Josh2109's '95 BJ Legacy Wagon 2.0 DL - EJ20G swap

[josh2109]

Hi folks,

As you may have seen from my other threads I recently acquired a 1995 registered Legacy Wagon, BJ chassis and it's the 2.0 DL trim. I picked it up for the princely sum of £127.50 with a failed head gasket, and my intention was to pull the motor and replace the head gaskets. I've got two large dogs, horses in the family and I regularly lug car parts so my thoughts were that this would make a cheap and reliable workhorse once repaired.

Here she was when she was delivered:













As you can see she's got her fair share of dents and scrapes, and has been used as a rolling shed (the feed bags in the back are a dead giveaway that this was previously used by another horsey person ). It's perfect for my needs though, and as far as I can see there's no significant rot on it which is unusual for older Japanese cars here.

Then on eBay I spotted an auction for an EJ20G out of a JDM Forester turbo, it was cheap and about 4 miles down the road from me... I used to have a JDM GT B E-Tune II and I've been pining for a turbocharged Subaru again since then. I chucked a cheeky bid on the engine and I got it for £156 It turned out the chap selling it also had most of the parts which I'd need to get the engine up and running in the car, we agreed to round up the price to £200 for everything and on Sunday and went and picked up the engine and left a very happy boy!



So that brings things up to date so far

In terms of my plans for the car as it stands now, I would like to have the EJ20G running stock power reliably, mated up to a full time AWD gearbox (preferably one with hi/lo ratio - cheers to Alphius for the pointer on which cars to obtain such a box from). I want to leave the bodywork as is because I'd really like this to be a proper sleeper I'll have to fit a bonnet scoop to flow air over the intercooler, but that's about as far as it will go. I may even look into an FMIC so that I don't have to chop up the bonnet... Whilst I'm thinking about it I will need to look in to some uprated brakes as well, as it'd be nice to be able to stop after the increase in power...

Left on my shopping list is a later Legacy/Impreza hi/lo ratio gearbox & rear diff, and better brakes.

I'm hoping to start pulling the old motor out the wagon this week so I'll keep you guys posted as and when there is progress

[Alphius]

Awesome! What a weird trim level. No tach but power windows? Haha. I'll be watching the progress here for sure.

[cj91legss]

Awesome! What a weird trim level. No tach but power windows? Haha. I'll be watching the progress here for sure.

Luxury brighton!

[josh2109]

I always find it really trippy that there's a 'Brighton' trim level on some Legacy's as Brighton is a city about 10 miles down the road from me

The lack of a tacho is presumably going to make my wiring a bit easier... That said it would be handy to be able to see what the engine is being revved to!! I might have to look into retrofitting a set of instruments with a tachometer in. No idea where I'll track said instrument cluster down from though, these cars seem to be like hen's teeth over here in the UK.

[josh2109]

Update time To save lots of small posts I will condense a few visits to the barn into one post...

So the first job I had was to manhandle the new engine out of the pickup truck - Easier said than done when you're by yourself and an automatic gearbox is still attached! I tried to support the gearbox end as it tipped down and ATF poured all over me lol.



Next up it was time to survey the engine bay and figure out what needed to come off:



I didn't take any step by step pictures, but to get the engine ready top be pulled I had to remove the intake an air box, fuel lines, any wiring that joined the engine to the body (I actually ended up removing the whole inlet manifold for ease of lifting the engine), power steering pump, washer bottle (just to give me more space to work), radiator, clutch cable and split the down pipes from the heads. Last but not least I pulled the starter out and removed the gearbox bell housing bolts/nuts. I may have missed some bits out from my list, but to be fair these engines are fairly straightforward to work on so if you work slowly and methodically it's not difficult to disconnect everything.

This is a shot from about halfway through prepping the engine bay if I remember correctly...



Next up I needed to split the auto box from the EJ20G. The reason being that I had dumped it in front of the Legacy and it was getting under foot. The bell housing bolts and nuts came off fine, but I had a bit of a nightmare with the torque converter bolts... Luckily my Grandad is a mechanic so I enlisted his help and he brought his Snap On impact gun with him. That shifted the 4 bolts nicely and the box was ready to come off. This was where the fun started! I've never had a gearbox that was so stubborn to be removed from an engine - it genuinely felt like we had missed a bolt! After lots of treatment with a hammer, screwdrivers and a pry bar they finally came apart. It turned out that the two mating faces had fused together with corrosion, as had the alignment dowels. A bit of emery paper should sort the engine out however.




