adjuster bolts with a straight bolt. There is a washer on each side of the subframe. I considered welding the washers to the subframe to make sure the bolt wouldn't be able to move, but it seems to be fine as is. I also tried out a cobb SF intake also but I didn't like the sound so I just replaced my K&N drop in filter. Some of the old parts vs new Notice the toe bolts. All the new parts in one shot About 3 weeks ago (early may), I changed to oil, eyeballed the rear toe, put the stock wheels/cooper cs3 all seasons back on then started to daily the car again. I drove it for about a week as it was, then took it to the Subaru dealership for an alignment and the takata air bag recall. I dropped the car off, they didn't ask any questions, didn't quote me any extra service, passed everything in their inspection, and the tech did an excellent job on the alignment. The xt has 242,000 miles at this point. I checked and made sure everything was snug just to be safe, and it was. 3 days before that appointment I took the forester in (which just rolled 150k) for the airbag recall at the same dealer. In their inspection they found a lot of things and recommended about $1500 of work including the 60k mile service, tires, alignment, oil leaks, burnt out bulbs, etc. I passed on that offer with the excuse that I just replaced the whole engine, then they asked me if I had changed the spark plugs Anyways, this past weekend I drove the xt 3 hours away to run an autocross with a few friends. The car made 7 runs at the event, then drove through an hour of heavy rain on the way home at highway speed. Before the toe/camber arms the car was squirrely at 45mph in the rain, now it finally feels stable. I should have photos from the event soon and will post here. My best time in the outback was 44.6 seconds. My friend ran 44.1 seconds in a stock 2014 civic si. We had a blast and really got to push the cars hard.

This is the one I ordered, they accepted an offer of $75 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Subaru-LGT-WRX-FXT-The-Real-Bullet-Proof-Intercooler-TMIC-Upgrade/332739044634?pageci=6482bd9c-1f33-4ccb-a3d4-317ad25cc19f

These pictures were taken before the 1000mile trip... Front tire Rear tire... obviously a major issue. After the road trip and another week of commuting to work, that rear tire blew out and I had to put my spare on to limp home. Spare is a snow tire from a 2012 forester I picked up as a project (needs engine) I replaced both rear trailing arm bushings with a whiteline poly bushing and it seemed to help my handling in the wet a lot, so far so good for tire wear. I think this winter I will be parking it and tackling all the bushings in the suspension front and rear. Old bushing, as you can see it was rusted out. Also snapped a nut off inside the body trying to remove the trailing arm brackets and had to cut a small hole in the floor under the rear seats. At this time I noticed my intercooler end tanks were separating, so I picked up a used replacement local and ordered a reinforcement kit from ebay Sitting on the snow tires. This past weekend I took the car on another big road trip (600ish miles) with a car club I am apart of. It was snowing in this picture so the tire thing kinda worked out haha.

Time for an update! The car is mostly doing well (It is October now). I'll post a few pictures from over the summer and end with most recent... spooky Next to my other Outback Next to my friends lowered H6 at the junkyard GF bought a paddle board and I hauled it on a 3 hour drive with the xt. Of course I had been running without the factory crossbars so I had to improvise. (broomsticks are good for 110mph fyi) The car was down for a few weeks due to the rear U joint on the driveshaft being shot. I grabbed a driveshaft from a NA 5mt outback at the junkyard for $30 (luckily it was in excellent shape), swapped it out, then took the car on a 1000ish mile road trip. I had only put about 4k miles on at this point, and before the trip noticed both my rear tires were very worn. Also the car handled terrible in any sort of wet conditions. Motel room by lake superior. Dirty

Yeah those were fine, just the guide on the crank gear was rubbing. I have put another 1000 miles on now since the new belt/AVCS actuator and there are no rub marks.

