Subie Engine Question (Friend Spun A Rod Bearing)

I know squat about Subaru but my friend just had a problem. He spun a rod bearing on his 2008 Forester 5-speed turbo. He loves the car. He's looking for a long term but best money spent solution to get back on the road. He's not cheap, just wants it fixed right to last a long time. Are there any improvements he should have done to help the new engine last longer? I was wondering if this model year was the one that ate head gaskets.

I'm thinking he just do a new short block, new (improved maybe) head gaskets, and a clutch kit while the shop is in there. The engine swap is just outside my friend's scope, so he will have to sub that out.

He's in Atlanta so if anyone knows a good shop (other than Six Star) throw the name out there please.

Looking down the barrel of an engine swap myself, you could put out a request in the get together section (and I'd recommend one in this section pointing to that section)

Before I had plans change I had 8ish people organizing to show up and help me get the engine done, and Atlanta has a large amount of GRMers in it.

Can you still get EJ257 shortblocks fairly inexpensively?  That is the easy button and also probably the cheap button.

I'd definitely check with Subaru to see if the short block is available and go that way if the costs aren't too high. These aren't the easiest motors to split to do a bottom end in. A performance Subaru specialist should be capable of it though but it could get expensive.

I would also do some research on the best way to break these in, what oil he should be running and what a decent oil change interval is for it to keep it happy going forward.

I had a rod bearing spin on my EJ253 (NA single overhead cam) 07 Legacy, I bought the car for cheap with some rod knock so it wasn't a big surprise. I was doing the swap myself (Subaru's are easy to pop motors in and out of) so I pulled a junkyard motor out of a car that had been crashed and got lucky with it. It had similar mileage but a tight bottom end and no oil consumption, I've put over 100,000 km on it since and it is still running strong. I of course stripped that motor down to the short block, threw some headgaskets in it even thought the originals were fine (your EJ257 will already MLS headgaskets so these should not be an issue unless he is turning up the boost) and freshened up all the timing stuff and water pump.

As the owner of a very similar Outback XT Turbo 5speed, I know this path well:  it's a great fun car, and nothing new combines that turbocharged fun of a WRX, 4.44 FD engaging manual trans, and useful cargo volume.  So when it inevitably  blows up, here's what I plan to do:

2018 STi RA shortblock

rebuild the heads

IAG or Killer B oil pan and pickup (most engine deaths are oil related)

Air Oil separator and larger TMIC (the rest of the deaths are knock)

A pro tune to not that much power so I can enjoy it for another 180k

RallyX is 100 % spot on.  A new short block is the way to go.  

Back in my Subaru Fanboi days, all the good tuner shops and tuner-friendly dealers sold EJ20 and EJ25 short block swap kits relatively cheap. I think back then you could do the whole job with all the odds and ends for about $1800. I'm sure it's more than that now, but it's still the way to go. 

Rallyx is good advise.  In the midst of similar work, my baja turbo destroyed a few pistons.  Got a rebuilt short block for about 1500, the whole job came in at under 4.  But that was with me pulling the motor and stripping it down.  Used motors are an option but a huge gamble.  Once these things get north of 150K miles they are a huge risk and you never know what the real condition of the motor is.  A rebuild should be good for 150 to 200K miles so that is worth considering.  

And the 4K price was a deal compared to what other shops wanted.  Most were 5-6 or more and a few refused to even quote until the motor was apart, one wanted a grand to take it apart and tell me how much to rebuild.  

So you need to decide how much you want this car and if you have the money.  You can always slap in a used motor and sell.

In reply to porschenut :

Had not one but two Baja turbos come in in the space of a month needing engines.  One D-chunked an exhaust valve, the other lost its thrust bearing and was gushing oil from the crank seal as a result.  (Why do unicorns come in sets?)  If we wanted to buy a used engine with a warranty worth a damn, we would spend more than buying a new shortblock and heads from Subaru.  IIRC the numbers were $3800 for an all new long block and $5000 for an EJ255 with a one year warranty.

The best thing to do would be to put something other than a Subaru engine back in the car.    My track day buddy has blown two WRX engines at track days. After the second one he did some research and found that those engines need deep sumps with different oil pick ups. I guess that's on my friend, but his research found all kinds of stories of these motors with limited life spans.

Both times he bought new Subaru short blocks on the advise of a local Subaru speed shop specialist and paid a dealership to replace them. The last time he asked the service writer if they had ever done on of those before, and writer said, "Oh, we do those ALL the time!". So I guess the answer is to do what other recommend and buy a new short block.

BTW, after the last short block replacement, when he does an oil change he is alarmed at the amount of glitter in the oil...

I should have just bought a short block for my 2.5 instead of trying to use one from a donor car. Only thing I ended up keeping was the block. I basically built that sti short block like Johnny Cash - one piece at a time.