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Hey,

I have been told by the mechanic my EJ25 motor (import) needs the head reconditioned and will be approx $2500 to do so. Before this my engine used to have a reasonably high oil consumption, something which I believe is common with these motors.

Will reconditioning the head solve this problem or is the oil burnt in the lower half of the engine?

Also the engine prior to the fault was pretty gutless to be honest, is this normal for this engine, or again could I expect an improvement once the heads are done?

Cheers for any advice
Ross

Hey Ross,

Oil burning can happy in 2 places.. passed the rings or via valve stem seals,if the oil burning is slight then it's likely the later. $2500 seems a bit high just to do the heads unless it includes new timing belt (and pulleys), oil pump and water pump. You should be able to see an improvement in performance once the heads are done as usually the bottom end are good for around 300,000kms.

I'd grab a couple more quotes on getting the heads done.

Cheers,
Paul

If the engine is burning oil and it comes from the piston rings, doing the heads won't fix that. I'd do a compression test to see how bad it is if you recon the engine is gutless.

You might also look in getting the whole engine replaced. Here low k engines are about $1000-1500. Only problem is since yours is an import it might be harder to get a similar engine.

But as Paul said, definitely shop around and ask exactly what the mech is doing to the engine for $2500.

Good luck
Guyph

Which EJ25 u got, DOCH or SOHC? Do u ever get a plume of light blue/whiteish smoke at first start after rest for more than 10 hours?
If so count how may seconds it takes between the engine start and the smoke billowing out. IF its imidiate then its the rings letting oil through at rest (cool). If it takes a couple of seconds, like 4 or 5 then its more likely the stem seals.
Conventional engines are the opposite, but our flat cylinder bores in subarus, mean pooling of oil up against the rings, giving us the advantage of determingin ring vs stem seal failure.

Also, 2500 is just too much no matter what they do.
Shop around, go with the information ive given u, to a backstreet mechanic, where the boss is walking around in the garage dealing with his paying customers!

i recently pulled down an ej25 dohc motor with 280000ks all the oil controll rings were stuck in the pistons and the motor was burning oil, the cause looks to be a build up of carbon depositing around the ring area holding the rings in and stopping them contacting the cylinder properly.
I have seen other ej series motors with a similar problem ej20 and ej22
usually with +250000ks
I don't know if this helps you or not but regardless the quote you recieved was high i would seek a second opinion from another mechanic.......

I can't justify pulling cylinder heads on ANY engine over 100000km.

If you have excessive oil consumption above 100000km, it's engine rebuild time.

Only the motor is an import. I never had any smoke on start up, but if I revved the engine out through the gears would get a ninja smoke screen from behind. The mechanic who done the compression test advised struggled to get 30psi? in number 3 cylinder. When the whole car is only worth around $5K I struggle to justify over $2K in repairs

yep, it may even just be a head gasket.
hav u considered doing a full rebuild urself, it costs about 1000 if u do it urself, and its great fun!!!!

Dont have the time or more importantly tool, space or experience to do it myself.

anyone have any recommendations of where I could take it for a good reliable quote / repair?

If the engine is out of the car in your avatar picture, Gen2 Liberty/Outback, then this motor on ebay for $550 is just what you need ebay.com.au/Subaru-EJ25-Engine

i have an engine that had 60 psi in one pot instead of 130 , EA82T. Went like the powers and did not detect low comp in its performance at all, no blow smoke unless I went up a good incline when suspect it i s blow by [compression getting past rings into sump] causing oil to get caught up in PCV system, only then did it whip up a smoke storm. I never thought to do a wet comp test after I found the low comp - it would have shown rings not valves I am sure. I now wish I ran motor with a high detergency Diesel engine oil to see if it cleaned up gunked up rings or used an oil additive to try same. Mechanics can be wrong - a safer diagnosis might be -strip and quote from what they find. try a Diesel oil for a while maybe cannot hurt?