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Leone diesel!!??


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Was down at the local Repco (parts) store the yesturday looking through a catalogue, for engine bearings i think, and saw a strange listing.

 

Subaru Leone Diesel - '92 onwards i think.

Listings for a 1700cc, 2000cc and 2200cc diesel engine, the engine numbers looked like they were a Nissan engine.

 

What the???

 

oh, the 1700 one was listed as 4wd too.

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WOOT!!!! I wana 2.0 or 2.2 Diesel for my brat!!

 

If you can get ANY more info on this Ross, please do!

 

I'd love to get a near bolt-in diesel :slobber:

 

I certainly will, a subie with a diesel would be very handy.

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I was stationed in Japan in 95-96 and there were diesel Soobs (and everything else) all over the place. Wasn't aware that anything was shipped outside of the JDM. Could be cool, but the engines I remember were normally aspirated rattle traps. MASSIVE amounts of noise and no power at ALL.

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I was stationed in Japan in 95-96 and there were diesel Soobs (and everything else) all over the place. Wasn't aware that anything was shipped outside of the JDM. Could be cool, but the engines I remember were normally aspirated rattle traps. MASSIVE amounts of noise and no power at ALL.

 

doesnt mean they cant be modded. Just add a turbo retard the timing and either injectors or play with the pump. can anyone find one of these to import?

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I was stationed in Japan in 95-96 and there were diesel Soobs (and everything else) all over the place. Wasn't aware that anything was shipped outside of the JDM. Could be cool, but the engines I remember were normally aspirated rattle traps. MASSIVE amounts of noise and no power at ALL.

 

yeah and then everybody thinks you have a rod that's about to go :lol: Kinda like the old Rabbit I had, was doing good to get it to do 65, had it up to 70 once, took like 4-5 miles of having it FLOORED lol BUUUT it got 38 MPG in town :D

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Verbatim from this article: http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/39863/subarus_diesel_dilemma.html

 

"After perfecting the design of its distinctive flat-four petrol engine, Subaru has admitted it's looking at the world's first flat-four diesel for a passenger car. "We have working prototype units," an insider told Auto Express. But there's no guarantee the engine will be built. "Subaru must make a business case for introducing a diesel, and currently we don't think sales would be high enough to justify the development costs," said our source."

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yeah and then everybody thinks you have a rod that's about to go :lol: Kinda like the old Rabbit I had, was doing good to get it to do 65, had it up to 70 once, took like 4-5 miles of having it FLOORED lol BUUUT it got 38 MPG in town :D

 

what was the redline in those rabbits anyway? they had a 1.6 right? had to be slow with no turbo and that puny engine.

 

swap in a turbo engine from the jetta? pyrometer, boost guage, new head studs, intercooler, 2.5" turbo back straight pipe and crank up the boost maybe drop the compression with a 1 notch bigger head gasket and play with the fuel watching the EGT's.

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it became my Rabbit and yes it seemed gutless but it pushed my buddies '86 Scirroco back to his house about 3 blocks after I installed the big bumper kit. I'm not sure what redline is since they never came with a tach in the Rabbits unless it was the Rabbit GTD (basically a diesel version of the GTI). I also installed a GTI dash into it, GTI front seats and very nice black carpet.

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Hey. Any luck finding out more about these engines? If we can find out what the heck they bolted into a leone, and whether it used the same tranny as the US GL/Loyale, I want to import one. I don't care if it's a 1.7NA IDI (translate, slow as dirt....), I still want one.....

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With fuel prices the way they are right now (over $3.10 at home last time I heard), I would kill for a diesel brat to run around town in!

 

Actually, I now remember two ways to adapt (relatively) readily available diesels to the subaru. You would have to run a T-case for 4wd or just do 2wd, running the diesel version of the 22RE toyota engine which was sold in Canada for a long time and in the US for a short period, or you could buy an adapter (yes, they make them) to run the VW 1.6L diesel with a toyota tranny.

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ahhhhh hah! And here I was thinking that a thread i saw in a bio-diesel/WVO forum had intewresting merit; take the TDI system and make it non-electronic for the swap into a VW caddy or some other car.

 

My thoughts are... find out the weight, and diamentions and obviously the flywheel mounting pattern and see if its able to fit in a EA82 platform or if it will have to be swapped into a EJ platform.

