North-East OHIO 2.5GTs ? Sighting, GTGs, etc.

Still have ours. Replaced the left rear strut bushing and eccentric bolt yesterday so I can adjust the rear toe to spec. Sure would be easier if Cleveland wasn't on top of a salt mine! Rust sucks.

 

john

Thanks Merc, found it yesterday. I think you were the one I bought some mufflers from a long time ago. The trans was super low on fluid and it was black, not super grungy, but thicker than it should be. I have a feeling they were putting auto trans fluid in the center differential instead of the transmission. So going to have to change that too I guess.

 

That would be me. Boneyard in Mayfield off Mayfield before they became whatever it is now. Good ole Forced 4's and running Legacy GT days. Came across pic and tried to remember what it was about...

 

 

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k280/merc6/LGT/th_IMG_1031.jpg

 

Almost 180 degrees from that picture during the day...

 

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k280/merc6/LGT/th_IMG_4039.jpg

Edited November 9, 2017 by Merc6

Keeping mine until the rust takes it... Which may be sooner than later. Just installed konis+hr springs yesterday. I've got a list of things to do and it seems to get longer by the day Edited November 10, 2017 by web94

I basically half remember going over to the Boneyard, that looks like my LGT with the polished stock rims I think. I tried joining Neosoc and whoever owns it just never replied to me trying to join.. so I was just like ok then.. so my Legacy now needs some engine work done and I'm trying to decide where to take it.

I just joined neosoc like last week. I was contacted by Erik Kauntz. He said he's the one who handles new members

depending where you are located, I had some luck with Gene at Subaman in Willoughby. He replaced my rear brake lines and front calipers. Decent prices on his services. Only thing is he quoted me a $4k R&R on all the engine seals because I have oil leaking from somewhere and that was his recommended solution. It made me a like wary that he didn't try to troubleshoot first but he does know his stuff. He told me he was getting a hub dyno installed back in the summer and he was in the process of building an 06 LGT wagon for someone

Yeah, Erik is the owner or the dude who started it.

 

I'm not super active on the page anymore (hid notifications) because I was tired of all the "I went WOT in 5th at 30mph, what's overboost" and "Is rotella gud" threads.

 

I mainly check there once in a while to see if there's any Corsa related exhaust questions and that's about it.

Thanks for the info. I actually used to live in Willoughby, I saw Subaman online somewhere, but yah $4k for new seals seems like crazy.. that's like the price to just rebuild the whole engine so idk..

I've always liked this website personally, i know its maybe not used as much but.its easy to find how it's and get help from people. I also have found Legacy owners are a little different, maybe better?, than just the whole general Subaru owner population. Plus I use Facebook but honestly kinda hate it.

So anyways, I live on the west side now and found a place I think I'm going to take it. There used to be a mechanic at Ganley East in Wicklife that was good, but he had like multiple sclerosis or something like that and I don't know if he's still there, but he did transmission work a few times on my car and always did it right.

I could work on the car myself but half of me just doesn't want to anymore unfortunately I'm just not as young and as energetic anymore.

Yeah, Erik is the owner or the dude who started it.

 

I'm not super active on the page anymore (hid notifications) because I was tired of all the "I went WOT in 5th at 30mph, what's overboost" and "Is rotella gud" threads.

 

I mainly check there once in a while to see if there's any Corsa related exhaust questions and that's about it.

 

Do you actually live in Cleveland? What color is your Legacy? Just wondering if I've seen you around at all anywhere...

Keeping mine until the rust takes it... Which may be sooner than later. Just installed konis+hr springs yesterday. I've got a list of things to do and it seems to get longer by the day

Reason I haven't been in a super rush to get mine back running. Most of what I need is done, just need to decide on a machine shop. CAMS in Canton was the supposed go to but they quoted $100-$1000 sight unseen until I put miles on the lease to find out.

