Would be very interested in exactly whats wrong, and what caused it. I have one of these with a Group N middle and backbox

Now I'm scared

Jas

Hope they honour the warranty otherwise my exhaust is coming straight off. ( even though it sounds fantastic )

 

Sorry for the delay

In answer to the fuel always used Shell optimax, never anything but. My understanding of the warranty is that if I were to take out the first CAT there may be an issue with the claim, but surely if they were to quibble this, then any car fitted within 3 years (or warranty period) with say a Timax replacement exhaust would become void. I would really have a problem with someone trying to tell me that the exhaust affected the engines performance enough to cause this sort of trouble. As for the gauges, with it running literally stock I don't have any on. I really feel that the car had a faulty component or build quality was poor.
ARRON you say yours was PPP, do you know what let go on it yet, or is the jury still out?

 

The only waranty friendly upgrade is the entire PPP setup. If you change anything else on the engine, including the center section and backbox, Subaru are entitled to void your waranty on the engine. This is the whole point behind the PPP, it's crap value for money, until you take waranty into acount. Lets face it, thats the only reason people buy the PPP.

I take it you were using the Subaru specified oil in this car? Sounds to me like you have blown an internal component if your water level has dropped, oil use could be a turbo or a lost piston. Did it rattle, thud at all?

 

Providing the original PPP downpipe is left on, I think it would be difficult for IM to refuse a warranty claim for a failed engine if the centre and backbox have been changed.

No extra cats are taken out since the PPP front centre takes the second cat out anyway. A straight through centre just replaces two small resonator boxes (front centre and rear centre pipes) with straight through pipes. Since the resonators are of a straight through design, and the PPP backbox appears to have good flow characteristics, it is unlikely that more than a negligible difference in flow is achieved. All that is really achieved is an increase in noise due to the resonators being taken out, plus most aftermarket backboxes have less volume of sound deadening packing in.

IMHO.....

 

Arron, I'm confused... I thought you have been driving an STi for a while Are you saying that your STi has blown as well ? If so, you are truly unlucky

 

Dave T-S, I think the point is that Subaru don't need to prove anything. If you fit any non Subaru parts technically they can refuse any warranty claim. I'd guess that's someone in the fine print for UK cars as well? What they do in practice may/will however differ from this hard line stance.

 

That's Arrons 3rd STi type UK in 3 weeks. LOL

Yep, his engine has gone pop, not sure i want him in my car again with luck like that!

 

turbo's going dont normally make an engine run off beat, like it's down a cylinder, they normally still idle OK.

I would fear for the worst i am afraid. It's imposible to diagnose 100% sat in front of a PC, the signs are not good.

 

Thanks John

Ah well, I suppose we'll see soon, I'll post back when I get a response from Subaru. mmm how long to rebuild AN ENGINE NOW?? I suppose at least the mileage won't get any higher.

ARRON have you really blew yours in such a short time? Can we blame the PPP? Or is it just one of those things I wonder?

 

I melted a spark plug and a piston on my cossie some years back and that still ran, but was lumpy and smoked alot ??
Sounds similar to me.
I thought the turbo had gone at first also.

I'm scared now

 

Adair69,

How was the run in done? 1000miles or more?

How long was your cross country run before the dual carriageway?

Do you have an oil temp gauge installed? -If so, what was its max temp?


Cheers!

 

you need to push them the turbo shld be off in a hour and at a specialist for inspection.they wld be able to tell if turbo is at fault within days

 

adair, my money is on a piston. have they not compression tested it yet? surely they must have done so?.

PWA is provisional warranty agreement i think from when it happened to me on my 99 uk car.

 

Sorry been busy today.
I did have a car with the PPP fitted for a while but not this one.
I`m not mentioning any names but basically the PPP didnt work so I returned the car after having it on the road for a couple of weeks and visitng various dealers for various faults to get sorted.
Dealer sent me another one ex-demo which was more money and a little newer but on a test drive squeeked and rattled like a rally car I rejected it straight away.
Found this one with PPP fitted from another dealer and bought it.
Mucho cheaper than the other two cars and seemed mint. Too mint really.
Drove it back last Friday and it was performing faultlessly.
Lost boost on Friday night at the bottom end but still pulled reasonably well at the top.
Called the dealer to report the fault on Saturday morning and was told I would get a call on Monday morning.
No call.
I called them and later that day kaboooom.
A long drag from say 70 upto 120.
On a private road of course.
I think big end.
I await my local dealers fault diagnostics.
Me thinks firked.
Me and Subaru just seem destined for the scrapper.

 

Jesus Arron,

Just been reading the bedford thread and wondered what happened to your motor.

Not good, hope it gets sorted mate.

 

Ermmmmmm.
Wellitwasthesecondcarfromthefirstdealerthatsqueeke dandrattledandwasgenerally5hitthatwentsouronthefri daygeforeBedfordthatswhyIcouldntgoinacarthatIowned .............few!
Pretty good case I reckon.

