kimokalihi's 91 SS EJ20 Swap

[smh0101]

ONe thing... when you put the tranny and engine back together, be sure to put the throwout bearing on the clutchfork and put it back on the transmission along with the rod. When its all together you just have to push back on the clutch fork to snap the throwout bearing into place.

Otherwise your trying to fish around and put the clutch fork in with it together and its a pita.

And make sure you clean the clutch fork rod and regrease it with a good synthetic grease. I didnt when I had the engine out last time so it took me two hours to get the goddamn rod out when I did the engine swap a few days ago.

Its sure looking good!!

[jake15]

good work kimo! i'm glad this car ended up with someone who'll finally put it back together

that new style metal oil separator plate uses the same bolts as the oil pans do, so if you have some of those lying around save yourself some money and use them.

Do not use a lightened flywheel and a lightened crank pulley, you'll run into issues as there is not enough rotational mass they tend to run weird, choose one or the other.

[kimokalihi]

Damnit! lol Here I thought I would have a sport bike revving engine....

I was kind of thinking that it wouldn't be so good for cruising though.

Maybe a stupid question but, do I need to reseal that cover when I replace those bolts?

How do I decide which to use, the lightweight pulleys or the lightweight flywheel?

If I use the pulleys, which flywheel do I use? Buy an OEM one? For the 91 turbo or for a 97 forester?

New one for the 91 turbo is $230 from 1stsubaruparts.com

Or should I just go cheap and resurface the one off the motor?

[PhyrraM]

Go with the LW flywheel and keep the stock pulley. It has a bit of dampening in it that might still be benificial.

[kimokalihi]

You mean that rubber decoupler? I think I've noticed that before. Is it on all the stock pulleys? I thought I saw one that didn't have the rubber.

[kimokalihi]

ONe thing... when you put the tranny and engine back together, be sure to put the throwout bearing on the clutchfork and put it back on the transmission along with the rod. When its all together you just have to push back on the clutch fork to snap the throwout bearing into place.

Otherwise your trying to fish around and put the clutch fork in with it together and its a pita.

And make sure you clean the clutch fork rod and regrease it with a good synthetic grease. I didnt when I had the engine out last time so it took me two hours to get the goddamn rod out when I did the engine swap a few days ago.

Its sure looking good!!

Thanks for the tip. I have permatex white lithium spray. Will that work or should I use actual grease? I've got some general purpose chevron grease but I doubt it's synthetic.





Got some goodies today from harbor freight. Girlfriend's civic is leaking coolant so I got a radiator tester. That engine stand was only $40 750lb stand. The leveler was $35 for 2 ton. The radiator tester kit was $80 I think.










Had a couple buddies to keep me company while I was working. The first one I almost stepped on before I saw it. The second one wouldn't quit following me around trying to climb on me so I put him on my stool. Next thing you know I wanted to sit on the stool but I found a bucket instead and let him sleep on it. At least he shut up while he was sleeping.

[kimokalihi]

I drained the oil because I was going to remove the oil and water pumps and replace them with the new ones that are on my EJ20H. I noticed this motor also has an oil cooler like the EJ22T. Which is cool because I won't have to plug the coolant outlet off the bottom of the EJ22T water pump.

I also noticed there was almost no oil in this motor. Do they drain them before shipping them? That worries me. When I pulled the plug I was expecting a healthy flow of oil and instead it came out in a thing stream for a few seconds and then just dripped. In this picture you can still see the ribs on the bottom of the pan.






Spark plugs look a bit sooty/oily. Probably not a big deal.






Timing belt looks to be in excellent shape along with everything else behind the timing covers.






New style timing belt tensioner. Cool?






Another thing that I noticed which worries me. Same the passenger side cam gears line up and the crank notch lines up but the driver side cam gears are pretty far off. Slip? When I took the covers off my EJ20H it was the same way. Is that normal?

[dropdfocus]

It will happen with belt stretch. Even with a brand new belt the marks may not exactly line up 100%. Remember, they are just a reference point of where the cams need to be for TDC.

BTW, very nice progress so far!

[kimokalihi]

Thanks! I was wondering if maybe it was just that way when it had been sitting for a while and maybe it would tighten up when the motor was running or something.

I kind of felt like the progress was going a bit slow myself. What you don't see is all the set backs I run into and all the stupid trips 20 mins away to the next town for tools and parts. Gonna need oil seals and stuff from the stealership. I bet they want like $8 a cam seal too, when they're like $2.50 each online.

[dropdfocus]

Check with somewhere like Advance Auto Parts first. I know for a fact that we have a listing for cam seals & such through FelPro.

[kimokalihi]

I don't know where any advanced auto parts places are. I only know autzone, napa, cut rate auto parts and schuck's. The last two I hate. I got to autozone but mainly only for fluids, wiper blades or the occasional cheap tool. For the subaru I buy almost all OEM parts.

I think I will for my metro from now on too. I bought a flywheel from autozone and it's too big by a hair and the starter can't disengage quick enough before the engine starts and it makes a nasty noise.

[kimokalihi]

I just remembered I could still count the teeth and see if it's slipped or not.

[PhyrraM]

For the timing belt, look at the outside of the gears for another timing mark and a notch in the timing cover. They are at 12 o'clock on the intake cams, and 9 and 3 o'clock on the exhausts. Those usually line up better than the twin marks. It's been my experience that those "facing" marks are always a bit off on that side of the engine.

