I pulled my engine out to do my head gaskets, clutch, and rear main seal.
I took my heads to a machine shop and they magnafluxed them and told me I had 12 cracks between the two heads. Quoted about $1000 for completely remanned heads. I decided to do that.
Now I have the shortblock on the motor stand, and I'm concodering total teardown.
My part prices are looking like roughly $166-315
$120 oem subaru pistons (amazon)
$23-70 rod bearings (rockauto)
$23-125 crank bearings (rockauto)
With those prices I feel like I'd be stupid to not split the cases, but I'm new to this and I'm sure i missed some things. What would I expect to pay in machining and other things I missed?
Also what sensors hoses ect should I replace while I'm here?
Edit: 147k miles on the clock. Did timing belt/water pump at 100k, plan to do it again during this
Id say all the hoses. And only the sensors that were bad, or that are impossible to get to with the engine in.
I'd leave it alone at only 147k.
It has been a while but IIRC the piston slapping problem is not due to the pistons wearing but the bores egging out.
Likewise, low oil pressure is not the bearings/crank wearing but the case egging out, although this is usually a turbo engine problem.
If it's like any other modern engine I have pulled apart, the bearings will be the best part in the engine, bearing wear is usually extremely minor if present at all.
Check to make sure you have a machine shop in your area willing/ able to do Subaru engines. No machine shop in my area would take the EJ255 from my Legacy GT. They either did not have the equipment, or were provided the equipment and training from a local dealer or Subaru performance shop, and would only do work for them. The local shops would only build my engine, not just send it out for machining. I had to find a shop well outside my area that was willing to take my block and send it to their “secret” machine shop. It sucked not being able to see the place that was doing the work and talk to the actual machinist. It really sucked when I went to pick it up. The performance shop told me that the machinist didn’t look at the one size over pistons that I had sent with the block. He just bored it out to the shops usual max oversized spec, without looking at what was going in it!?! The shop caught the error, and did what they could to fix it. They had one of their EJ257 blocks machined for my pistons and gave me that one. My other choice was to take my block, return the positions I bought, and order the larger size, and hope they fit. I regretfully kept the new block. But it’s no longer original to the car that I bought brand new. And I have no idea if this one was ever overheated. I actually took the new machined block to a local machine shop, told them the story, and paid them to double check the block and the machine work. Thankfully, it checked out.