 

This car 5900 miles but I had only done a couple of hundred in it.
I do trust my local dealer who have the car now but alas I didnt buy it from them as every time I have tried they are unable to source me a car.

 

I asked cos I do know that the STI7 oil temps can get pretty high. 30miles is quite long, but presumably less than 10% (??) was actually at WOT? If indeed it is an "oil/lubrication overheat-type" of failure, the piston rings may have failed and some oil may have found its way into the combustion chamber.

I know of an instance where the above happened. Granted that I'm in the tropics and it was a trackday, but this car did blow smoke after only 2 laps.

Your run in was done well, so I guess that theory's out the window...

 

What is considered to be a high oil temp for an STi 7 ?

My Defi's have not shown the temp to ever go over 110o, and it only ever goes that high when on fast motorway stints...

Only reason I ask is, and I know all cars are different, but my other halfs MGF Steptronic, oil temp is generally around the 130o mark, which I have always believed to be high. Motorway speeds can see it go higher....

Just curious, and of course hoping to keep mine on the road....

Cheers

Simon

 

Is anyone using stock oil from Subaru in their Sti 7 ( Tecaco I believe)
Jas

 

Motorway speeds? What that then?
How does a motorway speed differ from a B road speed?

Surely crising along at 70-90 will not put much pressure on the engine, its the repeated point a squirt stuff that puts pressure on the engine, unless you are "cruising" at 130mph on the motorway for extended periods, that is....

Very sorry to hear that you are having such serious trouble with your motors, must be gutted.


Si

 

OK, being PC, motorway stints, average for me would be around the 85-90 mark... Seriously though, 110 is max and I don't really go above this. When I have done obviously not for long periods but it still has not exceeded this temp.

More importantly then, as you say, whats the difference between motorway and B-roads. I live out in the sticks and have some great B-roads to put the girl through her paces. Obviously, this type of driving demands lower gears so generally engine is revving higher than usual. This, I guess, is more regular than motorway mileage these days, so there you go, 110o....

So, back to the original question then, what temps are other STi7 owners seeing, under various conditions.... ?

I would really like to know for my own peace of mind, if my car is running hotter than others, I want my dealer to do something about it now, before it does mean her being off the road for X number of weeks....

Thanx

Simon

 

Howdy Si, Don't let the paranoia set in. I have over 23K on mine now and it gets a real assortment of driving conditions, including some 500m days. Moved over to Motul oil at 5K as I have more confidence in it. No drops in level - checked weekly. Your oil temps sound about right.

Have delayed my PPP until after Xmas. Too much else on the go at the minute. Swapped over with someone else in the dealer's queue.

Ken

 

Hey up Ken....

Hows you doing...

I wouldn't say paranoia is setting in, but just want to see some comparisons.... In the name of research, of course

Don't get to use mine much these days, as it's just a weekend play car now... Funny, managed to run up 15k miles from April to July, only done 2k since then after job switch, and 1k of that was on the WRC event....

So, you are doing 500m sprints now, where are you playing...? I might try and come along and spectate, would be nice to catch up. On the subject of catching up, I will give you a call soon, I haven't forgot

Incidently, are you in the Leeds today??? Might call you later if you are....

So, does anyone have any temps to share with the community??

Thanks

Simon

 

Ok feedback today....

The car is at the moment having a new turbo fitted, from what I can gather they are convinced its that and not the big end. They are then going to start the car. I'll know for definite Monday.

[Edited by adair69 - 1/24/2003 3:12:35 PM]

 

It takes 30 minutes tops to compresion test a scoob engine. Whats wrong with garages these days? why cant they do simple mechanical tasks and have to resort to swaping things over? sad really.

 

because then they can charge you for all those parts and labour to fit them, then sell your perfectly good second hard parts on to someone else as new and charge for fitting etc etc ad infinitum!

Thats why I ALWAYS ask to see and take away with me any parts, even supposedly worn out brake pads - I can bin them later

they can keep my old oil though

 

This is a waranty job though, so they are losing money by being fcukwits.

 

sorry to hear about your bad luck. lets hope it gets sorted properly soon. before i bought my impreza i did a lot of research about the engines and possible engine problems which could occur. power engineering (mervyn carrol) states "the impreza engine be it 2000 turbo or p1 spec, has a common engine fault where-by the 3rd piston normally goes and there is an oil seal within the engine that also goes" this could explain your loss of power and plumes of smoke, oil and water loss. worth getting the garage to check out whilst their ripping it apart. regards Chris.

 

Just thought you guys would like to know this....
I talk to a few guys in Oz quite regularly, and one of them runs AVO turbo world, after telling him what happened he did some serious testing on the turbo of the STi7 on the weekend. Now bear in mind that the STi7 he drives has 852 NM @5197RPM and 194 KW@7235!! It seems that after a point of flow improvement they suffer from horrendous Boost creep, almost as if the waste gate hole is too small. It'll be interesting if the turbo does turn out to be the culprit after all.