So I am finally doing the Subaru drive train conversion. I picked up my donor car from a salvage auction for $200.00. Yes the entire car and yes it does drive and run. With that being said I am still looking to those more knowledgable in the Subaru arena. The car is a 2002 Impreza Outback Sport. It has a 2.5l in it and over 200k on the odometer. My plan is to tear the engine down and rebuild it a little more then stock. I have no intentions of dropping in a turbo, that's for another one. Who are some reliable sources for performance parts other then all the usuall Subaru upgrades that would be done on a Subaru. I am concerned about the cooling aspect of the engine. I would like to know what people are using for radiators. Thanks.

Oh man....there are no shortage of options here. The cooling is essentially the same as any other radiator setup like the SB350 guys are doing. LOADS of options there.

coldwater914.com for all the engine mounting bits. Save yourself the headache of fabricating your own. (Unless you were looking forward to that part.)

Cpt. I have no intention of massive fabrication. Ian at cold water has my list. My only concern is what others are using as their cooling system. But what I am really looking for is those with experiance on a N/A 2.5 l for guidance. Anyone can throw a bunch of parts together, but making them into something street friendly and not stock are two different things.

I have no fabrication skills. I'm buying the radiator kit from renegade hybrids. I understand it's a bolt in solution with some cutting for air to enter and exit. It's about a grand. Not the cheapest solution but probably the best for my needs - eg33 swap

Not to hijack, but before you order the one from Renegade, ask Chads74 about his Renegade radiator experience. For $1,000 you get a radiator that leaks within 3 months after installation and they refuse to repair it.

Huh. Mine's been in there for eight years now without any problems, though they've probably changed a lot of things in that long a time. I think the only significant advantage of their kit is the shrouding that's been worked out pretty well. It's a thousand bucks, though, and that's quite a lot for shrouding.

Personally I am a fan of Ruby914's shroud. Now there is a person with skills.

No worries George. I am not a big fan of them in general. But if they do have something that I need then yes I will order from them but a $1000 radiator is not on my short or long list

Most likely you could use the radiator from the donor car and build a shroud. Anything is possible. The Scirocco radiator is small and aluminum units are very efficient.

I knew you would weigh in Mike thanks. And are we talking origional scirocco?

DB are you running a turbo?

No. I'm talking about a "Scirocco" radiator like you would find at Summit Racing or Jegs. They are about the smallest unit on the market and would be great for a modest Subi. The key in any radiator is controlling air flow.

The nice thing with a NA suby is they are easy to cool. I would use the one in the car to start. Bob had one for sale int he classifieds that was perfect. Didn't have the shrouding but you can do they pretty easy. I have a renegade setup in my old v8 car. I had zero problems with it.

Yes. When I bought that radiator the intention was to put in a SBC, but then changed to Subaru mid-process. It's way more than enough cooling, gotta give it that.

George, if his radiator leaked at 90 days then he needs to check the voltage in his coolant and be sure he has a ground strap on the tranny. That or a terrible mismatch of materials in his system. Opps, back on subject; Plus one on the Sirocco radiator. $60 bucks shipped on Ebay. Add a set of Dodge fans for another $60. Looking forward to another conversion thread.

Which Dodge fans? Thanks

Mike thanks for the clarification.

2003 Dodge 300M or Intrepid
Sirocco Radiators 1985-1992

So like many things this has now turned into a since I am doing this anyway project. The car will be stripped down to its chassis and be redone. The final color is not determined yet, however it will be in the red family. So these showed up this morning at my door step. The guy left them there as I was getting ready to open the garage door to say something. Funny the tag says inspect before accepting

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Best part is my wife wanted me to get those flares. And so the saga begins. I have no deadlines for this car so its going to be a while.

What car is getting the work done? Pics?

Sorry about that. Its Scarlet, she has been a noble steed so she will get a make over.

