Sean's MY04 LGT Slushwagon

[dazzz168]

I reckon u should leave the VF49 on Sean, it's nice n smooth. Besides... you drive like a grandma anyways

[Sean82]

Update time.

EJ207 is in!

It took a solid two days' worth of work and a lot of help from Tremayne to get the engine swap done, but so far, I can't fault it (although some "re-swapping" of parts has been needed...)

Started taking crap off the EJ20X (or "Y" given it's an auto with VF 38, but the engine plate doesn't lie, and it says EJ20X...) on Saturday morning...





Tremayne hard at work making final preps to lift out old 20X...



Lifting out...



207 and 20X side by side, still a bit to come off the 20X to go onto the 207



Crossmember was covered in a decade worth of crap and gunk...And check out that slushy awesomeness of 5EAT torque convertor



New PCV assembly arrangement with catch can install...


As nice as the Cusco one looks, I'm saving for one of those PERRIN AOS like mi-key has! haha

Nearly midnight and the 207 is finally ready to go in



In she goes





Finally in position and bolted down some time about 1:00 am Sunday morning...



Location of Catch can with CAI installed (CAI now gone in favour of stock air box)



Finally got it started Sunday arvo although there were a few teething issues:

- Idled like poo
- Had a huge flat spot from 2,000 - 3,000 RPM
- Was basically gutless under 4,000 RPM and anything less than 50% throttle
- CAI was stupid loud on low boost (under 0.5 bar) and drowned out by engine noise at anything above 0.5 bar

I pondered what it could be, got some advice from a number of players, but mostly Matt (TH, thanks man ). So, I checked for zorst leaks and found one in the LHS head/header gasket. Which is crap because the header gaskets are the only new gaskets in the whole exhaust system! The rest are either reused with lots of Ultra Copper, or just plain ol' Ultra Copper alone. I'm off you Grimmspeed

Anyway, took the CAI out this morning and put the air box back in. Difference is immense! All those annoy issues are eradicated! Neither Eric or I thought that on the base map a CAI would make such a huge difference but it has! I'm dumbfounded and stoked.

It's an absolute gem to drive: where the power delivery of the VF49 on the EJ20X was smooth, it's now even better with the 207.
And the noise! Oh damn, there's just something about revving it out to the 8,000 RPM redline

I'm completely astounded by it all.

To combat the extra load the gearbox is being subjected to, Tremayne (yet again) helped me out.
Yesterday evening we put in a Davies Craig ATF cooler behind the grill. It sort of stands out a bit, but I don't particularly care as it serves a hugely important role.
It's installed in series with the stock "cooler" after it; so flow is box -> radiator -> ATF cooler -> box.

Bracket for the ATF cooler...


Cooler mounted on bracket with self tapping screws..


Behind the grill (it's not so obvious in most lights, but I don't particularly care for the role it plays)


Part of the cooler install involved a full ATF flush. Old stuff was a bit rancid and brown. Now the trans is being appropriately cooled and lubed with Penrite ATF-FS (which I ran in my Foz with great results )

As I put the stock air box back in, I needed to relocate the CC; thankfully there's a nice gap where the secondary air pump sits on the 207 in its stock form

That's not actually mounted, but you get the idea on scale and space

In the coming days I want to:

- Finalise the catch can install
- Straighten out the bent fins on the TMIC
- Make a TMIC shroud that is useful (stock shroud ducts air to only half the TMIC )
- Modify the stock heat shield to accommodate the stock and wide-band O2 sensors
- Install the wide-band gauge (priority as Eric needs the fidelity of the wide-band for tuning).
- Replace the busted and ghetto-specced turbo oil feed line with appropriate OEM parts
- Replace busted (and ghetto-repaired) exhaust cam sensors with new ones arriving tomorrow (Wed 25th)
- Swap out home-made-bought-from-mi-key*-who-bought-from-eBay top feed inlet manifold riders (TGV deletes) with Zerolift composite risers that I got yesterday...a day AFTER I finished the engine swap
*mi-key is a buddy on OzFoz

To sum up, I'm now running:

- 2013 JDM STi EJ207 with the stock STi VF49, headers/up pipe and (heat wrapped and de-catted) bell-mouthed down pipe
- Tomei head gaskets
- ARP 2000-series head studs
- DW1000 top feed injectors with stock STi top feed rails
- DW65C fuel pump (installed a few weeks ago)
- Cusco catch can
- AEM UEGO wide-band (or at least will be by this evening) sensor and gauge
- STi Genome (Defi) boost and oil temp and pressure triple gauge cluster.
- Davies Craig ATF cooler

To run the engine, I've had to use my stock LGT ECU harness, throttle body, exhaust cam sensors, and wire in some top feed injector plugs in place of the original side feed ones (thanks, AGAIN, Tremayne, my soldering skills are shite ).

