As a Subaru guy... That was the best Water Pump throw I've ever seen! Also note: These turbo Subarus have gotten so cheap that kids with no money buy them then blow an engine then throw in a "cheap" JDM engine and blow it again and wind up in so much dept its just hilarity.
There was a dude in Weapons 1/2 with me, that went through 2 of these engines in 4 years…put that on top of a car payment that 650ish bucks a month. I told him not to do it because the reviews were so bad, but he only cared about aesthetics. Dude was broke 6 days after payday.
@@Pukefroth666 I'll trust an EJ20 way more than a junky 2.5 no matter what it came out of. There's way less blown Impreza WRX's & STI's where i live exactly because they came with an EJ20 instead of EJ25 😂🤣😂
Engine sauce from the water pan. Man, the one liners just keep getting better. And the water pump throw was hilarious, loved it. Your videos are entertaining and informative at the same time. I know so much more about modern IC engine design than I ever could on my own. You are this clearing house where you get access to all the designs, good and bad.
You are a nice kid, and I like you. After 25 years being a cop and having everyone lie to me, fight me and complain a lot, I find your channel very refreshing. I’m 76 years old and until I became disabled, I did all of my auto machanics. All of my experience has been under a shade tree, but I have rebuilt and replaced many engines, but watching you makes me so very serene. Thank you for that!
Realized why I like your channel: other channels show what works, and you show distructive testing which is probably more important because it is what doesn't work
Thank you Eric for starting the new year off on the right foot. I have now deemed you the Prospector of forbidden stripper glitter, when you dropped that oil pan it looked like you were panning for gold, thanks again and keep up the great content.
A 6.9 idi or a 7.3 idi would be awesome to see torn down. The ignition cups would be cool to see. Keystone rings and cavitation on the 7.3 are always interesting. Keep up the good work!
For future reference, the upper intake and TGVs come off as one piece. It makes it so you don’t have to mess with trying to mess with the fuel lines and the harness; it all comes off as one assembly. For the camshaft sprocket bolts, I always just drill them out, since “breathing on them” isn’t an option for an engine that you actually expect to run and work afterwards. Once you drill with a large enough bit, it releases all the tension on the head of the bolt and they unscrew by finger. It’s way easier than fighting with a breaker bar or impact and stripping out the bolt head, breaking the composite gears, etc. The fact that this has a cork oil pan gasket on it means that the person who installed this engine has never worked on a Subaru before (or any other Japanese engine). I’m surprised they didn’t shellac the head gaskets.
The manifold setup means that EJ2OX was installed in a car that came with an EJ255, an 05-06 LGT based on the injectors. In that car, with the JDM VVT gears and cams still in place, the exhaust cam advance angle will float around at random. In addition to the lack of tuning for high compression causing detonation as you mentioned.
So essentially what you're saying is that this setup was destined for failure from the beginning because it was "a jungle of things done badly." Thank you for the additional details. :)
Thanks for doing another Subaru engine. Whenever you do Subarus you always say that these cars are not for YOU. Could you say what you find most unappealing about them. It would help your viewers get a feel for you and learn your preference. It is not just the engines we wacth your channel, its your personality also. Thanks🙂
Eric, I wonder if you could ever get lucky enough to get a blown up aviation engine in for a tear down, they also go big or go home when they let go. Always enjoy your tear downs and other projects! Thanks for all you do!
Always wondered if airplane engines actually do get bad enough to blow up with their strict logged maintenance. Not to mention what could happen to the entire craft if that did occur
I put a JDM into my Forester. I had to swap out a few pieces. It wouldn't start until I swapped the left cam gear. Runs great since, and no more head gasket leak.
@@eimmiekhim9023 It was an EJ25. I don't know which series. It came with an electronic throttle body. I had to use the old one. Basically, It was a long block with some extra parts I couldn't use. I found it on Ebay for about $2500
Ah ha ha ha! I laughed hard at that one and nearly shot my soda through my nose. And beforr anyone gets butthurt... I owned one of those in the past, and I still own another newer hemi without that problem. So have a sense of humor! Lol
Fun Fact: Subaru once built a Flat 12 engine for F1 racing. The design was 20 years out of date, was 200 horsepower down on literally every other engine on the grid and 300+ pounds overweight. It does hold an F1 record for the largest time deficit too the leader in a single qualifying lap. It set a lap time of just a hair under 8 minutes in qualifying for the 1990 san marino grand prix.
Wow starting off the new year with an impossible find... a broken Subaru boxer. That must have been like finding the one needle in a zillion hay stacks.
@@imabebebebe2496 The Impreza doesn't come with the 6-speed like the Crosstrek does. Also the 5MT is mechanical linkage. Some complain about the 6 speed feeling sloppy because of the cable linkage.
You set all the plugs together, and my childhood suddenly came back to me. Good old Sesame Street...one of these things is not like the others. One of these things, doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others, by the time I finish this song?
The EJ20X/Y's a perfectly good motor, you can't really tune it much, it has no headroom but it's really well engineered for the stock job. Dual avcs, big oil pump (what people think of as the high flow sti oil pump was developed for the Legacy), quite high comp, and various twinscroll turbos handpicked to match the engine, mine has 245 at the wheels and absolutely gorgeous drivability and midrange for a 20 year old 2 litre turbo. They're not super durable, but they're not terrible. But, it's become a weirdly popular choice for swapping into subarus, because it's about the cheapest turbo ej you can buy, but that doesn't make it a good idea. This engine going by the other parts it has fitted has been fitted into a USDM legacy, which originally had a 2.5 litre single AVCS in it. You only do that because it's the cheapest option, so they've almost certainly bodged it in without doing much else- if you start spending the money to do it right, it stops making any sense to start out with that motor. And the EJ20X/Y is a dual avcs motor, so if you fit it without addressing that into a single avcs car like the USDM Leggy, then what you get is variable valve timing. You also end up with more compression than the stock motor, and a turbo and tune designed for that. So they almost never work properly and then they fail and people go "bloody Subaru!" It's a real shame because the only people who ever do it are people who can't afford to do the job properly, and that also means they can't afford to have their bodged in engine fail. It's almost always just the last in a long run of bad choices or bad events, because obviously if you're not reasonably comfortable money wise buying a turbo subaru was a terrible idea in the first place. TLDR don't put an EJ20X into your 2.5 litre subaru. Don't put it into your older 2 litre subaru. Don't try and tune it beyond about 300hp on the stock internals. But don't blame it for not being the right part for you. DO get a JDM twinscroll gen 4 legacy wagon, if you can, because they're ace.
Contrary to popular internet meme belief, the EJ20 is actually a rather reliable engine. Also very capable for its time. Plus it sounds amazing. I guarantee, whatever your opinion of Subaru, if you ever get to drive a first generation Impreza with one of these in it, you'll get why people love them. Very easy to work on as well, no matter what people on the internet who have never touched them tell you.
I like that the first time I swapped an engine in one of these (because SHE let the oil get low) it only took me one day. I bought the first Subaru because SHE liked them, and then another, but have gained a lot of respect for them. They're not my style, (although I'm driving one now because life happened and I had it) but they're pretty well made and not super difficult to service, unless it's turbo, which shoves a lot of extra stuff under the hood, but even then, they're not absurd.
I’m speaking as a previous owner & someone that has actually rebuilt a couple EJ25s… I’d never own one of these cars again lol. The cars are definitely well made with really nice interiors compared to a lot of cars. The engines however are just garbage. Way too many weaknesses.