I'm surprised. I thought you had a strong running engine in that car

I did it was an incredible engine. However after finally getting rid of my brothers belongs (deceased), it was mid January this year when she went from 0-7500 by the time I turned the key off. Oh yeah it was also about 10 degrees outside, when the throttle cable stuck was wide open. And my loving wife heard it and said what was that? I said Scarlets engine is no more its broken. She looked me straight in the eye and said oh its only an engine She, the engine will have a new home once its dissected as to what happened.

Andy

I already have the wheels which are 17 x 8's Porsche Boxster Rims from flea bay. So of course there was a group buy next thing you know there is a 5 lug kit sitting at my door step. Oh yes my wife knew. She seems less pissed when I tell her what I am doing in our speak which baffles her and she says do you need it and of course we know the answer to that one, and she says ok, I am ordering flowers

I know Ian at coldwater is really busy right now but I think he needs to consider a radiator and shroud solution. He's really come through with all the other conversion parts and this is kit we all need.

True but then you may be limited to what you can get for a motor.

Did your donor come with a 5mt tranny?

Yes I searched through what seemed like a thousand cars but I did find a 5 MT. All the wire will be swapped out and replaced.

Andy

So, you are going to use the Subaru wiring harness and ECU and pull out the 914 wiring.
I was wondering if you could keep your 914 wiring and swap in a megasquirt ecu and if it would be easier.

I am going to run the Subaru instruments on my car. So if the brain thinks its a Subaru, all the better.

I did this and really enjoy the results but it was a massive amount of work. If I were to build another I would strip out the suby engine ecu and power it from the 914 wiring or go megasquirt and use one of the the gauge options from it.

Yes, this is what I am thinking as well. Any good threads on this concept?

I wanted to keep the stock gauges on my car, just upgraded them and am really pleased with how it turned out! Gauges turn red as a shift light, when the gas is low, and when the headlights are left on!
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How did you do that? Those are incredible.

So I am still in the tear down phase of the rebuild. If you have seen one then you have seen them all. While having my morning flea bay browsing session I put a bid in on a Subaru turbo. I won it so now the question becomes, do I turbo this 2.5 liter?

My radiator and ECU option

I picked up a complete radiator, fans, shroud etc. from an 95 Subaru Impreza.
Fits right in the front with only the cut for air intake. Used the rubber mounts also from the Impreza. Added a piece of sheet metal between the headlights for flow
to radiator. Mine was an A/C car so had the cut for the condensor which i use for
exiting air flow. Benefit also is same size radiator hose for both engine and radiator. Think I paid around $60 for it all at Pull A Part.

Been running a Suby WRX turbo motor for five years with this setup in the hot
Georgia sun with no problems. Fans have never kicked on or any temperature issues.

Also made my own wiring harness which was a challenge. Took awhile to figure
that out but wanted to use the origial ECU which came with the motor. Wanted also to have a knock sensor as it was a JDM motor which requires higher octane.
I am retired so every day is a Saturday

Hope this helps.
Ronnie G

Do you have any pictures of your cooling set up? I am trying to figure out just where to mount mine.

Send a PM to Timothy_nd28. He and I worked through how to get this done, but it ends up being pretty simple.

He had to mod the tach to work off a 6-cyl pulse (yours may work as is). The speedo is a 150 mph electric unit out of a 911 SC (~$100). I bought a pulse modifier (speedohealer) that compensates for the pulse difference between the Subaru speed sensor and the 911 pickup - it wires up pretty easily. I kept the stock fuel pump gauge.

On the temp gauge Tim just installed an aftermarket sender where the brake light usually goes. He said he wasn't happy with the results (I think it looks great!) so you may have to beg him a bit to do that one.

Then I had him do his LED conversion on the gauges as well, they are one of my favorite things about the car now, well worth the money IMO.



I mounted my radiator flat to the trunk floor because I wanted to keep the front trunk space. The cooling is adequate for autocross, around town in traffic and highway use, but when I drive it hard at the track I really have to pull it in and let it cool down after ~15 minutes of hard driving.

