EJ Goals for 2019

[DC493]

Hello all! First of all i work 2 jobs and go to school constantly and looking through page after page on my phone in a rush is very tedious.

so any links or guidance would be very appreciated.

i currently have a 1993 loyale sedan ea82 5spd D/r 

 I have finally put all the pressure on myself to get my Ej swap done this year. Im just curious, where is a good place to look for an EJ22? How much would it cost me to rebuild if i found a high mileage one? 

one other thing that Im not sure of is finding or making a wiring harness. 

one last thing i am wondering is front axles and cross member, does anything need to be modded?

other than that i plan on getting the adapter plate from ADF along with the 2 inch lift (possible 4 inch just need to look into steering shaft extension) 

Any links to threads that will help me out will be greatly appreciated or hacks that you have while you did your EA82 To EJ22 Swap. 

Thank you again, as being a student with two jobs is tedious....I have to complete this goal...TIA..

 

[ClassySoob]

2 hours ago, DC493 said:

Hello all! First of all i work 2 jobs and go to school constantly and looking through page after page on my phone in a rush is very tedious.

so any links or guidance would be very appreciated.

i currently have a 1993 loyale sedan ea82 5spd D/r 

 I have finally put all the pressure on myself to get my Ej swap done this year. Im just curious, where is a good place to look for an EJ22? How much would it cost me to rebuild if i found a high mileage one? 

one other thing that Im not sure of is finding or making a wiring harness. 

one last thing i am wondering is front axles and cross member, does anything need to be modded?

other than that i plan on getting the adapter plate from ADF along with the 2 inch lift (possible 4 inch just need to look into steering shaft extension) 

Any links to threads that will help me out will be greatly appreciated or hacks that you have while you did your EA82 To EJ22 Swap. 

Thank you again, as being a student with two jobs is tedious....I have to complete this goal...TIA..

 

Hey there I just did an EJ swap over the summer. I found my EJ 22 on Facebook for $300. You can look on marketplace, Craigslist etc. But its better to buy a whole donor car so you'll have everything on the EJ side that you'll need for the swap. You'll also need a Bell housing adapter, the EA82 flywheel redrilled for the EJ. http://www.sjrlift.com/ can provide those for you. There are a few threads on here for the swap, but I don't know the links.

[el_freddo]

Buy a whole vehicle - ensure it’s running!

Pull the harness and cut it down to just the engine management wiring. Test run this with the engine still in the donor vehicle. If it’s starts and runs without any codes you’re good to go with the rest of the conversion. 

The gearbox and driveshafts aren’t touched unless you fit the EJ AWD box.

Cheers

Bennie

[sparkyboy]

+1 on getting a donor car.

You know how she runs, wiring harness included naturally,  and part out the rest! 

I basically bought a new clutch and adapter plate with a free ej22 cause I got a donor car for $500 (t bone accident), sold the trans and diff, and scrapped the body.

I did this swap two years ago ago on my 86 gl.

Numbchux did THE ea2ej writeup, it's in pdf, just google it (ea2ej swap) and busarus youtube channel has links to pinouts.

Have fun! I learned efi as I went, i was a true rookie! Just carby small block chevys! It took me 8 months and i trimmed the harness myself  I had no more experience with wiring outside of stereos. I was truly intimidate at first.

The ea flywheel can be drilled with a regular drill with fancy bits, and a lot of patience. Just use the ej flywheel as a template, saving you $200 for a pre drilled!

My 86 is sleeper as hell now, she mashed a v8 jeep, a v6 5 speed maxima (not exactly slow, nor fast those nissans) a turbo outback  (overweight) and will murder my camaro drag racing, any distance. Those bodies are so light is why this swap is the sh!t, and you can lane split in one of these. My gl no sh!t stayed on a Ferraris asss in the mountains once going over 100 mph uphill in 5th! Lol! The Ferrari wasn't wuss either, just the driver!

And monster burnouts without even side stepping  All the way through second if mat it against the rev limiter and still chirping 3rd! You won't regret the blood, sweat and tears. 

The ej swap is the best way to keep the ea82 bodies munching miles! The spfi ea82 is a boat anchor.

Edited January 30, 2019 by sparkyboy

[el_freddo]

4 hours ago, sparkyboy said:

Have fun! I learned efi as I went, i was a true rookie! Just carby small block chevys! It took me 8 months and i trimmed the harness myself  I had no more experience with wiring outside of stereos. I was truly intimidate at first.

Everyone is for their first!  Don’t focus on the number of wires and how they’re jumbled up. 

You need the following wires:

- permanent power (fused)

- back up power  (fused)

- starter wire (use the EJ’s starter setup, you just need the wire to the starter and the other to trigger the starter circuit (fused)

- fuel pump wire (fused from memory)

- vehicle speed sensor wire (VSS), hook into the speed sensor in the back of the instrument cluster

- AC relay wire (good if you’re going to run AC)

- thermofan relay or cut off wire (earth switched)

From memory that’s it. The rest of the wiring plugs into the ECU or the engine and sensors etc.

Cheers 

Bennie

[sparkyboy]

Oh yea I took the time to do the valve seals, head gaskets and timing belt etc...easy since the engine is out and switch the rear main seal cover if yours is plastic, i believe Subaru sell aluminum ones for like $25, but eBay has them. You can resurface the heads  yourself too if you have a piece of glass and some sticky sandpaper with wd-40. I'll find the link, hat tip to GD on that one, i believe it's 80 grit iirc.

