percentage of cars that get rebuilds

[Treecrusher]

 lan_killa said:

My V1 WRX-SA has done 240,000 odd km now, driven hard every day, but not till warm and services are done every 5000km. Am currently running 15psi, but I think the turbo may be on its last legs... oh well... TD05 here I come

Your engine won't put down that much power though, or at least it probably won't have for most of it's life. I think the reliability started when Subaru started upping the factory output, their engineers had forgotten to strengthen a couple of places. As time went on Subaru got better at what they were doing and their engines became more reliable at the higher outputs.

Downside is, if you have a higher output Subaru from the circa 96-97 era it will probably need a premature rebuild. That is not to say there will be examples that last longer but I think those are probably exceptions rather than the rule.

[Guest lan_killa]

Yeh, the old 20G era was pretty unstressed, so have a bit of a better rep about reliability... Although mine being an SA it did come from the factory with 250PS instead of the normal 220PS

[R.D]

 Treecrusher said:

Downside is, if you have a higher output Subaru from the circa 96-97 era it will probably need a premature rebuild.

what makes the version 3/4 so much more 'prone' to failure??

[funkytown]

 R.D']

[quote name='Treecrusher said:

Downside is, if you have a higher output Subaru from the circa 96-97 era it will probably need a premature rebuild.

/quote]

what makes the version 3/4 so much more 'prone' to failure??

this was just the first generation of true 206 "high output" engines.. I wouldnt say the OP implied genuine facts - more that it was the first iteration of "high output" and therefore we learning about the faults as the engines.

[Guest]

what makes the version 3/4 so much more 'prone' to failure??

The main reason IMO is they are older and have had more abuse and poor fuel / servicing.

The open deck block doesn't help but on stock power its not an issue.

[R.D]

i dont want to start the whole BEB thing again, i've read all that.

But are these engine failures generally a kilometer thing or more of a 'thrashed' thing?

e.g say if a wrx was driven real nice its whole life, does it still stand a chance of BEB failure when in the 'high' kms bracket? Or does the 'thrashed' factor play a bigger role than kms?

[Swindog]

You dont have to have thrashed acar to do a BEB. Theres just more risk of one happening having done the thrashing.

[Treecrusher]

I have read a few causes, some stating restrictive oil galleries that carbon builds up on reducing flow to bearing shells . Another reason I have read is the fuel rails being run in series with number four receiving reduced pressure making it prone to detonation on crap fuel which puts increased load on the bearing causing premature failure.

I know with the fuel one they still run them like this, but the EJ207 engines have the larger pink injectors, so that may have or may not have been Subaru's answer to that problem.

I have no experience backing these claims up, just read them on other forums.

[Swindog]

The fuel issue is a major problem on high performance wrxs that have mainly been modified extensively.

The oil thing is a major and a good point to run clean oil often, this would be the best way to help avoid a BEB episode.

This also relates to females. You must keep them well lubed to reduce risk of wear and blowout out major parts

[R.D]

gotta keep my eyes glued to the oil pressure gauge haha

[EJ20T]

once the oil pressure starts dropping the engines already about to die.

[R.D]

why is that? if the oil pump did all a sudden fail (as some blame this for BEB), surely the engine would survive for more than a second without fresh oil lubin her up? enough time to turn it off and avoid huge damages?

[GC8E2DD]

The way I had a BEB due to oil starvation explained to me, an air bubble makes it's way up the pickup and can get between the big end and the bearing. Normally the two float over each other on a thin film of oil at all times. The air bubble allows the two to touch which instantly super heats the surfaces. Either it is so hot, one of the surfaces deforms, or the sudden cooling of returning oil can cause the bearing to crack. This means it only takes a millisecond to happen. Depending on how bad it is, the revs at the time (converted to friction which is why higher revs makes it worse), a bearing might withstand this several times, or it might just let go. This is also why you can do a BEB on a brand new engine - it can go in as little as one bad bind between rod and bearing. Someone's little brother on here got one just after a rebuild IIRC.

Now as I said, this is how bearing failure due to oil starvation was explained to me by the guy who rebuilt my engine. Obviously there are other ways you can do it. I would be interested to hear other people's opinion on it. I've heard people talk about shockwaves from detonation, but evidently that wasn't what happened in my case.

[neil2121]

 Swindog said:

This also relates to females. You must keep them well lubed to reduce risk of wear and blowout out major parts

[Guest loren]

Good explanation GGEE2FD. Essentially, yes you need pressurized oil in the engine 100% of the time,

and no det

[Treecrusher]

The oil starvation thing is a reality in any engine though (hence the reason for baffled sumps in vehicles that corner hard). But there is marked difference in reliability between the older STi engines and the ej207's. So what changed? Subaru engineers would have been monitoring reliability and making design changes as required so it would be interesting to get a list of all the differences between the engines.

The ones I can think of off the top of my head are:

larger intercooler

larger injectors

semi closed block

variable valve timing

different turbo

There will be others I'm sure but what fixed the BEB problem?

[Guest the_return_of_the_jedi]

who gives a rats ass...

if your motor goes pop you cant do much about it after the fact...

just next time dont drive like a fk wit or dont buy a car thats obviously been caned its whole life

if u think u gonna buy a car that wont blow up or end up needing rebuilt your seriously delusional..

[Treecrusher]

 the_return_of_the_jedi said:

who gives a rats ass...

if your motor goes pop you cant do much about it after the fact...

just next time dont drive like a fk wit or dont buy a car thats obviously been caned its whole life

if u think u gonna buy a car that wont blow up or end up needing rebuilt your seriously delusional..

Dunno about that. I am on to my 10th Subaru, all but two turbo, and not one of them has needed any serious engine work. Most I have had to do is rebuild a gearbox.

One of them, a 2nd gen GTB legacy (silver one in my signature), had bad piston slap and I put money aside for a re-build. But it never let go.

I have always serviced them regularly with high grade oil and used genuine filters. So that may have something to do with it.

[Guest]

 Treecrusher said:

The oil starvation thing is a reality in any engine though (hence the reason for baffled sumps in vehicles that corner hard). But there is marked difference in reliability between the older STi engines and the ej207's. So what changed? Subaru engineers would have been monitoring reliability and making design changes as required so it would be interesting to get a list of all the differences between the engines.

The ones I can think of off the top of my head are:

larger intercooler

larger injectors

semi closed block

variable valve timing

different turbo

There will be others I'm sure but what fixed the BEB problem?

In my view none of those had any effect.

[Guest]

Probably the best thing subaru did was ditch the JECS ECU and move to the DENSO with its much better/faster control of detonation . ie pulling boost and ign advance.

[dimin]

On my fourth subaru and no major issues. Only my RSB got rebuilt due to minor piston slap, didnt fail at all and could of gone for few years more IMO without a rebuild. Went brilliant after rebuild and single turbo conversion never missed a beat. Had 2 Sti's a V4 and V8 and both no issues, serviced plenty and strictly 98 fuel, warmed up properly, etc IMO is the key to having a reliable Suby. And modifying them properly with a proper dyno tune to iron out detonation.

Of course if the prev owner abused it then its bound to fail sooner than later.