Jessekrs123's 1993 Subaru Legacy L EG33 Swap

[Jessekrs123]

Got the harness out today after work!



Boy, was that center heater a PITA to get out. But, now I can weed out the harness in the comfort of my room instead of being outside in the cold taking the interior apart.

[vrg3]

Wow, strong work. Keep it up! Can't wait to see the results!

[Jessekrs123]

Had a little time between my trig and CAM class to finally get my intake manifold off today. It is so damn nice out, 55* and sunny feels soooooooo good out in my driveway, just wish I could skip class and take more apart but CAM is a cool class so...

This thing looks like some sort of sci-fi monster:


Dual throttle bodies:


And how the engine is now. (I have since covered up the fuel stacks since I took the picture to avoid getting foreign objects in there)


I'll get the fuel stacks off another time, I have no room for parts at the moment so... Once I get those off, I will be using that gasket as a stencil to machine up some phenolic spacers in an attempt to bring intake temps down as far as possible. (Yes, I have some CNC and G-code experience , hooray for ME major)

I will be cleaning up and painting the intake manifold wrinkle red if I can find some sort of commercial oven to bake it in. Pottery place down the road might be able to help me out... Among other things will be painted and cured as well. The bare metal attracts so much dirt and crap it is ridiculous, so I plan on painting as much as possible because that dirt gets on the bare metal and it is a PITA to clean out.

I can port out the intake manifold to match the throttle body because there is a like 1mm overhang from the intake manifold to the throttle body. I have to look more into porting out the entire manifold, we'll see what happens with that.

A lot of what ifs at this point, but still making progress...

Oh yeah, un-taped a lot of the harness, took a good 2.5 hours just to get all the tape and loom off...

[SUBYLUV871]

looks like fun. lol damn my wife would kill me if i even brought a harness into the house.

[Legacy777]

I did my piston ring sizing & short block assembly in my living room

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... eadwork/15
http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... eadwork/16

[Jessekrs123]

De-pinned useless SVX pins from the ECU clips today, now I just have to run everything through the rats nest...



Taped pins are the ones I do not need.

[Jessekrs123]

Removed the electrical crap from the intake manifold today, and removed the butterfly valve actuator.


Got the transmission out as well. If anyone is in need of an OBDI AWD 4EAT, let me know. 140k miles, shifted well while the SVX was running.


SVX without the engine or tranny, front end sits higher than my BRAT. That EG33 and 4EAT weigh a ton!


I will be messing around more with the harness tonight.

[Jessekrs123]

Ran into a slight roadblock with the wiring. I have ran all of the wires that I need to run the engine except for ECU clip D. Reason being, there are 2 O2 sensors. One of them branches off from the engine harness, and the other branches off from the transmission harness. And both O2 sensors receive ignition power from the ignition relay connector. I will illustrate my problem in the images below.

Here is one O2 sensor, but both of them have the same set-up. This O2 sensor is on the tranny side of the harness:


Tracing the wire:


And here comes my problem. If you look, the White/Red wire from the ignition relay is split from one wire to three. 2 of the wires power both O2 sensors, and the other wire splits to both control unit power supplies for the ECU.

(Hopefully you can read the captions, MS Paint makes text look like crap)

Here is the source of the White/Red wire, as you can see, it sources from the brown ignition relay connector.


So I have put some thought into it and came up with a possible solution to this problem. If I can de-pin the White/Red ignition wire from the SVX ignition relay connector, I can merge that wire into my Legacy ignition relay connector, and everything should work out the way it should. I am pretty sure I can de-pin it, I can see where the prong is clipped, I just need a heavy duty pin or needle or something to pop it out. After this it should be smooth sailing with the ECU harness.

I am also having one hell of a time trying to free the wires from the damn melted rubber crap that attaches to the rubber grommet to hold the wires through the firewall. What I am talking about illustrated below:


I got through the one on the transmission side of the harness. It is really just a pain in the ass and takes a lot of time and a steady hand to avoid cutting any wires.

If anybody has any comments or suggestions, let me know!

[vrg3]

I understand everything you said about the wiring, but I don't understand what the problem is.

Are you trying to avoid cutting any wires? Is that what makes this a problem?

You can indeed remove the terminal from the ignition relay connector. You're right that a heavy duty pin or something is all it takes. A jeweler's screwdriver might do the trick. I've used a bicycle spoke ground down to make a chisel tip.

You might have an easier time with that rubber crap if you warm it up with a hair dryer. I don't know for sure; it's just a thought.

[Jessekrs123]

I understand everything you said about the wiring, but I don't understand what the problem is.

Are you trying to avoid cutting any wires? Is that what makes this a problem?

You can indeed remove the terminal from the ignition relay connector. You're right that a heavy duty pin or something is all it takes. A jeweler's screwdriver might do the trick. I've used a bicycle spoke ground down to make a chisel tip.

You might have an easier time with that rubber crap if you warm it up with a hair dryer. I don't know for sure; it's just a thought.

Yes, I am trying to avoid cutting any wires at all. I want the wiring to be as clean as possible. The problem wasn't that big of a deal. At first I thought I had to cut it, but then I gave it some thought and figured I could just re-pin it into the Legacy ignition relay connector.

I had originally thought that I would just have to merge the ECU, I never thought I would have to merge the ignition relay, but it's all figured out now. Probably made a bigger stink about that part than I should have.

Just trying to be careful not to screw anything up I might need.

[vrg3]

Hehe, yeah, if you managed to pull all this off without splicing a single wire I would be flabbergasted. I think you'll have to be willing to get your hands a little dirty with wiring.

