98GT-Biarch

Yeah mate honestly he is the man to see, absolute pro and real good guy, will do high quality work and wont charge nearly as much as others. He is a suby specialist and has rebuilt my engine as well as heaps of other work on my 98 GTB. He has heaps of parts too. He\'s in Papatoetoe and can work on it in weekends or after work week days.

TOTALLY worth it tho ;D

Yeah mate for a few hundred you should replace stock exhaust and replace stock filter with an aftermarket one. This is usually the first mod upgrade to get more power on any car, cheap, easy and fast. As long as you keep up with your oil changes/services, your current primary will probably still give you a lot more use, even if its whiny now.

Yeah SORTED! Had a good drive home, got all the power she\'s sposed to have, and sum! Subirex has restored my faith in mechanics and man kind in general. This guy REALLY knows his subies. He single-handedly diagnosed and replaced my seized VF27 with a spare VF32 he had, in about 4 hours. No mistakes or shortcuts with this guy, and he didn\'t do it for a profit, he did it because he wanted to help me out, because he\'s a good guy! [move]FRIKEN LEGEND!!![/move] If you need advice or some help with your Subaru, I can highly recommend talking to this guy first. My GTB is now running like a dream, after a nightmare with XR Automotive. Those guys mean well but sure did screw up a lot of things. I still have to take it back to them to show them all the oil leaking out of the new seals, so I can then take it to a proper Subaru dealership to get it done properly. Thanks again mate!

Big thanks to Subirex (AJ) for taking a look at my car tonight 8) Good to finally find an on-to-it mechanic who actually cares, about the car and the customer. He found a few hoses disconnected, and boost was only 5psi and then nothing (was getting let out to atmosphere due to disconnected piping). Primary is now back up to 10-11psi but no secondary turbo still. Highly likely my secondary is seized... Primary turbo is now screaming as well I\'m going to take it back to XR Automotive in Grey Lynn on Tuesday as long as he can do it then and there as I wait. This is more than fair considering this is the 4th time I\'ve had to take it across town back to him. He obviously didn\'t look close enough to find the other disconnected hoses that Subirex found tonight, and one clamp not done up on the air intake. Quite obvious he did not test it properly at all after the cam-belt replacement. If these guys dont get it done while I\'m there on Tuesday then its back to AJ who has generously offered to help sort it out properly. I\'ve been reading the Consumer Guarantees Act for services, which states that the mechanics responsible have to repair it back to how it was, so if that secondary is seized they will be replacing it, as well as the primary and anything else they have screwed up. Subirex also noted they have put sealer over the gaskets (which can wear the gaskets out faster) and used non-genuine parts. Big rep to Subirex, and thanks to DrunkenMonkey for offering to help as well, just worked out better and faster for me to go to Subirex tonight.

The guy still doesnt know whats going on, he switched hoses 21 and 22 around but no change. Not sure if its my imagination but Primary seems to be significantly more boosty at the moment. The guy isnt going to look at it until Tuesday. Haven\'t had any apology or reason or anything yet. Also have seen a few oil drips on my garage floor, and found an earth wire disconnected under the bonnet. It just keeps getting better. Hopefully DrunkenMonkey can help me out.

I\'ll ask him about this tomorrow, as I have to take it back again, since I\'ve just discovered the 2ndary turbo is not working AT ALL. Needless to say I\'m getting *very annoyed* with this S*it. Why dont any of the mechanics I\'ve used actually care about what they are doing? You\'re giving them work and a lot of money and they act like you owe them and that you\'re being annoying by pointing out their mistakes. Not much I can do about the idlers and tensioners now unless he agrees to do it with no labour cost (yeah right). Can I reset the ECU myself?

Took it back to him today and he bled the cooling system and cleared the faults (temp sensor and something else), running the air con on max until it blew hot air. Everything is running sweet now thank buggery. Thanks for the info ClubSubbers. So to run 98 fuel I need to find BP stations that sell it, or are there Caltex or other stations that sell a similar octane fuel?

What do idlers do? When I was letting her warm up before leaving for work it almost stalled and the Check Engine warning light came on, but it picked up the revs again and the light went off.

Yeah not ideal. Drove to work tonight and the temp gauge sat on halfway for about 30 seconds before shooting up to max again, then back a bit to just before red zone where it stayed. I was driving as conservatively as possible just on 100km/h. Lifted bonnet and felt engine, not very hot (I could hold my hand on it), radiator hot as you would expect after 10k of driving 100km/h, but engine was fine and not even making that clicking noise it does when cooling down. Starting to think its not an accurate indication, so thermostat is doing something weird.

I asked him about that and he said it didnt need to be replaced as "it was fine". I dont know about idlers... are they just some other belts? Sounds like I shouldn\'t be using 91.... I have gone from 91 to 98 before and didn\'t notice much difference at all in performance but it did seem a little more economical on the open road. Its never felt like a sluggish gas guzzler, even my v8 driving buddies are impressed with the power before these repairs. What should I be asking this guy to do tomorrow?

It was done through a business so 65+gst isnt tooo bad I guess. It was leaking everywhere apparently so thats why he replaced all those seals and had to remove engine. So whats so bad about running a turbo subaru on 91? Ive been using it for years cos they never had 98 in NP until this year. Going to leave radiator cap off tonight/morning after work. Funny thing was it was totally normal on the way to work and only happened heading home, so it might be fine tonight.

Thanks for the info. Driving home from work this morning I freaked out a bit when the thermostat/temperature indicator slowly went right up to max limit and I\'m driving on the Auckland motorway. I took it easy and pulled over when I could, and opened the bonnet, no steam, not even very hot at all. Everything seemed fine and I got home (10km) no worries. Pretty bad smell in the car this morning, probably radiator coolant burning off. Heres the breakdown of my bill/Job sheet: Alternator Belt $30.13 RH Rocker Cover gasket kit $110 LH Rocker Cover gasket kit $110 4x Camshaft seals @ $16ea 4x Bosh spark plugs @ $31.98ea Cambelt $130.26 Front crank seal $16 Rear crank seal $31.40 Oil filter $14 Engine Oil $45 Coolant $15 Sealer $14.84 consumables $30 Power Steering oil $12.95 12 hrs labour @ $65ea +gst $229.72 Total $1761.22 Work Done: Remove Engine, degrease engine and engine bay, clean all parts, remove cam covers, rocker covers, etc. Replace seals and required, fit new cambelt, time engine, refit covers, seal rear gudgeon cover, clean clutch plate, reassemble engine, refit to vehicle, change oil and filter, top up fluids, run and check. When I first drove it away after repairs, the exhaust was rattling against the underbody so had to turn around and get him to sort that out, then I find this turbo problem, then the thermostat problem. WTF. I will be having a chat with him on Monday to see what he has to say about it.

I just had all the seals and belts changed by a local guy who was referred to me by a mate, and after taking it for a good road test and cranking 2ndary turbo, Im gutted to find it is now quite surgy and lumpy, and seems to come on a bit later as well, about 5500rpms instead of smooth power from 5000. The mech said he found the timing belt was two teeth out so I should notice some performance improvement with the new one. Have they plumbed it up wrong or something? Or was the timing supposed to be how it was before - dont they de-tune them for NZ low octane fuel? It was perfectly smooth before, even running on 91 (which I generally always use). Would using 98 help or is have they Fkd it up somewhere? I\'ve been charged over $1700 for this work which was a bit more than anticipated but he\'s letting me pay it off over 3 months so not so bad. Its hard to know if you\'re getting ripped with mechanics, even those who are supposed to be good guys who have done \'millions\' of subarus and could do them blind folded. What do you recon?