yeh see thats what puts me off just too many storys reporting that on the 2.5

its all good people saying dont listen to what you hear on the net but when there are so many i think you have to take notice and always found the internet 9 times out of 10 are always right. its a shame as i do like the hawks but going to stick with the blob unfortunetly
as much as i keep getting temted its not a cheapy job if it does happen.

i think car companys should maintain longer warranty's when it comes to things that should not fail . really its faulty goods waiting to go wrong.

 

because everyone who has been on a forum for a long time knows loads about engines, tuning, etc. and every newbie does not? so how does that work if a long standing subaru tuner with heaps of good rep joins the forum and was never on it previously? is he also a dumb noob?

people like you make me laugh.. oh and your woes of gearbox removal.. try swapping a BMW from auto to manual, and then replacing the manual box again after that, then come on and bitch about a pain in the ***. or how about replacing a petrol tank in a 4wd or RWD car among other things?

or if thats still too easy for you then ill see your gearbox woes and raise you:

 

never knew subaru did a straight 6, what model is it?

 

its the Impreza WRX 325i lol

your missing the point there.. im not some green behind the ears noob. i do my homework on things. part of said homework is sorting fact from mass spouted BS. i have gone through similar threads with similarly smart remarks from members of other forums who know better as well so its no skin off my nose tbh.

so has anyone bothered to ask andy why he mentioned high speeds, etc as quoted by another member on the previous page yet? or are the sheep afraid of potentially eating a little humble pie? like i said previously, im not disputing a known issue with the pistons, what i am disputing are the circumstances surrounding some of the failures as id wager money not all have had ringlands fail for no apparent reason.

 

You only need to type 2 words into Google images "Impreza Ringland" and the pictures tell a story. Cracked piston upon cracked piston. Can't tell me they are all user damaged with no common manufacturing issues? When you start reading into the individual stories quite a lot are standard unmolested well maintained engines.

There was a very good poll done by one forum trying to collate info for accurate failure figures. Worth a Google too.

I have a 2.5 impreza and am not in denial of the issues. I fully expect my engine to fail from ringland or head gasket failure at some point, but I still 100% love my car!

 

you are totaly missing the point, BMW are not subaru's, what works on BMW's wont just work on subaru's, just as what works on subaru's wont work on BMW's. You can't assume just cos you know one brand that you know them all.

I'm not realy sure what your trying to do, you come on and start mouthing off that no one knows what there talking about and you know it all. Wether thats your intention or not,thats how its coming across.

So to take a step back, the failures are hard to exactly quantify, yes if you treat them with no respect they will let go (thats pretty much a given, you thrash a bmw and oil temps get to hot engine won't survive either), however even standard cars are failing for no other mechanical reason and thats what people are telling you.

My old hawk had full service history and 60k when it suffered ring land failure, no mechanical fault was found, such as oil pump failure or det etc etc it just broke off and mashed the engine to bits.

There's a very big thread on here somewhere about 2.5 failures and some of the people commenting have rebuilt dozens of 2.5 and 2.0 in various guises from simple rebuilds to full on monsters and they say the same things.

I get what your saying about intenet hearsay etc, but this isnt the case, even tunes who come across dozens if not hundreds of cars are saying exactly the same thing.

On a slight sidenote, built right and kept to a sensible power (up to around 450) the 2.5 is a cracker of a road engine,loads of low down grunt and buckets of torque.

 

havea read through here, dozen of folks getting the mreplaced under warrenty, if it wasnt an issue do you realy think subaru would sort them out?

https://www.scoobynet.com/scoobynet-...-failures.html

 

2 engines in 8k miles

https://www.scoobynet.com/scoobynet-...-the-road.html

these are actualy people posting about their own cars.