@@stevemccauley5734 The EJ20 and EJ25 are different animals in terms of reliability and performance. I personally don't own any EJ25 cars, though my family has had plenty. I do however own numerous EJ18, EJ22, and EJ20 cars with anywhere from 110,000 to over 340,000 miles all on original engines. My aunt also daily drives an Outback with an EJ25 that's nearing 300K I believe, but it has had the head gaskets done. If it wasn't for the damned EJ25 head gasket issues, Subaru wouldn't have nearly so bad a reputation nor as many memes about them. Even the EJ255 turbo engine is more reliable than the NA EJ25. Not that any of them are perfect. The EJ18 and EJ22 were absolutely bulletproof, if slow. The EJ20 isn't quite as reliable as those maybe, but just about, and with so much more performance. Plus I just love working on Subaru more than any other brand. At least the FA/FB engines don't have head gasket issues and are generally very reliable overall. The EZ 6 cylinder engines were incredibly reliable as well.
@@stevemccauley5734 Main weaknesses on EJ-series mostly affect the 2.5's. The 2.0's are actually somewhat more reliable when built because they actually have cylinder wall thickness
I have a 1992 Subaru Legacy 4DS with an EJ22 that has over 308,000 miles on it and it runs really well. It doesn't burn any oil at all but it does leak a little.
Speaking of smashed spark plugs, (not really smashed, but more like broken) my dad was trying to start a Stihl concrete saw one time, it wouldn't start because it didn't have any compression. He pulled the spark plug out, and the ceramic part of the plug had completely separated from the nut of the plug! I still have that spark plug to this day. It baffles me every time I look at it.
Some Japanese teenager got hold of this car and ran the engine to 9000 RPM.... Subarus are UTILITY cars. They are designed to go through snow, not off road. And while they produce turbo cars that are seriously fun to drive (!), their horizontally opposed design with aluminum construction means that that CANNOT handle the kind of boost that a 2JZ or a K24, or for that matter an EA888 can handle. The very best Subaru's have 6 cylinder engines. Specifically, the EZ30/EZ36 cars. DOHC 24 valves, four cams, chain driven cams, they had NO issues with head gaskets and run forever! I have an '01 with 114k miles, and it just runs and runs and runs. 220 hp versus the slug 165 hp EJ25 engine-
I would also like to point out, that even if you have the correct ECU and retain the twin scroll turbo and you are in NA, these engines STILL need a tune, as Eric mentioned.. just the octane difference. I have a JDM EJ20Y car in Canada, and when initially logging the car you would see the ignition timing pulling like crazy, and the power level to be lackluster as a result. once I got on the rollers, I saw impressive increase of the under the graph area, and massive improvements in drivability. if your not going the cheap route, this engine is not the one you want to put in your 2.0 WRX or 2.5GT unless you have a plan to deal with the AVCS system, whether it be both intake and exhaust in the bug eyes or exhaust only in the LGT. in legacies you can easily use the TGV harness parts and pin them to a JDM ecu's exhaust avcs control, but those ECU's have immobilizers so you also need to deal with that to run one.
So you have a EJ20Y ? , I also have a EJ20X/Y engine swapped in my wrx (not by me tho). I’m pretty sure the headgasket is going bad. Is there a chance that the EJ20Y headgaskets are different from the EJ20X ? Or are they the same , if you can reply and tell me that would be amazing , I’m having it get fixed soon and need to buy the correct gasket and seal kit. Any advice ?
@@eimmiekhim9023 they might have different cams. The block and head castings are the same, so the gasket that goes between them should be the same…. Actually any ej20 turbo head gaskets should be the same. They all mate to the same block surface.
@@funkthew0rld @20:47 is him taking off the headgasket , it has the “A” top . I should get that one right ? Because that’s what they are trying to ask on the email to help me out.
@@eimmiekhim9023 if you’re in the US or Canada, just go on rock auto, search up a 2002 Impreza turbo and buy those ones. A EJ20 is an ej20. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 205/207/20x/20y/206/201/204. The top of the block is the same shape. It’s an ej. Simple as that.
i remember doing a clutch on a Subaru wagon turbo and i found that the turbo waste gate was broken stuck open and the oil return was cracked and leaking badly so i told the owner that he needed to replace the turbo and get the oil return tube from the dealer of course he didn’t want to spend the money and so he rebuilt the turbo and told me that he would order the oil return tube so i used a temporary fix using high temp transmission hose as he needed his car back thankfully this didn’t cost me in the long run because he never did what i said and a year later he was going to work and the hose left the chat an the engine pumped all its oil out an that was the end because of this and because it was a son of a friend i did the temporary fix to give him time to get me the part but i have learned lol i wont do this on critical parts anymore and never aloud it with safety items your life is worth more than any savings period anyway its cool to see this tear down because i just don’t work on Subarus every time i have i have just been burned because everything breaks you u touch that is plastic and or it just doesn’t want to come apart the day i said no was with a timeing code i took that horrible belt off 6 times and even counted the insane number of teeth checking the belts marks i finally gave up because it ran perfect checked the wiring and even put genuine sensor in still no go i eventually figured it out as a last resort i was going to change to computer but then i had seen it on my scanner it was intermittent but the voltage spiked it was small to it would go from 13.5 to 14.5 and it was rapidly and you would never think that voltage switch would be a big problem because 14.5 volts it’s uncommon to see on cars it’s on the high end but that cars pcm hated if put a new alternator on and code never returned
That's a 2008+ , you can tell by the dual avcs and plastic manifold. You made 1 mistake removing the intake by splitting the manifold from the tgv housings. The come together, then separated after assembly removal
Na, you're on the right track but you've mixed the original donor car and the car it was in when it died. The EJ20X/Y was only ever fitted to the JDM legacy, and they were all dual avcs, so it could be any gen 4 twinscroll leggy from 2004 onwards (some very early ones in 2003) Other parts have been fitted to it in an attempt to make it work in a USDM legacy, but it's been half-assed.
OK, so hear me out! We need to make an engine entirely made from wrist pin material! It would be indestructible! Happy New Year, Eric! If I ever make it to the USA, I will stop by your yard/shop, say hi, and buy some... art! Have a great day, Sir! o7
without a failure point the whole engine will leap out of the car when something goes wrong. how you going to explain to nasa where the new crater on the moon came from?
I have a friend who had worse cam caps, cams, and journals than those that he cleaned with sandpaper when he did his "rebuild" and that little dodge neon engine is still running 6yrs later no problems. I dont reuse cams, journals or caps that bad. I bore them out, install oversized cams that some companies sell for this type of work, then finish my rebuild. Those engines never have issues when i do that. But ive been waiting for his engine to die so i can rebuild it correctly for him 😂but it hasnt happened.
How do you do that? It would be a "blind" line boring operation, with the caps installed on the head. Most "block" line boring equipment is not made to do a blind hole, and is for much larger crankshaft main bearings. Who makes cams with slightly larger bearing journals? I have only seen large bearing cams for v8s, where stock bearing diameters can limit lobe lift. This unique problem does not apply to engines with removable cam bearing caps. What you suggest is not impossible, but is a VERY strange, unlikely solution to a problem better solved by cheap brand new parts.
There weren't that many metal bits in the filter because it was clogged and bypassing most of the oil. In fact, that cheap jobber filter would have been bypassing oil even when it was new, since it wouldn't have the Subaru-spec 23 psi bypass, and is probably restrictive as well. This is the case with most aftermarket oil filters available for Subarus. OEM and PurolatorOne are both good options for these engines. A good filter can make the difference between having to do a bearing job and having to scrap the entire engine (well, maybe not in this case).
Pete Donato and crew at PMP are fantastic to deal with. I've dealt with them for years, either myself, or suggesting my friends to go to them. Many years ago, I built a junkyard high-compression N/A engine and Pete was a fantastic resource. Also, following PMP's page is pretty entertaining because of how absurd and disrespectful some customers get (I'm sure you understand). He's recently gotten into parting out other vehicles, so if you're ever in Mertztown, PA (not sure why you'd visit there), stop by his shop and see how good his business has gotten.
