Dalee1104 Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Hey all, another 02 outback in the shop for head gaskets. I had a quick question regarding the valve covers, I've been doing too many turbo engines. When bolting the valve covers on does the Ej251 NA engine require any rtv or sealant on any portion of the gasket/valve cover/block? On the turbo models you have to rtv the back half of the valve cover for the sharp bends. I was having a hard time finding any info on this as they all are referring to turbocharged engines. Just wanted to check so I don't bolt this engine together and have an oil leak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverton Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 (edited) does your shop not have access to alldata? On turbo motors you put RTV over the cam humps at the front, and across the half moons on the back. NA valve covers are installed dry. Edited March 16, 2023 by silverton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dalee1104 Posted March 16, 2023 Author Share Posted March 16, 2023 Apologies, I call my garage my shop lol I split ways with my old job at a subaru shop awhile ago as I found you could make more doing it yourself. I was just digging around Google trying to find it but only turbo models come up. I appreciate the info Silverton, it's very much appreciated 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverton Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 12 hours ago, Dalee1104 said: I found you could make more doing it yourself. This is true if you have the knowledge. But do be careful, legitimate shops have insurance to cover their ass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m sprank Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 (edited) Big overhead difference between your garage and a shop. BIG. My liability insurance alone was over $10k/month and I was dropped yearly with zero claims. Dyno scared the everloveing shit out of adjusters. Finally duped a new Farmers Rep who did not know his own fine print. 4 EPA licenses (city, county, state, fed), BAR, city business license and taxes, state sellers permits, state sales tax, payroll taxes, lease, electric, phones, security, maintenance, janitorial, rag and uniform service, tools (shop owners must supply the tools in Cali and mechanics can not be 1099) the list of expenses goes on. With 3 employees my overhead was about 1 million a year. Edited March 17, 2023 by m sprank 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dalee1104 Posted March 17, 2023 Author Share Posted March 17, 2023 Jesus yeah that makes sense, i always knew overhead was more than meets the eye. My old boss wanted me to take over the business. It was a small shop called subie solutions. It was okay business wise and we always had cars coming in but when I got the numbers in it didn't seem feasible. Everything was a 1099 there and under the table a lot but I wanted to do it right, and to do it right it seemed the business didn't pull in enough customers. With that knowledge I switched gears and bought a house instead, figured you can't go wrong with real estate. Duely noted on the insurance I've always kept that in mind. I try my best to have a great relationship with my customers as well so they know every detail and don't feel inclined to try and screw me over if something does happen 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m sprank Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 I did everything by the books. Was audited by the IRS for 2014, 2015 and 2016 simultaneously. Due to the shops sales vs profit. Spent over $50k on the lawyer fighting it. End result, no change to may taxes. We proved I was 100% on the up and up. We had a couple million in sales and maybe 30k in profit. As I was playing by the rules I too was an employee. I paid myself minimum wage the final 3 years of the shop. Still not enough to save us. Overhead was too high and profit too low I had not paid my mortgage in 2 years and was losing my house. Then the EPA shit hit the fan and I was staring down over $300k in fines for performance work. Shop closed. Without a constant stream of 30/60/90ks, break jobs, timing belts and full retail price paying customers there is no way to run a shop legit and make profit. Need big parts mark ups to make profit as labor basically pays the bills. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dalee1104 Posted March 18, 2023 Author Share Posted March 18, 2023 Damn that's super unfortunate I'm sorry to hear that everything took a turn for the worse for you. I knew that EPA cracking down was going to start affecting people but I hadn't heard of any first hand experiences. I hope all is well with you currently! I know you've been a very active member in this community for some time now. Hearing all those hardships makes me glad I decided to keep my day job and do the cars on the side. I work in the repair industry and it's at least stable so I can keep cars as sort of a hobby on the side but be competent enough to do larger scale jobs with the years of professional mechanic work under my belt. The first start up is always nerve racking though lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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