 

seriously? we are talking about the hawk eye. thats a thread for 08-10 models. hawk was early 2.5, ran different ECU tuning from the factory and at some point in the generation/generations after the hawk subaru decided to start making the turd 704 engine blocks as well to further **** on their customers..

from anything i can find the hawk eye doesnt suffer nearly as many issues or failures as the 08+ models. this is another point i forgot about until you reminded me, with so many 08+ failures either due to ECU, block or pistons it appears to be causing the hawk eye to get more stick than it should be purely because the engine is also a 2.5 so people see thread after thread or post after post of 2.5 failure and assume every 2.5 is plagued with the same issues which may not be the case.

we have already had a couple folks come out of the woodwork in this thread stating theyre running HP in the mid 300's to 400 on the hawk eye with OEM pistons. one person running that setup for years and covering thousands of miles if not tens of thousands. its a similar story from the majority i have heard from in the opensource ECU tuning community with a hawk eye 2.5 as well.

this suggests, as i am trying to make a point of, that the early 2.5's as found in the hawk eye while still being 2.5l in displacement seem to be holding up much better than the 2.5's of the following generations.

 

That would be me then!

I do agree that 08 onwards cars suffered from poor base ECU map issues making failures more prominent.

 

Iv got a early hawkeye sti (55 plate lol mr tax man) running around 380bhp and done about 10k at that spec ,,, yes I'm still waiting for the day it all goes wrong but its still holding together for now ,,, but lets get realistic its just a matter of time before something lets go ie headgasket or ringlands

 

But I bet you have loads of fun with it so far?!

 

Oh yeah I have , owned many many many scoobs and its by far the one I enjoy driving the most as the dccd box and 2.5 make a awesome team and yes I do leave my center diff in fully open for a bit or rear action

 

We have done loads more Hawks for engine failure than Hatches. Mostly because until recently they were under warranty. Now that they are out of warranty they are coming to independents like us and almost all others too.

lt is usually cylinders 2 & 4 that fail on either model.

David APi

 

definately, thats well documented and backed up by folks in the open source community who have shared info on the maps/functions that are the root of the issue.

also there is the 704 block casting issue which also affects certain post hawk models and OEM replacement blocks.

i dont know why people keep reading me saying that the hawk on the whole seems to suffer less failures than the newer 2.5 but instead of taking that for what it is then take it as me saying the hawk 2.5 is essentially bullet proof when it is clearly not.

and allthough i already replied i missed the bit where tidgy mentions BMW and subaru not being the same, etc.. obviously they arent. for one the old BMW internals can handle 500bhp easily as long as there wasnt an underlying problem to begin with. many people across the pond are happily running 500whp as well and the highest im aware of on standard internals (though they did mill the top of the standard pistons to reduce CR slightly) is about 648whp if memory serves.. in bhp thats bound to be on the high side of 700 if not around 800 which is crazy when you think the pistins and block are all OEM. the weak point of the old BMW 6 pot is the head, specifically the water jackets because of the head being aluminium and the water jackets in the head being much wider than needed (block water passages are not) this causes the head to flex under high pressure/heat which then pushes the rings on the gasket out and causes the HG to fail and pressurise the coolant system and burn coolant so the cure is to bridge the water jackets via welding and then O ring the head and use a good quality standard gasket. near everyone boosting an old M20 engine runs that exact setup and happily pump out anything from 250 to like 550bhp/whp. i personally have seen customers cars who have gone turbo have the exact issue mentioned happen to them before finally taking my advice and welding/O ringing the head.

obviously a subaru engine is going to be totally different and will have its own weak and strong points as no two engines are the same in that respect which i am well aware of. my point is that i did not jump into BMW's knowing everything i do, i came in as a newbie just the same as i have done here. i questioned what people spouted as fact and i found many "facts" were innacurate and fewer were just downright untrue. this is what im doing here, there is blatantly more later 2.5 failures for various reasons than there is in the early 2.5 found in the hawk but the 2.5 scaremongering does not reflect this and therefor everyone says all 2.5's are made of glass. yes there are known ringland issues but they are nothing new and extend back into even the 2.0 engines albeit seemingly to a lesser extent. now when/if i get my hawk up into the 300-400bhp ballpark will i assume it will never have a ringland let go? no, i will always have the thought in the back of my head, however, knowing what i do now about the 2.5 failures and where the bulk f them are happening and on hat generations, block castings, etc. im more than willing to run 3-400 on my standard pistons as the odds are that it will hold up if done and tuned right. thats not to say i wouldnt forge it at a later date just for peace of minds sake, i would seriously consider forging down the line once im in that HP ballpark purely for that reason and that it should somewhat future proof the engine.

