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.

Wow Jeff, I sure hope you are okay! Hadn't heard from you in a while and wondered how things were going.

Good to hear you're making progress on the conversion.

Good luck - and take care of yourself!

Hey Ben, good to hear from you. Yeah I kind of fell out of touch for a while while I was getting a little bit of stuff done at work. And my first shot at buying an engine off of Ebay left me a little, well, frustrated.

Anyway, the heads that I bought off Ebay did in fact arrive Saturday. As far as I can tell, they are in great shape (haven't checked for flatness yet), and the cats thoroughly enjoyed the packing material. If I can manage to wrap up this never-ending consulting project (no, not paid by the hour...) then I can dive into the engine rebuild.

Wowsers - that's a tale and a half.

Let me know if I can help at all - I have a running EJ20 that is MSII & EDIS.

Hope you feel better... and continue to feel better.... Did they give you a catscan? Everything ok in there?

Well, I'm getting even farther behind at work, and and at job #2, so the official "start" of the swap is drifting ever closer to summer. But in the meantime I'm squeezing in little bits on the side.

Today I went to the boneyard and pulled an EDIS-4 ignition system from a '95 Escort. There's helpful page at the MegaSquirt site, somewhere, but in a nutshell :

* The "brain" is right behind the fuse box, and says EDIS-4 on it.
* The coil pack is bolted to the engine. Easy to spot, since it's got spark plug leads coming from it.
* The 36-1 timing wheel (36 teeth, one missing) is right behind the harmonic balancer (i.e., between it and the engine block). Have to break loose the 19mm nut on the crankshaft to get the balancer off. I confess, I borrowed a little trick from the MS site : to immobilize the crankshaft I filled one of the cylinders with a little gravel. Please, don't do this to a teener ! After that, the nut came off without too much persuasion. To get the balancer off of the crankshaft, I banged on it with a BFH. Down, then out, down, then out, and so on. Eventually it seesawed its way off. The timing wheel is a ring is pressed onto the balancer, a lot like the front sprockets on a bicycle, only smaller. I separated it from the balancer using a pickle fork and the afforementioned BFH. I think I got it off w/o bending it any; it looks flat enough to work, anyways, and doesn't really carry any load. At the time, I didn't realize that the timing wheel was only the outer ring; had I known that, I would have just used the pickle fork to get the balancer off faster.
* The VR sensor is mounted right where it needs to be to sense the timing wheel teeth and also be very inconvenient to remove. Pulling the harmonic balancer first helps. Reaching in from below seems to be easiest. The engine is transverse, so this means coming in from the passenger side wheel area. At the boneyard, the wheels are already off and the car up in the air, so that makes it a little easier.

With all the electrical parts, I cut off a healthy length of wire from the harness, and made sure all the connectors were in good shape. One of them (that connects to the coil pack) had both of it's keepers cracked off, so I grabbed one from another car.

Anyway, the total cost : $18, of which $12 was for the coil pack. Hmmm, for my Saab (1997 900SE), the coil pack was about $300, and if I wanted a to replace the computer, I'd have to trade a kidney or sumpn.

Speaking of body parts... I still have 2 weeks to go until my first available, ASAP neurologist appointment. But I did get a little card in the mail from the MRI folks. Apparently I have "Multi-focal Sinus Disease". After some sleuthing on the web, my preliminary translation is that I've got a head full o' snot. But in a mere half a month I'll have a licencsed professional tell me this. Other than that, it looks like there are no giant squid growing in my brain, no framing nails, etc. (Did anyone see that story about the dude w/ a framing nail shot up his nose ? He was getting headaches, and I think it was his Dentist who finally caught something odd at the fringe of an X-ray. It was like 4" long, and he had no idea it was there !!!)

Okay, back to the subject at hand.

My other plan for the day was to pull a 2WD manual tranmission form a '93 Subaru. The miles were a little on the high side (130k) but I figured there's still some life in it, and the price is right : $70. So I'm getting started, and only after about 3 bolts are out did I realize : this is an old-style (EA82 engine) Suby. So I'll put off the tranny pull til I find a decent specimen. And I just might go w/ a 4WD; we'll see when the time comes.

Also, I did find a 1979 (?) 924 on my scouting trip last week, and I had planned on grabbing the drive shafts from it and using 924 inner CVs and 914 outers. But based on my reading this week, I think I'm gonna go with new VW type-II (bus) driveshafts, and sell my 914 shafts once I'm done with 'em. I don't know that I'll ever need to replace CVs if I start w/ new ones, but it's nice to know that I could. And for cheap.

Anyways, next up on my not-yet-started conversion, I think I might pull the cams out of the known-good heads I bought off EBay (they arrived, BTW: no scam this time). I plan to send them to Delta for a regrind. Word is the cost is about $200, and it just seems a shame not to do it while there just sitting there, all out in the open...

Hey Jeff! I missed this post a few weeks ago... I'm sending positive brainwaves in your direction that the seizure was an odd fluke, the result of the combination of the e-bay scam and 2 head smacks (hopefully a low probability factor for that specific combination), although since you don't know what the guy in the tool store said, you may just be able to blame him.

