Anyone care to venture how many miles they got from their import before it went bang? I'm compiling an utterly useless cyber page about imports and their pros and cons and wondered, as it seems many tales of woe exist on here, if mine did well (57,000 miles before the crank went) or if much better or worse exists.

Here's mine (pre-rebuild):

version 5, 1999
stock motor
champion (guffaw) plugs
de-cat but stock exhaust
1.25 bar boost through ecu remap
when it died it had: knackered clutch, cracked flywheel, failed lamda, worn-out crank.

How did you eat yours?

Cheers guys,
Keith

 

how hard did you drive it before it went?

1, like an old fart never above 4k?

2, quick blip every now and then?

3, treat it like the wife..... shaft the **** of it once or twice a week?

4, constantly batter hell out of it showing off infront of 15 yr old girls like some young tit that hasnt got a clue?

stew

 

I think you can safely say that the lamda sensor was the cause of the engine failure!

 

Lamda sure was the cause though the oil pump got stared at for a while too

I only owned the car for about three weeks before it went bang, ragged it a few times, but drove semi-sensibly most of the time. The wife's presence prevented me showing off in front of young girls....

 

ok. is the lambda something that should be changed in major services?

stew

 

Stew, don't get me going on this, lol.
It's supposed to be checked along with the maf sensor (both regulate fuel flow/mixture) at every service through the dealer's diagnostic equipment. If it's bust, a diagnostic code will be recorded on the ECU.
Mine wasn't checked - the dealer skimped and it's turning nasty cos trading standards are involved (falsified inspection report for starters) - and the engine blew up a little while later.
For those that still reckon a failed lamda can't take out an engine, look at the principles of bore wash through google, then think about the scooby's engine layout and ponder why that makes it worse than a conventionally laid-out motor. Obvious really.
Which is why I will never ever go to a main dealer again - much rather the true enthusiast with a good name for himself.
Keith
PS - the old motor, sans crank is for sale in another thread if anyone's interested.

 

STi V3, owned 6 yrs, done 40'ish k miles. Stock except decat and K&N. Always run on NUL (no SUL where I live). Maintained myself, biggest failure to date was the battery....
Owned Subaru's for 10+ yrs and never had a major failure. Also running a GTB just now, almost 100k on the clock and runs sweet as a watch.
Both cars regularly see the redline and get well used as they were intended.

 

why cant they all be like that? but is it an import? scoobywentbang- cheers for the info.

stew

 

I hope my V3 Sti lasts like that, although if its like your type R mines due right about now!

 

My sti 4 has just gone past 70k, 10k of which has been covered by myself over the last 18months. First thing I did was take it to Power Engineering for a proper check over and rolling road. Good thing I did too, as my lamda was kafooked! Yes, that visit did set me back nearly 200 squid, but well worth it in my opinion.

I have done all the servicing myself, including 3 oil changes (mobil 1 motorsport 15w50), gear & diff oil change (castrol syntrax), spark plugs (NGK PFR7B).
It has been fed an exclusive diet of optimax, always, and I mean ALWAYS allowed to warm up and cool down.

The only items that needed replacing due to failure was the exhaust (cat back) and the front brakes. The exhaust was a modified item which had started to rust through. Replaced it with a H&S back box and centre section. The brakes were fine until I pulled into a well known car wash in kent, where they immediatley sprayed one of my front discs with cold water. The cracked disc was an excuse to upgrade to ebc discs and redstuff ceramic pads, which are 10 times better than the standard subaru items.

Just use a bit of commen sense and these cars should last a vast number of miles.

 

"I think you can safely say that the lamda sensor was the cause of the engine failure!"

Sorry thats crap, lambda only controls OFF BOOST fueling not ON BOOST which runs open loop.

As for bore wash a failed lambda will cause the ecu to run max fuel correction, if it does that it then trows a CEl, so if you ignore it ... !!

For anyone that suspects that you have a lambda problem, certainly on MY99-00 cars, uplug it, car will drive ok, you "may" get a CEL, if so its a warning that its not there, nothing more.

On boost these cars, if working well with a good maf, run far richer fueling than a failed lambda can normally induce.

Its not "supposed to be checked along with the maf sensor", certainly on MY99-00 cars its a recomended thing to replace every 30k and I believe Subaru "have just started" to suggest this.

Not trying to denegrate anyones problem but ... paranoia is easily generated on this BBS. If an inspection report was falsified that is a serious issue and deserves to be heavily dealt with.

So info that may (or may not) be of help.


Bob

 

come to think of it id had my import for 8 months when i realised the lambda was unpluged! once connected again it doesnt drive any diffirent and fuel still lasts about 200-240 miles to a tank of shell.

stew

 

exactly !!!

bob

 

Had my STI V3 for 2 weeks with 65k on the clock then the BIG END went. Looking at a £3000-£4000 bill It could of been the fuel or the boost not to sure. It is being rebuilt as we speck. The car now owes me allot more then it's worth . Having the car checked from top to bottom to make sure this never happens again. Should of stayed with the evo!!

 

My one previous owner Type R with Full UK ownership had a rebuild it 42K. (I bought it at 45K and never had a problem).


My mates P1 lasted 37K.

Both cars never driven in Japan.

 

My 99 STi5 Type R is still going strong @ 42K miles. Previous owner ran it on SUL (up to 30K miles), I have since had it mapped by Bob for optimax. Seviced by me and my old man, Castrol RS every 3k miles, oil filter primed beforehand, and engine dry cranked after oil change.

Feel pretty safe driving mine, as I trust myself.my old man more than I trust any specialist/garage, and I have 110% faith in Bob's mapping skills that the car will be running safely!

 

STi V3 ran withour problems for 57k before I sold it - full decat, green panel filter (I changed to OEM airbox and removed Blitz SUS when I bought it at 27k) running 1.25bar - driven like I had stolen it most of the time - no probs at all except for piston slap when cold.

 

Hope this doesn't jinx me but : Sti v3 bought at 40K miles now at 106K - only problems are dead battery, loads of pads, a few sets of disks ,new exhast (only centre section was holed but well you know the score), power steering reservoir hoses went hard and started leaking and once the bolts holding the end plate on the gearbox worked loose making a faaaairly dramatic (smoke on hot exhaust) oil leak.
Car gets driven "enthusiastically" and has several track days under it belt...

 

I think to be honest it is all down to the first UK owner of the car and what petrol they stick in and how they drive it. Only 97 Ron was available up until 2001 yuntil Optimax came out and up until them Octane booster was not readily available.

I got my car 3K after a rebuild and a 2.5K after a Link Ecu being fitted and mapped by BRD. It had no problems at all in 20K of sensible track and fast road driving and I never saw any det on just pure Optimax.

These days most of us have knocklinks fitted and know not to sustain high speeds when fully loaded up a steep hill.