Another update: I've started running shell 93 octane fuel in the car and it seems to like it (on the stage 2 91 oct hwg tune). Had about 1500 miles of hard, problem free driving. One morning I thought I was seeing smoke in my rear view mirror, so I pulled over and looked under the car. There was oil dripping from the timing cover on the passenger side . It was landing on the header causing smoke (no heat shield). I flat towed the car home and took it apart. The oil was coming from the AVCS actuator on the passenger side. Leaking from the back plate near the gear, not the cam bolt cover. I did not replace the seals when I cleaned these out (there are kits on ebay shipping from Russia and I may order one for the future, but apparently subaru does not sell the seals as the actuator is not supposed to be serviceable) . I also noticed the (new) timing belt had a big rub mark down it. After taking it off I saw this: I believe the problem was how I put the cover above the crank gear on. There were rub marks on it. I did not know most kits come with a tool to space this cover. So for the cost of one Gates timing belt and component kit I now have the tool and will not forget to use it . I had an extra new timing belt left over from my 98 forester, and almost considered using it. However I did not do components with the other belt, and the tensioner I had was a little suspect (compressed pretty easy). A Gates timing belt and component kit on rock auto was cheaper than a new Gates tensioner from the parts store anyways. The part numbers do not match up between the cars, but the belt specs are the same and it seemed to fit better than the Gates one. Here are some pics if anyone is curious about a NA DOHC belt on a turbo DOHC. The belt brand is OMNI 5 Gates on bottom Wrapped around the xt cam gear I put the gates kit and belt on, as well as a new OEM AVCS actuator/cam gear for the passenger side. I left the old unit on the drivers side, hoping that one is sealed up better. I also put new o rings on the cam bolt covers this time lol. The alternator is missing in this picture because the one on my old outback died and I had to borrow it for a couple days. I have been through about a tank and a half of gas since doing this and all seems well.

Got my coils on and adjusted how I want them today, here is some pics: The rear tint is really starting to bug me so that may get fixed soon. I've now put about 700 miles on the car since the engine was out, drove it on a 4 hour round trip drive last week and it did well.

$2500 already lowered, what a steal! How many miles? I dig the ski box, was thinking of putting my yakima rack on this car but not sure I can run my wind fairing with the sunroof, might go the box route.

Took the car on a golf trip today, had 4 people/3 golf bags in it. Did some more datalogging. I saw the DAM drop a few times but it returned to 1 pretty fast. The car felt okay. I've put the DAM, Fine Knock Learn, and Throttle Position in yellow. I last filled up with ethanol free 91 octane from Holiday Here is 3rd WOT: Not sure what happened here:

I have been poking around on cobbs website reading their info, mainly just making sure I have no major issues and its relatively safe. I did think according to the info there that the fine knock number was a little out of range.

Okay thanks! I didn't see DAM but I'll look again, I'm using a v2 access port. I will definitely read up on it. I normally don't drive WOT (more like 80-90%) and even in these pulls I didn't rev it out much.

Pulled both cars in the garage today: Here is the downpipe on the xt: Added some parameters and did a datalog of a 3-4 gear pull up a decent hill. let me know what you guys think of this. 3rd: 4th

I'll add those parameters and datalog today. I'll try to get a good picture but I do not think the downpipe is stock, seems pretty big and has a stainless part welded on the rear. The catback is stock however.

Update: I've put roughly 250 miles on the car, no longer taking it easy. So far so good, no drips drops or leaks to be found I was underboosting a little bit, so I flashed a cobb stage 2 high waste gate tune and it seems to be about right. Here is part of the datalog, this was a 4th gear pull up a small hill: I still have some pretty serious cali lean, but I've been trying to put miles on so I can do a 500 mile oil change soon... Once the coilover parts arrive I plan on running this wheel/tire setup, some lightly used 225/55/r17 Continental extreme contacts on wrx wheels. The tint on the rear side windows is pretty faded and doesn't match the fronts in certain light, might get around to fixing that eventually.

