JForand - Atlanta Build

[jforand]

The short block tear down (and I'm glad I did it).

First thing I noticed was a significant difference in breaking torque required moving through all of the bolts. Anyone see a suspicious cover fin laying where it should not be? What is that bolt doing in there? Sure seems to be a make shift plug of sorts, which interfered with the cover's fin.

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Case splitting. Anyone see a main bearing poking up to take a look at the camera? Looks like it was about to spin.

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Not really happy with the main bearings at all. I was hoping to get away with just honing and re-ringing. Not the case... It is hard to see it on camera, but the journals are all grooved and the finger nail catches on a ton of stuff. Even some rust on the center oil groove on the rear bearing. There is also significant grooving where the front and rear oil seals rode on the crank.

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The situation bit not get much better with the rod bearings, just a couple pics of those.

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Looks like I need to find a decent machine shop to get the crank resurfaced and polished. The where on the mains was not exactly uniform either. It seems that a resurface and a line hone might be a good idea there as well.

I have yet to tear into the heads.

Does anyone know of a trustworthy Subaru guy in the Atalanta Georgia area?

[Hindsight]

Does anyone know of a trustworthy Subaru guy in the Atalanta Georgia area?

For engine work? So few people machine Subaru engines. All the shops I know of in Atlanta and nearly anywhere else don't do it. Everyone just buys a new OEM short block or a staged short block from somewhere like IAG or Out-Front (which use new OEM shortblocks as the base). You can get a brand new short block for a little under $2,000. You have a pretty big laundry list of machining you will need to get done, plus parts.... not sure how much money you are going to save by to the time that's all over vs just getting a new short block and bolting your old heads up to it. If you have your heart set on using your existing components and having everything machined, I'd ship it off to a Subaru specialty machinist before I'd let any "general" local engine machine shop touch it. Most local places aren't going to be used to working with Subarus nor have the torque plates and tooling required to properly machine the two-piece engine case. It would be so awful to pay all that money for engine machining, plus assembly time and money for bearings and gaskets and all that only to have it blow up.