Last year I was driving my 08 STi and the car just stopped, all lights went on, and the car died.
At the mechanic we detected a hole in oil filter, all the oil leaked out, and I run without oil for a few miles.
Apparently the engine is not seized I could drive around the block after changing the oil and the filter but the car just keep dying.
The mechanic says that the only way to fix is changing the entire engine. Is the mechanic right?? Couldn’t I just change just the short block?
Really need some help in this issue the car is at my garage have no idea what to do.
If you ran witha dry engine it is likley that the bearings are shot, which in turn would have sent shards of metal throughout your oiled paths. Your mechanic might be trying to squeeze you for a bit extra but the enigne will need to be completely torn down and have all the tolerances checked. The labor involved in pulling the engine and disassembling to swap small individual parts before fully deep cleaning might add up to a similar cost of just replacing the engine entirely.
Your call but if it were me I would take this as am opportunity to drop in forged internals and pickup a bigger turbo.
you might be able to get away with just a shortblock, but as arctic says, the entire motor will need a rebuild anyways so its probably about the same price in the long run.
Yeah the way I see it is if there are any metal parts that were damaged before the oil filter then parts after the filter should in theory be ok. That said I would still swap the turbo if you had a metal part fail in the oil cause you dont want to shred a new engine because you were trying to use an old turbo that still had shards in it.
It's a great idea to start developing a trusting relationship with a tech or shop familiar with Subaru performance engines, because you'll likely need help in the future.
It's a lot of effort pulling the engine to change a short block, and you don't want to put it back together only to have problems with the turbo or the heads afterwards.
So it'd be best to have an experienced person inspect the cylinder heads and turbo for damage if you just want to consider a short- rather than a long block replacement. Either way, the oil cooler should be replaced, as it has fine passages that trap any filings.
A shortblock is the bare minimum. You're going to need to replace the oil pump and turbo as well. If you spun a bearing it's often accompanied by head damage, which is probably what your mechanic was getting at. It doesn't happen in all cases though.
You have a few good options that have been mentioned. The bare minimum is a new bottom end, but you NEED to swap in forged pistons. Starting in 08 Subaru started utilizing hyperutectic pistons and even stock cars were cracking pistons. This happens due to emissions requirements causing a lean condition in boost, a protune with forged pistons is your best bet. Yes it will add cost, but do you want to blow another stock motor?
For example when my 205 spun a rod bearing (due to poor tolerances) it was going to cost the same to drop a OEM motor in vs the stage 1 stroker I did. Now I did need new heads (205s were abused when the wrx first came out here due to kids running full exhausts without a tune) and mine had the crack at the spark plugs.
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