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So begins my 87' 4wd wagon EJ22 swap


phantomcrooner
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I purchased the engine about three years ago for my wife's 63' rag top beetle. She said she wanted Herbie to be as close to the movie Love Bug as possible. Instead of the 2.2 Herbie received a Porsche 914 engine (Because there is no way I would spend the money for a Porsche 356 engine, which is what the movie car had, even if I had that kind of money).

 

So what to do with this 2.2 hmmm.

 

Jump forward 2 years...

 

I cut a bunch of wires out of the harness, then threw the unloomed mess back in the box. I then decided to grind out the flywheel so that i could feel as though I had accomplished something, then lay it next to the engine out behind the shed under the plywood that was at least keeping the sun off the engine.

 

Jump forward 1 year to about a month ago....

 

Okay, I blew a head gasket on the 1.8, so it seemed the perfect time to do this swap since i would have the engine out anyway.

 

I mentioned to a friend what I was contemplating and he said, "Lets do it!"

 

I removed the 1.8 one evening, then started working on the adapter plate the next day.

 

(I will begin uploading video and photos tomorrow as I am out of time today)

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I layed out my plate on cardboard, then transferred it to the 1/2" Aluminum.

 

[attach]7427[/attach]

 

Drilling for the bolt holes.

[attach]7428[/attach]

 

I decided to use heli coils for my setup.

Heli coils in place.

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Edited by phantomcrooner
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It has taken me a while to get back to posting. I own a glass company and we decided to stop doing auto glass and focus more on residential and commercial work, which left me an empty bay at the shop. Since I am doing this swap at work it has taken longer than I would like, however I have a good friend that is a currently unemployed union electrician with time on his hands. He also knows a lot about cars in general and has been here most everyday helping me on it, which is why I haven't kept up with the posts.

 

So, here we go.

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Sorry these are so small, all photos are in an album on my member page in the 2.2 folder. I will be uploading a few videos to youtube later.

picture.php?pictureid=2204&albumid=220&dl=1268418752&thumb=1

I made a template of the trans about three years ago when i had to change a broken clutch fork. I transferred it to the 1/2" plate aluminum and started cutting, a little WD40 goes a long way in making it easier to cut.

 

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Drilling all the holes for the dowel pins and where I am going to be putting the heli coils.

 

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Holes drilled and tapping the holes for the heli coils to screw into.

 

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Setting the heli coils is super simple, sorry its blurry.

 

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The holes are all drilled and heli coils are in place, notice I installed 2 from the front and 2 from the back. The plate will be bolted into from the engine and from the trans.

Edited by phantomcrooner
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picture.php?pictureid=2209&albumid=220&dl=1268418903&thumb=1

The plate is mounted to the engine. The EJ22 has threaded holes so that you can bolt an EJ trans to it. I drilled these out so that I could bolt the engine to the plate. Also, you can see where i was originally going to cut the plate off on the top side, I decided to leave this intact until i figure out how I'm going to mount a pitch stopper. :-\

 

 

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I ground the flywheel down and bought some longer strengthened bolts. I didn't realize that the extra flywheel I had gotten and drilled last year used a smaller clutch than I had, so I had to redrill the one I had on the engine before moving forward. :mad:

 

 

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You get the idea.

 

 

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The before shot.

 

 

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45 min. into the swap.

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picture.php?pictureid=2215&albumid=220&dl=1268419119&thumb=1

A side by side view.

 

 

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Engine bolted in place, the EJ mounts i got from 'LMDEW' worked perfectly, just rocked the engine to one side, dropped one bolt into the cross-member, then nudged the other in, required no modification. Engine bolted right up to trans. and lined up perfectly.

 

 

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Passenger side view.

 

 

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Driver side view, you can see that I ran the fuel from the rail to a gas can sitting on the ground. This made sure no contaminants were pushed into the tank and also to make sure I had hooked up the fuel lines correctly. Hmm... the fuel pump is on but its not sending fuel through the rail, what the heck?

