YASC : Yet another Subie Conversion, She's off and, uh, stalled... Options

[jsteele22]

Two weeks ago I drove up to Denver to look at an engine. An EJ25 SOHC in a wrecked 2000 Legacy w/ 70k miles. Listed as a "parts engine" b/c the front end was smushed and the T-belt broken. Price was $400. Not fantastic, but pretty good, IMHO.

(I paid $500 + $300 shipping for a DOHC EJ25 with only 30k mi last fall, but that turned out to be an EBay scam. I ended up getting $175 back through Ebay.)

Anyway, when I looked at the engine, I bumped my head on the hood. The wheels were off the car, and the hood rumpled in some, so it wasn't where it was "supposed" to be. I checked out a few other engines, then asked to look at this one again. Once again, I bashed my head, only this time I caught a sharp edge. Man, head wounds do some serious bleeding ! This one was a pumper. Didn't get a drop of blood on me, but everything a few feet in front of me got squirted. Righteous, as Hammer would have said.

Fast forward a week. I bought a pair of SOHC heads w/ low miles off Ebay for $150. Scored a batch of goodies (Water pump, t-belt, tensioner, gasket set) for $185 off NASIOC. So obviously, I've cast the die. Borrowed a friends truck, drove up to Denver, and picked up the engine. Got back to the Springs, and went straight to the tool store to pick up an engine stand. I ask the guy if there's one of the cheapest ones set up on display somewhere. Not real clear what he replied. Then I kind of remember the EMT asking me what kind of car i drive. Then the ER nurse is unhooking the EKG electrodes from my chest. Holy Crap ! No, it wasn't a heart attack. Some kind of seizure, but I won't know how/why it happened for at least a month and a half, if at all. Right now, all I know is that after asking about the engine stand, my face went blank, I turned to jello, fell to the floor, started twitching, and turned sorta blue.

So, in its own peculiar way, the project has begun. I've got a builder engine and parts, I've picked out an engine stand. And doctors orders : no driving ! I'm still pretty swamped w/ my day job + consulting job, so I really won't be able to start work until April or so anyways. But I can still ruminate (kind of like barfing up grass, but not really) about what I'm gonna do :

* Replace "questionable" heads w/ good ones.
* Maybe/probably get cams reground by Delta.
* All new gaskets, timing belt, pump, tensioner
* Brew up my own MegaSquirt-II + EDIS system.
* All the other stuff that goes along with an engine swap !

All this should put me on track to have my teener torn apart and undriveable in time for summer. Stay tuned.

[jsteele22]

The weekend was nice but VERY WINDY. I made a little progress. On Saturday, I went to the boneyard and selected a donor transmission - the only one that fit a EJ motor. It's from a 4WD 1990 Impreza (I think it was Impreza, I gotta check). Mileage unknown, since the speedo cluster was already gone. Price, $60 + $10 core. I figured at that price, its worth it to have a mock-up to work with if nothing else.

Nothing tricky about the job, mostly just turning the wrench, and selecting the right words to shout when the wind blew crap into my eyes, mouth, etc. At the end of the job, I was gonna try and pull the outer cups from the inner CV joints -- the part with splines that fit on the tranny output shafts -- but I didn't have any good way to clean out the grease from the CVs to find the snap rings. I'll probably go back this weekend.

On Sunday, I brought the tranny to a coin-op car wash and Gunked it. It wasn't all that dirty to start with, but I was suprised at how little the Gunk (cheap no-name brand, actually) removed. And the high pressure didn't seem to matter much either. So I brought it into a shop at work (where I'm gonna be staging this swap) and put it up over a lab sink, and went at it with a toothbrush and a bottle of purple stuff. This worked reasonably well, but its tedious. I got it clean enough for now, but not spotless.

Also on Sunday, I picked up the engine from my friends garage, where it's been sitting since my little medical drama. Added a valve cover that I got off of car-part.com for $15. Of course the valve cover bolts are unusual, custom-made affairs of differing lengths. Maybe I'll check for those next week at the boneyard.

I had planned to give the engine a bath, but the valve cover doesn't really seat down well w/o a gasket, and then I realized that getting any goop on the clutch prolly isn't a great idea, so I passed. The engine really sin't that dirty, mostly just dust, which I'll attack w/ wet paper towels. Since I've gotta tear the engine down a fair amount to swap the heads, I'll just clean as I go. But I definitely plan to snap a lot of photos for the re-construction phase. Man there's a lot of hoses and wires on that thing !

Anyways, here's the tranny :




and, unless I screw up the attachments, the engine :