 

Is this on standard cars or tuned hawks? because we all except that they can't be tuned like the 2.0 and is it right that 08-09 cars was a lot to do with the ecu? And can you get round the problem with the hawk by using forged pistons and better head bolts?

 

missed your reply while i was writing my last.. thats interesting to hear, thanks for the info. did you notice on any of then if there were signs of excess combustion chamber temps involved? the school of thought in the more well educated section of the open source tuning community is that ringland failures are atleast partly due to combustion chamber temps. the logic is that as heat increases with the brittle pistons and tight clearances that the iron piston ring expands and eventually gets to a point where it has expanded enough to contact itself which causes it to flex vertically and put pressure on the ringland which then fails. people who tune and build their engine with that philosophy generally seem to not have nearly as many issues/failures as those who do not adopt that philosophy which would suggest there must be something there as it nearly seems to be too much to be a coincidence.

are the hatchbacks largely still not under warranty though? i know the following generation from the hatch would still be warranted. would be interesting to see whats got more ringland only failures once the newer generations are out of warranty.

i think if there was a direct comparison drawn between the hawk eye and say the hatch on out of warranty failures the figures might be a bit skewed, possibly in the hatches favour as there would be warranted repairs, newer parts and on the whole less accumulated milage on the newer engines but if figures ended up being say 50/50 or even 60/40 in the hatches favour then you could deduce that the hawk 2.5 is probably a little more robust given the above points.

regardless of 2.0, 2.5, hawk or new gen there is a clear underlying issue with ringland failure and im not disputing that.. it is the probably cause of failure that im looking at as in theory sustained high speeds on a standard engine could potentially cause enough heat to pop ringlands nevermind once you start modding and increasing power and id garauntee you 99% of people who have had ringlands fail would simply just blame subaru's engineering rather than attempt to look into how or why it happened since there is such a stigma about the ringlands and the general consensus is that the ringlands are a problem so they will just put it down to that rather than explore the reasoning behind it to see if their circumstances surrounding the failure may seem to fit in with possible causes. until people do this it will simply be "oh those pesky ringlands again" rather than people giving others sound advice like saying many have run XXXhp but ringlands are a serious weak point and more failures seem to be attributed to excess heat so best avoid sustained high speeds and make sure the engine is well tuned/mapped and try to avoid mods which will increase engine temps more than necessary, etc, etc. then the community would be better educated plus people would likely have less failures and generally be more well informed about the achilles heel of the EJ so to speak and can then make informed decisions on how they want to set about modding and getting XXXhp from their engine as safely and cheaply as possible with the lowest amount of failure risk as possible. that is assuming my combustion chamber heat theory turns out to hold water mind you..

 

Most of them are standard cars, sometimes with PPP but usually cars that have been to a dealer and have moved on due the attitude or cost involved.

David

 

dealer cars could potentially be a minefield, someone realises something up with the car and then takes it and trades it in while its still running ok, etc. i wonder if any there might be an aspect of that in the mix at all since you say most seem to have passed through the hands of a dealer? also knowing a few people who work in dealers myself you would be surprised how some of the staff may treat cars that are there. taking them out for fuel and fleecing the life out of them from cold on the way, etc.

id like to think that at 70k miles if something was to go in my WRX due to a manufacturing issue or defect it would have gone by now. though once i start modding its a whole different kettle of fish.

 

Some interesting posts DmcL There are far to many threads about the 2.5 being unreliable and rightly so as far to many did break, but there are a few of us that are running more then standard power on standard internals and by the looks of it for quite a few 000's miles!! Dont forget that some of our cars are 8 years old now(mine being 2006)

Ive always thought that if the ringland issue would arise on my car it would have by now as my car is on close to 60k miles. The only other problem that could arise is the headgasket, which if im led to believe is caused by the heads lifting due to much boost??, also I try my best never to hit the rev-limiter on my car, and I do a oil change just before winter and again just before summer with Gulf competition oil.

So am I one of the lucky ones(touch wood) as my car was mapped with the mods fitted with only 13k miles on the clock and the car being 2 years old at the time, so the map on the car was all good getting rid of the crap standard PPP one???
Also reading on here about the smaller scoop on the hawkeye, did that make a difference?? As my car has a FMIC early on in its life so didnt matter about the smaller scoop!!

