legacycentral bbs

Car was great this morning and then leaving the last day of a temp job the car started misfiring. I thought, "can't be the new Magnecors and the fuel filter's not that old. So I check the plugs and #3 is a mass of oil like I've never seen. I had been using more oil lately but there are leaks everywhere and I never saw any smoke in the mirror (and I was looking). So WTF, looks like a holed piston somehow with this much oil. It looks like I dropped the top of the plug in a bucket of oil.

So now what? $500 Chevette? This sucks as the kitchen engine is not ready although as an emergency, I may be able to replace the old engine with it. Fun - 8.0 CR N/A.

I'm seriously questioning this car now.

Engine partially stripped in car



Burnt exhaust valve (right top, the big black space near the middle)



Just thought I'd throw a picture of an open deck engine up. Check out the beautiful layers of carbon build up on piston #2. It looks worse in person, but the piston's fine.



Steve

Well that totally sucks! But, you did have 240k+ miles on it so it gave you a lot.

How far are you from completing the EJ22T?

Don't give up yet, be patient, get a junker that just barely runs, and put that EJ22T together ASAP!

What you can do steve, though it'd just be prolonging the completion of the engine, is sell the turbo for like 100 bucks or so, and use that money to buy a used na engine and slap that beast in there just to get you around. What else do you have to do to the kitchengine?

good luck finding a $500 chevette!
they are all either crushed or v8 swapped by now...

I'm thinking of picking up a Caprice for like $500 to drive while I figure this out. I'm very pissed and to add insult to injury, I have a bad CV joint, too. It's like it was setting me up this whole time, getting ever better mileage until I got a job so it could crap out on me. I've never had a Subaru break when I was broke, though I don't know how I'll get to this job unless I pick up a cheap Caprice or the like. The weird thing was that there was 0 warning and was running so great this morning.

Maybe they'll let me do some work on it at Pep Boys (so far looks like I'm in as they just need to clear my criminal check which I'll easily pass as I've never been arrested). After 2 yrs in their service dept. I can get ASE certified and go knocking on Subaru dealers doors.

I may just get a new oil pump and reassemble the kitchengine block and throw all the top end N/A shit on it. I guess I'll have to reuse the head studs for now.

I have no idea how I could've holed a piston like this or maybe the block let go.

My brother-in-law just got a boat and needs an anchor, it looks like he's got one.

Steve

caprice, bleh. Why not spend the 500 on a tougher subaru? You liked the dl/gl whatever you used to have. Go rock taht shit

I'd have never bought the Legacy if I could find a GL. All I ever see of those are the hatchbacks or rotted other versions. I want a 1984 hardtop real bad, but there don't seem to be any left.

The Caprice is a perfect cheap car - comfortable ride, rwd, can be funny in the right colors with a few little additions, reliable, ignored by cops, slow, and a total inspirational to me to get the Legacy back on the road. Plus at this point depreciation is nil, and worse case I can give it to my brother-in-law to tow his new boat - 2004 Larson.

Steve

Ya, pimp a Caprice! Put a spot light on the driver side mirror area and a big CB antenna. Then creep around and follow people at a slight distance.

well get a hatch then, You'll be happier when it comes time to do repairs on it than if you had the caprice. Those had the dr 4wd trannys in some of em right? After you get back on your feet, turn that sucker into an offroader

Steve, it's kinda lofty but I know of a 90 Loyale about 2 miles from my house. Pros: 4WD pushbutton, 5spd, 97k miles. Cons: Pretty rusty, doesn't look to be frame rust, but there isn't a good body panel on the car. Haven't heard it run, but he wants $600.

I never likes the hatches and even the few left are getting ratty. They made them until 1988 so that's why more survived while the rest of the bodystyles were discontinued in '84 for the slant face GL/Loyale. The hardtops remind me of '70's Euro sports coupes/sedans.

There's lots of EA82 Subarus around here cheap, but I'd honestly rather have the boat-of-car (TMBG reference for any fans). Unless it was an XT of course, but they've gotten rare too. There are a few dirt-money SVXs (how sad) that need transmissions, but that doesn't help me out. Too bad I couldn't easily convert to manual, but I'll have a hard enough time swapping out longblocks by myself here.

Took delivery of my brother-in-law's boat today and this thing is awesome! Does 43 and jumps out of the water with only a 135 hp Volvo/Penta. The only problem is that his brother has the hitch on his Jeep and we are at his less than responsible mercy for transport. However, a Caprice I could maybe give to him or sell cheap and he could have a hitch put on. I located a Caprice in RI that's two-tone gray with burgandy sides (sick pimpin' with old man white walls and fake OEM wire wheels) and another that's an ex-police car.

"It's got a cop engine, cop suspension, cop brakes ..."

If I get that I'm going to be telling everyone I'm on a mission from God. l'll have to find some neo-nazis to run down.

Steve

That really sucks, Steve... 246,752 miles is a lot, but that's still no explanation for why a Subaru engine would melt a hole in a piston.

Maybe a coolant passage got clogged and allowed a small area on the head to get really hot or something?

Or maybe injector 3 clogged up more than the others somehow and started screwing up the fuel mixture?

Installing the EJ22T wouldn't be a bad idea... It would be slow but usable. Is the oil pump the only thing you need to do to make it run?

How dumb an idea is it to just replace that piston? I guess it might not be worth the effort since you do have the EJ22T in the kitchen.

I agree with you that an old Caprice could be a good option too, if you can find 500 dollars for it...

heh just realized which piston is #3. Isn't that a known problem with the injector running lean on #3? on all the series subaru engine? Makes me kinda scared and I kinda makes me want to convert to parallel.

Fuel seems fine. There is 0 compression and the bits of oil I pulled off the end of my exploratory hose looked to be pieces of ring land. They look a little like small flecks of sedentary rock. Temperature was always good, but that wouldn't pick up hot spots, I know. Anyone's guess is as good as mine.

I don't want to get into rebuilding it as I drove it about 20 miles on the 3 cylinders in traffic and 80 mph on the highway with those little metal bits blasting around. In a pinch I could make a quick tube spacer and remove the rocker arms for cyl. 3, dump more oil in, and disconnect the injector to run on the other 3 cyls for a little bit, but I don't know how far I'd want to trust it.

Steve

how did you test hte fuel though?

I cranked the engine over and got fuel in the cylinder.

Steve

oh, hehe. That doesnt necessarily mean it wasnt running lean at high rpms or something.

Possibly, but I don't think this car would run that close to the edge unless it completely failed, but then the knock sensor should've picked it up. It's possible I may have a bad injector in combo with the knock sensor.

Steve

Photos added.

Steve