Welcome to the North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club Wednesday February 12, 2025
Home Forums Images WikiNASIOC Products Store Modifications Upgrade Garage
NASIOC
Go Back   NASIOC > NASIOC Technical > Normally Aspirated Powertrain

Welcome to NASIOC - The world's largest online community for Subaru enthusiasts!
Welcome to the NASIOC.com Subaru forum.

You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our community, free of charge, you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is free, fast and simple, so please join our community today!

If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.







* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. 
* Registered users of the site do not see these ads. 
 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
Old 11-21-2024, 03:24 PM   #1
Fozziebare
Scooby Newbie
 
Member#: 507185
Join Date: Oct 2019
Default Post head gasket issues

So I have a 2009 base Forester with the EJ253 NA CARB model. We bought it back in 2010 used with 18K miles. Found out it was a former Enterprise rental vehicle. It was rock solid until last June at 183k miles it started having misfire codes.

I did a compression check and I had 2 cylinders that were low. The head gaskets had been leaking oil for quite a while so I just bit the bullet and pulled the engine. Took the heads to a machine shop that is familiar with Subie's and he went through them for me cost $600. I put it all back together using Fel Pro MLS gaskets which I have recently heard are junk? Everything else was Aisin OEM stuff if memory serves me.

Not long after finishing that job the car suddenly one day wouldn't seem to accelerate and was stumbling very hard and stalling. Come to find out both catalytic converters were clogged. I got a cheap manifold/cat off eBay and hogged out the rear cat to be sure that would fix it. It did. But the cheap manifold/cat only lasted a couple weeks before it broke up inside. I contacted the seller and they sent me a new one.

At some point I purchased a Walker manifold/cat and a Walker rear cat pipe. The car has been running perfectly with that combo up until about a week ago when I took the car to get some dinner and it started acting up again just like when the cats were clogged up. So I yanked off the manifold and the rear cat pipe and found them both plugged up again?

I still had the cheap eBay manifold and my old rear cat pipe minus the cat which I put back on and the car is again running. But the exhaust doesn't smell right, what I mean is it smells like burning oil? When I did the head gaskets I was going to just purchase a JDM complete motor with low mileage but the machine shop guy said that wasn't necessary that all I needed to do was have the heads done and replace the gaskets and I would be good to go.

So now I am thinking I wasted my money and should have just gotten the JDM engine and slapped that in? Looking for any/all input on next steps. I have been looking at used Foresters instead of screwing around with this thing anymore but not sure what to do???

Last edited by Fozziebare; 11-22-2024 at 09:10 AM. Reason: Grammar
Fozziebare is offline   Reply With Quote
 

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:02 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.7.0
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Powered by Searchlight © 2025 Axivo Inc.
Copyright ©1999 - 2019, North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club, Inc.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission
Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.