my subie has been out of commission for awhile and i wanted to get some thoughts on what to do.

a few months ago, i had a bunch of parts installed on my subie: catback, uppipe, pnped turbo and manifolds, and tgv deletes. i drove the car around for a bit before my tuning appt and everything was cool for awhile. but then things started to go south. i started to see a good amount of smoke come out the tailpipe during a cold start and there was a ticking sound coming from the engine. the ticking would match the timing of the engine pulses.

i took it back to my mechanic who did the install (regrettably not any of the vendors here. lesson learned.) he's a guy i've known for awhile but not a tuner. he said the car was losing oil somewhere and thought it was the turbo. so he sent it out to get checked. it came back but the oil problem is still there.

now he's suggested a rebuilt engine or for him to tear down the engine and start rebuilding which is going to be expensive. i know i gave a vague description of the problem, but is rebuilding the engine the next best step? it seems like there should be other things that can be checked before having to do this.

any ideas?

 

Take it to one of our vendors for a second option. none of them will do you wrong
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I would personally start with a leakdown and compression test on the motor and go from there.

Mike

 

^^what he said!
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Ship Sale

 

i knew i forgot to mention something. my mechanic ran a compression test and he said that the compression was ok. he didn't say anything about a leakdown test.