How reliable is the Subaru EJ20 engine. Have read they are prone to oil leaks. Have also read they are fairly reliable in stock form but not very stout when modified. This is mostly stuff read on internet. Any real life experience?
How reliable is the Subaru EJ20 engine. Have read they are prone to oil leaks. Have also read they are fairly reliable in stock form but not very stout when modified. This is mostly stuff read on internet. Any real life experience?
D-chunking the exhaust valves was common, same with the EJ255.
I have not driven it yet, but the 203k mile EJ20 from my WRX had broken hoses for the boost solenoid, so the turbo was running at "*shrug*" boost. No metal shinies in the oil, no piston slap. I am impressed.
Watch, I'll pull the heads and find five warped/cracked exhaust valves and three cracked bores.
I think a lot of the whinging is an expectation that you can take any Japanese turbo engine and triple the power with no real work. Subarus are engineered much better than that, their 227hp (276hp) engine has a lot closer margins.
I'm still pretty new to it but my understanding is that they're pretty solid if you leave them stock and take good care of them. The problem, as Pete sort of referred to, is that at this point most owners have failed at one or both of those requirements. Though to be fair they're pretty underwhelming in stock form...the first time I drove one I understood why nobody can leave them stock. As for taking good care of them...it's an old turbo engine, old turbo engines burn oil. Keep it full of oil, even without any specific leaks it'll probably need at least a minor top up with every fuel fill. No engine likes being run low/out of oil, but these really don't like it.
My anecdotal data: we have two at the moment. One has 160k miles its recent life was a little rough but it appears to have been pampered for the first 100k miles. Absolutely no signs of trouble, but definitely uses oil. The second one has 120k miles and was owned by someone who generally cared for the car but stopped caring about it (read: stopped checking the oil) when they decided they were going to replace it. It came off the trailer running perfectly but with what we later determined to be about 1.5 quarts of oil in it. We filled it up immediately but as soon as we started driving it hard it developed a rod knock.
In reply to dps214 :
When rallycrossed, Subarus have a weird tendency to consume oil at random. When Miles and I would codrive his 2.5RS, and later his 2.5i wagon, we would check the oil after every run or pair of runs depending on how the grid was moving. Sometimes it would be fine, sometimes it would be a half quart low. I'm thinking it sloshes into the heads and gets sucked into the PCV system.
Windage inside the engine has also got to be a bitch: a n-liter engine is moving n liters of air back and forth in the crankcase with every revolution, and with the way the 5 main bearing block is laid out, it all has to blow through the oil pan area. Because it is a boxer, it can't go from one side to the other, it has to go front to back, past the main webs. I bet that also adds to the oil slosh effect.
I've seen a small handful of Subarus develop engine problems at events due to failure to ensure oil was actually in the engine. It's an easily preventable problem but unfortunately also an easily developed one.
I'm looking into an oil pan baffle for the MINI's EJ20. I had an idea for making one that heavily restricted the oil drains to keep the oil from climbing up into the outside head and getting trapped there, only to discover that these devices already exist, with trapdoors even! And cheap enough that it doesn't make sense to try to make my own.
I'm excited to see this pop up as I just jumped into the Subaru world for the first time. I wasn't really looking for it but it popped up and I couldn't resist.
It's a one owner 2002 WRX Wagon 100% stock with 70k miles (from Bham,AL). Always garage kept and dealer maintained. So far I've been loving it for the two or so weeks I've had it and hope that it proves to be reliable.
What type of oil and weight is used in this engine? Just curious.
In reply to pirate :
Owner's manual calls for 5w-30 so that's what I just put in mine (Amsoil with oem filter).
I think 5w30 is stock. We're going to be running ours pretty hard so we're going to step up to 5w40. I think people run 10w40 in warmer climates. There's also a larger oil filter (intended for an rx8...seems fitting somehow) that a lot of people use. I'm usually dubious about that kind of thing until I saw how comically tiny the stock filter is, and how still pretty small the Mazda filter is.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Only check the oil level before cold starts. All flat engines have oil pooling in the heads (Porsche too).
My RS is the same. I check oil level the day before, tires and lugnut torque too.
In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
We've gone through 2-3 quarts of oil at an event, though. That isn't explained by pooling.
Arguably, if it takes that long for all the oil to exit the heads, one should check the oil level right after the engine ran so as to not risk uncovering the oil pickup.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Which baffle plate are you going to run? I wouldn't mind adding one to my EJ253 as it does see the track from time to time along with some rally cross and autocross.
On the oil front I used to run 5W-30 in my previous Subaru's but I switched to 0W-40 winter/5W-40 summer using Rotella T6 after spinning a rod bearing in the original motor in my car soon after I bought it. I didn't cause that damage, just finished it off but from doing some reading at the time it seemed the thicker oil was a better way to go. I could be wrong but it has served me well in the used junkyard motor for the past 100,000 km (350,000 km on that motor total, still going strong with some piston slap on cold winter start).
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