I love "this is a jungle of stuff done wrong." So relatable! One of these days I will get a vehicle that doesn't qualify for that statement. I laughed so hard at the high end 2-part hose clamp. The part where you asked if it overheated when looking at the head gasket made me think that was the part of the gasket where the broken part of the block would have chewed it. Thanks for the fun!
I’d hope you can find an EZ30/EZ36 at some point. Failures for the 4 cylinder boxers are common, but the Subaru flat sixes are usually better regarded and mostly reliable…save for some that like drinking their 5w30
Any teardown he does I'll watch, but the flat motors are particularly interesting to me, whatever make or cylinder count! That's a roundabout way of saying I'd love to see an EZ teardown too 😄
You should try to do an fb20 out of a 2013-2017 Impreza or 2103-2018 crosstrek. Those engines had a recall on valve springs. Maybe you could find one with broken springs.
For once I agreed with all the places Blue got used. I'd like to be a fly and sit in on the meetings where engineers try to decide how to put these puzzles together! Or if they say: "we have room here. Let's hide a water manifold or something here" - 😂
Rem years ago chatting to a CASE(tractor) design engineer about how they put things where they did on the tractors and the "ease" of carrying out repairs,he replied "we mostly design them for ease of assembly" god but i could have just hit him repeatedly.
It’s not the boost. It’s the lack of sympathy from the driver. Running a boxer hard from cold, low on oil, coolant leak, failing to idle the engine when it’s heat soaked … not checking the oil weekly or every tank of petrol … these all contribute to a bad reputation. There are many ways to kill these engines and most of them are unique to boxer. For example over filling the oil will blow by the spark plug tubes and drown them FROM THE OUTSIDE
@@theairstig9164hold up, how overfilled are we talking about???I put 5 quarts in my WRX even though it calls for 4.4 (which I find very underwhelming for a 2.5 displacement). Mind you, it has no leaks (yet), the PCV system is working (for now) and at the last spark plug change, the plugs looked fine.
When you're tearing down a 500 hp v10 and It's destroyed a piston, that's one thing. After all, you still have 9 cylinders and 450(?) horsepower driving what's left of the engine. Inspection ports and piston gravel can be expected. When you're tearing down a flat four with 200-400(?) horsepower, you only have 3 cylinders and 150-300(?) horsepower driving what's left of the engine, piston gravel is kind of a surprise. But then the keyword here is 'turbo'.
That block off plate on at 17:20 ish looks like it is for an ej206/208 second turbo line, I am not sure as I have not been hands on, but I know many people convert the twin turbo ejs to single for simplicity and reliability (the PCV system is a nightmare, and the exhaust headers are overly complex)
I've owned/own several Subarus and can say I don't keep buying them because they're reliable or even well engineered. It's the amusement factor when they need work mostly. Keeps me entertained. My back up is an old Toyota Tundra that never seems to have issues. I mostly buy my Subaurs very used. They are fun cars IMO. That flat engine layout is just way overly complex compared to other layouts, I'm an engineer in a different field and I don't know where Subaru engineers went to school but they missed the "simpler is better" day in class. I'm amazed they last at all. Any Subaru fan who gets upset at some criticism has never had one apart. Frankly I don't know how folks who run everything to the shop for maintenance afford to keep one up. The short of it is I get them because I'm strangely entertained, they are not something I'd recommend most normal folks keep outside of warranty.
Having built more than a thousand EJ engines this triggered ptsd lol. In the years I worked on Subarus both at the dealer and my own performance shop the biggest culprit for failed bearings, one I couldn’t get Subaru to acknowledge. Oil pump back covers have recessed screws with no loctite. Did I 1 year study on them and collected 213 pumps. Of those 213 pumps 151 had loose rear oil pump covers. PMP is a place I’d source a lot of replacement used engines for customers. Good people.
So they have oil pump and head gasket issues? In your time working on these, did you ever see one that was truly high mileage without major engine work?
@@caddydave the head gasket issue is blown out to be more than it really is. It’s rarely the traditional sense of the phrase of combustion and coolant mix. It’s the oil return from the heads is on the very bottom and pools in the transition between block and head. It’s seeps/leaks oil here. From the factory? Very few. Mostly older NA cars that were religiously maintained. However, engines fixed correctly I consistently see in the 2-300k range with just regular maintenance. Just when Subaru corrected the head gasket issue in the FA/FB they created a new way to still get those 12 hours of labor with the cam cradles now leaking at around 65k miles. Still requires engine out repair and because of the time chains and covers the labor time is the same as head gaskets on an older EJ25 SOHC.
@@OneExhaustedFatherfrom memory, the leaks that I saw dripped coolant on the exhaust. I know everyone has all sorts of different opinions and experiences…. But in my opinion, they are one of the worst cars made. Head gasket issues, cvt issues, oil consumption issues, one of the worst sounding exhaust notes….
@@caddydave I wouldn’t call them the worst. Nissan cvt, Hyundai/Kia engines. Toyotas are not near as good as people think. Been a tech for 20 years now. They all have quirks and faults. But hand over fist Chrysler takes the worst of the worst for just garbage quality.
This has been interesting to me, and I appreciate the information you've given, because I was one who'd always thought of Subaru as a completely bulletproof engine maker. I guess we all can respond to marketing stupidly. I still have high regard for the carmaker (I've been a big fan of the boxer design, having owned two Corvairs), but you've given me much to consider about Subaru.
Bullet proof or not, you still need to service the engine.. oil change, belt, spark plug change, pumps, gaskets etc. that's where it gets tricky with the boxer engines because of the way it sits, it can get labour intensive. By the time second and third owners they just "let it ride".
Thanks to both of you for those valuable comments. I had originally not realized that he was working with a reworked engine here, and that the topic was about second hand examples. But I've gathered that there are certain weaknesses in Subaru engines from the beginning, if you're not following every model and don't do your homework.
Eric, what brand disposable gloves do you use? My wife and I are pretty impressed with them! Also, you chose an engine from the perfect brand to deliver destruction!
You're not supposed to use a gasket on the oil pan for Subarus. It causes a gap at the oil return passage where it meets the oil pan at the back of the block. The oil ends up on the baffle instead of being fed back directly to the pickup.
Many years ago, I knew a person who replaced his Japanese car engine with one imported from Japan. He told me that due to inspection rules in Japan and other factors, cars are not kept long in Japan. This is the reason that low milage imported Japanese engines are available.
That is true. Also, people in Japan hardly need cars to travel in the city. Traveling outside the city, they may use a car, but even then, their travel distance will not be large due to living on islands and can only go so far.
Exactly right. This motor is out of a gen 4 Legacy, a ton of those get exported to the UK complete as we're also right hand drive, but there's so many that it only makes sense to export really nice condition cars. If it's got any amount of damage or wear or rust, then it makes more sense to scrap, and then a lot of the engines end up in the US for dirt cheap, and fitted inappropriately into the wrong cars, like this one. It's a sad end for those almost-good-enough cars!
I put a JDM engine in my mom’s 1999 RAV4, in 2008 (cold weather, Alaska, -45F, frost plugged something, blew out the rear seal and the car ran low on oil). I remember having to drill and tap a large hole for some emissions port, which wasn’t on the JDM engine. Car is still owned by my mom and runs well tho. But yeah, it’s a definite risk that something major will have to be done to make them compatible.
