Camshaft/Cam Carrier Journal Wear

[hotrod1442]

I'm new to working on these FA20 engines, the one I'm dealing with currently is a 2013 engine with 70,000 kilometers (43K miles), and has significant camshaft journal wear on all four cams. Has this been a common issue with the FA20 engine? Is there a known camshaft journal oiling issue that needs to be addressed?

I'm replacing all four camshafts, and both cam carriers, but want to be sure I do what I can to make this set live a bit happier life.

The four oil strainers/filters that the front journals get fed oil from were very clean, so I'm assuming the oil going to the rear journals was also clean.

I decided to use a blow gun to confirm flow to all the feed passages to the journals, but it's proving to be a bit hard to confirm that there is adaquate flow.

I removed the threaded plugs at the end of each galley and used a borescope to have a look down the length of the galleys. I was expecting a clear path from the rear of the cylinder head, all the way thru to the ball bearing plug at the front of each galley, but found what appears to be a restrictor with a very small orfice drilled in it. I guess they are trying to limit oil flow to the rear of the cylinder heads (rocker pivots, center and rear cam journals)

Anyhow, I thought I'd inquire as to whether this cam wear has been seen by others at this kind of mileage, and if there is any remedies to lessen the wear issue.

[blsfrs]

Originally Posted by hotrod1442

I'm new to working on these FA20 engines, the one I'm dealing with currently is a 2013 engine with 70,000 kilometers (43K miles), and has significant camshaft journal wear on all four cams. Has this been a common issue with the FA20 engine? Is there a known camshaft journal oiling issue that needs to be addressed?

I'm replacing all four camshafts, and both cam carriers, but want to be sure I do what I can to make this set live a bit happier life.

The four oil strainers/filters that the front journals get fed oil from were very clean, so I'm assuming the oil going to the rear journals was also clean.

I decided to use a blow gun to confirm flow to all the feed passages to the journals, but it's proving to be a bit hard to confirm that there is adaquate flow.



I removed the threaded plugs at the end of each galley and used a borescope to have a look down the length of the galleys. I was expecting a clear path from the rear of the cylinder head, all the way thru to the ball bearing plug at the front of each galley, but found what appears to be a restrictor with a very small orfice drilled in it. I guess they are trying to limit oil flow to the rear of the cylinder heads (rocker pivots, center and rear cam journals)

Anyhow, I thought I'd inquire as to whether this cam wear has been seen by others at this kind of mileage, and if there is any remedies to lessen the wear issue.

FWIW: I don't know how far along you are with this project but most folks are going with a FA24 swap rather than mess with rebuilding a FA20.

[RT-BRZ]

Originally Posted by blsfrs

FWIW: I don't know how far along you are with this project but most folks are going with a FA24 swap rather than mess with rebuilding a FA20.

That's all very relative depending on where you are located. I'm in central Ohio and finding one within reasonable driving distance was always around $7k. I'm boosted already so the cost is a wash between building up my FA20 and swapping in a FA24 that has many of the same shortcomings. And, it is also of unknown origin when it comes to how it was treated. At least I already know I abuse mine but I also go above and beyond on maintenance as was shown when the bearings were inspected.

[hotrod1442]

Originally Posted by blsfrs

FWIW: I don't know how far along you are with this project but most folks are going with a FA24 swap rather than mess with rebuilding a FA20.

Not a complete rebuild, more like a freshening/inspection/reseal job. This engine will see very little "hard driving" (mostly just an around town car), just trying to sort out any known issues while I have it apart.

Previously, before we jumped ship over to these FR-S's, we drove a couple of high mileage 2000 Celica GT-S's,.........one with 370.000KM, the other @ 450,000KM. Those Toyota/Yamaha 2ZZ's seemed to be BULLET PROOF!

With all the Subaru FA20 engine failure stories I'm reading, I'm starting to second guess our decision to jump into the Subaru deal. I understand that a fair bit of the failures relate to lax maintenance practices, lack of attention to detail while applying FIPG, running the engine low on oil, etc. But with the shear volume of engine failures, coupled with the wear that I'm seeing inside this engine at least, have me wondering if there are a few design issues that need fixing to make these things live.

The area that seems to be a common thread to all these failures is lubrication,...... or lack there of, to be more accurate.

[DarkPira7e]

Originally Posted by hotrod1442

Not a complete rebuild, more like a freshening/inspection/reseal job. This engine will see very little "hard driving" (mostly just an around town car), just trying to sort out any known issues while I have it apart.

Previously, before we jumped ship over to these FR-S's, we drove a couple of high mileage 2000 Celica GT-S's,.........one with 370.000KM, the other @ 450,000KM. Those Toyota/Yamaha 2ZZ's seemed to be BULLET PROOF!

With all the Subaru FA20 engine failure stories I'm reading, I'm starting to second guess our decision to jump into the Subaru deal. I understand that a fair bit of the failures relate to lax maintenance practices, lack of attention to detail while applying FIPG, running the engine low on oil, etc. But with the shear volume of engine failures, coupled with the wear that I'm seeing inside this engine at least, have me wondering if there are a few design issues that need fixing to make these things live.

The area that seems to be a common thread to all these failures is lubrication,...... or lack there of, to be more accurate.

Don't forget that people are more likely to report issues than anything else. It feels prevalent because so many people here report an issue, when in reality it's like 1 in 300,000 that has a genuine issue

[NoHaveMSG]

My initial thought on that would be poor maintenance or wrong type/grade of oil. If anything the later cars, like 14+ had some valve train revisions. One of the changes was reducing the size of the oiling holes in the rocker pivot on one of the heads. 13’s they were smaller on the driver side I believe, later on they matched them on both sides. I believe that is the main source for oil in the heads. My 15 had rod knock when I bought it and there was some trash that lightly scored the cam journals. Can’t really feel it with my fingernail so I lightly buffed it with some light scotch bright pads and ran it.

FWIW my 13 track car has over 100k miles and tons of track days. No issues except for timing cover oil leak. (Knock on wood)