Genuine vs aftermarket engine components
Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 11:47 pm
Hi Guys and Girls,
Excuse the long post... point is last paragraph. Rest is background.
I'm new to Subaru's but well experienced with building cars up, engines, gearboxes, whole cars!! etc and i have a query on Subaru engine parts.
The wife has a '99 Forester which has recently done a bigend (it kinda ran out of oil, don't ask!). I did a inspection in-car, found one of the bigends well gone, did what I could to linish the crank (there was only a little amount of scoring as the wife did a good thing.. stopped the car and engine and called me), and put a new shell in it. I did flush the engine with a sacrificial oil/filter and used new oil and filter after that. It made good pressure (60 - 70 psi @3000) but reasonably quickly (a day of driving) started dropping off in pressure and became rattly once more. I believe the other bigends and possible the mains may have suffered some damage during the oil shortage.
The engine has done 310,000 k's and is due for the timing belt, w/pump etc replacement anyway. Given what has happened, and knowing that if i decide to pull the engine out to do the bigends, that the crank will probably need either a linish or re-grind, new mains, a line bore on the mains would be a good idea, that the cylinders will probably need to be bored out to the 1st oversize, which means new pistons/rings, heads inspected etc, etc... i have basically come to the decision that i should do a complete rebuild on the engine. After all, we like the car and we will probably have it for quite some time yet. Once its done at least there is peace of mind that its all fresh again opposed to using a second hand engine for example.
To get to my point... i have looked at pricing up Subaru genuine parts as a starting point and it looks somewhere around $3000 just for parts without the bore, re-grind, etc work which appears rather pricy given i rebuild my pugs (with qualiy aftermarket components) for about $1000 - $1200, i think i re-used the rods and that was it.
I'm wondering if anyone has had any good experiences with any aftermarket brands? I'm not talking about the cheap stuff, nor the performance either, simply a good replacement for a stock standard build. It is after all the daily to drop the kids to day-care!! no real performance needed here, and I'm not into using cheap parts to "get out of it cheap". That will always bite you later on.
(its the EJ202 sohc non-turbo engine)
Any help would be appreciated.
Asa
Excuse the long post... point is last paragraph. Rest is background.
I'm new to Subaru's but well experienced with building cars up, engines, gearboxes, whole cars!! etc and i have a query on Subaru engine parts.
The wife has a '99 Forester which has recently done a bigend (it kinda ran out of oil, don't ask!). I did a inspection in-car, found one of the bigends well gone, did what I could to linish the crank (there was only a little amount of scoring as the wife did a good thing.. stopped the car and engine and called me), and put a new shell in it. I did flush the engine with a sacrificial oil/filter and used new oil and filter after that. It made good pressure (60 - 70 psi @3000) but reasonably quickly (a day of driving) started dropping off in pressure and became rattly once more. I believe the other bigends and possible the mains may have suffered some damage during the oil shortage.
The engine has done 310,000 k's and is due for the timing belt, w/pump etc replacement anyway. Given what has happened, and knowing that if i decide to pull the engine out to do the bigends, that the crank will probably need either a linish or re-grind, new mains, a line bore on the mains would be a good idea, that the cylinders will probably need to be bored out to the 1st oversize, which means new pistons/rings, heads inspected etc, etc... i have basically come to the decision that i should do a complete rebuild on the engine. After all, we like the car and we will probably have it for quite some time yet. Once its done at least there is peace of mind that its all fresh again opposed to using a second hand engine for example.
To get to my point... i have looked at pricing up Subaru genuine parts as a starting point and it looks somewhere around $3000 just for parts without the bore, re-grind, etc work which appears rather pricy given i rebuild my pugs (with qualiy aftermarket components) for about $1000 - $1200, i think i re-used the rods and that was it.
I'm wondering if anyone has had any good experiences with any aftermarket brands? I'm not talking about the cheap stuff, nor the performance either, simply a good replacement for a stock standard build. It is after all the daily to drop the kids to day-care!! no real performance needed here, and I'm not into using cheap parts to "get out of it cheap". That will always bite you later on.
(its the EJ202 sohc non-turbo engine)
Any help would be appreciated.
Asa