Subaru owner here who's been through it all: Wouldn't mind having some of those parts to add to my Subaru museum of destruction in my garage, which currently includes such popular displays as the grenaded viscous coupling center diff, transmission gears stripped of most of their teeth, and roller bearings that spit out pieces of circlip when you spin them. As for the reason this engine let go, I'd guess low oil. It doesn't take much wear before they burn a quart of oil every 150 miles, at which point it's only a matter of time before you forget to check one day, and then bam. I was told the reason we see so many JDM engines in the US is that for cultural reasons, the Japanese people who own cars will only buy new ones, and only keep them for 5 years. So any JDM cars over 5 years old are simply sent to scrappers, who part them out and send the stuff everywhere but Japan.
I've heard of oil consumption issues with Subaru's, but haven't experienced it myself. My '99 Legacy doesn't burn any oil. I bought it new and have done every oil change except the first with Mobil 1. In 2018 when a head gasket failed (imagine that), I pulled the engine as it was close to 200k mi. and figured I'd tear it down for a look. Heads were great. Machine shop surprised how good they looked. New stem seals. Crank was polished and bores honed. Another 5 years of driving. No oil consumption and the head gaskets are holding 😅.
@@timsilva1944 My goodness. You took good care of the engine, took it to the machine shop to clean everything up for the head gasket job and your engine is like brand new again. That's the way.
@@timsilva1944Good to hear the '99 held up pretty well. My 2010, which I maintain religiously myself since I'm a former mechanic, was using 1qt every 200 miles at 140k miles. The rings were shot with extreme cylinder scoring. It had been drinking oil since 50k miles, was never run low, and I always run top of the line synthetic and oem filter. We kept driving it that way until the head gaskets decided oil and antifreeze should mix. On the plus side, the rebuilt engine we have in it now runs perfect and doesn't use a drop of oil.
@@nowiecoche Thanks. Head gasket blew right after I replaced all 4 struts, lower control arm bushings, CV axles and front hub bearings. 😡 I wasn't too keen on replacing head gaskets with the engine in the car, so I figured why not freshen it up. It's a manual, so a new clutch was a given at that stage.
I'm so glad I grew up in the '50s and '60s and didn't have to deal with the nightmare that modern engines are. Give me a flathead or 327 short block any day.
The one Subaru I ever had (and bought new) needed $6000 worth of work at only 145,000 miles. So much for Subaru “reliability”…never again. FYI it was an ‘07 Impreza no turbo.
Subscribed. The introduction alone was too good not to. 🙂 So many horrors in one engine! Perhaps the disadvantage to watching your videos is the ever-rising desire I have to personally supervise the servicing of my car! I know that is the second worst thing for a mechanic, [second only to having the owner "help"]. But there are so many of your engines wrecked due to negligence that it leaves me to wonder if the dealership is doing all the work properly. And I would *love* to know the state of things like the old oil and oil filter!
If that was you guys who provided this gem, THANK YOU!!! Would love to hear the backstory on that core. Also, have enjoyed chatting with you guys on the phone in the past re: a non-Subie motor I was trying to find. Cheers!
I was thinking my 5.4 was going to be sent to you. But I got new plugs and coils. They did a compression test and it did good. So I will keep it for another 10 or 15 years.
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The water pump throw was hilarious. Awesome job!
If you never tested the pistons I would have never known that the engine was bad. Thank you for being so thorough 👌
I have a Subaru EJ25 with a heat-seazed and blown head gasket engine that still idles and revs butter smooth as long as you don't add coolant lol
As a Subaru guy... That was the best Water Pump throw I've ever seen!
Also note: These turbo Subarus have gotten so cheap that kids with no money buy them then blow an engine then throw in a "cheap" JDM engine and blow it again and wind up in so much dept its just hilarity.
I wish they were cheap in my country. Very often people swap them out for Honda or VW ones because they cost as much as 3/4x less
Epic toss...
those jdm ej 20s are complete trash, just get a type ra shortblock.
There was a dude in Weapons 1/2 with me, that went through 2 of these engines in 4 years…put that on top of a car payment that 650ish bucks a month. I told him not to do it because the reviews were so bad, but he only cared about aesthetics. Dude was broke 6 days after payday.
@@Pukefroth666 I'll trust an EJ20 way more than a junky 2.5 no matter what it came out of. There's way less blown Impreza WRX's & STI's where i live exactly because they came with an EJ20 instead of EJ25 😂🤣😂
Your water pump skits are always hilarious but this one maybe my favorite one to date 😂
Engine sauce from the water pan. Man, the one liners just keep getting better. And the water pump throw was hilarious, loved it. Your videos are entertaining and informative at the same time. I know so much more about modern IC engine design than I ever could on my own. You are this clearing house where you get access to all the designs, good and bad.
What worries me about the water pump throw was that it looked like a nice tailgate was actually damaged. I'm puzzled and confused about it.
You spoil us sir. You find the only JDM motor in the US put together by monkeys and then you share it with us. Thank you and happy new year.
Hey, they lined all the hose clamps up! Definitely professional!
I LOVE the hose clamp with "2 points of adjustability" lol
You are a nice kid, and I like you. After 25 years being a cop and having everyone lie to me, fight me and complain a lot, I find your channel very refreshing. I’m 76 years old and until I became disabled, I did all of my auto machanics. All of my experience has been under a shade tree, but I have rebuilt and replaced many engines, but watching you makes me so very serene. Thank you for that!
Realized why I like your channel: other channels show what works, and you show distructive testing which is probably more important because it is what doesn't work
Enjoying your video while waiting for a train here at Ota Station, a stone’s throw from several Subaru plants here in Gunma, Japan 😀
Nice! Watching all the way from Japan, pretty cool!
Eric's got a hell of a throw for that water pump to make it over 1000 miles to Mertztown, PA. You should try out to be a major league pitcher
I betcha he could get a football clear over those mountains over there
@@derekfriday7931 go long!
REALLLLLY long!
Thank you Eric for starting the new year off on the right foot. I have now deemed you the Prospector of forbidden stripper glitter, when you dropped that oil pan it looked like you were panning for gold, thanks again and keep up the great content.
Panning for gold priceless absolutely priceless.
A 6.9 idi or a 7.3 idi would be awesome to see torn down. The ignition cups would be cool to see. Keystone rings and cavitation on the 7.3 are always interesting. Keep up the good work!
I agree. I just picked up my first IDI back in September, only 92K miles on a 1993. I’ve heard they’re pretty hard to kill aside from the cavitation
im down for some unconventional idi motors.... also wanna see a 1.9 ALH and BEW
he needs one of Peg's IDIs
@@dh260z not possible, they won’t die, regardless of all the crappy 1202 and used oil and red line cold starts lol
You've had it too easy lately, these recent teardowns none of the dip sticks have fought you. Can't wait for the next one.
For future reference, the upper intake and TGVs come off as one piece. It makes it so you don’t have to mess with trying to mess with the fuel lines and the harness; it all comes off as one assembly.
For the camshaft sprocket bolts, I always just drill them out, since “breathing on them” isn’t an option for an engine that you actually expect to run and work afterwards. Once you drill with a large enough bit, it releases all the tension on the head of the bolt and they unscrew by finger. It’s way easier than fighting with a breaker bar or impact and stripping out the bolt head, breaking the composite gears, etc.
The fact that this has a cork oil pan gasket on it means that the person who installed this engine has never worked on a Subaru before (or any other Japanese engine). I’m surprised they didn’t shellac the head gaskets.
To use a JDM motor what changes are required. Change cams and sensors ?
The manifold setup means that EJ2OX was installed in a car that came with an EJ255, an 05-06 LGT based on the injectors. In that car, with the JDM VVT gears and cams still in place, the exhaust cam advance angle will float around at random. In addition to the lack of tuning for high compression causing detonation as you mentioned.