 

depending where you are located, I had some luck with Gene at Subaman in Willoughby. He replaced my rear brake lines and front calipers. Decent prices on his services. Only thing is he quoted me a $4k R&R on all the engine seals because I have oil leaking from somewhere and that was his recommended solution. It made me a like wary that he didn't try to troubleshoot first but he does know his stuff. He told me he was getting a hub dyno installed back in the summer and he was in the process of building an 06 LGT wagon for someone

 

That might be the guy I talked to and got my 257 block from. If that was him, he had a gen 4 LGT and went n/a gen 5 legacy at the time. I totally would trust him, should have let him do it in the beginning vs letting my person tear up parts in the process of removing the cam gears w/o the tools. Someone traded in a 05 LGT and they blew up the engine on it shortly after the original owner drove off wit the new car and he was rebuilding it. He had 2 short blocks in stock, sold me one and used the other on that car since this is common for them to do or gen 4's.

 

Yeah, Erik is the owner or the dude who started it.

 

I'm not super active on the page anymore (hid notifications) because I was tired of all the "I went WOT in 5th at 30mph, what's overboost" and "Is rotella gud" threads.

 

I mainly check there once in a while to see if there's any Corsa related exhaust questions and that's about it.

Yeah he seems ok but the stereotypical WRX trend was strong and I haven't really done much on there. Their meet ups were when I am sleep so I never been to one. Soooooo miss the F4 days.

 

I basically half remember going over to the Boneyard, that looks like my LGT with the polished stock rims I think. I tried joining Neosoc and whoever owns it just never replied to me trying to join.. so I was just like ok then.. so my Legacy now needs some engine work done and I'm trying to decide where to take it.

Yeah that was the pic, I think I was trying to compare before or after unloading the cans and the rear Y with the spring boosters installed. Let me know who you go to, as I won't be trusting my cousin to help on rebuild and install. His way would have had me on the road with a simple head cut and master gasket kit on the new short block vs new turbo and anything that touched oil plus misc "while it's apart" common sense items to address. I still need to have the heat shield on my UP redone as it broke at the welds and rattled for the last year of it running.

Do you actually live in Cleveland? What color is your Legacy? Just wondering if I've seen you around at all anywhere...

 

Yup... I live in Cleveland (Kamm's) right near the Fairview Park/Lakewood border. I'm a couple blocks behind/south of the bars on Lorain/237. Plain jane silver 4th gen Legacy GT on stock wheels (horribly dirty) with snow tires now. I have gunmetal grey 6 spoke Advan wheels for summer. Lowered on coils but it's not much lower than a spring/strut combo. The exhaust is what sets my car apart from the rest locally.

 

Yeah he seems ok but the stereotypical WRX trend was strong and I haven't really done much on there. Their meet ups were when I am sleep so I never been to one. Soooooo miss the F4 days.

 

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of stuff on that page. Way too much "What I know is fact" regardless of actual fact and placebo effect sufferers... "omg did this and my car is soooooo much better." For instance, compared to KW, Ohlins, and RCE Tarmac, BC coils are junk but they're 24HoL LMP1 worthy to some people on there. I also *HATE* fake/rep wheels and so many people with "show" cars on that page run them.

 

So I stick to myself because I was told to not say anything at all if it's not something nice.

I do most of my own maintenance, but my wife regularly receives ad mailings from Subaman. Good to hear he is reliable, but I find his prices high. Often the ad wants more than a Subaru dealer for the same service. I've called him to share this with him.

 

Last year when I needed a clutch replaced and called for a price, the fellow answering the phone (not Subaman) asked me if I had an automatic!

 

I had it done by Mentor at West Side Imports for $1200.00 I believe.

Time to get the snow tires on this afternoon.

 

John

I do most of my own maintenance, but my wife regularly receives ad mailings from Subaman. Good to hear he is reliable, but I find his prices high. Often the ad wants more than a Subaru dealer for the same service. I've called him to share this with him.

 

Yeah I do what maintenance I can and am pretty sure I need a new alternator and/or ac idler pulley. may try my hand at it but with the cold weather approaching and my Toyota hogging the garage it's looking less likely each day. Either way I'm kinda wary of that shop now after he quoted such an outrageous amount. I had given him some consistent business and thought he'd take care of me in return but now I just feel like I was another person to be had.

