Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2017 2:27 pm
So now that the engine is in and running, the hurdles are fabrication and packaging related.
Flywheel and clutch went straight on, and the engine went straight in with a bit of manoeuvring. The steel injector rail cover on the left hand side needs to come off so that you can clear the cruise control pump and that's it. Engine was easy to slip onto the tranny with the tranny jacked up and the engine on a tilt adjuster. Tranny engine bolts have plenty of access like it was with the EJ, and the lower engine mounts dropped into their holes without fuss. Every thing is pretty tight in there, with only 15-20mm clearance between alot of things. But nothing hits when the engine kicks.
The top of the engine looks high when its all sitting there. But the hood still clears the engine, even with the beauty cover on. I've only confirmed this by laying a piece of corrugated cardboard down on top of the engine and looking for indents, so I don't know if the gap is 25mm or 5mm. All I know its a 4mm piece of card can fit in between. I'm not worried about damaging the hood with this though. If there is contact, it will be between the flat plastic beauty cover and bonnet ribs, and the extent of the engine movement I have so far observed is not likely to damage or bend anything. I'm just going to suck it and see.
Power steering and feed lines are swapped over as the EZ has a remote reservoir. Cannot use the EJ pump because the integrated reservoir fouls on the intake manifold of the EZ. It is a straight forward swap though, the fittings on the steering rack are the same and the hard lines only need a small amount of bending to adapt to the different hole positions. This can be achieved with a set of multigrips.
The A/C system is all EJ. The hardlines on the compressor need a little bending. The one that goes to the front condenser needs to be bent so that it can clear the intake manifold. The one the runs back to the firewall to feed the evaporator needs to be straightened out a bit to give about an inch more length to account for the longer engine. I tried to do this with the refrigerant charge still in the system, but it was too hard to hold the compressor and bend the lines at the same time. The lines are too strong. Access to the lines around the firewall is limited, and the connection to the evaporator isn't rigid enough to bend the pipes. So I had to recover the refrigerant and bend the compressor lines with the compressor mounted and the connections partially undone. The evaporator line needed to be removed and held in a vice.
The challenges not are fitting the exhaust and finding a suitable gearbox cross member, and sorting out a cooling solution.
The issue with the crossmember is that the stock H6 headers fit fine - they align with the exhaust hanger and everything - but they interfere with the crossmember in two places. One is on forward LH Side where the crossmember is not sculpted to provide room for an exhaust (see photo) and around the hanger where the two portions of the exhaust merge, one side interferes with the rearmost central sections of the crossmember. I 'have' to use these headers, because they have 3 cats in them and they have pre and post O2 sensors. So deleting cats causes more ECU problems, and buying 3 new cats is expensive. Don't really want to cut and shut the headers as I'd loose all the heat shielding and if I ever needed to replace them it would be another custom job. The rear cat would need quite a dodgy joint aswell. I've been researching crossmembers the last couple of days, and asked a few subaru nuts, and the results of this are that turbo cross members have the LH side sculpted for dual exhausts, and it seems some versions also have more clearance around the exhaust hanger too. The bolt pattern at the chassis is the same. So once wreckers are staffed again, I'll go for a look around and see if I can avoid modifying the exhaust. Who thought a 2001 6 cyl exhaust would fit under a 1993 4 cyl car?? stoked.
[Credit: Team Scream at Subaruforester.org]
Picked up a full 3" stainless steel exhaust system for a turbo RS liberty a week or two ago for $100. Again, stoked. A slight modification should see that mate up to the headers nicely. And stainless is nice to weld
Up front, cooling is an issue, and I think the only good solution is a custom radiator. As the engine is 1 to two inches longer than the EJ, space up front is suddenly at a premium. The fact the that EZ has two outlets at the top is also a complication. The EZ and EJ radiators are essentially the same size, but the EZ has a top bottom tank design and the lower rad outlet is dropped down an inch or two below the bottom tank. This interferes with the chassis on the new car. The EJ radiator still drops in, and I have dodged up a manifold that can join the two coolant outlets. But there is absolutely no space left for rad fans that way. Seeing as I don't want to modify the chassis or the rad support, the only solution really is a top tank aluminium radiator with slimline fans. This will allow me to use the stock EZ hoses, which will be neat and leave enough length for good hose flex, and there will be space for some slimline fans. Dunno how much it will cost though. Depends how modular they are. In the mean time, I'll use the dodged up manifold and have no radiator fans. I think fans will be a necessity, as the front of the engine is so big and flat! Its like the air comes through the radiator and hits a brick wall. So while passive cooling was never a problem with the EJ, now we will probably have a reduction of passive airflow and when driving hard there will be at worst a 60% increase in cooling load. I guess again, we'll suck it an see. Not like I can shave the sides of the cam cover off or anything.
