I dropped my little truck off for it's Roadworthy Inspection today, so while I was chewing my fingernails waiting for the (good, hopefully) news, I decided to revive my 2002 Subaru B4 Liberty (Legacy in the US) twin turbo beastie. Last time I drove it, the engine was running hot and I wasn't confident to drive it too far. I had attempted to start it a few weeks ago but the battery was dead flat, so I think that there's an electrical issue as well. No matter, I'd charged the battery weeks ago and it was still fully charged, so I dropped it in and fired it up. It fired up right away and ran fine.
I had half a bottle of leftover Nulon radiator stop leak stuff, so I wandered into my garage to grab it, when I saw the bottle of KSeal Head Gasket repair. I'd bought it for the Mitsubishi but didn't need it once I realised that the problem was with the head, and not the gasket, so, knowing that the overheating issue could be related to Subaru's known appetite for head gaskets, I tipped the bottle in. As per the instructions I needed to run the engine for 15 minutes, so I locked up the house and went for a drive. Much to my (happy) surprise, the temp gauge never went over the halfway point over the 50 mile drive.
So I was happy with that, but not happy that, while the little beast rockets up to 100 MPH on the primary turbo, when the tacho needle hits 4500 RPM, instead of the larger secondary turbo cutting in, it bucks and jerks wildly, with no acceleration. I'm pretty sure that the secondary turbo has sh1t the bed, so I've ordered a very nice used one from the United Arab Emirates. I'm not surprised, the primary turbo was buggared when we bought the car 7(?) years ago, and while the secondary turbo doesn't work nearly as hard as the primary turbo does, it sits, unused for long periods, especially this year, as I sold my Ford to my son who'd been driving the Subaru regularly back in January so it's done zero miles this year, until now.
Anyway, I'm watching lots of Youtube videos on various twin turbo Subaru ailments, so by the time the new(to me) turbo arrives, I'll no doubt be an expert......
Terry's Subaru B4 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr