Hiya,

 

Whilst I was under the car inspecting various bits (and getting the lay of the land so to speak since this is my first Subaru) I found that this front section piece in front of the oil filter has a massive hole in it.  Without sounding too much like a novice, what the hell is it? :)

Is it actually blowing there? It could just be the heatshield thats rotten not the actual pipes.

It forms part of the header system. It's the right hand manifold It connects to an up pipe which goes to the turbo.

The stock ones are multiple parts, but if that's really bad then the other side is likely to be as bad.

They can be replaced with an all in one. You would need to either wrap it with exhaust wrap or get it ceramic coated to reduce the heat coming off it.

It's a heat shield to stop the heat from the exhaust manifold escaping into the engine bay .

They're a pain to get off due to usually being rusty but , can be replaced with exhaust heat wrap if needed

Owwwww shiney.Thanks, the bolts themselves have pretty much disintegrated as expected so for this to come off and be replaced it'll be a cut it out job.

I'll add this to the hit list :P

I'd be more worried about the state of the oil filter ! Looks like it's not been changed in a long time :O

I would guess it's got no skidpan looking that bad