It's been a massive few days with the swap and I want to thank Tremayne for his help. :drinks: :drinks:
I also want to thank Kris for helping me out with advice and of course, the motor itself; and also Mick, in particular, for his knowledge and patience with my multitude of questions.

Even just after running it this morning with the stock air box in and it finally going smoothly, I can categorically say to anyone with a pre-FL LGT contemplating an engine upgrade/replacement, this is a completely worth-while endeavour. I could have dispensed with a fair bit of time and cost by just dropping the 207 in in place of the 20X, but I'm glad I went to extra step of putting in some better than stock head studs. These, although not the CA625s, will be good for up to about 300atwkW; which is perfect because at that point, I'll be replacing the stock cams with something more aggressive and just do the studs then

This is a long but really exciting (for me at least) up date

Thanks for looking :drinks:
Sean..

[bigBADbenny]

Thanks for all those pics n details

[jslayz]

Farkin great effort! !!

[peadya100]

Unbelievable effort Sean!!
Cant wait to see the final product... im sure youre more than the same!

[Sean82]

Thanks guys

Just ducked out to go to a Doc's appointment and bloody hell this thing is smooth!

Time now to sort out a few little things (composite TGV deletes, AEM wide band) and then just enjoy it

[bigBADbenny]

Does "PCV to T-piece" section need a one way valve or did you keep the stock PCV somewhere??

Also the CC vent at the lower left of the picture (near the T-piece) is that the balance pipe return to CC?

[Sean82]

Does "PCV to T-piece" section need a one way valve or did you keep the stock PCV somewhere??

Stock PCV one-way valve is in place in the manifold mate (it's the silver connection on the left end of the short "PCV to t-piece" pipe shown by the blue arrow below)



Here's the stock set up (for those not having seen one); all I've done, is intercept the pipe coming straight out of the block with a catch can (the short hose indicated by blue arrow in image below):



This part of the PCV still works as it does in stock form, but instead of the hose/pipe coming out of the block being 2" long and straight through, I have about 4' of hose and a catch can

Also the CC vent at the lower left of the picture (near the T-piece) is that the balance pipe return to CC?

I'm not sure what you mean here mate
But that vent is the pipe that links the rear head breathers (the breather pipes closest the firewall).
EDIT: did some ogling on Google and yes; this is the balance pipe to the heads
I've not worked out what I'm going to do with the rest of the head breather/PCV system yet; but on my old engine, it was the one I've intercepted that gave be the most oil leak into the turbo/inlet manifold (I'm assuming I'm not alone here as a few of my mates have the same issues with cars with significantly few km than my old engine)

HTH Ben
Sean..

[bigBADbenny]

Indeed thanks for the clarification.
Yeah its usually one or the other:

CCV if the rings are (really) rooted
or
heads if the car is tracked under high G's and the heads fill up with oil...

Thus the preference to install 2 separate catch cans, both of which vent to the inlet (or dump if racecar) and which either drain to the sump or to petcocks.

[alexeiwoody]

That sounds and looks so awesome! Congrats!

[Archie01]

Great write up.
Love your work
Be keen to hear how she goes after a tune and some boost.

Do these motors produce a fair bit of blow by when boost is wound up?

I guess I could have a look in my tmic to confirm if I need one??

[shav]

HUGE writeup. Thanks for going into so much detail. Top job!

[Sean82]

Great write up.
Love your work
Be keen to hear how she goes after a tune and some boost.

Do these motors produce a fair bit of blow by when boost is wound up?

I guess I could have a look in my tmic to confirm if I need one??

Unsure if they have a bit of blow by; but better to install can now before it's too late.

HUGE writeup. Thanks for going into so much detail. Top job!

Thanks Shav



Found the zorst leak in the LHS header/manifold flange and hopefully patched it with some Ultra Copper tonight

It's been causing the car to run, or at least appear to be running, pretty rich: to the tune of 15% a added fuel at idle alone.

With this sealed I can get to logging and getting a new revision from Eric ASAP. The sooner I clean this up the sooner I get back onto E85

[04XTC]

Love ya work Sean , great effort mate

[Sean82]

Thanks Pete

Some graphs from the data from the logging session of rev2 of my 98RON map that I did tonight (3rd gear pull)

Top one is mass airflow (g/sec), bottom one is boost.... sadly, the stock BOV doesn't appear to be holding in 3rd gear
I'm looking at a Synapse but am finding it hard to justify twice the price of a TS Kompact...

Peak mass airflow is about 275 g/sec; hovers between 265 and 275 g/sec from 6,500 RPM until I lifted my foot off at 7,300 RPM (redline is 8,000 RPM)



Thanks for looking
Sean..