 

Also need to find some place to get an allignment now that im lowered. Probably end up taking it back to Subaru of wickliffe..

That might be the guy I talked to and got my 257 block from. If that was him, he had a gen 4 LGT and went n/a gen 5 legacy at the time. I totally would trust him, should have let him do it in the beginning vs letting my person tear up parts in the process of removing the cam gears w/o the tools. Someone traded in a 05 LGT and they blew up the engine on it shortly after the original owner drove off wit the new car and he was rebuilding it. He had 2 short blocks in stock, sold me one and used the other on that car since this is common for them to do or gen 4's.

 

Yeah he seems ok but the stereotypical WRX trend was strong and I haven't really done much on there. Their meet ups were when I am sleep so I never been to one. Soooooo miss the F4 days.

 

Yeah that was the pic, I think I was trying to compare before or after unloading the cans and the rear Y with the spring boosters installed. Let me know who you go to, as I won't be trusting my cousin to help on rebuild and install. His way would have had me on the road with a simple head cut and master gasket kit on the new short block vs new turbo and anything that touched oil plus misc "while it's apart" common sense items to address. I still need to have the heat shield on my UP redone as it broke at the welds and rattled for the last year of it running.

 

Hmm I don't remember that much but it was just earlier this year around April. He has two bajas along with the wagon. he said the guy spent $15k on the engine build. Not sure where that falls in the price range of engine builds but Gene said he'd get about 400hp outta it. I was under the impression the 5eat couldn't handle that much?

 

Just wrap that up pipe haha. I bought a wrx uppipe recently and cut the heat shields off and wrapped in with the dei stuff. Slowly collecting parts for the spring. hoping to replace the leaky exhaust and finally get a tune

Just a random question and checking to see if anyone has a stock turbo they don't want, have an extra, bought a better one? Have any of your ever rebuilt a turbo? I have no idea if the turbo on mine is actually working right.. I fixed a bad oil leak from the oil pump but I have these dumb cam timing over advance codes.. So Ive been working on that..

Most of the time the car runs perfectly fine.. The only thing ive noticed is it seems to be wonky doing 3rd gear pulls.. sometimes has power, sometimes not, and the turbo just seems to me like its boosting too much. The car seems faster to me than it should for a stock car. I'm going to see about getting a reflash from Subaru to make sure it has a stock tune.

What codes are you getting? P0011? If so, I would stop driving it until you can replace the OCV valve/solenoid on the passenger's side otherwise you're going to starve the turbo of oil and it will grenade. P0021 is the driver's side which is substantially easier to replace.

 

Check and make sure your oil level is where it should be first. The car getting low on oil can cause the AVCS (intake cam timing) system to act funky... surging, power loss, poor idle, etc.

 

The parts are like $120/ea at the dealer but mine price matched to one I found online for like $83.

↑↑↑↑↑

I hardily second that suggestion.

Spending $100 and religiously checking the oil may help you avoid a $4-6k+ rebuild.

 

My friend and I just finished rebuilding the motor from his '08 because the P0011 code (presumably caused by low oil) went unaddressed for a short amount of time... and the turbo destroyed itself and everything else inside the motor.

 

That doesn't happen to everyone, but the over-advanced timing codes are definitely worthy of respect.

Mine was the opposite, somehow. Driver's solenoid went bad and the passenger would be +19 degrees whereas the driver's was stuck at 0.

 

Either way, an oil change and a new solenoid and I was back on the road.

 

Also, check to make sure the banjo bolt on the rear passenger head has the screen/filter removed. Subaru put a TSB out for it.

I swapped both the OCV's and still grenaded the 40. Sold the 40 to berkshire(SP) and got a 46 from a totalled Shrek B locally to later contaminate it. The 46 went as collateral with the locally sourced 52 to JmP. I still have those "like new" OCV's around and purchased another set of new ones for the build. I'm not sure how safe they are in the #YNANSB realm but they have/had like 5000 miles or so on them.

 

I guess in short, spare turbo's are gone and are you still banjo filtered?