last night after 71 days in the garage, I started the car. No CEL and it idled fine! I currently have the cob stage 1 93 octane map loaded. I did a few laps around the driveway but had a few issues, small coolant leak, power steering sounded horrible and was aerating the fluid, brakes were dragging. This morning after doing some research I re-seated the return line to the power steering pump, and installed the belt shroud/bracket thing. This resolved my power steering issues. I then replaced the hose clamp on the coolant hose coming from the top side of the turbo, aired up the tires, and adjusted the parking brake. After doing a few more laps I drained out the cheap oil I had in the car, and did an oil change with Rotella t6 and a new filter. I drove the car down the road and went through all the gears, pushed it to about 5lbs of boost. Everything felt pretty good, going to take it easy for a while still. Here is the car out in the driveway, notice I tinted the front windows since the last update (my brother did). Car is also on coilovers in the rear and stock struts up front, hence the odd stance.

MT, this one is at 230k

I tapped the thread by hand and put teflon tape on the plug, but yeah I did expect to get roasted for that haha. Proper way to delete it would be use the NA plug and a NA water pump.

Front coilovers are not a direct swap, so I ordered two front camber plate assemblies from BC racing. I changed the right front out and bolted the coilover to the car, but when I did the left one it would not line up... they sent me the wrong part for the left side (the studs line up with my old camber plates for the 2000 outback). I am waiting to hear back from BC still so I just put the front struts back on for now. looking over the intake while it was off, I noticed the TGVs were very dirty. So I just deleted them with a hacksaw and a file. I replaced the spark plugs, timing belt, and clutch then bolted the engine back into the car. Of course I also cleaned all the oil feed lines/banjo bolts/and removed banjo bolt filters. Here is how it sat: I did not take pictures yet, but the turbo and down pipe are bolted into the car now as well. I'm waiting on a few small parts, but I should have it back together fairly soon.

Some more updates on the car: My friend took the oil filter stud off one of his NA ej blocks and mailed it to me for my oil cooler delete I did not think to ask him for the block plug, so I just cut the fitting off of mine and plugged it. Did the same with the water pump. Installed a new windage tray and Moroso oil pickup. In this picture you can also see the oil filter is on the block, no cooler. Had my valve covers hot tanked: Took apart my AVCS units, cleaned them out then re-assembled I removed my BC coils form the old Outback and put my stock struts back on (I did repaint the springs after this pic). The rear coils were a direct swap between cars. In the old outback I notched the floor cover and had access to the dampening adjusters, in the new one I had to install dampening adjuster extenders.

Probably not but I am just going to leave the heads on and delete the oil cooler, slap it back in and see what happens.

My dad came and looked at the engine today. We finally separated the old VF40 and discovered that the bearing did not actually fail, the shaft just broke. Also pulled the valve covers and looked around, not much for metal shavings up there. I swapped the coolant pipe and oil drain onto the VF46, also made new lines for the waste gate actuator. Almost missed it but I did cut the restrictor pill out of the old line from the VF40 and insert it. So the theory is that my glitter in the pan was mostly aluminium from the turbine... New pan/tray/dipstick and a Moroso oil pickup: Started working on replacing the rusty old brakes as well

Originally I bought an automatic 2001 2.5rs sedan with blown head gaskets for $400, I sent the longblock from that car out and had it redone ($2300) After driving the rs to college for a few months I decided I wanted a manual wagon, and found the '00 outback on craigslist running and driving for $2100. The outback was way nicer than my rs, so I swapped the rebuilt engine I already had into the outback, and the running engine from the outback into the rs. I wound up selling the rs for $2200ish. The rs had about 185k on it when the engine was rebuilt, and I put roughly 10k on it in that car before it went in the outback, and now has seen roughly 100k more miles. I considered sending the engine from the xt to the same shop but that looks like it will be closer to $4000 for a rebuild... Here is what my $400 2.5rs looked like when I got it in 2016: Next to my 1st Subaru/my brothers 1st Subaru, a 1998 Forester Another one

More photos: The banjo bolt for the turbo oil feed line did still have the filter in it. Both AVCS banjo bolts did not have the filter however. I decided to call it a day there. Have not pulled the valve covers yet.