I advised them this morning to do that and if they haven't got to it today then we will know Monday.

Re: Brand new problem (scary!)
 

Rotten eggs points toward a clogged cat, the raw fuel smell, likely the cause. You notice it leaking on one side, I'm betting it's doing out of one of the exhaust joints. It's either not getting spark for half the motor or, and this is my bet, you have a cam out of time. I've seen them break where only a few cylinders were on point, and more than once found bad cam key ways where it meets with the cam gear. A quick visual inspection would miss this... If I were you I'd take it apart a bit and have a closer look

Re: Brand new problem (scary!)
 

To check this you have to remove the timing sproket to see if the U-shaped cutout for the round pin :confused: is a good tight fit or has worn allowing the cam timing to change in regard to the actual camshaft.

Just looking at the timing marks will not tell you this.

Visually checked valve guides and opened up the valve cover. Nothing jumped out. The problem now is being that the fault is still elusive I have to decide whether to explore more invasive diagnosis or just find a working short block (which I may have already found).

At this point tearing further into the engine will potentially cost more than popping a new one in.

I can shoot this last idea over to them but it's still a gamble and it will cost regardless.

Re: Brand new problem (scary!)
 

if the problem with is with your heads a short block won't help you.

Granted that, but it will rule out other problems like bad rings. My engine has been beat to hell. I learned to drive in this car and did a lot of stupid stuff in it.
This short block is brand new, unused. It will be a nice place to start an engine rebuild if that's what I have to do.

Re: Brand new problem (scary!)
 

Once again, please check the camshaft to camshaft pulley ineterface. before you spend $3000.00 needlessly.

I will have them check it Monday before attempting to install a new block. Just to be clear, the part being discussed is the "notch" at the front of the exhaust camshaft pictured below?

As it is, have I ever need of one (and I probably will), I now own a factory new short block and it was "only" $1000 and a tank of gas. I would have bought it even if the car was running properly. This guy has been selling these engines to people with kit planes and air boats and I realized I don't exactly control demand for eg33 parts up here.

Re: Brand new problem (scary!)
 

Yes, that is it and check the one on the crank pulley. Either of them can wear out if not torqued properly.

Car is good, no damage, ready soon, will update later, everyone will facepalm or laugh.

Re: Brand new problem (scary!)
 

Great news. No laughter or face palms here, been there and done that.;)

OK, so they pulled the engine to inspect the cams, everything is in good shape.

For whatever reason it wasn't apparent until now that the belt was indeed out of time. I checked it myself the first time, it looked fine. The shop checked it, all 3 marks it looked fine I guess. It wasn't off by much, and to be honest my timing marks are a bit ambiguous which could have been the problem.

So that's that.

One thing we talked about was why this happened and how to prevent it in the future. Now this is something I've never heard of but apparently some Subarus with factory-equipped manual transmissions have something called a timing belt guide which is designed to prevent the belt from jumping, seemingly because this is a prevalent issue in manual cars.

He seems to think that if only our oil pump required a single cam sensor instead of two that we could pop in an oil pump from a different car which has the guide mounting holes and this would potentially solve the problem of jumping timing belts, sparing people like me all sorts of grief.

Any ideas on that front?

Re: Brand new problem (scary!)
 

in theory that is a good idea but that is probably not why your belt jumped. being in Colorado I see tons of subarus, many are missing this part and never have a problem. If the belt is in good condition I would suspect a misfire issue caused the cam to push back and cause the belt to jump. the rotating mass of the cam is enough to keep it from pushing back against the belt and when the belt is pulling it should always be tight. could also be a bad tensioner but was trying to ignore the obvious as I assume they checked that stuff out.

All that stuff has been replaced multiple times and it hasn't been driven enough to warrant more replacement of any pulleys or tensioners.

You may be right about the misfire issue. We do not get better than 90 grade fuel up here. That's why I have the diagnostics cables. I have a persistent hesitation issue which I should be able to identify soon enough.

Re: Brand new problem (scary!)
 

Glad you found it, gladder still that no harm was done to the engine. Hopefully your wallet will recover too. ;)