Next was removal of the flex plate. I tried to remove the bolts without the impact gun initially and rounded a bolt... That was a bit silly of me. I removed the other 7 then had a think about what to do next!



The answer was a set of these:



This was a few days later and I no longer had my Grandad with his impact gun, so I jammed the flex plate using a pry bar through the inspection hole, and the bolt remover did the job straight off the bat using a breaker bar.

With the flex plate removed I saw that I had a) an oil leak and b) a plastic cover... I'll need to address the leak, but am I right in thinking that it's worth swapping the plastic cover for a metal version?



Back to the project car, the motor was now ready to come out.



I stuck my chains on the engine, got the crane to take the slack out of them, then released the engine mount bolts. I was really impressed with how easy the engine is to lift out of these cars!! On all the Honda's I've worked on it's been an absolute nightmare in terms of clearance.






That was last night, so this should bring us up to date. The only other thing that has happened is that my assistant has checked the clutch and flywheel for wear...



I think I will be investing in a clutch out of a turbo charged motor rather than re-using the n/a spec one.

So there we go:) more to come in the near future I hope!

[Legacy777]

Nice progress!

I've used those extractors before and they work very well!

[mike-tracy]

Toyotas, VW's, Mitsubishis, and now Subarus, you have a varied interest in cars mate!

[Reuben]

Man, you need to get some lighting in that shed!!! Very cool though, good wee engines those late 20G's, not much can go wrong on them, and they go well with STi bolt on parts. Though leaving it stock will be ample for a light first gen, and keep things reliable

[josh2109]

Cheers guys

Nice progress!

I've used those extractors before and they work very well!

They're one of those tools where they sound too good to be true, but you take a shot anyway out of desperation I was really pleased to find how well they work! As long as you've got room to tap them on with a hammer then there isn't anything they don't seem to be able to shift.

Toyotas, VW's, Mitsubishis, and now Subarus, you have a varied interest in cars mate!

Haha yeah there's a bit of a mix in the barn! My mainstay is Honda's, but I like anything Japanese. I hate VW reliability, but for some reason the older motors really appeal to me - I always regret buying them at some point though lol. I've noticed the mechanics in the unit near to me have a Corrado sitting idle so no doubt that stands a good chance of entering my life at some point

Besides the Subaru, the current stable of motors in the barn is 2 x Toyota MR2's (a UK GT T-bar and a JDM G-Limited), a VW Golf Mk2 Driver, a 3rd gen Honda Accord GSi, a 2nd gen Honda Prelude GSi, a 4th Gen Honda Prelude Si, a 1st gen Honda Insight, a 2nd Gen Isuzu Bighorn, a 2nd gen Toyota Hilux Surf, a 2nd Gen Toyota Granvia Q Spec and a mk1 Eunos Roadster which I'm breaking for spares. It's getting a bit packed in there! And I still have cars sat at home and up at my parents farm...

Man, you need to get some lighting in that shed!!! Very cool though, good wee engines those late 20G's, not much can go wrong on them, and they go well with STi bolt on parts. Though leaving it stock will be ample for a light first gen, and keep things reliable

I'd love some decent lighting, but unfortunately there is no electric supply to the barn and the landlord has no intention of changing that I'm constantly keeping an eye out for a better base of operations, but this barn is only a few miles from my house and it's very secluded so it's hard to find something more suitable.

I'm really hoping that this motor provides me with a nice balance between performance and power! At the end of the day it's just a cheap bit of fun though, I've mainly taken this project on because I enjoy getting my tools out, so if it goes bang at some point it isn't the end of the world. It should be good fun once it's running though, I reckon it'll be a real sleeper... Can't wait to run it in the traffic light grand prix

[allnines']

Is that a push button 4WD switch? like on the loyals? and, yes! get rid of that plastic baffle plate!

