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Piston Slap


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So I was listening to Car Talk today and a guy called in about his Accord. They told him the noises he was hearing was piston slap, a subject I dont really know anything about, and they said that this is common among Subarus and not really anything to worry about. However, they told him that Honda owes him a new engine because of the piston slap. Im just curious about the slapping of pistons I guess is what Im getting at here.

 

Am I correct in presuming that Subarus are prone to this because of the horizontal engines?

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It's most common in 2000-2004 2.5 SOHC Subaru engines...not so common (but still occurs) in other Subaru engines...

 

Actually it's more common in the 2.5 from 97-99. I have a 97 SUS and that baby sounds like a diesel until the metal warms and expands. Many 2000-2002 also have had this problem but not nearly as bad as the older 2.5.

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piston salp is when the piston is smaller then the cylinder and esentialy moves sideways or twists in the cylinder. slaping the piston skirt on the cylinder wall wall

 

Usually cars with loud piston slap actually have no piston skirt. The bottom of the piston is cut flat to reduce friction. This aggrivates the movement (slap) of the piston inside the bore at the top of the stroke.

 

I worked on Honda's for 9 years, they have crazy piston slap cold! My Toyota with a 22RE did also.

 

linky;

 

http://resnet.uoregon.edu/~dwhite/pages/subnoises.html

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Ya, if you think your Subie makes a lot of noise; just jump in an old Jeep and all of a sudden your car doesn't sound so bad. My old motor had the slap; I put in a new crate motor about 30,000 ago after the oil slinger(50 cent keyed washer on crankshaft) spun and sent metal through the rest of the motor.
Let's kick this pig!
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  • 1 year later...
there is actually a fix for the subaru piston slap on several engines, if your in warranty and you have a piston slap and not a tensioner knock, a local dealer w/ a good tech should be able to put updated pistons in the bank that has the slap. it can be verified w/ a stethoscope, if you are going to attempt it yourself, you will need to pull the engine, pull the affected head, get the right pistons, etc, it is a pretty extensive job.
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  • 1 month later...
there is actually a fix for the subaru piston slap on several engines, if your in warranty and you have a piston slap and not a tensioner knock, a local dealer w/ a good tech should be able to put updated pistons in the bank that has the slap. it can be verified w/ a stethoscope, if you are going to attempt it yourself, you will need to pull the engine, pull the affected head, get the right pistons, etc, it is a pretty extensive job.

 

what is tensioner knock?

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