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Greetings Subaru Enthusiasts. I drive an 85 Volkswagen Vanagon that has an early nineties Legacy 2.2. The setup I used is CA Smog Compliant. I live in Washington so I have more flexibility with engine choices and not just 90-94 Legacy 2.2s. I need some help with my engine and hoping you guys can shed some light on my situation. I am on my second Legacy 2.2 (first installed in 2010, second in 2012). I used to live in California so was forced to get old motors out of wrecks. Each engine was over 160,000 miles. On the last install I took the heads off and had them resurfaced, a valve job and all new seals/rings. That was 3.5 years ago. That engine always drank oil. I thought it was due to me living in the mountains and driving downhill. This past Fall I drove back to California and at times I was consuming more than 1qt of oil per fill up. I never saw smoke except on the rare start up. Not a drop hits the ground when its parked. I can follow instructions and consider myself a "part installer" and not a mechanic. I have very little diagnosing skills. I was able to put the engines in with KEP parts and spent 20+ hours reworking the wiring harness so it would pair with the VW. It worked. So last week my van wouldn't work. It mimicked a fuel relay problem I had before so I got a new relay. I thought maybe the 30 year old fuel pump might have been going bad so I got a new Bosch fuel pump and pulled the old pre-filter out. I also put in a new PCV valve about 4 months ago. Still didn't fire up properly. I would turn it over and if it didn't start I would just let the fuel pump cycle a bit and it would fire up. which is why I was thinking it was fuel or voltage issue somewhere. Anyhow, it stopped working so I had it towed to a pretty good shop. The mechanic told me the engine was blown and that it had poor compression in 3 cylinders. All the spark plugs were pretty gross. While he was pressurizing it for a leak down, he blew the dipstick out. This guy is pretty solid and I'm guessing it wasn't because he didn't have it TDC. He said that it wasn't worth it to put any money into the small block with the results he got from the tests. I called Small Car which is two hours away to ask where they sourced their engines. After listening to my story, they suggested I send them my 2.2 heads (which they say never go bad) and they would resurface them, do a valve job and new seals/o-rings and then put them on a brand new 2.5 small block that was set up for this application. The total would be $3,000. They said this would work perfectly and had done this for their California customers that were in my shoes. I did some research on the Frankenmotor on some Vanaru/Subagon and Subaru websites and it seems legit. I looked into crate motors from Japan, but they were $1,100 for a 2.2 with 50K miles. I don't like the idea of just putting in another high mileage 2.2 either and being in the same position soon. and then... I had a new friend come by to drop off his cherry picker. He is a bit of a shade tree mechanic but thought the problem could be with the heads or maybe a cam. He said that it might be worth my time taking the heads down to a shop to have them inspected. It sounds like the shop is pretty reliable and they would be able to tell me if the heads were an issue before I go down the SmallCar 2.5 option. The only thing is that SmallCar told me they would do the same thing basically. I don't want to pay for the same labor twice. I am not made of money and this car is my daily driver. I put in a new tranny about 18 months ago and just put on a new set of tires so I have a couple grand in it as of recently. Reliability is my number one concern. So I come to you on my knees asking... "what would you do?" Do you think its heads? rings? pistons? I live an hour out of town so dropping things off at machine shop is a hassle, though doable.
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Started in on my newest project today, well thats not entirely true. I've had this 72 VW Westfalia for the last couple years, and it has actually been very good. I had to do quite a bit to it initially to get it up and going, new shocks, tune the carbs, fuel lines, tune the carbs, redo the front seats, tune the carbs, adjust valves all the usual plugs, points, wire, and tune the carbs. Overall its been a pretty dependable summer driver. The end of last season it started to develop a miss at idle, and I think the #3 valve seat is on its way out. So I was left with a few different options rebuild the anemic 1.7 gex boat anchor that came with this thing, rebuild the stock 1.7 I have in a box (either of these options leave me with fiddling with carburetors for the rest of my life) Or swap it. I decided to do the 2.2 as I already have done an ej swap on my brat, although the alh diesel swap was tempting... Here are some pics over the last couple of years of some of the work I have done to it. First day First mod! Reupholstered the seats Weekend of Stowe car show (the beetle I restored a while back, my friends mom purchased it) This summer I lifted it slightly, and added koni adjustables to it I had the curtains redone in the factory plaid. One of my camping adventures this summer And today, I dug into my 95 legacy parts car, no loss here, completely rusted out. It has a lot of miles, but if the engine ever has issues I'll simply swap in another, but it sounds great, and I drove it home. I'll be resealing it, and putting a new timing belt on along with coolant tubes before its swapped into the bus. I need to order an adapter plate this, along with a heavy duty clutch, and the engine can be put in place, and I'll start working on the harness here soon as well.
