Help diagnosing Subaru

[ispoonwithmugen]

Yea.... that doesn't sound like a head gasket. If it was burning enough coolant to run like hell you would have seen a white cloud coming out the tailpipe everywhere you went.

When the HG on my Camry was leaking, it would run like hell for 10 seconds after I drove it for a bit, shut it down, let it sit and then restarted it (because a large amount of coolant was entering the cylinder as the car sat). Once it burned it off and cleared out it ran fine. And that car was consuming 1 gallon every 100 miles or so.

Yeah I didn't believe that it was but given two shop diagnosis I was pushed to believe it. It sucks because I have no idea what it is or isn't doing since we had it for such a short time. If this was your car where would you start? Should o start putting the motor back together?