Project: AWD TURBO Family Hauler (04 Forester 2.5XT)

[HAULN-SS]

For some reason I forget how rice you are, ha

[BLINGMW]

TSX wagon is ugly, heavy, underpowered, boring, and ugly.

8.2 sec 0-60! Whoho that might even give the Element some tough competition

Need to do a compression check, but the fact that it had the symptoms with the TDO4, went away for 3 months while running the VF39, and is now back, makes me think it is a crankcase pressure issue forcing oil past the seals.

I haven't followed this whole thread and don't know what a TD04 or VF39 is, but it seems like checking compression and crankcase pressure is easy-peasy... ya know, before you give up and go setting it on fire. That's like declaring "all is lost" because the car won't start, before checking to see if it has fuel in it.

[Sully]

I would be worried about tsx being way under powered. Part of the allure of a wagon for me is also the fact that it could be kinda like a sleeper. I just want to show up at my dad's family for Christmas where there are two new camaros and a new mustang and blow them away with my station wagon lol

[Goodspeed]

Minus the Red Honda badge....

Thwapping. Do this now.

[Mike]

every modified tsx you've posted is uglier than stock. you sir, have bad taste.

[WRXtranceformed]

I am about to start pulling man cards up in here

[Mike]

for what? the only halfway decent one is the one with the honda badge. putting a honda badge on acura was cool when you were 18 and had no taste. as an adult it's just atrocious.

and blacking out grills and chrome on a slow station wagon? i don't even want to start...

[JustinG]

Do you read? Said minus the honderp badge, and never mentioned blacking anything out.

[Jake]

and blacking out grills and chrome on a slow station wagon? i don't even want to start...

Sorry I happen to hate the look of chrome and a giant beak on an otherwise good looking car.

I'll go take my food stamps and my iPhone and go back to my Chromeville Express project thread.

[ScottyB]

Justin i'm thinking you might have a cracked ringland. wouldn't surprise me at all, even with a super conservative tune.

sorry to see it going like this but that's the unfortunate reality with a lot of high mileage subaru turbo cars....wish the dice threw down differently for ya. the good news, is that when you do sell it you'll find a buyer quickly. they're still rare cars with a very devoted fan base, smokey engine or not.

[SlimKlim]

Options for replacements....I like the Mk6 TDI Sportwagens, but HPFP failure = $8k repair, so fuck that. Looking hard at TSX wagons, because it is an Accord wagon with shiny Acura parts, but I have not driven one yet.

Had to google that, I can't believe it's such a catastrophically expensive repair. The FSI gasser that also had the HPFP issue wasn't nearly that expensive to fix as far as I know.

For a brief, glorious moment VW would sell you an MKV Sportwagen with a 2.0T TSI (far fewer known issues with the TSI, you can count 'em on one hand!), so with some mods you can easily build yourself a longroof GTI. But unfortunately they're freaking unicorns.

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.ph...9-2-0T-6mt



I'd rock one so hard though.

[.RJ]

For a brief, glorious moment VW would sell you an MKV Sportwagen with a 2.0T TSI (far fewer known issues with the TSI, you can count 'em on one hand!)

I had no idea this existed. This could be the A4 replacement when it burns to the ground.

[SlimKlim]

Good luck. That's the only one I've seen for sale and the bastard didn't even sell it. I think there were something like 4000ish made, with half of them being stickshifts. All 2009s.

[JustinG]

Justin i'm thinking you might have a cracked ringland. wouldn't surprise me at all, even with a super conservative tune.

sorry to see it going like this but that's the unfortunate reality with a lot of high mileage subaru turbo cars....wish the dice threw down differently for ya. the good news, is that when you do sell it you'll find a buyer quickly. they're still rare cars with a very devoted fan base, smokey engine or not.

If a cracked ringland is the case, I will probably just rebuild the motor or buy a short block, or it may have an electrical issue near a fuel line.

[ScottyB]

if you buy a shortblock you're looking at the same risk all over again. upgrade pistons or keep it stock with a super conservative tune.

everything with the turbo engines revolves around keeping them oiled and keeping the detonation as minimal as possible to protect the piston ringlands.

[Evan]

for what? the only halfway decent one is the one with the honda badge. putting a honda badge on acura was cool when you were 18 and had no taste. as an adult it's just atrocious.

I think he meant that wagons in general are not bro-approved.

[JustinG]

So, new PCV is in hand, turbo is shipping out today. Unfortunately, they didn't have any normal journal bearing center housings (OEM), so I have a single Ball Bearing center housing otw.

My PCV system looked pretty clogged, so I am gonna be cleaning that out. After talking with a few other Subaru guys they seem to agree it is likely too much crankcase pressure. I am gonna put all of this back together and see what happens.

Still gonna do a compression test, but need the engine to be warm, and can't do that without a turbo on.

[JustinG]

Hey guess what.....I still don't have a turbo.....

Edit:

Once the turbo is in I will do the compression check. If it comes back as bad, I am too deep into this car to do anything other than rebuild it, without completely losing my ass. Plus nothing out there is really peaking my interest, this to me is the perfect balance of utility and performance. So I have a few options laid out.....being the type of website this is, I think I know your answer already though.


Option 1:
Buy OEM shortblock, I reassemble motor, put back to stock as far as performance goes. Sell off power mods to help with cost of new short block.

Option 2:
Rebuild existing motor but with Forged pistons. This runs the risk of me royally fucking up a motor rebuild and wasting money. But it may be about the same price once it is all said and done. I can reuse the existing rods, my main cost is tied up in pistons, bearing and wrist pins. I may look into how much I can get a shop to rebuild the bottom end for me, but this will obviously increase the price exponentially.

Option 3:
Buy a pre-built forged internals short block and reassemble.

The car has been down for over a month, mostly due to time constraints, travel, and now waiting on my turbo to come back (3 weeks). Luckily I have nice in-laws who have let us borrow one of their cars during it's downtime, but we don't want to push their generosity. So time is kinda of the essence, and I have none, so maybe having a shop rebuild the motor is the path I need to take. I dunno, spitballing a lot here. Really hoping the pcv will solve all of this, but I am not getting my hopes up considering everything involved with this car has gone down an unhappy path.

[Goodspeed]

Hey guess what.....I still don't have a turbo.....

Sounds like you need to go over there and make them drink some 40 wt

[WRXtranceformed]

Do you plan to keep that car forever instead of selling it for something else? If not I would put as little into it as you can if you are going to hold onto it. No sense in dumping money into forged internals etc. if you trade up in a year or two. Learn from my past Subaru financial mistakes young padawan, Travis got a heck of a deal on that STI.