 

picture.php?pictureid=2222&albumid=220&dl=1268419422&thumb=1

That's because a 5lb fuel pump for a carbed car wont push through the pressure regulator, duh. I got this Bosche fuel pump off of a wrecked Volvo 940 Turbo, should be pushing about 45 psi.

 

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Add some 5/16" and 3/8" 300psi double wall plastic sleeved hose, good to go. Except that when i tested the Bosche fuel pump i had fuel spewing from 2 places under the car and one under the hood. I replaced the respective lines with my 300psi line and no more problems.

Edited by phantomcrooner
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picture.php?pictureid=2219&albumid=220&dl=1268419316&thumb=1

Now begins the wiring mess. :eek:

 

picture.php?pictureid=2220&albumid=220&dl=1268419316&thumb=1

 

I started by straightening out what i knew/thought i was going to need. I spent several hours over the next several days reading wiring diagrams the writeup by 'Numbchux' and finally out of frustration started cutting crap out.

 

picture.php?pictureid=2221&albumid=220&dl=1268419316&thumb=1

 

The harness is definitely lighter than it was.

 

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Wow, I really hope i didn't need any of that.

 

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A few pictures of my comp.

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picture.php?pictureid=2229&albumid=220&dl=1268419628&thumb=1

A few shots of the EJ radiator and 2 cooling fans, 1 from the EA and The smaller fan from the EJ. I will finish off the top of the radiator with something to make it look like more of a plan and fab some permanent brackets for the top of the radiator. The bottom mounts on the EJ radiator set right into the slots for the EA radiator. I just leaned the top of the Radiator in toward the engine and put some polyurethane padding in-between the radiator and the body.

picture.php?pictureid=2228&albumid=220&dl=1268419628&thumb=1

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A couple shots of the exhaust.

 

Sorry these are so small, all photos are in an album on my member page in the 2.2 swap folder. I will be uploading a few videos to youtube later.

Edited by phantomcrooner
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The car is up and running, however it idles rough either cold or warm. It stumbles at takeoff or cruising speed and the only code i get is for the purge canister solenoid. I have no o2 and no speed sensor on the car, but get no error codes for these. Any ideas?

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

Its been a while,

 

I welded on a bung and installed an o2 sensor, bought a speed sensor simulator, now the only code i get is for the temp sensor.

 

I connected a vacuum line from the intake to my ecu (map censor) and the surging problem has almost completely disappeared. I can even take off slowly without having to stomp on the gas.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I connected a vacuum line from the intake to my ecu (map censor) and the surging problem has almost completely disappeared. I can even take off slowly without having to stomp on the gas.

 

Uhhh..........What?

 

 

There aren't any hoses to hook to the ECU or even a MAP sensor on the first gen ECU's?

 

What was the donor car?

 

There's an altitude pressurte sensor in there, but it doesn't hook up to the motor?:confused:

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have never heard of it nor can I find any info on it. Yet there it is in all its glory. I took a photo of it before and it is in a previous post. I also , unfortunately need to unload the subaru as I have a mini van, a suburban, a Ford ranger and a beetle. I must sell two of them and it unfortunately didn't make the cut. Any offers?

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I have never heard of it nor can I find any info on it. Yet there it is in all its glory.

 

Yes there is a pressure sensor in the ECU for altitude compensation.

 

But I repeat.....there is never a time when that is supposed to be hooked up to the engine. It is an internal piece of the ECU. Not sure what it will really do to the engine managment when hooked up to the intake. But it definately isn't supposed to need to be that way.

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  • 2 months later...

I don't know, it drives extremely well in 4th on the freeway though. I drove it to my new house last night, 200 miles away. about 45 minutes into the trip i lost one of the mufflers, not to worry, it hit the Eclipse behind me. :eek: Before i got home I lost the clutch as well then all my engine lights flashed on and off and it ran like a bastard the last half an hour. It may have had something to do with that guy in the Porsche passing me, then me returning the favor, 125 mph, 6k rpm 4th gear and screaming like a banshee. :banana:

 

Oh, well, I'm sick of screwing with the wiring, think I might have to MegaSquirt it.

 

Oh yeah, and the starter went out. :mad::mad:

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