Hoping for the best (i.e. cylinders are still usable)! FWIW, I've seen bone stock Subaru's knock. I've also seen bone stock Subaru's with higher than the recommended octane knock under different conditions (tip in, regular driving after cold start, warm wot pulls). That's an issue that Subaru needs to own up to. The ecu's knock correction strategy is basically "oh, hey, there's (what I think is) knock... let me pull the timing some and remember that knock event... Oh hey, there's some more, let me pull even more... ok, no more knock, let me add more in... Well, what do you know, there's some more but this time it was huge and at redline.... I'll pull a lot of timing now.... waitwut? Too late you say?" So I buy the argument that bad gas, rapidly changing atmospheric pressure or air density, a tune (stock or otherwise) that's parameters are on the edge of safety given the mechanical and environmental settings the car is in, and any combination of those things can cause these failures. That said, I've also seen ones with clean tunes and no signs of detonation with pistons that popped. That one's a harder to argue if there's no rt logging or CEL at the time of damage. So I guess what I'm saying is, these internet lurking "experts" are talking out of their asses and these tuners/builders are protecting their work/reputation. I don't blame them as there are a lot of misinformed or just straight ignorant customers out there. A legit shop/business will want to do the build AND tune so that they can stand behind their work. It's just not always possible to discern what the cause of failure is each and every time. Medic, if there are specific posts you want deleted, report them to a mod or pm one of us with the post #'s or links to them. We might end up splitting them off into a separate thread to keep the conversation going for archival purposes, but I understand if you want this thread to be more focused on your situation.
I'm glad I didn't continue to drive it once I figured there was an issue. Maybe this saved me a bit of $$.
Yeah saw that when I gave Matt the dp, that is what convinced me to do a compression test. That "reminder" should be given to new subaru owners.... oh wait it was.
Wow, love this topic . I like those Crawford quotes, but notice some major glaring errors that make me question the knowledge of that author. This is true, but even more dramatic. I'd be willing to bet that almost all ringland failures are due to a poor tune combined with a high stress environment (be it bad gas, high load/RPM, etc). The Subaru knock control strategy is quite good, but hampered both from the factory ("lets disable knock correction past 5500 RPM"), and by many tuners (even professionals) who don't know what they are doing.
I was hoping you'd see this sooner or later. Thanks for chiming in. Tune AP by chance or just open source?
ordered a process west tmic, showed up today.... Looks pretty nice. My ewg shipped to day as well along with my grimmspeed up-pipe. How are those grimmspeed wastegate holders?
Well... they keep selling because no one else seems to be able to come close on quality for a TMIC. There must be something to it.
True but if you know how to weld you can get a ebay core and weld the mounts where they should have been put in the 1st place and bam done lol. imo there is no difference in quality of core from ebay to proccess west the fitment is where they make their money.
el oh el. 3 out of 5 ebay tmic cores I've either owned or worked on had pinhole leaks at the welds to the endtanks. Also, fin density and materials are clearly different from unit to unit and I've yet to see one that's comparable to the pw. That said, most of their cost is wrapped up in R&D, manufacturing costs, and shipping so the consumer does end up taking the hit. Is it worth it? To some. Is it a quality piece? Absolutely. Oh and IBShouldhavelistenedandboughtafmic... I give it 5 months and 17 days
Not that it would make it "better" than a front mount...but would thermal coating or insulating a top mount have any benefits at all?
Yes, but not for long and not in some conditions... you remember all the gdamn gold foil, fiberglass wrap, silver wrap blanket crap, heatshields, seam gasketing, etc... that was all over my car? Yeah, a properly sized fmic core did much more than all that **** combined. As in 15 degrees above ambient to ambient IATs on a normal day. On a hot day or a warm day with any more than 5seconds in below 30mph conditions? IATs were 30-50 degrees above ambient.
I do! The problem is, i'm not going to go fmic cuz i'll never really be a hp whore, lol. So, in your opinion...iz better to coat the topmount...or just say meh and leave it? If coating it helps even a little bit, i would like to do it before installing the new top mount. Even 5 degrees seems like it may be worth it, but i dunno. And what is the best way to go about cleaning out a used top mount? And Nuke, i need to grow bawlz...bawlz! I have substantial piping already.
I'm only answering this because I love derailing threads. Not because you're my homie. I think wrapping and heatshielding your major sources of heat is a better strategy (uppipe, turbo, between the block and coolant crossover pipe, etc...). Easiest way to clean it is with gasoline.
So i should wrap the block!? Will do! ...."I should've listened"...when we had the block out of the car. Well you know that i thermal coated the intake mani and the turbo already, i dunno if i want to wrap anything tho. And you are the queen of derailing threads! Also, Carbones tonight?lol I have a ton of NOS in the fridge!!
I hope not to be fmic any time soon. The reason I went with the tmic is that I really dont want to loose the fog lights or my bumper support. I know there are fmic out there that allow me to keep them but they are more than I wanted to fork out. I too am not (at this time) looking for large hp #'s. It is still a stock block. I had a fmic on my other car and all that did was make ever A hole want to race.
Thanks for the tip Ben! Do you think that would hold up in a court of law? "Just trying to keep mah temps down your honor."
Some new parts showed up today, also did a comparision of the old 38mm tial vs new 38mm tial. Ceramic coating was left off by accident from IIR. Gonna get GS to take care of that for me on Tuesday.
So the car was sounding just the way I had hoped it would and Ron was doing a very light pull, 12psi and not even over stock hp and then (my luck)....................... I respectfully request that you do not bash RS motors in here, I was standing right there and nothing was done that should'nt have been. Matt has been more than helpful and both Matt and Ron felt bad (probably because my car has to sit there even longer!! KIDDING). I hope whoever had this car before me enjoyed every moment of it..... Anyone have an sti transmission sitting around they want to let go of? ..
Damn, if it wasn't for bad luck you wouldn't have any at all. Instead of the STI trans, take a look at an Andrewtech transmission. Jason (Readymix) ran one and they're pretty much bombproof but you get the longer gears of the 5 speed vs the 6 speed.
DAMN. 3rd gear? At least it sounds like you're taking it in stride. You'll definitely have a complete build by the end of this! Good luck with (hopefully) the last stretch of all this.
Here are some more pics. I am leaning towards some ppg gears but I can only find one place that sells them.
