Subaru's?

[immortality]

Does anybody know anything about Subaru's?

My boy is looking at buying a 2002 Legacy with 3.0 6 cyl engine. Any advice appreciated.

If he does end up getting it does anybody know about the tuning side of these things?

[Dylan]

Not what you are asking but my family car is a 2011 Liberty and it's an amazing car I love it.
I'll go another one any day. A friend has a 2015 Imprezza and it's a dead set ripper they just keep getting better.

[vlad01]

Engines can be good if you shake them over a bin and replace pistons with forged and head gaskets with MLS for the 4 cyl EJ engines. Very common for factory piston crowns to separate and blowing head gaskets.

H6 early EZ series 6 are notorious for smoke screens which is that ^ car. Something to do with cylinder warpage due to common rail coolant arrangement introduced in the EZ series 6.

The early 90s EG series flat 6 was pretty good but very rare these days.

Personally I would stay away from it.

Also their engine management system is the worst I have ever seen. Just band aid after band air. OBD is useless as is gives wrong faults for unrelated problems. Eg missing VSS results in idle control error. Earlier MAF are really expensive and fail a lot. Like 500 bucks. The 90s cars have no CTS and idle table so the IAC is manually adjusted and there is a hybrid thermostat IAC. coolant flows through the IAC and turns the valve based on coolant and the ECU controls the idle in the other dependent conditions.

It got better in the 00s but still .....

Tunability? practically none. It would have to be a delco conversion. It was something I was planing and working on years ago as I saw a good market for it in the VW subaru conversion market. But I gave up after a while as 99% of those people are useless spiteful hippies lol

[Gareth]

I have had plenty of the sixes through my shop for burnt valves and blown head gaskets. Most of them seem to burn the sump full of oil in between services, Im with Vlad, i'd stay away...

[vlad01]

Whats the different between hyundai excel and subarus? Only the gender of the owner topping up the oil at the supermaket car park.

[immortality]

I'm seeing a lot of stuff about the 2.5l with headgasket issues but not so much the 6.

Personally I'm not a fan but try convincing an 18yo..............

[vlad01]

maybe show him some prices on "consumable" Subaru parts and that might convince him otherwise lol

^ and the 2.5 is their best and most reliable engine lol

the 3 and 3.6 are great design in principal but suffer a lot of inherent hard to fix issues.
Like 3.6 having very thin bores to get the 3.6 out of the 3 bore centers and even the 3 warp the bores and start spewing oil out the exhaust so you can imagine the 3.6

How do you fix those issues?

I also have seen cranks snap in the 4 cyl 2.5 and such. But this was also an issue in Porsche 356 and VW 1600, not common but does happen. I believe is a horizontal flexing of the crank as the cylinders are not opposed perfectly obviously, and as an inline 2 for each bank has horrific vibration. Figuratively speaking 90% of its canceled out but its still there.

flat 6 is perfectly balanced though. Best engine design there is balance wise.

[vlad01]

now that I look at it, yeah not much support on an open deck block like this. No wonder the bores move and warp.




The old school EG series was fully closed deck so thats why they never has issues.

[immortality]

Yeah, consumables.....

I'm reading they need lots of regular servicing to stave off the issues.

[vlad01]

I mean consumables like head gaskets, sensors, pistons, gearboxes etc...