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Leaving the battery off for an hour should clear the codes, so overnight should be fine. Bearings knocking normally get louder with the revs going up and don't change with the engine being hot, unless you have caught it very early. If you can find a long piece of thin metal or a long screwdriver, go around the engine with one end on the engine in various places and your ear next to the other end. You should be able to narrow down where the noise is coming from. Be careful near the rotating belts ;)

I,m not sure which model of car you have. However, either way, make sure you get the heads skimmed if you repair it. I prefer the metal gaskets over the fibre ones and as long as the heads are skimmed, they would be best in my opinion. Not sure how attached to the car you are but with HG problems, it has to be worth repairing. If you sold it as it is or even broke it, you would buy another car, probably with unknown history and could be in the same position in a few weeks. Take the opportunity to change the timing belt and water pump at the same time unless you know how old they are.

You should only hear the fuel pump briefly when you turn the keys in the ignition and the dash lights come on. The pump will prime the fuel system for bweteen 1 and 2 seconds. Once you actually trun the key to start the engine, the pump should be too quiet to hear anyway. On the exahust manifold, the gasket that seems to go first is the one betwwen the pipe from the turbo to the manifold. Thats not to say the others don't go, Anythings possible. You should be ok with an aftermarket valve as long as it isn't one of the vent to atmosphere type. ie, make sure it s a recirc one. Don't really know why but the twins don't like some valves but will tolerate others of the venting type, so its best to stick to recirc.

I know that the BG/BD Legacies do not have that plug. That would be upto 2000 ish

Good find.

The picture you put up of the port is the OBD2 shape but it appears to have most of the pins missing from it.

Subaru used there own system. Something like 'Subaru select' or similar. You should be able to read codes without anything at all though. Older Scoobs have a pair of green plugs and pair of black plugs under the dash, just in front of your left knee if driving. Connect the two blacks together and turn the ignition on until the lights come on the dash. You can then count the number of times the 'check engine' light comes on as it flashes. A long flash is 10 and a short flash is 1. That will give you your codes. It will scroll through all the codes it has and then repeat them.

The offence is against S42 of the RTA 1988 (called quitting), is dealt with by Regulation 107(1) of The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulation 1986 (SI 1986/1078) What that law says is: Regulation 107(2)(a). This states that no person shall cause or permit to be on any road any motor vehicle which is not attended by a person duly licensed to drive it unless the engine is stopped and the parking brake is effectively set. Exemptions to the requirements of this Regulation as to the stopping of the engine include a fire brigade vehicle, the engine of which is being used for any fire brigade purpose. In English, that means that if the engine is running and the car is parked on a public highway, you can be found guilty of the offence, no ifs, no buts. Its a fine only with no points. If you leave your car with the engine running on your own driveway, thats fine, but not on a public road. The other thing is insurance. If the car is stolen and it was found that the car had its engine running at the time, you are simply not covered, even if you can prove the security measures in place. Having said all that, I will still use a turbo timer. :)

My recommendations would be; Obviously the main and big end bearings. If you intend doing a lot of track work, go for competition stuff. If not, something like ACL Duraglide will suffice. As the pistons will be out anyway, take the opportunity to change the piston rings. You would hate to complete it and find the rings need doing a few weeks. If the history of your car is unknown from a service point of view, change the cambelt and tensioner kit. Now is a good time to change the water pump too. That's the general service stuff done, other than the normal plugs, filters, etc. If you want to upgrade anything, change the oil pump. No need to go mad with a 12mm one unless you are hitting the circuits hard. Just go for a standard size, with updated flow. If you are using a Subaru specialist to do the work, I'm sure they will check but just in case you are using a normal garage, get them to look very carefully at the crankshaft. If the bearings have worn too far, the crank will need replacing. Just my opinion, but I personally would never have a crankshaft re ground, a replacement is far better and gives peace of mind. Good luck

As Gambit says, that sounds very much like big end bearings. As for options, you could: 1, buy a secondhand engine, have it fitted and be in the same position a few weeks down the road if you have no history of the engine, or 2, have your current engine fully rebuilt and know you have a good, as new engine. You could also use this opportunity to upgrade certain parts, be it for performance or just for longevity.

That's an odd one. When you say it runs fine and on all 4, are there any odd/bad noises at all, even if its revved a bit. Any smoke from exhaust? I would say its fairly rare for a camshaft to snap and if that's the case, the timing would be out quite badly out. I'm not saying the garage are wrong but it seems fairly unlikely. Any chance you can check for the codes from the check engine light?

Hi, We can rebuild one for you if that's what you need. What has happened to yours?

Hi, As you suggest, the easiest option is to use the long motor and swap everything else from the old motor. From memory, the engine mounts will work fine but even these can be swapped easily enough.

The chances are, its the crank oil seal which is at the front of the pump. Easy enough to change with the timing belt covers already off. The only difficult bit is getting the central cog off the crank shaft. They are normally stuck on with road dirt and stuff.

So, what you are in fact saying Adam, is that you prefer his old wheels?

I have it Adam :)

Yes, it should do. The sniff test is looking for the burnt combustion gases within the coolant so should be the perfect test

I've seen a few with this kind of issue. Hopefully the woodruff key has taken the brunt of the damage. The pulley is easy enough to replace if that's damaged, but if the crank is damaged, thats a whole engine strip down. :(

It's not unheard of but quite rare to get the emulsification when a Subaru head gasket goes. They normally go between the water jacket and the combustion chamber. This leads to combustion gases getting into the coolant system and obviously the same in reverse which is why you lose coolant and why the temp gauge goes up. One way to test is: Take the car for a drive with the coolant levels correct. After the car has been up to normal temp for a few minutes, pull over, open the bonnet and turn the engine off. Open the expansion tank cap, not the rad cap. If you can see a lot of bubbling, it's due to the gases in the coolant which will mean head gasket/s have gone. Standard Internals on that model are good for the level of power you are after. The weak point are the standard pistons. As has already been said, an updated oil pump would be good. Also, take the opportunity to change the timing belt kit and water pump, unless they have been done recently anyway. It would also be a good idea to upgrade the cylinder head studs to safeguard the new build. Personally, if you have to do the head gaskets and want to take the car to higher performance levels, and intend to track the car, I would always advise going the extra mile and refreshing the big end and main bearings too. The new pistons will need the new piston rings too. The only reason to fit a baffle plate are if you intend doing track work of any sort. Hope that helps a little

I didn't know Bip was on here :)

:)

New member signing in. Based in Coventry in the Midlands. Currently have a couple of Legacy GTB models, although one is off the road going through a major mechanical rebuild at the moment. My subaru background: Owned several Legacies over a 9 year period, been fixing them for around 9 years too :) Have been doing major engine rebuilds for about 7 yrs and have recently started a business with my son doing just that. Here's a pic of my old Legacy RS And one of my project car, mines the one on the left. My sons RS-B on the right