Anyone in southern Oregon done a successful EJ swap into a brat?

[anothertucker]

Hey there folks. I am the proud owner of FOUR 2nd gen Brats. ('82 and '86 are stock, '85 is lifted, and the last Brat is a fairly intact parts car with a bunch of extras). I have restored the '86 Brat (140k) into a very functional daily driver, and my next project is an EJ swap into the lifted '85.  I picked up a '96 Impreza outback with 160k as the donor vehicle for $350. Though I am basically mechanically proficient and have lots of fabrication skills and a full shop to work with, it feels a little daunting to jump in with no one looking over my shoulder. I can't afford to use up the space /time in an endless slog and would like to approach it in an efficient way.

 My question is: is there any one located in southern Oregon who would be willing to help me out in doing the swap in exchange for some cash or trade?  I have a working farm, a Saw Mill, lots of walnut/oak/maple/elm slabs, and a number of pieces of heavy machinery that I operate and would happily do work exchange with. 

Any advice is appreciated, and yes, I've bookmarked many of the best links on this forum having to do with the EJ swap (though more are always welcome!)

 

Cheers. 

Edited January 10, 2019 by anothertucker

[jono]

I am not close enough to help, nor have I done this...but I have an EJ20 sitting in my 92 Brumby mated up to its matching awd 5MT out of a '99 Impreza. No flywheel or clutch to avoid weight and lining stuff up at this stage. 

This is about where it stagnated. I have measured up to see about 50 mm needs cuttingfrom tail shaftshaft

65 mm out of shifter rods. Done one. Halfway into stay support rod

Experimental

imental

I found donor has diff ratio of 3.9 anI have MY style rear diff to match

lucky i

Ooh gremlins

[sparkyboy]

Man, i wish you were in denver. There are still piles of phase ones here. And i have been looking for another sube nut to do this with years!

Have you read numbchuxs write up? I put an ej22 in my 86 GL. Looking back it was easy, i took my time over 8 months to get everything right, but now the ej looks factory and runs great! And keep the dual range bro! Especially if you hardly ever use 4wd. I love 4 hi in the snow. My sube handles better than my 325 ix in the snow and i don't think awd would be the same.

I went in knowing nothing of efi, but i tucked the ecu neatly into the glove box.

Happy wrenching man! And your brat will smash after thus swap, my GL will out accelerate my camaro, but not outhandle on pavement, even wet. 

I will be doing this same swap on my 85 xt soon.

Edited January 10, 2019 by sparkyboy

[el_freddo]

If you’ve got the whole vehicle you’re winning on that front, especially if it’s running!

I’d pull the wiring, cut it down, then hook everything up to the engine and fuel pump to do a test run. If all checks out, move forward with the mechanical side of the build and all the general maintenance stuff that goes with it (read: $$$s).

This way you know your wiring cut down will work once it’s in the BRAT.  It should make for an easy conversion without the stress of having to get the wiring right to make the EJ run that’s in the BRAT’s engine bay - I hope that makes some sense. 

Mall the best with it and remember to have fun along the way. When the wiring becomes a bird’s nest to look at, walk away and clear your head before coming back to it again  

Cheers 

Bennie

[sparkyboy]

3 hours ago, el_freddo said:

If you’ve got the whole vehicle you’re winning on that front, especially if it’s running!

Mall the best with it and remember to have fun along the way. When the wiring becomes a bird’s nest to look at, walk away and clear your head before coming back to it again  

Cheers 

Bennie

+1 on that

If I could go back and tell myself what I would do different reguarding the swap:

1) Since I was an efi rookie I would have studied the pinout and wiring diagram for a long time first. I tackled all the mechanical stuff first and had plenty of time to do so, but I was under the impression that I was just gonna send my harness to someone and pay them to do it, ($250) but I was going low budget and the adapter plate from sjr was a better buy. But you can fabricate so that would be something for you to think about if you want to keep the dual range, considering you are building a wheeler I am assuming you don't want awd. Gotta keep 4lo on the brat!

I did eventually sit there with a diagram and pinout and a bunch of diffrent color highlighters and took detailed notes with pin location, wire color(s) (some of the wires change colors after the super multiple junction), and function. Then I took a piece of tape and put it on the wire itself near the harness and it was cake after that.. Plus I learned something for once in my life and I know my own engine a lot better now.

2) Don't drink and do critical work on the engine. This is funny but I installed the valves in the wrong place on the drivers side so when I thought it was the big day I was only running on two cylinders. Luckily zero compression on whole side made me face palm as hard as I ever have but the next day she was golden and I learned that the drivers side hg can be changed in the car, just remove the motor mounts and jack up one side as needed. The pass side looks to be the same.

3) Take more pictures

Things I felt like I did right the first time:

1) Buying an entire donor car, and parting the rest. Just the parts paid for almost half of the entire swap, a 95 leggo was t boned but otherwise fine for $500, and I got about that for selling the parts. Yuur 96 is the best phase one because it is the only year with adjustable lifters and non interference.

2) Taking my time and labeling as much as I could when removing the harness. It saved me a lot of headaches but I was so lost at one point I was on the verge of tears just thing to get the damn thing to power up. Turns out that I needed to power the red wires, as well as the red and yellow stripe ones. I was holding the fuel pump relay between my teeth and the main relay with my finger and I felt them both click on, I started dancing around like snoopy.

3) most importantly, taking my time and having fun while doing it.

Happy wrenching, you are a lucky guy to own so many brats

One more piece of advice would be to have a general understanding of the differences between the obd 1 and obd 2. An example would be that when I was lost in the wiring I looked at a volkswagen bus website and saw how important the brown double diode is, the engine won't start without it, and if it's backwards you will get spark, but at the wrong time and it won't look erratic at all if you just ground the spark plug and crank...so yea imagine that.

So I spend forever looking for this double diode and it turns out obd2 cars don't have that diode! D'oh

Oh one last thing, once you hook up the evap canister, look at the front of the fuel tank and switch the return lines. If you don't the vaccum in the tank caused by the fuel returning high will cause fuel to drain out of the evap canister unless I went out and removed the gas cap to break the vaccum, and random stalling from too rich and took forever to restart...ask me how I know! haha!

 

Edited January 10, 2019 by sparkyboy