Turbo to Nonturbo EA Swap?

[AWD J3wman]

How much of a pain in the butt is it to swap a EA82T to be nonturbo, do you have to mess with wiring? Cuz if thats the case ill just EJ swap it. I'm trying to keep costs down in attempts to still make a profit off of this car.

[Gloyale]

Easy.

 

Take off the turbo.

 

Install a non-turbo y-pipe and a air duct direct from MAF to the Throttle body. (non-turbo XT air duct is direct fit......might be able to modify an EJ or EA SPFI one too)

 

Cap or plug the ununsed Oil and Coolant lines to turbo.

 

Even better would be to do all that while swapping the heads onto a non-turbo shortblock for the higher comp pistons.  I ran that setup for a long time and it was a smooth engine.  Make sure your heads aren't cracked in the exhuast first.

 

 

OR........one more option would be to swap a complete carbie EA82 engine in.  Swap to low pressure fuel pump, install the carbie coil and disty and give it 12v.  Done.

[idosubaru]

Gloyale - no ECU differences between turbo and non-turbo?  They are plug and play?

 

I have an unused sensor/plug on p/s strut tower after swapping EA82 into 1987.5 XT Turbo.

I thought the FSM wiring diagrams to the ECU are slightly different?

But that might just be a weird 87.5 thing?

 

It did run enough to commute with it a couple times and all I used was an exhaust manifold and XT intake/intake manifold. 

But it has drivability and other non-swap related issues so I have never figured out if it's swap related or other stuff.

[AWD J3wman]

Yeah I was wondering if the fueling system was any different.

I know subaru did a really half assed job turbo charging this car I just dont know the extent to which they went to with their laziness with it.

Edited December 23, 2013 by AWD J3wman

[Gloyale]

Gloyale - no ECU differences between turbo and non-turbo?  They are plug and play?

 

I have an unused sensor/plug on p/s strut tower after swapping EA82 into 1987.5 XT Turbo.

I thought the FSM wiring diagrams to the ECU are slightly different?

But that might just be a weird 87.5 thing?

 

It did run enough to commute with it a couple times and all I used was an exhaust manifold and XT intake/intake manifold. 

But it has drivability and other non-swap related issues so I have never figured out if it's swap related or other stuff.

 

ECU's are different....but not by much.   No boost pressure solenoid/wastegate controller.....otherwise all the same.

 

Turbo ECU runs a non-turbo well......Don't think I'd try the other way round risk running lean.

 

Note.....this applies to 87+ MPFI dual port engines.   SPFI is completely different.

 

Yeah I was wondering if the fueling system was any different.

 

I know subaru did a really half assed job turbo charging this car I just dont know the extent to which they went to with their laziness with it.

 

MPFI fuel pumps are all the same.  Turbo's have an extra vent line on the tank and canister. Baffled tank.

 

SPFI pump is high pressure but slightly smaller flow rate.  Slightly return line than MPFI but bigger than Carbed.  Baffled tank.

 

Carb is smaller lines, non-baffled tank...with low pressure diaphragm pump.

[AWD J3wman]

So what do I do about an intake manifold? would I just run the same one or what?

[idosubaru]

Note.....this applies to 87+ MPFI dual port engines.   SPFI is completely different.

Great, thanks. i found and noted a couple of EA82 - EA82T 88+ swap threads for later.

 

Are you of the opinion that an EA82 should plug and play into an 87.5 XT Turbo?

 

What is unclear is which FSM represents the 87.5 XT Turbo?

It appears to have almost entirely 88 era XT accoutrements.

***But the 88 XT FSM has no turbo information in it at all.

So what does that mean - how do I get reliable 87.5 Turbo XT wiring info?

 

ECU's are different....but not by much. .

 

Sorry - I meant wiring.

[idosubaru]

So what do I do about an intake manifold? would I just run the same one or what?

 

it bolts up just the same, same gaskets, but that's all i know.  someone else will know.

 

i used a non-turbo intake when i did mine, i don't recall why i did that though.  i don't recall even trying to keep/use the EA82T intake.

[idosubaru]

So what do I do about an intake manifold? would I just run the same one or what?

 

yeah looks like you bolt the original turbo intake onto the non-turbo engine.

 

these two threads have different people both saying the intakes/wiring between EA82/EA82T should be the same:

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/51092-swapping-ea82-into-an-ea82t/?hl=ea82t

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/39863-issues-swapping-ea82-into-an-ea82t/?hl=ea82t

 

everyone is saying they're plug and play so the wiring matches up. 

and i know they bolt up just fine, so i'd go for it, someone will likely chime in to confirm.

[Gloyale]

What is unclear is which FSM represents the 87.5 XT Turbo?

It appears to have almost entirely 88 era XT accoutrements.

***But the 88 XT FSM has no turbo information in it at all.

So what does that mean - how do I get reliable 87.5 Turbo XT wiring info?

 

You kinda have to use both the 88 GL/GL-10 turbo engine wiring diagrahm and the 88 XT Spider manifold diagrahms and transpose them. 

 

The real B-tch is that the 87's one of the main engine connectors is a big weird square instead of round like later.  And I suspect they have the flip flopped pins for Ref. and Sig. to the disty from ECU.  All the 87's are like that for some reason even SPFI???  go figur....

[idosubaru]

You kinda have to use both the 88 GL/GL-10 turbo engine wiring diagrahm and the 88 XT Spider manifold diagrahms and transpose them. 

 

The real B-tch is that the 87's one of the main engine connectors is a big weird square instead of round like later.  And I suspect they have the flip flopped pins for Ref. and Sig. to the disty from ECU.  All the 87's are like that for some reason even SPFI???  go figur....

copy, thanks Gloyale - it plugged in and "ran" but very poorly.  i drove it 40 miles one day but it was bucking, inconsistent and i didn't trust it.  it's sat since then and i couldn't figure it out.

i'll keep your last comments about disty signals in mind next time i dig into this which i hope is soon.

Edited December 25, 2013 by grossgary

[AWD J3wman]

Good lord Subaru just kind of did whatever when they made this engine. its like 20 people in totally different departments made it and never talked to each other at any point.

[mr sarcastic]

Being new to subaru I've found that to be true. These cars are very easy to work on. When it comes to switching out parts, they're like Legos. But, the parts don't seem to be very interchangeable. With most of my background in vw's, I'm used to the opposite. They didn't make it easy to change parts, but most stuff stayed the same over a long period of time and even when it's not, the you can use other generation parts with little modification.

[AWD J3wman]

^^ I'm coming from Honda which is the same as VW in that sense.  With Subaru though, They're very interchangable. Everything works together and bolts up more or less with subarus. But the 80s was full of auto makers who were full of trying computer stuff for the first time so it was a little goofy.

Basically my only problem is they had a MPFI, DPFI, and Carbed fueling system available for this car which was goofy. and its just not as well documented as a Honda.