I was able to reuse the hlas, but she runs almost too quiet, no ticking is nice but every sube should tick cold at least lol! She'll get there I suppose.

[el_freddo]

To keep costs down I carefully purchased my engine from a parts yard. It had 127k km on the clock. Turned out the clutch was completely toast. 

Then I “bench” test as I wanted to make sure my wiring worked properly - and to assess the head gasket situation as I really didn’t want to do that job already, mainly due to cost.  Here’s the first start up, exhaust mid section poked out under the rear door of our shed:

Worked a treat! These head gaskets survived a 5min run at 4K rpm in soft sand on a beach with the temp gauge at 120*C (mechanical temp gauge plumber into the coolant out pipe in the heater circuit).  I also froze the block in the first week of moving up to the snowfields - the replacement coolant didn’t have any antifreeze properties in it! Head gaskets survived after some very careful engine start, runs free seconds, sit a few seconds, start, run a bit long etc and repeated this until the radiator hoses were liquified. Then drove it to the season staff carpark where it was a much more sheltered. Left it to thaw out then swapped the coolant out. 

Four years later they let go!

Anyway, bit of a long story there!

I guess I’m saying enjoy the exeperience. Make some informed decisions and that’ll help with a successful conversion

Cheers 

Bennie

[sparkyboy]

Very cool Bennie! Yea the ej22 can take a beating, i overheated mine twice and never blew a head gasket.

This is just anecdotal evidence, but each time I got them hot, i added water to the radiator and got them down to operating temp instead of letting them go from overheating to cold and i think that helps avoid warping.

Anyway, here ya go speaking of hgs. 

 

[alexbuoy]

It would be best either finding a partout or buying a parts car.

There is a writeup floating somewhere here by Numbchux. 

I would recommend SJR for the harness, lift and adapter plate. Flywheel you can use a dremel tool with a carbide bit and elongate the holes until it fits the EJ crank. If possible look for a 96 EJ they are non interference and OBDII.

[czny]

5 minutes ago, alexbuoy said:

It would be best either finding a partout or buying a parts car.

There is a writeup floating somewhere here by Numbchux. 

I would recommend SJR for the harness, lift and adapter plate. Flywheel you can use a dremel tool with a carbide bit and elongate the holes until it fits the EJ crank. If possible look for a 96 EJ they are non interference and OBDII.

https://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/70982-ea-to-ej-swap-write-up/

 

[DC493]

So i finally think i have found a donor car for te EJ swap. 

(https://albuquerque.craigslist.org/pts/d/albuquerque-1995-subaru-legacy-parting/6883043174.html) 

Talked to the guy and he said that the motor runs strong and the only thing wrong is ball joint and axle so it wont drive. Think im gonna give it a look tomorrow. (anything i should look for?)

I read Numbchux write up on the EA2EJ and i just have a question about the brakes. In the write up it did not mention anything about the brakes or hookup, is it pretty self explanatory once i get to that point? 

Thanks guys for all your guidance, its seeming more and more like a reality! 

[DC493]

On 1/28/2019 at 10:16 PM, el_freddo said:

Buy a whole vehicle - ensure it’s running!

Pull the harness and cut it down to just the engine management wiring. Test run this with the engine still in the donor vehicle. If it’s starts and runs without any codes you’re good to go with the rest of the conversion. 

The gearbox and driveshafts aren’t touched unless you fit the EJ AWD box.

Cheers

Bennie

Are you suggesting that i trim the wiring harness with motor and everything still in the donor vehicle? instead of pulling everything from donor vehicle THEN trimming? 

TIA 

[el_freddo]

7 hours ago, DC493 said:

Are you suggesting that i trim the wiring harness with motor and everything still in the donor vehicle? instead of pulling everything from donor vehicle THEN trimming? 

TIA 

Yes. Pull the main harness from the vehicle. Leave the engine harness on the engine. 

Trim down the main harness, lay it out over the engine with the wires you need to start it setup either on a switch panel or labelled so you can connect them to a battery for start up. Use the wiring on the vehicle for the fuel pump, might need to extend some wires for this. 

When it starts, runs, doesn’t throw a CEL (unless it did beforehand and you know what the code is) you know you’re good to wrap the wiring and go ahead with pulling the engine etc. 

This allows you to troubleshoot any harness/engine related issues without extra downtime on your EA daily. 

You could even lay the EJ harness into the L in prep for the engine to be put in, again, saves on downtime. 

The donor vehicle is the way to go unless you know exactly what you’re doing and what you need - or you like learning “along the way” when you find bits missing or bits needed that you’ve over looked. 

The FSM wiring diagrams of the ECU are the ones you want.  Basically any wire from the ECU plugs are kept. I unwrapped the harness then traced all wires from the ECU, taping them together as I went. Anything that was woven in an untaped got cut out. 

Here’s my testing of the harness. As you’ll see I put all the bits together rather than find a donor: 

Cheers 

Bennie

[andrsn]

On 1/28/2019 at 9:16 PM, el_freddo said:

Buy a whole vehicle - ensure it’s running!

Pull the harness and cut it down to just the engine management wiring. Test run this with the engine still in the donor vehicle. If it’s starts and runs without any codes you’re good to go with the rest of the conversion. 

The gearbox and driveshafts aren’t touched unless you fit the EJ AWD box.

Cheers

Bennie

I wish I would have done mine this way. I'm at the point now where the car is running and driving seemingly fine but its failing DEQ. I'm guessing I just didn't hook something up correctly in my wiring as the donor car I got it from had passed DEQ a few months before I bought it...