Anyone else on here on standard 2.5 internals running 350+bhp, how many miles and how long have your mods been fitted and what sort of mileage are you at now???

 

I just want to know if you get forged pistons better head bolts a new HG and maybe better cooling (FMIC) would this sort all problems and make as strong as 2.0.I don't mind spending the money to have what is soon to be one of the NEW classic.

 

DMCL
Referring to your Q on temps
It's well documented the internal over heat is a major contribution to premature failure. The expansion & contraction forced upon the piston , not helped by it's very low tolerance . Liners are also thin & the heads lift under boost . All doin there little thing to aid failure.
Also
Why time & time again reputable builders will advise
Dont prolong high speed & over board engine temps ...

 

I've just checked the entire service history for my 06 hawk wrx and other than the standard stuff its only had brake pad changes. Nowt else mechanical. Should I be worried? Its done 53k

 

Should have had a cam belt by now. Mine had one year's ago.

 

That's what I thought. This thread has certainly installed a sense of paranoia that I don't know is justified. Might invest in some forged pistons and head gaskets if this keeps the problem away

 

sounds pretty much as i thought.. though 99% of the failure talk is pistons, not much mention of headgaskets/liners. though the liners thing may be block casting dependant though as from what i gather there were some differences between the different 2.5 castings. are the cosworth MLS gaskets any good? always hear the stigma of MLS gaskets leaking like a sieve so curious if they would be any good or not.

in other news, i have upped the ante on my WRX tonight.. was previoulsly running a catback and panel filter as well as messing with OEM and atmo BOV. i made up a block off plate and tried it out with no BOV for fun and giggles. no real changes worth mentioning on the wideband apart from a rich dip with the atmo BOV which would cause soe popping maybe 50% of the time.

anywho.. i bought an OBD2 cable last year sometime which should have been suitable to read/flash my ECU. never got round to trying it out as battery was weak and it would leave the car flat if i tried to read it (had previously tried with VAGCOM cable as rumoured to work on some but think that may be older models or something). long story short i put a battery in it a couple months ago and since fitting this short ram intake for the sake of checking AFR before/after on standard tune i decided to dig out the cable and give it a try. read the ECU fine so i got a solid time served/well tested stage 1 tune from the romraider forums and swapped all relevant map values over into my standard base file and flashed it.. had the car out a good 40 mins and seems golden. boost now peaks at about 1.1bar, spool is faster, AVCS maps have had some tweaking as has wastegate duty cycle maps and a couple boost related maps. also a 14% increase in boost request in 1st gear up to 35mph so its rediculous off the mark compared to standard. rev limits at 7k and there were a couple other minor tweaks done. overall feels stronger and more angry across the rev range but most notably a serious kick in the butt in the mid range and coming onto boost. oh, also ditched the standard DBW non-linear map and replaced with something resembling the STi's DBW throttle map. pedal movement to throttle angle is now much more like a good old cable throttle. im looking into possibly patching the tune for FFS and LC but need to look into it a bit first. FFS would be great providing i dont have any gearbox issues shifting faster than if i had to lift off throttle. im sure all my standard cats would just love a bit of LC action too lol

im going to sort out a program/cable for logging knock maps among other parameters so i can see what the ECU picks up, if anything as well as so i can log MAF and one or two compensation maps so i can input the data into a nice spreadsheet someone made and sort my MAF scaling out for the intake. as the car runs fine as is on the intake it will be interesting to see what change there is to the scaling, you wouldnt think it could be much but in my experience with the BMW's atleast you can always be surprised by things like this.

so its official, i dont have to say im basically standard now.. helloooooo stage 1

 

whats the interval for timing belt on the EJ255? mines at 70k currently.

 

Is it worth getting the pulleys changed at the same time?

 

My Hawk WRX just turned 115,000 on standard internals

one day I guess it will go bang,

but hey ho **** happens, I love driving it daily and will do so until I can no longer

 

Lies!!!! It can't be true, the internet says the 2.5l engine will fail as soon as you start it