Update time i reckon.
During the middle of last week, while Zac (Cypher) was installing my new timing belt, and adjusting timing and cams etc my brand new hydraulic tensioner failed. I'm thankful it failed now, rather than at 7k rpm.
To cut a long story short, Subaru were quite intrigued by the failure, and requested that we dont touch the engine until they could send a rep out the inspect it... He came out on Tuesday, agreed it was rooted, and not an installation fault (
), and replaced it. Subaru claim to have replaced 2 faulty tensioners in 3 years.
Upon closer insepction, my water bridge pipe (under intake manifold, across top of block) was fairly well corroded. And with an ETA of 5-6weeks ex Japan, i opted to buy a good condition one from JWS.
The engine itself should be in the car next week, then we'll tackle the task of modifying and installing stainless front mount piping (the quality of the alloy pipes supplied with china FMIC's is not fantastic to say the least), heat wrapping exhaust and a number of other little things to finish it off.
Here's the engine as it sits:
standard wrx buckets retrimmed in leather.
90% finished mdf/fibreglass vinyl trimmed floor.