So essentially what you're saying is that this setup was destined for failure from the beginning because it was "a jungle of things done badly." Thank you for the additional details. :)
Thanks for doing another Subaru engine. Whenever you do Subarus you always say that these cars are not for YOU. Could you say what you find most unappealing about them. It would help your viewers get a feel for you and learn your preference. It is not just the engines we wacth your channel, its your personality also. Thanks🙂
Eric, I wonder if you could ever get lucky enough to get a blown up aviation engine in for a tear down, they also go big or go home when they let go. Always enjoy your tear downs and other projects! Thanks for all you do!
Always wondered if airplane engines actually do get bad enough to blow up with their strict logged maintenance. Not to mention what could happen to the entire craft if that did occur
i so wish Lycoming didn't want the one that we had that let a cylinder go mid-flight back. id have loved to seen it torn down
@@Onewheelordeal oh yes they do. turbines not so much, but pistons definitely do
A blown up PT6 turbo-prop engine maybe?
@yeahitskimmel I've seen some of the videos of them failing. they've failed so violently that the engine cowling was shredded from the flying debris
Wheres that giant diesel truck thing at?? That was about to send a rod and theres no rule against you finishing the job!! 😂
I put a JDM into my Forester. I had to swap out a few pieces. It wouldn't start until I swapped the left cam gear. Runs great since, and no more head gasket leak.
Which jdm motor did you put in ?
@@eimmiekhim9023 It was an EJ25. I don't know which series. It came with an electronic throttle body. I had to use the old one.
Basically, It was a long block with some extra parts I couldn't use.
I found it on Ebay for about $2500
This is my favorite YT channel. I look forward to these videos every week.
“ Looser than a Chrysler valve seat” well delivered sir 😂
Ah ha ha ha! I laughed hard at that one and nearly shot my soda through my nose. And beforr anyone gets butthurt... I owned one of those in the past, and I still own another newer hemi without that problem. So have a sense of humor! Lol
I love my 2013 Subaru Legacy and its FB25 engine, but videos like this encourage me to keep up on the maintenance.
Hey, FB gang here! Sadly, no fanfare for us.
Got an FB20, Impreza. No issues or hiccups.
2015 Levorg here, and I just got an oil change. Topped up the coolant myself since you can buy the Subaru stuff online.
The F-series engines are much more reliable than the E-series thankfully (though you should definitely still keep up with the oil changes)
It's going to blow up trust me. Get rid of asap.
The FA/FB engines had some early teething issues, but overall are much more reliable than EJs
Fun Fact:
Subaru once built a Flat 12 engine for F1 racing.
The design was 20 years out of date, was 200 horsepower down on literally every other engine on the grid and 300+ pounds overweight.
It does hold an F1 record for the largest time deficit too the leader in a single qualifying lap.
It set a lap time of just a hair under 8 minutes in qualifying for the 1990 san marino grand prix.
*Life F1 has entered the chat*
Fun fact, it wasnt a subaru engine at all it was some random italian brand that subaru entered into a partnership with and put their name all over
@@wefwefwef.
Actually it was designed by a former ferrari engineer, but it was built by subaru with some technical help from motri moderni.
An even crazier fact: Koenigsegg nearly used it in their cars before going with the Ford Modular
I have a feeling that the oil filter has been bypassing for a long time.
I love the teardowns either way! Carnage or not it never fails to entertain!
Wow starting off the new year with an impossible find... a broken Subaru boxer. That must have been like finding the one needle in a zillion hay stacks.
😂😂😂 yeah they all blow the transmissions first. Then the engine
@@captainsledge7554 That's why my Impreza has the 5MT in it. No CVT slushbox for me.
@@IllusionInfusion only 5? meh....
@@imabebebebe2496 The Impreza doesn't come with the 6-speed like the Crosstrek does. Also the 5MT is mechanical linkage. Some complain about the 6 speed feeling sloppy because of the cable linkage.
Impossible? Have you seen the types of people who buy Subarus with turbos?
You set all the plugs together, and my childhood suddenly came back to me. Good old Sesame Street...one of these things is not like the others. One of these things, doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others, by the time I finish this song?
Glad I'm not the only one who broke into song.
The clamp was one that had a thumb screw on it. I use them on my aquarium hoses that have to be taken on and off frequently.
That explains the square head lol. Thanks.....I was pretty baffled by that.
The EJ20X/Y's a perfectly good motor, you can't really tune it much, it has no headroom but it's really well engineered for the stock job. Dual avcs, big oil pump (what people think of as the high flow sti oil pump was developed for the Legacy), quite high comp, and various twinscroll turbos handpicked to match the engine, mine has 245 at the wheels and absolutely gorgeous drivability and midrange for a 20 year old 2 litre turbo. They're not super durable, but they're not terrible.
But, it's become a weirdly popular choice for swapping into subarus, because it's about the cheapest turbo ej you can buy, but that doesn't make it a good idea. This engine going by the other parts it has fitted has been fitted into a USDM legacy, which originally had a 2.5 litre single AVCS in it. You only do that because it's the cheapest option, so they've almost certainly bodged it in without doing much else- if you start spending the money to do it right, it stops making any sense to start out with that motor.
And the EJ20X/Y is a dual avcs motor, so if you fit it without addressing that into a single avcs car like the USDM Leggy, then what you get is variable valve timing. You also end up with more compression than the stock motor, and a turbo and tune designed for that. So they almost never work properly and then they fail and people go "bloody Subaru!"
It's a real shame because the only people who ever do it are people who can't afford to do the job properly, and that also means they can't afford to have their bodged in engine fail. It's almost always just the last in a long run of bad choices or bad events, because obviously if you're not reasonably comfortable money wise buying a turbo subaru was a terrible idea in the first place.
TLDR don't put an EJ20X into your 2.5 litre subaru. Don't put it into your older 2 litre subaru. Don't try and tune it beyond about 300hp on the stock internals. But don't blame it for not being the right part for you. DO get a JDM twinscroll gen 4 legacy wagon, if you can, because they're ace.
Contrary to popular internet meme belief, the EJ20 is actually a rather reliable engine. Also very capable for its time. Plus it sounds amazing. I guarantee, whatever your opinion of Subaru, if you ever get to drive a first generation Impreza with one of these in it, you'll get why people love them. Very easy to work on as well, no matter what people on the internet who have never touched them tell you.
I like that the first time I swapped an engine in one of these (because SHE let the oil get low) it only took me one day. I bought the first Subaru because SHE liked them, and then another, but have gained a lot of respect for them. They're not my style, (although I'm driving one now because life happened and I had it) but they're pretty well made and not super difficult to service, unless it's turbo, which shoves a lot of extra stuff under the hood, but even then, they're not absurd.
@@edifyguy Def one of the easiest engines to swap. Glad you learned and enjoyed. Most people just speak based on what they read on the internet. 😂
I’m speaking as a previous owner & someone that has actually rebuilt a couple EJ25s… I’d never own one of these cars again lol. The cars are definitely well made with really nice interiors compared to a lot of cars. The engines however are just garbage. Way too many weaknesses.
@@stevemccauley5734 The EJ20 and EJ25 are different animals in terms of reliability and performance. I personally don't own any EJ25 cars, though my family has had plenty. I do however own numerous EJ18, EJ22, and EJ20 cars with anywhere from 110,000 to over 340,000 miles all on original engines. My aunt also daily drives an Outback with an EJ25 that's nearing 300K I believe, but it has had the head gaskets done. If it wasn't for the damned EJ25 head gasket issues, Subaru wouldn't have nearly so bad a reputation nor as many memes about them. Even the EJ255 turbo engine is more reliable than the NA EJ25. Not that any of them are perfect. The EJ18 and EJ22 were absolutely bulletproof, if slow. The EJ20 isn't quite as reliable as those maybe, but just about, and with so much more performance. Plus I just love working on Subaru more than any other brand. At least the FA/FB engines don't have head gasket issues and are generally very reliable overall. The EZ 6 cylinder engines were incredibly reliable as well.
