Not a good day for Subaru

Soooo.... Perrin inlets kinda suck.

Their 3 inch inlet has poor fitment. Combine that with a poorly placed FP Green (not sure why it sits so far over...) and it's a recipe for disaster.
As luck would have it, last week I was in the throttle pretty hard (go figure) pushing my typical daily driven 28psi when the turbo inlet came off the turbo. Now for those of you that know how the ecu measures load you can see how this would immediately do bad things.

For those that don't, it goes like this. The MAF sensor measures airflow past it. Load is determined by the voltage of the sensor. Fuel and spark are then applied based on the amount of air and RPM of the engine. When the inlet slipped off the car began to ingest air from outside the normal intake tract. This meant unmetered air entered the engine. It also meant that less air passed through the MAF sensor. Upon the drop in sensor voltage, the ecu, seeing less air, pulls some fuel and adds timing.

As you can imagine, less fuel and more timing at 28psi isn't a good thing. According to the log, the car pulled upwards of 22 degrees of timing based on knock correction alone.

So for the last week I have been trying to troubleshoot my engine. It's been running kinda funny. I figured a large part of it was the inlet coming off. Fixed that... hardly helped. So since the car was still pulling lots of timing under light acceleration, I thought maybe it was lean and wasn't getting enough fuel. So I changed the fuel pump in case it was going bad. I was after all running the factory pump all this time. Nope, still drove crappy (but it did help).

Car never logs misfires and it idles great. Top end is awesome still, but mid range is lacking. In fact it surges randomly.

So I figured I'd check plugs. Pulled all the plugs and they looked good.
While they were out, I performed a compression test.
BINGO
cyl 1- 122psi
cyl 2- 122psi
cyl 3- 110psi
cyl4- 70psi

f**k.

So I came home, charged the battery on the RS. This turned out to be quite the show because I went in the house for a bit. I heard this series of pops so I looked outside to see a steam plume coming from under the hood. The battery shorted a cell and was getting overcharged by my battery charger. After turning down the charge rate, I fired up the RS and took it around the block. Mid third gear drift through a large and not very empty intersection I experienced a sudden loss in power. That loss sustained all the way home. Popped the hood and there is oil and coolant everywhere.... engine is running on 2 or 3 cylinders. Probably a blown headgasket as I didn't hear any knock and it's running 100% meth injection. It was after all an open deck 2.5L running 24psi and those factory headgaskets don't like that shit one bit. The turbo, however, is VERY well lubricated

f**k.

sooo... I need some pistons and a battery.

_________________
www.getadomtune.com

"you're the only guy I know who's 2.5RS is faster than his STi" -Wayne

Just because I drive a Subaru doesn't mean I drive like an asshole... it's just a coincidence.

5 Subarus over 300hp... even running on 3 cylinders

still buttoning up the pistons but generally they take about 8 weeks for delivery unless you want to pay extra to rush...is the RS combustion chamber the same as the STi?

so which one is getting THE engine then?
and which one will get THE engine #2 Wink

Dude, I don't even know.

I think I'm going to take these TWE pistons and mill the tops down .015" so I can use factory headgaskets. Then that'll bump up my compression to around 9:1. Then it's a toss up. I can use them on either engine. Should I put the 2.35L in the STi with some 264 cams and break it in on the FP Green? Seems like it'd be a hell of a car with that Green. Then later upgrade to a ________________ .

Or should I just put the TWE pistons in the STi with factory rods and everything and continue building the high rpm engine for the RS.

f**k I'M SO TORN!!!

_________________
www.getadomtune.com

"you're the only guy I know who's 2.5RS is faster than his STi" -Wayne

Just because I drive a Subaru doesn't mean I drive like an asshole... it's just a coincidence.

5 Subarus over 300hp... even running on 3 cylinders

why do you need to mill .015" off the pistons?
is the 07 headgasket that much thinner?

also take the headgasket, send it to cometic and have them make you some. Give them a ring, they may already the gasket on file now too....every gasket they make is custom. They don't have any parts on the shelf, just to let you know Wink

Also the higher cr would help a tiddy bit on spool up but not much...I vote 2.35, non-milled pistons but with an appropriate gasket.

to put it plainly,
I don't trust Cometic. f**k Cometic

To expand on that, I trust Cometic even less with ARP headstuds.
I read somewhere that they want you to do all the initial torque shit with the factory gaskets, then back off the bolts and put the cometics in there and torque to 65 or some bullshit. f**k that. I've seen too many cometic gasket failures and I believe it is solely due to their retarded f**k*** torque procedure.

It sucks to mill the pistons down because they were just ceramic coated, but oh well. Gotta do what I gotta do.

Going to build another one for the RS anyway. I'll make it more beefy. Maybe go with a custom piston with the wrist pin higher up and longer rods, bigger bore, 79mm stroke, sleeved closed deck shizzle, or possibly our top secret stroke crank we have been talking about. f**k it.

_________________
www.getadomtune.com

"you're the only guy I know who's 2.5RS is faster than his STi" -Wayne

Just because I drive a Subaru doesn't mean I drive like an asshole... it's just a coincidence.

5 Subarus over 300hp... even running on 3 cylinders

yes, cometic and ARP are retarded in there torque sequences...you should talk with some of the big builders...use them both but tq like the subaru manual says...its what ron and jeremy both do...I've never heard of issues with axis or cobb engines, related to this Wink

I might also have that custom crank done sooner than you think...already have the crank and just found a mint sti shortblock that I can pick up fairly cheap...then I'll just need to order my "top secret" bearings, rods and pistons...
I should actually be getting some new sti heads here too...so complete prototype number two may start before the first is completely buttoned up Laughing

did I tell you about my new flat 6 idea Twisted Evil

you didn't
But I'm putting a H6 in the wife's RS.
Might go with one in my RS too. I haven't decided.

_________________
www.getadomtune.com

"you're the only guy I know who's 2.5RS is faster than his STi" -Wayne

Just because I drive a Subaru doesn't mean I drive like an asshole... it's just a coincidence.

5 Subarus over 300hp... even running on 3 cylinders

well, it includes one of these:
http://www.whipplesuperchargers.com/product.asp?ProdID=1162

anyhow, back to fixing your blown up cars

alright, here it is.

Milled the tops .016".

Sleeved 2.35L with modified Wiseco pistons (TWE dish), Carillo LONG Rods, 12mm Pump, modded oil passages in block/crank/pump, Kelford 272's, Springs, valves, retainers

_________________
www.getadomtune.com

"you're the only guy I know who's 2.5RS is faster than his STi" -Wayne

Just because I drive a Subaru doesn't mean I drive like an asshole... it's just a coincidence.

5 Subarus over 300hp... even running on 3 cylinders

carillo long rods, like cobb "long rods" or +2's?

carillo long rods, like cobb "long rods" or +2's?
actually PM me the specs and the weights too if you have them...please Very Happy

lol cobb long rods.... LOL right if +0.7 is long. Shorter than the f**k*** n/a rod. ASsholes.

just +2s. Nothing crazy. Don't have the weights. I'll get them though. going to have the shop machine a little cut for oil squirtage.

I like Crower rods, though, btw. They have that groove in there and they're beefy. Customer support was fast as shit too with crower.

_________________
www.getadomtune.com

"you're the only guy I know who's 2.5RS is faster than his STi" -Wayne

Just because I drive a Subaru doesn't mean I drive like an asshole... it's just a coincidence.

5 Subarus over 300hp... even running on 3 cylinders

yeah, I'm already set up with pauter but am saving to do a buy in with carrillo and crower (already with BC...so I might just go that route)...oliver's were nice but expensive (like carrillo).