Keep us posted!

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 :


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

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Jeff,

You will look back at this someday and smile. I bought my first Audi engine from the east coast where the seller said it was in good condition. The price was reasonable but shipping was nearly as much. It turns out the timing belts had slipped and bent more than half the 30 valves. Replacements were $60 ea and a professional rebuild would cost more than a good used engine. I bought used engine #2 locally and complete but have yet to fire it up. Again I am trusting the seller's information.

You don't know what the situation will be tomorrow but you can't stop what you enjoy or want to accomplish. Keep up the good work and posting progress...

From the looks of it you will need on the order of $250 in parts for the timing belt on the front. I had to do nearly the same thing on my engine. I had to replace the plastic covers, all the gaskets and seals, etc. I decided to leave the rollers on mine in place but sanded them down lightly to smooth them out a bit. It looks like yours are fairly rusty so you _may_ want to replace them.

I got most of my parts at www.subaruparts.com, they seem to have good prices for the most part. I bought a new timing belt from someone on the NASIOC.

Make sure you get all the right parts for that, there are quite a few.


There are a ton of wires and hoses and stuff on that engine, but once you look at some diagrams and start taking stuff apart it becomes easier to understand where stuff is going and what it does.

-Tony

Great weather for driving around in a 914 this weekend. But I was indoors wrenching instead. One of my dry rot tires finally went flat on me (in the driveway, pfwew. Anyways, I bought a new set of wheels (15x7, 4-bolt Minilite look-alikes) so I'm waiting for them to arrive b4 buying tires.


This weekend I focused on pulling camshafts from my donor pair of heads and also on tearing down the engine. I bought the Torx-Plus bit (IP40, part # 71681) for the cam girdle from WIHA Tools for $7.

First step is to remove the cam pulley nut. I used a Jorgensen twin-screw clamp (sorry no pic) and to squash some strips of soft wood onto the pulley. Then a socket and a cheater bar (black pipe) to crack the bolt loose.

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Here's the head w/ the cam girdle off.

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Some of the cam bearing surfaces look scored. This may need to be polished out. I'll compare to my other set of heads (the ones on the engine) when I get them diasembled. Here's an example of the scoring :

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And a (crummy) picture of the cam :

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That was all yesterday. Also, I pulled most of the "junk" from the outside of the engine. To be continued....

Today (Sunday) I pulled the heads from the engine. Keep in mind, this was a "parts" engine from a wrecked car, with a broken T belt. Here's what I found :

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Where'd them valves go ? Here :

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Both of the RHS cylinders shared the same fate. After some cleanup, the pistons look like this :

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and this :

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Although it looks kind of gory at first, I don't think the damage is all that bad. I know of people who run pistons like this with no problem, so I'm going to ask the "experts" at nasioc.com for opinions. Unless I get an outcry of dire warnings, I think I might just polish up some of the rough edges and call it a shortblock. The LHS of the engine was fine, BTW.

One last shot :

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Next up, I plan to talk to folks at deltacams.com about the cam grind, and also take the cams out of the heads I pulled from the engine to see if there is less wear on the bearing surfaces. The left head is totally useable, but the right one would need some work due to valve damage.

TTFN

Wow!! by the way, waveform generator!

well mate it sure looks like you have some work goin on there its good to see you bite the bullet and make the move.
those heads were surely screwed man i dont think ive ever seen anything that bad but the pistons should survive. the heads were like my old computer you just throw it away lol. p.s. i went full circle and now have my radiators (yes 2 ) porsche items i believe in the engine bay and will use a simillar methed to tony anyhow cheers and goodluck

Made a leetle bit of progress. After a week or two of advice-seeking and frettin, I decided that the pistons have got to go. I'm not gonna do anything crazy like high compression or forged or anything - stock will be just fine, thanks. My hope is that at 70k mi, the cylinders are still good, and won't need to be bored over. Anyways, new pistons means new rings, which means (at least) a hone, which means splitting the case, which means new bearings. Which means I had to poke around and find a bigger vein. This is no longer a CSOB conversion ! I just want it to run, someday....


Anyway, I pulled more stuff off the block, so now its light enough for me to pick it up and move it around, groaning optional. I almost got the case apart, but I need a 12 point socket, and the only FLAPS that sell those close early on Sunday

Subie engines have a new (to me) trick for removing the pistons. There's a little access port beside each cylinder that lets you reach in and remove the retaining clip for the wrist pin. Then, from the other side, you push the srist pin out the side of the block. Supposedly, it's possible to get the pistons out w/o splitting the case, but I didn't spend a lot of time trying. Here's a pic of the "access port". To the right is the end of the crankshaft. Inside the port, you can see the ends of the spring clip, and the orangish ring behind it is the end of the wrist pin.
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Here's the oil pickup tube reaching for the bottom of the (absent) oil pan. That thing really sticks out ! Gotta start thinking how to make it (and the pan!) shorter.

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And here's how she'll sit until I get the 12-point socket, and a lil' time to use it. Sharp eyes will notice something a little funny about the piston positions.

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