Ej20X oil control valve

[66figjam66]

Hi people anyone now about oil control valve’s there are two at the top near the injectors (one on both sides) and there are two at the bottom front of the heads, the part number for the top ones are 10921AA020 if you would like to see exactly what I’m talking about and the bottom RH one is 10917AA000 I’m not sure what the LH one is I can’t seem to find it anywhere. I’ve been told that both the bottom LH and RH ones need to replace the complete unit (housing and oil sensor). My question is can you just replace the oil control valve sensor without the housing and my second part of that question is does anyone know where I can buy them from out of Japan as there are currently none available in Australia (genuine parts only). It’s a Subaru liberty 2004 GT Ej20X thanks in advance

[bigBADbenny]

If you google the part number for the PreFL exhaust OCV assy, the first hit is Amayama, another genuine parts vendor I forgot to mention in your FB post.
Since only a single part is listed, you can be sure it fits both banks of cylinders.
Individual part numbers for the assy are not listed eg the solenoid and the housings internal oil filter. I’d recommend also getting the gasket for the assy but you might get away with reusing yours.
https://www.amayama.com/en/part/subaru/ ... 0/diagrams

It’s expensive to replace all OCV’s so I’d recommend datalogging the fault mode since the originating cause might be related to incorrect reassembly after service, eg a timing belt job, blocked oil filters or galled OCV (covered by replacing the OCV assy), sludged or FOD damaged cam sprocket or a harness, harness plug or ecu fault (in some cases deriving from oil contamination of the harness).

It really depends on the driving symptoms, service history of the car, the VVT angle behaviour in logging, mileage related wear and tear, the engine diagnostic trouble codes (DTC’s) but real mechanics diagnose first before parts swapping.

AVCs diagnostics: viewtopic.php?t=36504

FSM & parts faq: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34980

[undertow]

I had a stuck one on the left intake side. I removed it and blasted it out with WD40 and worked it back and forth with a tea spoon. It works perfectly now. They're not cheap, but easy enough to remove, so worth a try.

Grab a cheap vag-com cable and rom raider and log the left and right intake and exhaust cam angles - you'll quickly see if one is acting up. Info in Benny's links above

[undertow]

Has anyone ever tried swapping the upper and lower valves? The lower valve can be removed from the housing and looks suspiciously similar to the upper one. I may try it. One of my lower ones is a bit lazy.

[undertow]

Curiosity got the better of me, so I popped out both the left side intake and exhaust OCVs and they appear to be exactly the same, despite having different part numbers. The intake is 10921AA020 and the exhaust is 10921AA030. I swapped them around, put them back in and went for a drive, and they work as normal. So you can use 10921AA020 for exhaust too.

One of my exhaust OCVs is a bit lazy so I'm going to order a $25 ebay/aliexpress 10921AA020 copy and see how it goes.

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