Subaru power

[Steve Struchen]

Has anyone gone to Subaru 2.2 power?  I like the idea of fuel injection and water cooled power. I am not sure yet if I will try to find room at the back for the radiator or if it will go in the front behind the grille. A good cabin heater would be a plus for those cool morning drives 

I am going that route with my VW kit based TD. I have the ’99 Subaru donor car and have purchased the Kennedy Engineering adapter plate and flywheel kit. Now just need to assemble all the pieces. 

Has anyone done a strip down on the Subaru wiring harness? If so, do you have a wiring diagram of the reduced wiring needed to make the engine run properly? 

I’ll take pictures as I go and will do a how-to when completed. 

[Dale Schumacher]

Sounds  like a great idea – looking forward to your write up.

A number of guys on the Speedster ( replica ) site have done this w/ great results – you might want to look at some of the postings over there and at least one has done a write up of his install.

Dale

[billnparts]

Ed, looks like Steve is gonna beat you to it.

Bill Ascheman
Fiberfab Ford
Modified 5.0, 5sp., 4:11
Autocross & Hillclimb
"Drive Happy"

[edward ericson]

Go, Steve, Go.

I’m looking about for a low miles donor–less than 100k and something between 1990 and 1996. The later ones will have a valve-piston clash if the cam belt breaks and are said to be “a little trickier in the electronics department.”

The guy to find on the speedsterowners site is David Stroud. He popped an EJ22 into his Speedster last year and drove it to Florida when he was done. From Canada. No problem.

He went with a front mounted radiator. He threw away the EFI, and stock wiring, going with a Holley/Weber progressive 2bbl bolted to a cleaned-up FI intake instead, and a Megajolt programmable ignition. Seems to work very well and he’s claiming over 30 mpg on the highway, and that’s with no changes to the transaxle.

If I don’t find a good donor by next year I’m planning on buying his lump when he upgrades. Don’t see any reason at all to try to jam a radiator in the back of a TD–not when there’s that big upright grill up front and the need for a bit of ballast over the front wheels. I’ll probably open up the side louvers too.

Here are some resources I have compiled while contemplating this transition:

Ignition: Apparently need a megajolt ignition with a custom crank sensor wheel– 36 cogs. these are available.

 Intake: stock EFI will work–but may need to be re-aimed with a u-shaped pipe. But need to get strong fuel pump (Ford F150 is good),high-flow fuel tap for the tank, and 5/16 dual fuel lines front to back, and possibly swirl tank for fuel tank. Subies have all this inside the fuel tank, so using it means welding/modding. Other ways exist. Research.
http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=132524&start=15
VW fuel reservoir box: pick & pull or parts store, Just look up a 1987 VOLKSWAGEN > FOX (L4, 1.8L, GAS, FI, N, UM, GL)
-will also need the subi speed sensor–or a home-brewed equivalent–the late model OBD2 stuff needs 5v signals

cooling: rad in front. some use Hondas. this guy (wishes he used Volvo 240): it is almost the perfect size, and has both hoses on the passenger side.
 Hard lines go under the car– 1.5-inch aluminized exhaust is fine. Muffler shop will bend. The water outlet from a 2.0 turbo will face the right way and swaps over. (this is good also because man ej22s have plastic water outlets).

Oil pan must be shortened. There are aftermarket suppliers. You still get a low-hanging pan.

Clutch adaptor–you already have. The starter will need to be a high-torque model, aftermarket. consensus is IMI-101 ($180, currently)  The autostick will fail, according to Dave.

wire harness tips (very involved) http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=136053

Exhaust: turbo manifolds flipped backward will put the pipes out back. these setups look odd to me–too much pipeage under the back bumper, a-la VW hotrodders. Leaving exhaust manifolds in stock orientation may allow for outlet ahead of the passenger wheel. If you don’t want the “nest of snakes” look then you’ll have to engineer better options to hide pipes and exhaust under passenger bumper

General: http://www.subaruvanagon.com/

Clutch improvement: long lever arm for heavier duty clutch and lighter actuation: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=801962

I will be very psyched to see and read how your swap goes.

edsnova2013-04-25 21:07:47

[Steve Struchen]

Thanks Ed.

 

That’s the info I was looking for. I’ll look at all those references and try to make good choices in assembling.

[Steve Struchen]

Wow! What a wealth of information there was in those links. The harness information should help alot. Now I am really getting excited about the build.

[Author]

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