 

 

*Not so ninja edit and I'd break the internet if I tried to retro multiquote*

 

Passenger OCV was a Beeeyoch, I ended up removing the turbo coolant tank bolt, bending a bracket and rotating it to get it to fit. I wasn't sure what the original OCVs were even reading, I didn't track down the traveling NEOH tactrix cable for logging until after the SB was cinnamon toast crunch. Ganley of Wickliffe said "everything was fine" like a week before.

 

As for oil level yeah doesn't take much time to be normal to 2 quarts missing. 3 years and 2 tunes prior I was 2 quarts low when I went for a road tune in Maryland. I literally drove an hour to get there from Northern Va. Speaking of tunes What?, is yours still a stock tune to your knowledge? My car was purchased already stage 2 ish with a horrible TDC Vendor stage 3 tune.

Edited November 29, 2017 by Merc6

Thanks for the info everyone.. Merc its good to know you had so much trouble with the passenger side OCV, I had the same problem.. I was thinking someone shaved the block or head on that side, but good to know thats not the case. I ended up just grinding down the stupid mount for the turbo coolant tank and was able to slide it in.

 

I am not sure about the tune. I wanted to pay Subaru to reflash the ECU and the service guy just kinda didn't really tell me that they could or couldn't do that. He seemed to just avoid that question for some reason..

 

Ive replaced both OCV's, checked all the banjo bolts accept the one behind the driv. side cam gear and all the filters have been taken out already. I honestly think my turbo is f'd up, or has different internals and I think is leaking coolant internally and/or externally. Next week my car is just going to go to Subaru and I am going to have them see if they can find anything particularly wrong. They can atleast pressurize the coolant system and stuff and see if there is a leak somewhere as well.

 

This is my second LGT so I know all about keeping the oil right, and full, and changing it when youre supposed to. My first LGT I always used Mobil1, and changed it ever 3-4k miles (usually adding atleast 1/2 quart in between because the car drank oil for breakfast, lunch, and dinner) I had 165,000 miles on my first one and never had a single problem with the engine. My old LGT ran 13.2 1/4 miles at 30,000 miles and was still running 13.2 1/4 miles at 160,000 miles.. stock turbo the whole time. Unfortunately my first one went through two 5 speed manual transmissions and 1 front diff.. that transmission sucked.

Edited November 29, 2017 by what?

The only TSB I've seen about the turbo filter said to replace it if there was a turbo failure. When did they release a TSB saying to remove the filter?

 

The tolerances in a turbo are so tight, I don't believe you'll find a way to rebuild one. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Interesting oil treatise. Long, but it got me to change to Quaker State synthetic.

 

Picked up a length of brake line today. NiCopp. Shouldn't rust again. Be nice to have the wagon back on the road tomorrow.

 

john

oops - Oil treatise

 

https://540ratblog.wordpress.com/

LOL My turbo didn't last on Mobil 1 and my rebuilder says do not use Mobil 1. If the turbo is shot, this is the best way to find out before it takes the engine with it. Rebuilding the engine sounds like a simple process until you take a 10K a year pay cut, have nobody around to help, and toss in a few kids along the way.

 

As for Subaru retunes, I'm not sure what the price is of that today. Back in my Cherry Hill NJ and Springfield VA days it ran $1100 each but I also had a whole bricked ECU situation from AP V1 foolishness leading me to open source options. I doubt they went back and fixed the issues of the burnt valves. If you can find TSI and ask him where the floating cord is you may be able to just go through Cryo or TA remotely. My intent was TA remote break in tune and eventually limp it to turn in concepts if the funds were still there.

If you can find TSI and ask him where the floating cord is ....

 

I have no idea, unfortunately.

 

It was lost to someone out in the community shortly after the LERSOC days.

...

I am not sure about the tune. I wanted to pay Subaru to reflash the ECU and the service guy just kinda didn't really tell me that they could or couldn't do that. He seemed to just avoid that question for some reason..

It would be a bit of long drive just for a reflash, but if you're down in the Cincinnati area you can use my Tactrix cable.

Your stock ROM is probably on romraider.com and flashing it to the car is a breeze.