FA20, the flat rotary

[VoltsFRS2013]

do not shoot me, the title was meant to grab your attention.


A lot of people I've been talking to lately keep comparing the motor in our cars to a rotary in the sense that revving it high (near redline or at redline) multiple times during driving is necessary to keep the car in good condition.

Curious to see what you guys think about this. I granny my car a lot, going near redline for me feels a bit awkward especially in the AT's long ass gears.

[Teseo]

Redline it once a day to keep mechanic away

[Stang70Fastback]

"I don't exercise. It's healthier for my body."

[VoltsFRS2013]

Originally Posted by Stang70Fastback

"I don't exercise. It's healthier for my body."

Originally Posted by Teseo

Redline it once a day to keep mechanic away

oops LMAO... never too late to start, right boys?

[Lantanafrs2]

Sounds ridiculous

[mav1178]

Please don't seek advice from these people again in the future.

[VoltsFRS2013]

Originally Posted by mav1178

Please don't seek advice from these people again in the future.

I literally quote "the motor in these cars is the new rotary. a redline a day keeps it happy"

something along those lines. I granny my car, i dont lug the motor but i just dont like bashing it lol but if its not good for it i'll bash it a bit more lmao. I only bash it like 3-4 times a year when i go on rally events.

[mav1178]

Originally Posted by VoltsFRS2013

I literally quote "the motor in these cars is the new rotary. a redline a day keeps it happy"

something along those lines. I granny my car, i dont lug the motor but i just dont like bashing it lol but if its not good for it i'll bash it a bit more lmao. I only bash it like 3-4 times a year when i go on rally events.

Again, don't listen to those people for advice in the long run if they are telling you to redline the motor once a day.

If they have a good reason, fine, but this is not some magical new rotor that Subaru invented. There's no basis for redlining it daily unless you just drive that way.

[VoltsFRS2013]

Originally Posted by mav1178

Again, don't listen to those people for advice in the long run if they are telling you to redline the motor once a day.

If they have a good reason, fine, but this is not some magical new rotor that Subaru invented. There's no basis for redlining it daily unless you just drive that way.

My thing is, I get somewhat what they're saying to occasionally drive it spiritedly. Like today on the way home, ripped it pretty nice but I never do that lol

These cars are FI, in a carb setup I'd kind of get driving it hard on a daily basis, but there's not much of a need for it with our setup. Especially considering the fiasco with Direct Injectors these cars have.

[mav1178]

Cool, you have all the answers you need. I'm out.

[Ernest72]

Engines tend to blow up at high rpms when oil is starved or thinned out. No problem exercising these cars but I would not do it just for the sake of it. Mine as a DD and AT, rarely sees over 5k. Same for my WRX with 126k miles over the last 15 years, still going strong.

My guess is the kiddies bouncing off of rev limiters has caused many a Subaru engine to die early.

[Stang70Fastback]

In all seriousness, here's my reply based on ZERO research, and only one anecdotal example:

My old Subaru Outback had an EJ25. It was old. 260,000 miles old. I always babied it, having been told be our previous mechanic who had done the head gaskets many years ago that we should go easy on it to avoid them going bad again. As a result, I rarely went above 3500 - 4000 RPM in that car.

One year I threw caution to the wind and did an autocross. With a co-driver. That meant a total of 12 runs thrashing the hell out of the car.

After that event, the engine ran SO MUCH MORE SMOOTHLY, it blew my mind. I hadn't even thought about that. I was solely concerned with blowing it up, and actually thought it was running "fine." After the event, it suddenly revved more quickly, idled more smoothly, and seemed to have better throttle response. In any event, that kind of sold me on the whole "a bit of hard driving every once in a while helps clean out the engine" thing.

I also know that every new car's break-in procedure mentions that you should avoid extended, steady-state cruising during the first thousand-or-so miles of break-in, and avoid using cruise control. This is because they want you to work the engine across the entire rev-range, and not sit at one constant RPM. While I don't officially know the reason for this, someone once told me it was because if you were to break the engine in at one RPM, it would develop a kind of "flat spot" where it would be happy running at that speed, but not quite as happy at the other speeds.

Both of these things I know are MUCH more applicable to older vehicles than modern ones, but my brain still posits that if you NEVER really rev the car up very much, you still will get SOME more deposits than you otherwise would burn off. Likewise, if you NEVER rev the engine up, I posit that - although to a MUCH less, and maybe not even noticeable extent these days - the engine will probably be slightly less happy to suddenly run at those higher RPMs.

Again, this is all based on my one experience... so really it's meaningless, but I thought I'd share.

[Lantanafrs2]

You probably blew the carbon out of it

[CoolHandMoss]

They're probably saying that because the car has the direct injection system. Advocating some high revving during every drive seems to be common when talking about cars with direct injection, though that definitely does not apply to the twins because they also have port injection which keeps the valves nice and clean. Just a possible idea of why they're saying that.