@@stevemccauley5734 Main weaknesses on EJ-series mostly affect the 2.5's. The 2.0's are actually somewhat more reliable when built because they actually have cylinder wall thickness
I have a 1992 Subaru Legacy 4DS with an EJ22 that has over 308,000 miles on it and it runs really well. It doesn't burn any oil at all but it does leak a little.
I see another man of culture went on Amazon and bought the 40 piece hose clamp set...and decided to use them all on this engine 🤣
Good to see that the factory Oil pickup survived the destruction. They are known problem area.
Uncle Rodney's back just in time for New Years!
Love to see a ford 7.5 gasser. I don't miss fueling mine up but it was such a reliable workhorse
Great teardown! Loved the Rod Serlingesque intro
Holes for my viewing pleasure? You're such a thoughtful young man!
Speaking of smashed spark plugs, (not really smashed, but more like broken) my dad was trying to start a Stihl concrete saw one time, it wouldn't start because it didn't have any compression. He pulled the spark plug out, and the ceramic part of the plug had completely separated from the nut of the plug! I still have that spark plug to this day. It baffles me every time I look at it.
Thanks for looking out for us. I was getting some serious carnage withdrawal. Need my fix man💉
Some Japanese teenager got hold of this car and ran the engine to 9000 RPM....
Subarus are UTILITY cars. They are designed to go through snow, not off road. And while they produce turbo cars that are seriously fun to drive (!), their horizontally opposed design with aluminum construction means that that CANNOT handle the kind of boost that a 2JZ or a K24, or for that matter an EA888 can handle.
The very best Subaru's have 6 cylinder engines. Specifically, the EZ30/EZ36 cars. DOHC 24 valves, four cams, chain driven cams, they had NO issues with head gaskets and run forever! I have an '01 with 114k miles, and it just runs and runs and runs. 220 hp versus the slug 165 hp EJ25 engine-
How dare you not mention the EG33. You lost all credibility
@@OggaDugga Turkey. Timing belts-
@@Flies2FLL part of scheduled maintenance, every engine from that era was belts
@@OggaDugga Not Toyotas. Nor was the Ford Triton V8 a Gilmer belt engine. I'll reiterate my previous assessment: Turkey.
@@Flies2FLL lmfao from this era Toyota had plenty of belt driven engines 3SGTE, 2JZ, 5VZ-FE. Instead of dishing out insults, get informed.
You look like a man on a mission...a mission to find the best frag in your shop. We appreciate it.
10 minutes in and this is already a favourite video. Eric is in a good mood, eh?
Hello from Australia!
A cork gasket and a party basket…. Beautiful 🤌🏼
I would also like to point out, that even if you have the correct ECU and retain the twin scroll turbo and you are in NA, these engines STILL need a tune, as Eric mentioned.. just the octane difference. I have a JDM EJ20Y car in Canada, and when initially logging the car you would see the ignition timing pulling like crazy, and the power level to be lackluster as a result.
once I got on the rollers, I saw impressive increase of the under the graph area, and massive improvements in drivability.
if your not going the cheap route, this engine is not the one you want to put in your 2.0 WRX or 2.5GT unless you have a plan to deal with the AVCS system, whether it be both intake and exhaust in the bug eyes or exhaust only in the LGT. in legacies you can easily use the TGV harness parts and pin them to a JDM ecu's exhaust avcs control, but those ECU's have immobilizers so you also need to deal with that to run one.
So you have a EJ20Y ? , I also have a EJ20X/Y engine swapped in my wrx (not by me tho). I’m pretty sure the headgasket is going bad. Is there a chance that the EJ20Y headgaskets are different from the EJ20X ? Or are they the same , if you can reply and tell me that would be amazing , I’m having it get fixed soon and need to buy the correct gasket and seal kit. Any advice ?
As in the video he’s tearing apart the EJ20X , but is the EJ20Y different at all ? As in gaskets and such ? Anybody ?
@@eimmiekhim9023 they might have different cams. The block and head castings are the same, so the gasket that goes between them should be the same….
Actually any ej20 turbo head gaskets should be the same. They all mate to the same block surface.
@@funkthew0rld @20:47 is him taking off the headgasket , it has the “A” top . I should get that one right ? Because that’s what they are trying to ask on the email to help me out.
@@eimmiekhim9023 if you’re in the US or Canada, just go on rock auto, search up a 2002 Impreza turbo and buy those ones.
A EJ20 is an ej20. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 205/207/20x/20y/206/201/204.
The top of the block is the same shape. It’s an ej. Simple as that.
Heard some NFL teams are looking for a quarterback. Good toss. Love ALL the teardowns and other stuff you send to us. Thank you from Kansas.
I still would like to see a 1.8 from a 2016 Chevy Sonic, and a 2.4 SRT4 that came in the 2003 Chrysler PT Cruiser GT with the aluminum intake.
I lost it at the "that's boring" while grabbing the broken section of the cylinder bore. 😂
Happy New Year Eric. Wounds. On the block. Let the carnage unfold. A cork gasket and a party basket 😂🤣.
i remember doing a clutch on a Subaru wagon turbo and i found that the turbo waste gate was broken stuck open and the oil return was cracked and leaking badly so i told the owner that he needed to replace the turbo and get the oil return tube from the dealer of course he didn’t want to spend the money and so he rebuilt the turbo and told me that he would order the oil return tube so i used a temporary fix using high temp transmission hose as he needed his car back thankfully this didn’t cost me in the long run because he never did what i said and a year later he was going to work and the hose left the chat an the engine pumped all its oil out an that was the end because of this and because it was a son of a friend i did the temporary fix to give him time to get me the part but i have learned lol i wont do this on critical parts anymore and never aloud it with safety items your life is worth more than any savings period anyway its cool to see this tear down because i just don’t work on Subarus every time i have i have just been burned because everything breaks you u touch that is plastic and or it just doesn’t want to come apart the day i said no was with a timeing code i took that horrible belt off 6 times and even counted the insane number of teeth checking the belts marks i finally gave up because it ran perfect checked the wiring and even put genuine sensor in still no go i eventually figured it out as a last resort i was going to change to computer but then i had seen it on my scanner it was intermittent but the voltage spiked it was small to it would go from 13.5 to 14.5 and it was rapidly and you would never think that voltage switch would be a big problem because 14.5 volts it’s uncommon to see on cars it’s on the high end but that cars pcm hated if put a new alternator on and code never returned
That's a 2008+ , you can tell by the dual avcs and plastic manifold. You made 1 mistake removing the intake by splitting the manifold from the tgv housings. The come together, then separated after assembly removal
Na, you're on the right track but you've mixed the original donor car and the car it was in when it died.
The EJ20X/Y was only ever fitted to the JDM legacy, and they were all dual avcs, so it could be any gen 4 twinscroll leggy from 2004 onwards (some very early ones in 2003) Other parts have been fitted to it in an attempt to make it work in a USDM legacy, but it's been half-assed.
You should show up to the Cardinals spring training. That water pump throw has got quality start written all over it.
Excellent! Another Saturday, Another engine teardown! 👩🦳
The water pump throw was hilarious. Awesome job!. Absolutely fascinating how this engine was designed..
OK, so hear me out! We need to make an engine entirely made from wrist pin material! It would be indestructible!
Happy New Year, Eric! If I ever make it to the USA, I will stop by your yard/shop, say hi, and buy some... art!
Have a great day, Sir! o7
without a failure point the whole engine will leap out of the car when something goes wrong. how you going to explain to nasa where the new crater on the moon came from?
