You should drop your oil pan and clean out the pickup
 

I'm mid rebuild after another spun rod bearing at 74k miles on a 2013. I had a new short block installed under warranty at around 54k, then the valve spring recall done around 65k. Doing this latest new short block myself I really can't stress enough how much gasket maker is used on these engines.
I plan on dropping my pan and cleaning out the oil pickup after 1-2k miles once my rebuild is done. I'm also moving to the KillerB oil pickup.

Now for the pics.

https://i.imgur.com/LjVW9hp.jpeg


https://i.imgur.com/SFnbsHk.jpeg


All of the debris in this box was shaken out of the pickup tube. This is IN ADDITION TO the gasket maker you can see in the pic above. So I shook this out of the tube, THEN removed the mesh and took the above pic.
https://i.imgur.com/vmWDtdD.jpeg

Wtf, this liquid gasket pandemic need to be stopped. Its really all over the world. My car had a new engine before i bought it after a valve spring fix. Now i feel i should check my oil pickup, obviously applying gaskets isn't part of the education for Toyota/Subaru mechanics, i thought it was something you learnt on day 1.

A lot of it can be the old sealant that wasn't removed properly. That combined with a sloppy application of the new and you have a mess on your hands. Removal and reapplication is very time consuming and they just don't take their time with it. Then if there was metal in the oil and you have a cooler and don't replace it then the metal gets recirculated again and again. When I used the IAG block the first oil change was 50 miles, then 500 then 1,500 all with break in oil.

It's difficult to lay the sealant properly.

We should blame Subaru for opting to use gasket maker instead of regular gaskets.

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In the fabric a robot puts the sealant, apparently it s more economic for them like that

I've put engines together before, though not this typ of engine, and have never had so much excess, its supposed to be a very thin layer. But i agree, its a cheap solution and skipping the gaskets creates alot of risk, especially if it needs to be opened at work shops.

The split crankcase makes it very hard to make a gasket work, add thermal expansion of that weird joint and gaskets will fail much earlier than on simpler engines.

I’d be willing to bet that the sealant is actually more expensive than using a gasket. Part cost vs technician time. Having a tech spend 2mins applying a bead to an interface is more expensive than spending 2 seconds throwing a gasket on it. Keep in mind that Porsche (the only other manufacturer that builds boxers) seals theirs the same way. Considering their MSRPs and profit margins they would do it differently if there was a better way.

It is not supposed to be a thin layer, it is a bead layed down out of a caulking gun, ~4mm in diameter per the FSM. It is not a cheap solution, it is actually more expensive as it requires more exact assembly practices as we have experienced the shoddy end of.

There are a few reasons to use sealant over gaskets. On something like the timing cover, a gasket wouldn't work and would leak all the time. That is a big cover and when you throw in the stresses on it(the oil pump is housed in the cover), and heating and cooling cycles it just doesn't work. Another is the tolerancing on sealant is more consistent over gaskets. You also get firmer fastening between two parts.

@demasrv I see you got into your rebuild! One good inexpensive way to find if you have this problem is to look at your oil filter. Like I did here with pics https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146429

I found flakes/chunks of sealant there and so I dropped the pan and found some shit, not as much as you. Then installed the killerB. My engine is stock but had to reseal for timing cover leaks and it still happened

I mentioned used oil analysis, but I found another place that does use oil filter media analysis haha, more expensive and mostly for industrial/ships/planes applications but probably can be applicable here if you think you have a problem. UOA doesn't pick up solid particles you can see with your eyes

How much time are you guys giving for the sealant to cure before adding any oil?