I've owned my 2001 bugeye wrx for 10 months now and in that time i've covered 20,000 kms, the car has covered 75,000 km's total. The idle has been 'lumpy' since I got it and recently I decided to have the compression tested to see if there were any issues.

The results show that no.2 cylinder has half the compression of the other 3 and the leakdown test shows a leakage rate of 85%!! The air is leaking into the crankcase (can be heard from the oil filler) as opposed to the exhaust/inlet manifolds.

What's puzzling me is that the engine doesn't burn any oil and the performance is a respectable 138kW ATW (more than a standard WRX shows on the dyno) and , apart from the lumpy tickover, the engine runs fine. There are no misfires and no smoke. The engine revs out fine and accelerates hard.

Now I'm not sure whether to have the engine rebuilt or just chuck some oil additive in with the hope of freeing up what could be sticky rings...

Any ideas???

 

sorry to say mate sounds like same symptoms i had on my 2001 wrx, after trying several different things found the piston broken up and piston rings etc damaged

 

agree with jamesvts,sounds more serious than chucking in an additive.
i would say engine out and strip down job to find the cause,rings or piston fault?

 

Bugger......it's strange that the car is driving so well though, I'd have thought that it would be a bit ropey up through the revs??? As I say, It's slightly lumpy on tickover but as soon as you're on the gas it's a smooth as a cashmere codpiece

Oh well, at least I can get that 2.5 short block I've been promising myself....anyone got a shiny new VF34 at a bargain price???