My turn for cooling fun

[crust productions.com]

Well my "new to me" 94 NA 2.2L 4EAT Legacy wagon needed a new water pump as it was leaking when I got it home.
Swapped it out for a standard parts store pump and parts store thermostat.
Everything went together and apart like clock work.
Flushed the radiator while I had it out.
Filled it up with coolant and burped it .
Has been running great for the last 200 miles and 2 weeks.
I dont drive it often or far.
Although I have noticed that the dual cooling fans kick in as soon as its op temp on the gauge and stays on until I shut the car off. Basically , there always on. Puzzled me a bit.
Good heat in the car , great performance and 21 mpg city driving. No white smoke , combustion chambers look good via checking plugs . No oil in coolant or vice versa.

So the clincher was last night .
Drove from salem to portland via I5 at 65mph.
Drove great there , thats 30 miles.
on the drive back , the temp gauge started climbing past the 1/2 mark and got to about the 2/3 mark.
Turned on the heater fan for the interior heat and the needle dropped to normal.
Got it home this way and parked it in the garage.
Popped the hood with car off and grabbed top pass coolant hose = warm/hot
Grabbed bottom driver side coolant hose = BONE COLD.

Suspect no circulation of coolant .
I have NO bubbles as I have burped it numerous times and driving it around town the temp needle stays normal but the cooling fans will run the whole time.
Only happens upon long drives .

Today I will be removing the parts store thermostat , draining coolant and installing OEM subaru thermostat .

Lets see if that fixes it.

[Legacy777]

I think you're on the right track with the tstat...

[crust productions.com]

Update as I hate it when people post up with issues and never respond with the results.

Exactly what I thought.
Perfectly good parts store thermostat does not work in subaru's.
Swapped out with NEW OEM thermostat from subaru (I have an account with the dealership) and walla , fixed.
Party on wayne

[H4_Deucer]

Parts store stuff for Subaru's doesnt seem to work that well. I have had cars with misfires horribly, take out the plugs and gap them, no change. Switch over to champions or NGK's and car runs perfect.

[crust productions.com]

I ONLY run NGK's in all my cars and customer cars.

[BSOD2600]

Perfectly good parts store thermostat does not work in subaru's.
Swapped out with NEW OEM thermostat from subaru (I have an account with the dealership) and walla , fixed.

Yup, various threads on this. Especially with the side by side comparison of oem vs aftermarket parts, its almost shocking how different they are.

Glad it's fixed.

[Legacy777]

Yup....I experienced this very issue and learned that lesson all the way back in 96

[supra90turbo]

Parts store stuff for Subaru's doesnt seem to work that well. I have had cars with misfires horribly, take out the plugs and gap them, no change. Switch over to champions or NGK's and car runs perfect.

I'm sorry, but this has me stumped. What plugs could you be using? AutoZone Branded Plugs?
NGK's are cheap enough to start with, something I've never shopped around on.

[evolutionmovement]

Maybe something more specialized? I used Splitfires on my EA81s combined with a more powerful coil to good effect. The EJ22 didn't care for them, which is fine since the NGKs are cheaper anyway. I also used Bosch Platinums (all they had) and those sucked hard.

[crust productions.com]

Yes , I can attest to the Bosch Platinums.
I ran a test on a 00 VW Jetta 2.0 MT.
Ran Bosch Plat , NGK Copper and Bosch Copper.
Each run was done for 3k miles.
The NGK $1.99 coppers gave better fuel economy and throttle response.
I suspect the same would occur with EJ22 motor.

[supra90turbo]

I agree with the Bosch Plugs. I've talked many friends out of buying them.