 

One of the forums had a picture of a swap and the TDI was slanted at a serious tilt. The VW TDI that i saw was from a transverse mount originally and was longitudinally into I think some RWD nissan or mazda?

 

 

So who wants to go to a J/Y and have the data posted here from a VW TDI so we can all start theorizing the bene'ies of a AFS (Alternate fueled Subie)

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yeah that Rabbit was pretty slow. I remember reading the tuneup data and the upper limit on the injector pump was supposed to be like 5900 RPM or something like that, it was a 1.6 liter, some of the older rabbits were a 1.5!, had like 53 HP but it had like 96 ft-lb of torque! I spanked some kid in a Civic off the line in it, and then I was bragging about it in a parkign lot and he comes up to me and was like 'You didn't beat me, I wasn't racing" I was like "Gee, then why were you hammering through the gears?" :brow:

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Oooohh A TDI in a subaru. That would be pretty cool. I've driven the TDI jetta's, and it's sort of fun to blast by everyone in the passing lane going up mountain passes in 5th gear, still getting 40+ mpg. They suck on dirt roads though. zilch for ground clearance.

 

As far as engine clearances, I actually went pretty far in working on putting a 1.6NA IDI VW into an '87 GL wagon. If you tilt it over on it's side about 45 degrees (standard for the vanagons), it comes close to clearing the hood, and you just have to move the radiator forward a little. Not all that hard if you've got a basic machine shop and a welder. And fabricating engine mounts of course. I bolted the subaru flywheel to the VW crankshaft, to use the subaru clutch setup. But what finally stumped me was making the adaptor between the subaru bell housing and the VW engine. I don't own a milling machine......

 

I'm trying to find out more about the subaru leone with the nissan diesel. Whether it bolted to the subaru tranny, or whether they put an entire drivetrain from the little nissan 4wd wagons into a subaru. So far I've found out that it the 1.7L engine was used in the early 80's sentra's, and had 65HP, 104ftlbs torque, redlined at 4,800rpm, and got 40-50mpg in the sentra. I bet that would perform as good as the stock EA82 around town and off road -- lower HP, but I rarely rev my subaru high enough to use it's theoretical horsepower anyway, and I'd like more low end torque. Later nissans got the 2.0 and 2.2 liter, and the 2.2 liter was apparently used in 80's pickups as well.

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My folks had one of those diesel rabbits, slow but ran forever. I sold it for $300 with over 300k and it still ran perfect. Think I had it up to 85 once on the freeway coming down a hill.

I still see the little Isuzu deisel cars running around, 70s model I think. Don't recall the name, but IIRC they were a front mount in-line 4 cyl rwd. Wonder if one of those would fit under a Suby hood?

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Update on what I've learned on the Subaru diesel

 

It appears that Subaru sold Nissan AD wagons rebadged as Subaru Leone's for a few years in early to mid 90's (after they stopped selling the original subaru leone I guess). They came with the option for the 1.7L diesels to begin with, and 2.0l and 2.2l later on. So... they weren't subaru's at all..... Transverse mount engine even in the 4wd drive ones from what I can tell...:-\

 

I did find out more about the 1.7L nissan engine. It's still available new from a company in CA, along with the 2.0 liter, and a 2.8 liter 6 cylinder variety. They're apparently used in all sorts of industrial equipment. And they have a good reputation as being semi-indestructible. Actually the old isuzu diesels do too. But how could you fit one in a subaru.... I bet whoever figures a kit out to do this could make some money -- probably be at least as popular as the kits to put subaru engines into vanagons....

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doesnt mean they cant be modded. Just add a turbo retard the timing and either injectors or play with the pump. can anyone find one of these to import?

 

i bet they had turbos, they dont have throttle plates, or distributors. you cant mess with timing on diesels.

have you ever seen a diesel, or are you just talkin out your internet educated rump roast?

 

also this topic has been popin up since 1999 and the general consensus was that we will never see one in the us. short of a forklift or something off the wall like that.

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you cant mess with timing on diesels.

 

I was under the impression that newer diesels have bypassed the use of glowplugs for cold starts by having the ECM retard timing and inject fuel at a later time, as well as compressing the air more which will cause more heat....

 

please correct me if I'm wrong as I'm trying to learn more about diesel engines

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