[Airgne]

good job so far. they had to drain the oil before shipping for hazmat reasons. for future ref go to napa in yelm. my cousin owns it and can find anything.

[smh0101]

Be sure to use actual grease and use A LOT of it... I used Mobile 1 Synthetic Grease, but any Heavy Duty Application grease should work just fine.

And what the hell kinda bug is that???

[douglas vincent]

Timing SHOULD NOT BE like that. Fix it.

[smh0101]

^^ Ditto

But it shouldnt be enough to eff up the valves

[kimokalihi]

I'll definately fix it when I put the new oil pump, water pump, cam and crank seals and the new timing belt on. Should only be a few days and I'll have that all done. I'm gonna go to the dealership right now actually.

I don't know what kind of bug that is but I see them about once a year in the summer here. Crazy bug. I pet that bug and it's got a very hard shell covering it's wings. Those antennea are insane looking! It's like a bunch of leaves all fanned out. Or fins. I wonder why it's like that.

[dropdfocus]

It's a JDM bug!

[kimokalihi]

I bet they want like $8 a cam seal too, when they're like $2.50 each online.

I was wrong. They wanted over $10 a seal and like $11 or so for the crank seal. Jesus Christ. For 4 cam seals, 1 crank seal and two drive belts they wanted $97 plus tax. $105 for 2 belts and 5 selts.

I told them I buy all my parts from the renton dealership online and it's a fraction of that price.

$5.77 for a cam seal from 1stsubaruparts.com
$6.17 for a crank seal

[dropdfocus]

Kimo, I have a couple questions for ya...
1. what is the exact part number for that shifter linkage joint (can't see it clearly enough to make it out)
2. where did you pick up the blue urethane replacement bushings from to swap out the factory rubber ones?
3. were you going to keep the new OEM rubber bushings you replaced with the blue ones?
4. how did you swap out the black rubber pieces for the blue urethane ones? The pins look mushroomed at the end which would make them non serviceable.

[kimokalihi]

I'm assuming you're talking about the joint with the 4 blue bushings?

I think that joint may only be for the WRX shift linkage. I really can't remember. I know it fit right on to my JDM 97 forester shift linkage. But I've never looked at the shift linkage for the 90-94 legacys.

The bushings come in the joint, you can't get that joint apart to replace them. It's either welded together or pressed together. You have to replace the whole joint to replace the bushings. Lame. But the bushings were non-existant on that tranny. They were nowhere to be found!

35047ac030 $42.04 from 1stsubaruparts.com

[kimokalihi]

Quick little update. I worked on my engine a tad bit. I took the brand new water pump, oil pump with new crank seal, new thermostat and idlers off the EJ20H motor and put them on the EJ20G. I had to reuse the timing belt tensioner idler because I didn't the newer style tensioner idler. But I checked it and it spins smoothly with no play so I'm not worried about it. Looks new too.






Then I installed new cam seals just in case. No oil leakage but peace of mind I suppose.






Then I installed the new OEM subaru timing belt.....

Everything looked great except the driver side cam double hash marks didn't line up again although all the marks on the belt did.


















I gave the crank a couple spins and the double marks lined up better after that. Not perfect but better and I could tell by looking at the teeth that moving it one tooth in either direction would have made it far worse.





I rejoiced and grabbed up my FSM and looked up the torque specs for everything.

Here's where I have to rant about this stupid book. I used to think this book was the greatest book I've ever owned. Actually I still do but this pisses me off.

On page 13 of the 2nd book it shows a diagram of the front of the engine and all the timing components. It lists the torque for the cam gear at 54-61ft lbs. Great. Not sure why it's a general measurement and not just one exact number but whatever.

On page 21 of the 2nd book it shows another diagram for installation and it lists the torque for the cam sprockets as 47-54ft lbs!

WTF!

Which is it? That's unacceptable for SUBARU to do. Or Fuji or whatever. I expect that from Haynes or Chilton but seriously, SUBARU? C'mon! So I guess the real torque spec for the cam sprockets is anywhere you please from about 47-61. That's quite the range there. Ridiculous.




Anyways, getting back on track. I don't have the special tool to hold the sprockets in place while you torque them so I put a breaker bar and socket on the crank bolt and started to torque the cam bolts to 54ft lbs. Then I heard a crack. Didn't think much of it so I kept torquing it. 3 more cracks and I stopped to inspect it.

This is what I saw.






The noise was the belt slipping. I didn't think it should do that. Is there another way to hold that sprocket still while torquing it? Should it slip like that from less than 50ft lbs of torque? How much torque does the engine put on the belt when you put your foot into and drop the clutch? Is the tensioner not working right? Or is this normal?

Now I'm worried.

That's where I left off. Had to come home and go to sleep. It's now 6:45am and I'm going to go make dinner and go to bed. Gotta get up and go wakeboarding before work!

[kimokalihi]

Does anybody have the number of teeth there should be between the crank and cams on the DOHC motors?

I can't find them. I've been trying to download FSMs for later legacy's but they keep having just the SOHC part in them.

[PhyrraM]

Not sure about those particular heads, but most OHC cams have flat spots cast into the cams (under the valve covers, take them off) that you can put an adjustable wrench on. You can then torque the sprocket bolts while holding the cam your working on with a wrench.

You can see it just in front of the first camshaft lobe in this pic. Note...this is a BC/BF Legacy EJ20G with the stub rockers.



If all the outside marks line up like in your pics, don't worry about the slight mismatch on the "double" hash marks.