If you're not good with automotive splicing, you might consider just using Posi-Lock, Posi-Tap, and Posi-Tite connectors. They're super easy to use, and make a really solid connection (unlike the quick-splice "vampire" thingies that people sometimes use). The only drawbacks are that they're kind of expensive and bulky, but if you're only doing a handful of connections that's not a big deal.

[evolutionmovement]

Yeah, I wouldn't use a quick splice with wires that small and important at all. Even the crimp-on kind with the built in heat shrink ends are better than the ones that cut into the wire. I agree with not wanting to cut anything in the first place to keep the potential for gremlin breeding to a minimum.

[vrg3]

If you have a good crimping tool and know how to use it, those crimp-on splices with heat shrink are very, very good. The catch is that almost nobody invests in a good crimper.

[Legacy777]

What I have ended up doing with almost all my wiring now is to strip off the plastic coating on the butt connectors, crimp the connector "good" and then use heat shrink over the connector. That produces the smallest splice (read physical bulk) in the wiring harness. You can use that procedure to go from one to two wires. It works quite well. I don't recommend soldering for automotive use unless it's on a PCB.

[Jessekrs123]

Thanks for all of the advice fellas, I appreciate it a lot. I am pretty set on getting the harness separated without cutting anything at all, so that is how I am going to end up doing it. I can definitely crimp well (done some wiring on a few radios). I just want the electrical work to be extremely clean and 100% free from any possible failure. De-pinning wires that are in the way, and running them through everything until what I need is free and not tangled is what I am going to end up doing.

De-pinned the wire I need from the ignition relay connector. Took me an hour and a half just to get this stubborn thing out.


Very difficult stuff. On top of un-clipping it from it's locking tab, you can see the little raised edge which catches on a plastic clip right before you get it out. I definitely DO NOT look forward to de-pinning this connector on my Legacy.

I am pretty determined to separate this harness without any wire cutting whatsoever.

Which brings me to my next challenge. Running the branches of the ignition relay wire through whatever wires are in the way.


As you can see, I'm hung up on a few wires. I will be tracing these wires, de-pinning them, running them through to free my ignition wires, and then re-pinning them just for good measure.

Fun fun fun...

[evolutionmovement]

Josh has the best suggestion for bulk, which is why the bulkier ones with the built in heat shrink aren't quite the best option, IMO. And I think you're not supposed to solder stranded wire anyway as the idea is that it is more flexible and solder is not. I've seen people do it, though, and it's probably OK most of the time.

[Jessekrs123]

Got the fuel stacks and fuel lines off today.


Fuel stack. Possible area to port to match the gasket and intake port? I'll have to make some measurements to see what is possible.

Intake port.


Engine harness removed.


That's all for now...

[Jessekrs123]

Made an awesome discovery this morning.

To make a long story short, my Legacy auto seatbelts have been malfunctioning for a while now, and I was contemplating on spending $$$ on some canadian manual seatbelts until I made the following discovery:

The SVX auto belt computer is interchangeable with my Legacy computer!


I hooked up the SVX auto belt computer and now my seatbelts are working flawlessly!!!!! The only problem is that the mounting tabs are different, but I can make it work...

So just for future reference, Legacy part number 88013AA060 is interchangeable with SVX part number 88013PA000.

[vrg3]

Nice! I wonder if you could swap the guts of the SVX seat belt controller into the case of the Legacy one so it would mount up the same way.

[Jessekrs123]

Nice! I wonder if you could swap the guts of the SVX seat belt controller into the case of the Legacy one so it would mount up the same way.

That is what I was thinking. The Legacy computer is a little easier to take apart than the SVX. The SVX computer is held together by metal clips, I'll have to look into it a little more.

[Jessekrs123]

Got the harness separated today!

Everything I need is on the left, everything I don't need on the right. Cut no wires.


Now I just have to un-tangle the needed part of the harness, make it nice and neat and wrap everything back up! I will end up having to cut off some branched wires that go from some sensors to the body harness for whatever reason.

[vrg3]

Wow. That is impressive. Are you just going to wrap it back up in some split loom tubing or something?

[Jessekrs123]

Wow. That is impressive. Are you just going to wrap it back up in some split loom tubing or something?

That's correct. I am actually going to completely de-pin each ECU connector to untangle everything, get the wires nice and straight and then wrap it up in intervals and loom every wire group.

[Legacy777]

Very awesome work!

[Jessekrs123]

Got the coolant crossover pipe off, enabling me to clean some of the engine off. There are 4 small ports on the EG33 pipe that my EJ22E doesn't have.


Got the center of the block pretty clean. I have to seal off my intake and coolant ports better before I clean the crap off of each head. I don't want any debris creeping their way into the intake ports or clogging up the coolant ports.


I checked out my car for a possibility of A/C. It definitely looks like I'll have enough room to keep the A/C condenser if I mount the radiator in front of it and somehow incorporate cooling fans in there as well. (This will constitute trimming the front bumper to fit the radiator/fans.) The condenser is mounted right under the radiator support brace from the frame. There is a good 6 inches between the EJ22E and the condenser. With the EG33, the gap will close significantly, but it should give me enough room to keep it. The A/C lines coming out of the compressor are like half rubber and half hard, hopefully it will give me enough play to use the Legacy compressor on the SVX engine. This will all be determined once the engine is placed in the Legacy. Can't use SVX A/C components, SVX was R12, Legacy is R134a.


Wiring is coming along, it's still a rats nest but it looks better and better every time I work on it.