I put on 140 glorious, trouble free miles today until my very last hoorah around my neighborhood. I got hung up after pushing hard though some deep snow and apparently revved it a bit too much trying to rock it off the snow pile. I let it idle to cool off after some revs and there was a slight ticking (not loud at all, I thought it was a valve tick or exhaust leak). A minute later the engine just stopped and the starter was unable to crank the engine over for 30 minutes or so. When it finally did it turned over slowly, started rough and has a pretty good rod knock. To make matters even worse, I am less than 2 miles from home, but the tow trucks refuse to go there until it's plowed, but I'm blocking the street so the plow can't come through. I just got done walking those 2 miles home and am thoroughly cold and unhappy. For those that have dealt with similar situations, what is the best course of action (keeping in mind I am not quite done with school yet and insanely poor for a while). Rebuild this engine? Get a used long block? Part the car out and buy something else? (it's an 02 wagon with 129K miles, salvage title 05 tranny and a few performance goodies on it. I'm pretty sure the engine was newer. Also, before somebody says it, I was not running Mobil 1 with 10K miles on it. It had 300 miles on Shell Rotella T6 and a Wix filter.
it might not be cheap as such, but would be a more reliable & durable route. if he has no other car I would buy a beater then slowly buy parts for the rebuild.
WRX That's more money than I have to spend and I think more than what I would ever want to put in to the car. I have dealt with built/performance engines before. I bought the Subaru, because I wanted to be done with the high maintenance and poor reliability of built stuff. I think if I go rebuild I will go stock, but the prices I have been seeing for even just parts seem high enough to put things in "part it out" category. By "new" do you mean used stock setups? That seems doable price wise, but the possibility of buying someone else's problem scares me a bit. Swapping the engine isn't too daunting a prospect.
Please, fill us in as to where you shop for new long blocks. The last shortblock I bought was 1550.00 at the dealership for just the shortblock/pistons/rods/crank assembled. Where can I get an entire LONGBLOCK for less than that?
You might want to just rebuild what you have. The cost isn't bad really for just fresh parts. I mean if you're going to spend $1k to $1.5k just on parts anyways, that opens up the idea to a full rebuild including some upgraded parts. It's kind of weird to spin a bearing on a car with that many miles. I mean all the clearances have already loosened up, and normal operation isn't enough to deform parts enough to cause problems. The only problem you really get into is oiling, and the lack of said oiling. That's just up to making sure you have enough in the motor and which type you are using for climate.
Any idea of the realistic (IE: incorporating surprise expenses) cost of a rebuild? I only ran it for 2-3 seconds after restarting it so I'm hoping the secondary damage was minimal. Much above $1K and parting it out starts to seem reasonable and anything over $2K would almost certainly have me going that route. If I can do a reliable stock rebuild for cheap I would do it though. I can do most of the work myself, but obviously need a machine shop at least for checking tolerances and may want some help with assembly to be sure I don't screw anything up. Any chance I could get by with just a crank (new or polished), oil pump and cooler, bearings and a good cleaning? It would at least be a good time to put in a less aggressive clutch and do a TGV delete. I think the motor is lower mileage. Compression was 160 across. My guess is that it spun due to me revving it too hard. I spent several minutes (with a couple little breaks) at 5-7K trying to get out of the snow. With no air flow my guess is the oil just got too hot/thin and couldn't lubricate adequately. Kind of BS, but I was being pretty hard on it. After so much success in the snow yesterday I think I got it in my head that my car was invincible.
It's a little too rich for my budget. Thanks though. Will a 2009 motor even swap without a lot of work?
You have almost narrowed it down to your last option....with you eliminating the rebuild ( Forged/race bearing)option & stock rebuild. So you probably just have to sell the car and find yourself a NA car....I don't think choosing a Turbo charged car was a wise decision you made by saying you wanted to be done with high maintenance and poor reliability-( keeping in my mind even stage 2 on stock internals is not a guarantee for reliabilty)
i picked up a 05 wrx long block 2 years ago when i blew mine up off ebay for 1300 shipped. had 80k on it. i did a quick search and as of right now there is nothing there in that ball park i was just going by my past exsperiance
Well, I think I will be picking up a used engine and putting it in. I think it's the wise choice since I'd rather not have to let the car go. I have another theory about the bearing though. A few days before I had a fuel pump issue where under hard acceleration the fuel pump was cutting out. Eventually it died completely, but kept clicking while the car was off. I'm wondering if it may have gone lean under acceleration and caused some serious knock, starting the process of killing a bearing.
You said a "new long block for a little over 1k." A used motor with 80k on it is not a "new longblock" A "new" long block will likely run you around 4,000+. Though I don't think they sell them that way.
Probably just the beatings that caused it's demise, Mine went down right in the middle of a whipping as well.
I'd go the new shortblock route and get the heads freshened up. You'll have a new motor and not have to worry about the condition of whatever used motor you buy. That's what I did when I spun a bearing.