Pmp is right down the road from my work. They always have a ton of cars being torn apart
I'm going to dress up as a Subaru head gasket for Halloween.
That way there's a really good chance I'll get blown.
or get neglected and corrode away from ancient coolant and rot until failure. oh that's right, you're already dead inside.
Wouldn’t it be you doing the blowing technically?
😂
omg ill dress up as a fel-pro head gasket we can blow each other. meet me in the blue bathroom stall. :)
@@TechcensorshipbotReciprocation is just good manners.
This motor made glorious noises for a few seconds!
I have a friend who had worse cam caps, cams, and journals than those that he cleaned with sandpaper when he did his "rebuild" and that little dodge neon engine is still running 6yrs later no problems. I dont reuse cams, journals or caps that bad. I bore them out, install oversized cams that some companies sell for this type of work, then finish my rebuild. Those engines never have issues when i do that. But ive been waiting for his engine to die so i can rebuild it correctly for him 😂but it hasnt happened.
How do you do that? It would be a "blind" line boring operation, with the caps installed on the head.
Most "block" line boring equipment is not made to do a blind hole, and is for much larger crankshaft main bearings.
Who makes cams with slightly larger bearing journals? I have only seen large bearing cams for v8s, where stock bearing diameters can limit lobe lift. This unique problem does not apply to engines with removable cam bearing caps.
What you suggest is not impossible, but is a VERY strange, unlikely solution to a problem better solved by cheap brand new parts.
Eric I am surprised you haven't been scouted by MLB scouts!! Thanks Pete for the fine specimen!
Those slowly strobing lights at the end were trippy in 2x. The whole workshop looked like it was alive
There weren't that many metal bits in the filter because it was clogged and bypassing most of the oil. In fact, that cheap jobber filter would have been bypassing oil even when it was new, since it wouldn't have the Subaru-spec 23 psi bypass, and is probably restrictive as well. This is the case with most aftermarket oil filters available for Subarus. OEM and PurolatorOne are both good options for these engines. A good filter can make the difference between having to do a bearing job and having to scrap the entire engine (well, maybe not in this case).
That sounds like valuable info for those of us not up on Subie stuff...
Trash engines better off never buying this brand.
Pete Donato and crew at PMP are fantastic to deal with.
I've dealt with them for years, either myself, or suggesting my friends to go to them.
Many years ago, I built a junkyard high-compression N/A engine and Pete was a fantastic resource.
Also, following PMP's page is pretty entertaining because of how absurd and disrespectful some customers get (I'm sure you understand).
He's recently gotten into parting out other vehicles, so if you're ever in Mertztown, PA (not sure why you'd visit there), stop by his shop and see how good his business has gotten.
This was a awesome teardown
I love "this is a jungle of stuff done wrong." So relatable! One of these days I will get a vehicle that doesn't qualify for that statement. I laughed so hard at the high end 2-part hose clamp. The part where you asked if it overheated when looking at the head gasket made me think that was the part of the gasket where the broken part of the block would have chewed it.
Thanks for the fun!
I’d hope you can find an EZ30/EZ36 at some point. Failures for the 4 cylinder boxers are common, but the Subaru flat sixes are usually better regarded and mostly reliable…save for some that like drinking their 5w30
Any teardown he does I'll watch, but the flat motors are particularly interesting to me, whatever make or cylinder count! That's a roundabout way of saying I'd love to see an EZ teardown too 😄
You should try to do an fb20 out of a 2013-2017 Impreza or 2103-2018 crosstrek. Those engines had a recall on valve springs. Maybe you could find one with broken springs.
For once I agreed with all the places Blue got used.
I'd like to be a fly and sit in on the meetings where engineers try to decide how to put these puzzles together! Or if they say: "we have room here. Let's hide a water manifold or something here" - 😂
Like he needs to agree with you on anything😭😭 get out the comments
If you were a fly, you wouldn't have the intelligence to understand it, so why bother?
Rem years ago chatting to a CASE(tractor) design engineer about how they put things where they did on the tractors and the "ease" of carrying out repairs,he replied "we mostly design them for ease of assembly" god but i could have just hit him repeatedly.
Very good vocabulary
Perfectly
No so childish anymore
Very educational
Amazing ability. Great Speech
I've often thought about using a double worm type hose clamp(s), but never actually did it. Good job 👍
Man... The water pump skits are getting really good. Thanks for a good laugh. The world really needs it.
Everyone rips on rotary engines for boost turning the apex seals into dust....then there is subaru
It’s not the boost. It’s the lack of sympathy from the driver. Running a boxer hard from cold, low on oil, coolant leak, failing to idle the engine when it’s heat soaked … not checking the oil weekly or every tank of petrol … these all contribute to a bad reputation.
There are many ways to kill these engines and most of them are unique to boxer. For example over filling the oil will blow by the spark plug tubes and drown them FROM THE OUTSIDE
@@theairstig9164hold up, how overfilled are we talking about???I put 5 quarts in my WRX even though it calls for 4.4 (which I find very underwhelming for a 2.5 displacement). Mind you, it has no leaks (yet), the PCV system is working (for now) and at the last spark plug change, the plugs looked fine.
Thanks for my Saturday night entertainment Eric. Happy New Year to you and yours.
Thanks for the carnage, Pete!
When you're tearing down a 500 hp v10 and It's destroyed a piston, that's one thing. After all, you still have 9 cylinders and 450(?) horsepower driving what's left of the engine. Inspection ports and piston gravel can be expected. When you're tearing down a flat four with 200-400(?) horsepower, you only have 3 cylinders and 150-300(?) horsepower driving what's left of the engine, piston gravel is kind of a surprise. But then the keyword here is 'turbo'.
That block off plate on at 17:20 ish looks like it is for an ej206/208 second turbo line, I am not sure as I have not been hands on, but I know many people convert the twin turbo ejs to single for simplicity and reliability (the PCV system is a nightmare, and the exhaust headers are overly complex)
The oil port for that second turbo is lower on the head on the ej206/208.
This motor was a single twinscroll turbo from the factory, the previous gen legacy was twin tub.
I've owned/own several Subarus and can say I don't keep buying them because they're reliable or even well engineered. It's the amusement factor when they need work mostly. Keeps me entertained. My back up is an old Toyota Tundra that never seems to have issues. I mostly buy my Subaurs very used. They are fun cars IMO.
That flat engine layout is just way overly complex compared to other layouts, I'm an engineer in a different field and I don't know where Subaru engineers went to school but they missed the "simpler is better" day in class. I'm amazed they last at all. Any Subaru fan who gets upset at some criticism has never had one apart. Frankly I don't know how folks who run everything to the shop for maintenance afford to keep one up.
The short of it is I get them because I'm strangely entertained, they are not something I'd recommend most normal folks keep outside of warranty.
that water pump toss was absolutely perfect! 😂😂😂 i haven't laughed that hard in a while!
Having built more than a thousand EJ engines this triggered ptsd lol.
In the years I worked on Subarus both at the dealer and my own performance shop the biggest culprit for failed bearings, one I couldn’t get Subaru to acknowledge. Oil pump back covers have recessed screws with no loctite. Did I 1 year study on them and collected 213 pumps. Of those 213 pumps 151 had loose rear oil pump covers.
PMP is a place I’d source a lot of replacement used engines for customers. Good people.
So they have oil pump and head gasket issues? In your time working on these, did you ever see one that was truly high mileage without major engine work?
@@caddydave the head gasket issue is blown out to be more than it really is. It’s rarely the traditional sense of the phrase of combustion and coolant mix. It’s the oil return from the heads is on the very bottom and pools in the transition between block and head. It’s seeps/leaks oil here.
From the factory? Very few. Mostly older NA cars that were religiously maintained. However, engines fixed correctly I consistently see in the 2-300k range with just regular maintenance.