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Hey Guys, don't know if any of you remember my 78 brat that i built a while back. still have it and still plan on keeping it but for now i got a new little daily/project. 1981 VW rabbit with the 1.6 diesel and a 5 speed. gets 50mpg in town all day long, im picking up a turbo for it here soon. I've tried the VW forums but they are mostly negative, i remember liking this forum really well so here i am!
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I've been trying to find some info on EA71 swapped VW's. Not a lot coming up, but there was a Brazilian abomination of sorts EA71 powered Bay Window. I am looking to source a transmission adapter for, say, an air cooled VW Beetle 4speed manual to start. I found an Aussie site, Volks Conversions, that listed one. Contacted them, awaiting reply. Does anyone know of any old build threads on here that I could peruse? Search won't let me look for EA71 stuff as the boolean string is too small.
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Saw this today : More details : http://ninemsn#carsales#com#au/news/volkswagen/beetle/volkswagen-beetle-dune-concept-teased-40918?_t=555314999&_r=NH_editorial What do you think ? Cheers, Bantum ...
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Alrighty... So I'm posting the tail end of my build thread here, since it looks like there are a lot of swap savvy subaru enthusiasts here and I humbly ask for your advice and knowledge in advance Title sort of covers it -- I have an EJ22 (pre-OBDII, but not sure what year exactly) and I'm swapping it into my 1973 VW bus. I'm more or less adapting a similar conversion to these guys: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=492898 They used an H6, I'll be using the 4 cyl 2.2, but I'm going to go with the same cooling setup. I plan on using these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Radiator-00-06-Scion-Toyota-Echo-xA-xB-1-5-l4-/300584025817?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&fits=Make%3AScion%7CModel%3AxA&hash=item45fc343ed9&vxp=mtr I wish they had an all aluminum version but unfortunately they don't. I would do what the New Zealanders I linked above did (using all alum. honda civic radiators, turned on their sides, with the pressure caps welded shut and the hose outlet re-located) but I don't have a tig welder and don't want to pay a guy 200 bucks to do it either. SO the plan is to use these guys, since overall they should be *just* the right size to fit in the same spots. I only have 14-15 inches of clearance height-wise. for the fuel pump I'm going with this: http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/walbro-gsl392-255lph-fuel-pump-p-312.html along with a mounting bracket kit. for the fuel return, I was thinking of using this: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/mor-65385?seid=srese1&gclid=CJvs_KPT_7cCFehAMgodERgAZg because my stock fuel tank was for a carb and only has the outlet, and I don't want to mod the tank. Bolt-in solution is the key here. For the engine mounting bracket/cradle, I'll have to fab one after the motor is mocked up in the engine bay. I also will need to run the coolant lines, add a pressure cap/expansion tank, maybe some bleed valves, etc. I have the stock exhaust to hack into something that fits, and I don't know yet if I'm going to shorten the oil pan or not. I'd rather not, but I also want a decent amount of clearance since I plan to take this bus offroad sometimes. I think that addresses the main points of the build, I've already stripped down the wiring harness to the stock bits, but I have to run and sleeve everything so it'll look nice. here are some pics of whats been done so far... engine cleaning after I got it and tore it down to the block. I got everything from a donor car for 100$ on CL All clean! the old aircooled motor: another shot of the removal, and the recipient of the subaru... the pile of wire on the left by the cardboard is the crap I don't need. the tiny pile on the left by the grill is all thats necessary for the engine to run. Currently, I'm torquing the heads back on after I installed new head gaskets, and I'll be doing the timing belt and water pump next. After that, I'll mount the motor in the car while I play with where things are going to go, flip the intake manifold around and relocate the alternator, and route the various fuel lines, coolant hoses, and electrical stuff. more pictures to come! any and all advice and questions welcome.
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Hello again USMB. Have a look at the new build my roommate and I started over the summer. It’s a 1968 IRS conversion; it has FOA shocks with 14" rear travel, 12" front travel, 18" ground clearance and an EJ25 stuffed into the roll cage. We will also be using a “mild” turbo as well as a Subaru 5 speed transmission.