Will keep youze updated
Flywheel and clutch went straight on, and the engine went straight in with a bit of manoeuvring. The steel injector rail cover on the left hand side needs to come off so that you can clear the cruise control pump and that's it. Engine was easy to slip onto the tranny with the tranny jacked up and the engine on a tilt adjuster. Tranny engine bolts have plenty of access like it was with the EJ, and the lower engine mounts dropped into their holes without fuss. Every thing is pretty tight in there, with only 15-20mm clearance between alot of things. But nothing hits when the engine kicks.
The top of the engine looks high when its all sitting there. But the hood still clears the engine, even with the beauty cover on. I've only confirmed this by laying a piece of corrugated cardboard down on top of the engine and looking for indents, so I don't know if the gap is 25mm or 5mm. All I know its a 4mm piece of card can fit in between. I'm not worried about damaging the hood with this though. If there is contact, it will be between the flat plastic beauty cover and bonnet ribs, and the extent of the engine movement I have so far observed is not likely to damage or bend anything. I'm just going to suck it and see.
Power steering and feed lines are swapped over as the EZ has a remote reservoir. Cannot use the EJ pump because the integrated reservoir fouls on the intake manifold of the EZ. It is a straight forward swap though, the fittings on the steering rack are the same and the hard lines only need a small amount of bending to adapt to the different hole positions. This can be achieved with a set of multigrips.
The A/C system is all EJ. The hardlines on the compressor need a little bending. The one that goes to the front condenser needs to be bent so that it can clear the intake manifold. The one the runs back to the firewall to feed the evaporator needs to be straightened out a bit to give about an inch more length to account for the longer engine. I tried to do this with the refrigerant charge still in the system, but it was too hard to hold the compressor and bend the lines at the same time. The lines are too strong. Access to the lines around the firewall is limited, and the connection to the evaporator isn't rigid enough to bend the pipes. So I had to recover the refrigerant and bend the compressor lines with the compressor mounted and the connections partially undone. The evaporator line needed to be removed and held in a vice.
The challenges not are fitting the exhaust and finding a suitable gearbox cross member, and sorting out a cooling solution.
The issue with the crossmember is that the stock H6 headers fit fine - they align with the exhaust hanger and everything - but they interfere with the crossmember in two places. One is on forward LH Side where the crossmember is not sculpted to provide room for an exhaust (see photo) and around the hanger where the two portions of the exhaust merge, one side interferes with the rearmost central sections of the crossmember. I 'have' to use these headers, because they have 3 cats in them and they have pre and post O2 sensors. So deleting cats causes more ECU problems, and buying 3 new cats is expensive. Don't really want to cut and shut the headers as I'd loose all the heat shielding and if I ever needed to replace them it would be another custom job. The rear cat would need quite a dodgy joint aswell. I've been researching crossmembers the last couple of days, and asked a few subaru nuts, and the results of this are that turbo cross members have the LH side sculpted for dual exhausts, and it seems some versions also have more clearance around the exhaust hanger too. The bolt pattern at the chassis is the same. So once wreckers are staffed again, I'll go for a look around and see if I can avoid modifying the exhaust. Who thought a 2001 6 cyl exhaust would fit under a 1993 4 cyl car?? stoked.
[Credit: Team Scream at Subaruforester.org]
Picked up a full 3" stainless steel exhaust system for a turbo RS liberty a week or two ago for $100. Again, stoked. A slight modification should see that mate up to the headers nicely. And stainless is nice to weld
Up front, cooling is an issue, and I think the only good solution is a custom radiator. As the engine is 1 to two inches longer than the EJ, space up front is suddenly at a premium. The fact the that EZ has two outlets at the top is also a complication. The EZ and EJ radiators are essentially the same size, but the EZ has a top bottom tank design and the lower rad outlet is dropped down an inch or two below the bottom tank. This interferes with the chassis on the new car. The EJ radiator still drops in, and I have dodged up a manifold that can join the two coolant outlets. But there is absolutely no space left for rad fans that way. Seeing as I don't want to modify the chassis or the rad support, the only solution really is a top tank aluminium radiator with slimline fans. This will allow me to use the stock EZ hoses, which will be neat and leave enough length for good hose flex, and there will be space for some slimline fans. Dunno how much it will cost though. Depends how modular they are. In the mean time, I'll use the dodged up manifold and have no radiator fans. I think fans will be a necessity, as the front of the engine is so big and flat! Its like the air comes through the radiator and hits a brick wall. So while passive cooling was never a problem with the EJ, now we will probably have a reduction of passive airflow and when driving hard there will be at worst a 60% increase in cooling load. I guess again, we'll suck it an see. Not like I can shave the sides of the cam cover off or anything.
Will keep youze updated