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is it anything i should be aware of with this engine with 171k miles?

he said that it has valve ticking when its cold, but my current ej18 had that too but i found a new oil and it almost never happens. additionally ive heard that its not dangerous. its pretty normal on our engines, right?

what is this seafoam stuff? is it bullshit? ive heard it "purges" the motor for dirt n stuff.

i dont know when the timing belt was changed, is it non interference like ej18?

can i expect the turbo to live much longer? stock

I would think you probably have all the basic items with an older motor. Valve cover seals, main seals, other misc. seals might/probably be leaking. But's expected and not critical.

The valve tick may be okay. I'm not sure if that motor is HLA or not - though I do not believe it is. A search will probably verify this. If it isn't, and I don't think it is, then you should be looking at adjusting your valve lash. This is something I would make a concise effort to address.

The seafoam is an item we use in the States all the time. It does work and isn't hard to do. It's basically a cleaner you let your motor injest while running. On dirty motors it can make a difference to smooth things out and make it a little happier. Again, a search should turn up a few more details on this.

Your motor is an interference motor and if you lose your belt you will most likely lose valuable parts to your motor.... It's one of the 'downfalls' of the DOHC motors.

As far as the turbo - hard to say. If it's in good condition now, minimal shaft play and looks good - it should last a while. But it's another one that is hard to say without seeing it or knowing history. But if it does go out, a used turbo can be had pretty cheapily.

ej20g is hla so the ticking would be normal, once the oil pressure increases the ticking will go away.

changed my spark plugs today! my first real car-job ever, and it was very fun! not a single pause. only problems i had was getting some screws out from the airbox, and broke one inside the hole luckily it wasnt a headbolt, lol.

took the car for a tour now, and this is what i noticed:
better/faster colder and warm starts. more bottom-end power.
no stutter/hesitation when i give full boost and go from 0-60. better throttleresponse. and is it more silent? perhaps im hearing wrong, but it feels a bit more silent.

i pulled out some old denso plugs, which were pretty white on the electrode tips.
my car ran with a clogged fuel and air filter for a while, so thay might explain it.
two old neighbours looked at the plugs, (one is an old subaru mech/salesman) and said they looked fine. i thought so too. no sticky black stuff on em and they were all dry and clean.
replaced em with some NGK BKR6EVX.

some questions if anybody got time:

i fear my 02 sensor is blown, due to bad mixture too long cuz of clogged filters and old plugs. do you think i should replace it?

and should i give my ecu a reset after running on bad mix for perhaps a year? or will it learn it again now?


and more interesting, when i bought the car i drove 400 miles home. and the car was more aggressive then than it is now. even with shitty filters, probably bad oil and plugs too. my boost has always been good, always going straight to 15 psi.

can this theoretically be solved if i replace my o2 sensor?

my exhaust is also full of leaks. ecu-reset and o2 sensor, guys

sorry for the messy ending here, hehehe.
my next jobs will be cleaning IAC, sealing my coolanttank leak and fix the exhaust.
. i will try and take a pic of the car soon
have a nice day folks