Thanks mate. I'd have loved to rip into it and rebuild it myself but realistically with 2 young kids I just don't get the time for projects like that at the moment.

I ended up with a new shape Impreza STI with fully forged build. Absolutely love it!

Thread update coming......

 

CAR NOW SOLD.

Thanks for looking and thanks for all the interest and lovely comments and PMs.

Thankfully it was sold to another long standing member on here who really wanted it and is going to rebuild it (possibly forge it) himself as he's a Subaru mechanic! Result!!!! Was really nice to meet him and his family yesterday and I know it has gone to a great home. He is going to carry on what I started and improve the car even further. I will let him post up on my build thread or start his own thread to introduce himself.

 

congrats mate, car is a beauty and glad to see its being saved, good luck to the new owner.

 

Thanks mate.

 

Glad it's gone to a good home!

 

Thanks mate, me too.

Was chatting to the new owner last night and he took it to his work, did another head gasket test himself and it didn't fail. hahaha. Thank you to my local Subaru garage for costing me a lot of money. The new owner certainly got a bargain!

 

My 2.1 didn't fail any head gasket tests either, I must have tested it 30 times . It leaked on boost only, was pretty clear it was gone once I had the head off though.

 

Yeh, he's going to take it apart anyway because he can and uprate gaskets, studs etc. May do full forged rebuild on it too.

 

omfg! really? but why else would the temp guage do that?

 

If the high pressure expansion bottle isn't full the temperature will go up and it's very easy to get air locks in the Subaru cooling system. I suspect it's still HG failure causing loss (or displacement) of coolant.