[josh2109]

Is that a push button 4WD switch? like on the loyals? and, yes! get rid of that plastic baffle plate!

Yep she has a push button on the gear stick for swapping between 2wd and 4wd - there is also a shifter in the centre column for switching between high and low ratio which is pretty nifty for an estate car. I almost bought a 1st gen Justy recently which had a similar set up.

I was a bit impatient when it came to the baffle plate and seeing as it wasn't cracked at all I cleaned it, checked it hadn't warped, and then re-sealed it. I will now await a flogging for doing so

[allnines']

Forgot the "every other country" got way cooler stuff in there leggys' then US

[josh2109]

Time for another update!

I've spent a bit more time working on this car, getting in evenings where possible and I spent most of the weekend at the barn too (my girlfriend was off at a hen do in London ). As a result I've been making a bit of progress on this car, although I've been working on some other bits too - namely getting a mk1 Honda Insight ready for a grid charger install, and preparing my Isuzu Bighorn as a present for my girlfriend.

First job then, remove clutch and flywheel from the old motor (turbo clutches are expensive, just to get the car up and running I'm salvaging the N/A clutch, will swap it out later. Let's hope it doesn't slip ). Seeing as I had nobody to hold the crank pulley I resorted to the old pry bar in the flywheel trick to hold everything steady as I undid the bolts:




That all came off without incident. So then the flywheel went on to the turbo lump:



Clutch and pressure plate will go on when I'm ready to offer the engine up to the car.

Next up I needed to remove the exhaust manifold. What a horrible job The worst part was definitely this bolt, I ended up using a bolt extractor along with about 3 wobbly end extensions and a universal joint...



And out it comes, Vito then feels the need to investigate what it is I've spent the last hour shouting and swearing at



Next up was the realisation that the cross member on my Legacy would not suit the manifold on the turbo engine:





The forester cross member is notched for additional clearance. Here's where I started to hope the a Forester cross member would fit my Legacy

That was pretty much all the work that I did during the few hours I had after work in the week nights. Roll on Saturday, which I decided to start the right way considering I was going to be working all day:



First job of the day, identify what bolts need undoing to remove the cross member, and soak them in WD40:



Whilst they were having a soak, I had a tidy up of my work area in the corner of the barn. From this:



To this:



Much better! With that done I cracked on with removing the cross member. The anti-roll bar came off first, and it was interesting to see it was the same length as the Legacy one, as well as a very similar shape. I later realised I would have to re-use the forester ARB as the Legacy one interferes with the notched areas of the turbo cross member. Legacy bar underneath, Forest bar on top:



Next up was the steering rack. Again this looked the same size as the Forester unit, I'll be running the Legacy one though. Removal was straightforward, it's just a case of undoing the two hydraulic lines, then the pinch bolt on the steering column UJ, then when you undo the brackets on the cross member the whole thing just drops on your head



Then finally, success!



Happily enough it looks like the mounting points on both cross members are identical:



Before this goes in the Legacy I wanted to clean it up though. Nothing drastic, but just to remove the thick buildup of grease and dirt in places. I visited my parents farm for this one as they've got loads of hard standing that's perfect for a pressure washing session. All I did was chuck a load of degreaser on it, agitate it with a brush and then blast it with water.




That's as far as I got at the weekend as a big chunk of Saturday was spent working on the Insight.

On my to-do list is fit the turbo cross member, install the engine. Drop the exhaust and measure it up for making my own system. Figure out what I need in order to build an intake. And last but not least figure out the wiring

Fun times ahead

[josh2109]

Just a quick one! I managed to snatch an hour or so at the barn last night, I was desperate to know if the Forester cross member and ARB would fit...



Result! Both fit perfectly. I would have loved to have offered the engine up and got that installed, but I ran out of time. So for the meantime it sits in waiting:



I'm contemplating a quick BS service whilst it's out. I've already swapped the oil though so I might run it for a few miles before dropping it again and doing the oil filter. Spark plugs will be easy enough whilst it's out though.

I'd go up this evening and get the engine in place and start reattaching everything properly, but it's date night tonight

[Legacy777]

Nice progress on the swap!