legacycentral bbs

I'm going to check out a 1999 legacy tomorrow. I had a 1996 before and loved it for its reliability. However, I was looking around online and found that the 1999 2.2l is not the same as the 1996 2.2l.. I thought that all the 2.2l's were pretty solid, but I found a couple places where it was mentioned that newer 2.2's were somewhat problematic. Not as bad as the 2.5's, but not as good as before.

I searched a lot online, but it seems that most of the discussion is about the 2.5l gasket problems. I'm waiting for the VIN to be emailed to me, but thought I would check if anyone knew anything here.

The one I'm going to look at is a 2nd gen, I've just been confusing myself with what I've been finding on the internet.

Also, if this 2.2l is prone to HG failure, what are the symptoms?

Thanks

I've never heard of it being an issue before, but perhaps some 2nd gen owners would know. I'd like to know if this is a problem myself as I'm looking to use an OBDII EJ22 in a car of my own design.

http://allwheeldriveauto.com/subaru-hea ... explained/

Here is where I read about this. The relevant lines are:
"The second group is the 2nd generation Subaru 2.2l and 2.5l engines found in the Forrester from mid year 1998, Impreza from mid year 1998, the Outback and Legacy from 2000"

"In mid year 1998 Subaru redesigned the 2.2l and 2.5l, most of the changes were in the cylinder heads and camshaft configurations. This design has had mostly problems with external head gasket leaks. Both oil and coolant"

"On a 2nd generation 2.2 and 2.5l it is almost always the left side head gasket that leaks coolant externally and it is also the cylinder head gasket that is the closest to the battery"

I was just wondering if anyone had any more information. I've been scouring the web and can't find a whole lot about the 2nd generation 2.2's. Up till now I thought the 2.2 was unchanged. The 1999 legacy I'm going to check out would be affected by the redesign.

The headgasket leaks with the phase two engines do not affect the temperature like the old style HG leaks*
*eventually you could lose enough coolant to make the temperature go up but this would take a long time.