Ok to the water cooled 914 crowd, can you please show pictures of your cooling set up, so that I can get some ideas. I am not opposed to venting out the hood like Bob did with Papa Smurf. Thanks for the continued observations and guidance. Oh before I forget I need to talk stand alone ECU since the stock ECU won't work with the turbo. Again thanks for the help.

Ronnie thanks for emailing me those pictures.

Andy

Not meaning to gripe too hard, but not fair! The rest of us want to know too...

I wont disagree with you, however Ronnie G is the only one that responded. I sent out some pm's asking if they could post their set up, but no takers. So Ronnie emailed them and I thank him for that.

Hi Andy,
Something I have been thinking of for a long time is to move my coolant lines from under the car to under the rocker cover. The thought is to drill a 1.5 ~ 1.7 hole thru to the inside. See photo. I am not sure how large of a hole I can get away with before I hit the heater tube? Anyone have a dissected long? Then the hole would have to be filled with a tube welded onside and out.

Look thru the suby build threads here. We've all done it differently. It will take a few hours to peruse this info but I would suggest you do so. Look at everyone else's ideas then form your own. It's how we improve/mutate . I was told you shouldn't run the lines thru the longs. That it would make the cabin hot. Horse Shit Sailor. Can not pick up any discernible heat even when I touch the longs.

Yep I love this idea, I would also like to add low Oil pressure, I seem to have that issue at times.


BTW, if you don't want to mess with gauges Speedhut makes some good options with out the bling from above. I'll go back to lurking now.....

I was wondering if all the twists and turns in the coolant hoses for the different builds have affected the head pressure on the stock water pump making it work harder and maybe less efficient? If the hoses are run with fewer directional changes is that going to help some cooling issues? You still want a high point where you fill it and bleed your system and there are several options for that location. That being said, the center console on my car is rotted in some places over an inch off my equally rotted floor so I'm installing a section of rectangular tubing in place of the main console section that I plan to run my hoses through then weld my remaining section of unmolested console on top of. Should give me a straighter path for coolant flow and if properly insulated should work well for my purposes. Still plan on the brake lines and throttle cable through the remaining console section, shift cable too for the automatic. (GASP!)
Thoughts?

You're thinking about doing an automatic trans? Not the Subaru AWD auto from the SVX right? It's too long and weighs a TON. The gearing is also very poorly matched to the engine. You'd probably want to find a 2WD Subie trans (pre-1997ish).

I've already pulled the tail section from a 2wd 4EAT trans and bolted it on- it makes the trans about 6 to 8" shorter and looks like it will fit. The gearing for that trans in the SVX (3:55) was poorly matched to the AWD setup with a 3700 lb curb weight. That's about the only thing that made those fail prematurely- they're used in Nissan Pathfinders all the time with little issue, but they are geared properly for the weight of that vehicle. With only 2300 lbs to drive, I think it should work just fine even tho it'll be a tad tail heavy but in weight proportionate compared to some other mid engined cars. I eventually want to go with a manual trans but without the 4:88 final drive which limits the top speed to about 120. It's not so much the top speed I'm looking for- it's the low cruising rpm and resultant mileage I'm looking for. Well okay. the top speed would be cool too but not until the chassis and brakes are fully sorted. I also have the piggyback TCU that changes the shift points for better performance. With the overall weight of my car, the engine power and the gearing the car should jump and roll pretty well... I think.

And it looks like all 2WD automatics from 92 on in all Subarus were 4EATs. I pulled my 2WD tail section from a 93 Impreza- it bolted right on to the SVX trans along with the internal shaft, gear and bearing that eliminates the electromagnetic AWD assembly. It was a high point of my day when I found the part and it fit, all for 40 bucks!

The way timothy's gauges are set up you could wire it into the oil pressure light instead of the fuel low light and it would turn red when oil pressure dropped enough to light the lamp!

I think Cost-wise my setup ends up being $2-300 less than speedhut gauges (depending on how much you spend for the 911 speedo).