Just when Subaru corrected the head gasket issue in the FA/FB they created a new way to still get those 12 hours of labor with the cam cradles now leaking at around 65k miles. Still requires engine out repair and because of the time chains and covers the labor time is the same as head gaskets on an older EJ25 SOHC.
@@OneExhaustedFatherfrom memory, the leaks that I saw dripped coolant on the exhaust. I know everyone has all sorts of different opinions and experiences…. But in my opinion, they are one of the worst cars made. Head gasket issues, cvt issues, oil consumption issues, one of the worst sounding exhaust notes….
@@caddydave I wouldn’t call them the worst. Nissan cvt, Hyundai/Kia engines. Toyotas are not near as good as people think. Been a tech for 20 years now. They all have quirks and faults. But hand over fist Chrysler takes the worst of the worst for just garbage quality.
Best water pump gag so far 😂
I just grabbed one of these and swapped it into my 04 fxt runs great. and have been daily driving it. Just swapped all of the parts off of the EJ25 :)
Yeah... I'll take a 10-piece hammer-forged nugget meal please.
I put 220k on a domestic us ej20. love this tear down. very interesting. did two timing belts and one water pump as preventative.
This has been interesting to me, and I appreciate the information you've given, because I was one who'd always thought of Subaru as a completely bulletproof engine maker. I guess we all can respond to marketing stupidly.
I still have high regard for the carmaker (I've been a big fan of the boxer design, having owned two Corvairs), but you've given me much to consider about Subaru.
for what it's worth this is mostly a combination of poor aftermarket rebuilding/assembly and a negligent owner.
Bullet proof or not, you still need to service the engine.. oil change, belt, spark plug change, pumps, gaskets etc. that's where it gets tricky with the boxer engines because of the way it sits, it can get labour intensive. By the time second and third owners they just "let it ride".
PORSCHE INVENTED THE FLAT 12 AND 6 AND 4 ENGINES AND SUBARU ENGINES ARE SHITTY COPY OF SOME AWESOME ENGINES!!!!
Thanks to both of you for those valuable comments. I had originally not realized that he was working with a reworked engine here, and that the topic was about second hand examples.
But I've gathered that there are certain weaknesses in Subaru engines from the beginning, if you're not following every model and don't do your homework.
@@bretfisher7286 If you want bulletproof and subaru... you want the Ez36R. Unfortunately it was discontinued in 2019
Eric, what brand disposable gloves do you use? My wife and I are pretty impressed with them!
Also, you chose an engine from the perfect brand to deliver destruction!
Brings a whole new meaning to powdered metal rods
Water pump is for sale?
You're not supposed to use a gasket on the oil pan for Subarus. It causes a gap at the oil return passage where it meets the oil pan at the back of the block. The oil ends up on the baffle instead of being fed back directly to the pickup.
Good Lord. Hell of a design.
A video on recycling would be cool.
A little JB weld and your good to go
Many years ago, I knew a person who replaced his Japanese car engine with one imported from Japan. He told me that due to inspection rules in Japan and other factors, cars are not kept long in Japan. This is the reason that low milage imported Japanese engines are available.
That is true. Also, people in Japan hardly need cars to travel in the city. Traveling outside the city, they may use a car, but even then, their travel distance will not be large due to living on islands and can only go so far.
Exactly right. This motor is out of a gen 4 Legacy, a ton of those get exported to the UK complete as we're also right hand drive, but there's so many that it only makes sense to export really nice condition cars. If it's got any amount of damage or wear or rust, then it makes more sense to scrap, and then a lot of the engines end up in the US for dirt cheap, and fitted inappropriately into the wrong cars, like this one. It's a sad end for those almost-good-enough cars!
I put a JDM engine in my mom’s 1999 RAV4, in 2008 (cold weather, Alaska, -45F, frost plugged something, blew out the rear seal and the car ran low on oil). I remember having to drill and tap a large hole for some emissions port, which wasn’t on the JDM engine. Car is still owned by my mom and runs well tho. But yeah, it’s a definite risk that something major will have to be done to make them compatible.
Subaru owner here who's been through it all: Wouldn't mind having some of those parts to add to my Subaru museum of destruction in my garage, which currently includes such popular displays as the grenaded viscous coupling center diff, transmission gears stripped of most of their teeth, and roller bearings that spit out pieces of circlip when you spin them. As for the reason this engine let go, I'd guess low oil. It doesn't take much wear before they burn a quart of oil every 150 miles, at which point it's only a matter of time before you forget to check one day, and then bam. I was told the reason we see so many JDM engines in the US is that for cultural reasons, the Japanese people who own cars will only buy new ones, and only keep them for 5 years. So any JDM cars over 5 years old are simply sent to scrappers, who part them out and send the stuff everywhere but Japan.
I've heard of oil consumption issues with Subaru's, but haven't experienced it myself. My '99 Legacy doesn't burn any oil. I bought it new and have done every oil change except the first with Mobil 1.
In 2018 when a head gasket failed (imagine that), I pulled the engine as it was close to 200k mi. and figured I'd tear it down for a look. Heads were great. Machine shop surprised how good they looked. New stem seals. Crank was polished and bores honed.
Another 5 years of driving. No oil consumption and the head gaskets are holding 😅.
@@timsilva1944 My goodness. You took good care of the engine, took it to the machine shop to clean everything up for the head gasket job and your engine is like brand new again. That's the way.
@@timsilva1944Good to hear the '99 held up pretty well. My 2010, which I maintain religiously myself since I'm a former mechanic, was using 1qt every 200 miles at 140k miles. The rings were shot with extreme cylinder scoring. It had been drinking oil since 50k miles, was never run low, and I always run top of the line synthetic and oem filter. We kept driving it that way until the head gaskets decided oil and antifreeze should mix. On the plus side, the rebuilt engine we have in it now runs perfect and doesn't use a drop of oil.
@@nowiecoche Thanks. Head gasket blew right after I replaced all 4 struts, lower control arm bushings, CV axles and front hub bearings. 😡
I wasn't too keen on replacing head gaskets with the engine in the car, so I figured why not freshen it up.
It's a manual, so a new clutch was a given at that stage.
It sounds like you could have your own channel of Subaru carnage.
I'm so glad I grew up in the '50s and '60s and didn't have to deal with the nightmare that modern engines are. Give me a flathead or 327 short block any day.
The one Subaru I ever had (and bought new) needed $6000 worth of work at only 145,000 miles. So much for Subaru “reliability”…never again. FYI it was an ‘07 Impreza no turbo.
I bet you needed a new transmission. Today I saw a subaru accent, huge vehicle,yet with a cvt.
Subscribed. The introduction alone was too good not to. 🙂
So many horrors in one engine!
Perhaps the disadvantage to watching your videos is the ever-rising desire I have to personally supervise the servicing of my car! I know that is the second worst thing for a mechanic, [second only to having the owner "help"]. But there are so many of your engines wrecked due to negligence that it leaves me to wonder if the dealership is doing all the work properly.
And I would *love* to know the state of things like the old oil and oil filter!
Ej255! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Love you buddy. Glad it had carnage!
If that was you guys who provided this gem, THANK YOU!!! Would love to hear the backstory on that core.
Also, have enjoyed chatting with you guys on the phone in the past re: a non-Subie motor I was trying to find. Cheers!
@@miketdavies it was us. Honestly... I forgot what core I sent Eric. But this one came in as seen in a parts car. So no cool backstory.
I was thinking my 5.4 was going to be sent to you. But I got new plugs and coils. They did a compression test and it did good. So I will keep it for another 10 or 15 years.
Knock knock who’s there? A rod bearing
A rod bearing *WHO?*
A ROD
Uncle Rodney come to town