boon

No CEL/codes then? I'd probably still want to put a code reader on it. Heinous fuel economy usually goes with a wonky O2 sensor. Ask your mate you loaned the sensor to to swap and see if it resolves it/breaks theirs.

Seems expensive, especially for an A-line. At least it has the proper brakes, not all A-lines do.

Can you pull the box out yourself? Factor in at least $1000 if you can't, and there's probably a few "while you're there" jobs that should be done while the box is off, including the rear main seal and kidney plate, as well as considering doing the clutch. As for rebuilding the box, hopefully someone else will weigh in there. As a random aside, if your 6 speed is anything like my 6 speed, 5000rpm shift into 6th is how many kph exactly?

Interesting on the auto fluid. Re. VDC, the '04 is the transitional year between DBW throttle and cable throttle. If you have a cable throttle you definitely won't have VDC, if you have DBW you might have some sort of VDC but very unlikely it's at all sophisticated.

For the AT, the Subaru 5EAT is a bit of a picky a bastard and really likes the "correct" fluid, which is either Subaru-branded or the actual manufacturer of it, which is Idemitsu ATF-HP, if you can find it. Apparentlt Amsoil also do a "compatible" fluid, ymmv but for a 310k car it's probably not the end of the world. As for changing it, yes, unless you can pressure-flush it then you leave a whole lot behind. Honestly there's no point doing a double-flush, as, best case, you'll still probably have ~20% old fluid with all the crapola floating around in it. Drain and refill and call it good enough. Also IIRC the filling part is a bit of a mongrel - via the dipstick tube? The diffs all like Syntrax 75w90. If your Outback is a NZ-new car it will almost definitely have an LSD in the rear (probably a viscous one, although rumour abounds that the odd one got a plate diff), but it still likes the same juice. The 5MT, Syntrax for everything. What the diffs are is a complete lolly-scramble, could be anything from open-open-open to open-viscous-viscous.

235wkw? Honestly the turbo probably doesn't have any more than that in it. You could turn the boost up but it's CFM that matters, and I don't think I've literally ever seen an "honest" dyno sheet over 240wkw with anything that came stock on a Subaru. Even 236 is very very good. So then you're up for turbo + injectors + pump + probably a front mount + another tune and it starts getting quite gnarly, because for a meaningful power gain you should really go to a twisted turbo so there's fab costs, new downpipe, and probably a wastegate, and then you're likely exceeding the safe limits of your stock block. You can get 230wkw fairly easily on a modern Subaru, anything significantly more is suddenly very expensive.

My '05 3.0R Legacy did this but I have no idea if it was a factory option or an aftermarket module. With imported cars they are often a lollyscramble of random JDM addons.

Yes.

Did you buy a genuine sensor or some "compatible" one? Sounds like a(nother) bad sensor to me.

The dyno will load your car in ways that it's unlikely to ever see on the road, but also... no, it shouldn't do that. Clutch is on the way out, if it slipped on the dyno it will start slipping on the street, but presumably you have the motor out anyway due to snapping a cambelt so you may as well do it. Timing belt isn't going to cause boost spikes, it's either a crap tune, inadequate parts, or something was faulty or installed incorrectly.

It does look a lot like it has a bonnet scoop, despite the low resolution. I'd be looking for a black GC8 Impreza with replaced bonnet and front bumper. Mind you if it's had a new bonnet and bumper it might be a povvo non-turbo with turbo parts attached to it.

Nope, there are people who prefer a single turbo and people who are in denial.

Same answer as usual, you've killed it, replace engine immediately. Do you understand the function of the coolant bottle? How much coolant is in your radiator? A much much better question if you're genuinely down on coolant would be "where is my coolant going" since it's a (relatively) closed system and losses even over several years should amount to very very little.

You can probably do 95%+ of it yourself. Get the factory service manual for the car and the ECU pinout from the Link website for the appropriate plugin ECU. Then buy a big pack of those crimp+shrink connectors and a proper crimping tool and just match everything up.

The bullet/spike ones always look bogan as. They work on a sacked Ford Courier and not much else, but each to their own I guess. On the one hand, they're just nuts, as long as they're steel you can't go too far wrong. On the other hand I probably wouldn't buy whatever the cheapest ones are.

Sounds fatal, sell car immediately.

A complete wrecker motor is going to be, by far, the path of least resistance here. Work from the assumption that the old motor is a total loss.

Is it AVCS? Wonder if this is one of the "oil in the ECU" (yes, I am 100% serious) ones. I'm about 95% sure these engines have two (at least two?) camshaft position sensors, I think one does cam position and the other two do cam advance if it has AVCS. These are at the rear of the motor, on top of the head. I'd start by unplugging the big engine loom connector on each side and see if it has oil in it. If it does, clean it out, then pull your ECU and see if the connector for that has oil in it. Long story short, if it's AVCS, the seals on one of the sensors fail and it pushes oil up into the loom. Because the loom is actually surprisingly well sealed, over quite a long time (like... 20 years) oil can work its way all the way up to the ECU and cause all sorts of weird issues. I think if yours was a genuine IACV fault, which is pretty rare on anything post-2000-ish, it wouldn't idle at all.

Dafuq is a quart? How many hogsheads does it get to a pigskin of kerosene? 4.1L btw.

I think you've drunk the kool-ade of "Subarus are unreliable blah blah blah" - 100k being around when they do head gaskets? What a bunch of s***e, nobody told the last 3 I've owned, guess I got lucky? 2.5 NAs are slugs. 2.0 NA is worse. I don't know how someone could conclude the BH 3.0 is better than the BP. Single exhaust port heads, enough said really, not to mention they make like 30kw less. The BP 3.0 doesn't drink oil, but has plenty of places it likes to leak it from when they get a bit older. Rocker cover gaskets being the obvious one, and mine sprung a doozy of a leak from behind the timing cover which was a bit of a bastard to fix. 3.0s sound extremely boring unless you spend $$$ on an exhaust. The only interesting-sounding Legacy is a turbo BH or earlier, but they're all twin-turbos (unless you're going way back to a BC) so their performance is average and reliability of the turbo system not super awesome either. Anything modern is going to be twin-scroll/equal length so will sound kinda not-Subaru, although I don't mind the sound personally. Buy a manual BP 2.0 Turbo or 3.0.

So by "VTA" you mean "just dribbles oil on the road"? 😮

The flip side that warrants mentioning - I asked around and found someone that has been running a PPD exhaust for a couple of years... admittedly on a diesel ute, not a performance car, and it has held up just fine EXCEPT that it has rusted, which is kinda funny considering it's "stainless"

It's only $750 more. There's a reason the PPD ones are so cheap. If you consider that the cat alone has to be worth a couple of hundred bucks, $300 doesn't leave a lot for things like quality, thick steel, good welding, and flanges that are actually flat.

Nice, where'd you buy from?

Guess they just changed year to year? If I remember right it was like, 2 or 3 wires I had to cut and join. EDIT edit: It might just be a little length of adaptor loom? You might be able to swap it if you can get like 25cm deep in the back of the headlight and around a corner. I just cut and joined it.