Member Profile - Ginge_Mcninge

[ginge_mcninge]

Don't bin that block because of the gap just yet. Thats not exactly a "straight" edge... If the block was truely warped by multiple mm then something very f**ded has happened in its life!

Apologies for the delay in response I've been talking to machine shops and figuring out options. While yes that "Straight edge" isn't exactly straight I had it confirmed that it would need serious work. The bores are in good condition and it appears to be an okay block otherwise however; The oil rings are shot, the block has 400,000KM on it and I don't have faith in the bottom end immediately letting go if I slapped some heads on it. At the moment I'm saving up to purchase a decked 255 short-block and I plan on building the bottom end with a 257 crank, forged pistons, and rods. I was originally planning on just slapping heads onto the block and slapping it in to get the car rego'd however things change so now I will just get this motor built and put it in, I also need to replace all the hoses as both of my motors had enough scale buildup and damage that I cant salvage anything besides the coolant crossovers.

[ginge_mcninge]

Well, It has been a while.

Long story short, Joining the ADF "Soon" so theres now a fire under my ass to get this car moving under its own power again for my parents, they would like to be able to move the lawn ornament without using a winch. I decided to buy a known good engine and slap it in just to pass a rego inspection while I get my auto block (The warped one) built.

Enter the marketplace steal of the century

This motor was out of a 2006 Forester XT that "Jumped off the Dyno" in Western Sydney, It has red paint chips all over the top of it and the seller said "It has a built bottom end but dunno what was in it and didn't want to list it as built with no idea what it had" The motor looks to be unopened and still has what looks to be factory head gaskets installed, I assumed that the motors would be drop in replacements but at the moment heres what doesn't fit and needs to be changed over;

- Coolant Crossover ( Forester exits on a 45 degree angle, Lib exits straight)
- Oil cooler ( Forester one is angled back towards the gearbox, Lib goes straight down)

It also isn't a STI motor, its a 255 DOHC Single AVCS, the loom on it was in much worse condition then my Lib Loom so swapped that over and after a decent bit of swearing and struggling the intake manifold is attached with; The Radium TGV deletes installed, Air injection pump delete kit, and the better 4 of the now 12 stock injectors I have.


Impressively an EJ255 fits in the back of a 1986 Daihatsu Handivan and the 850cc of Kei power will infact bring the engine up and over the Blue Mountains, Only problem is about two months later the distributor cap broke unexpectedly at 60,000KM and unfortunately sourcing a replacement is impossible, if anyone has a distributor cap for an EB10 please PM me I am willing to pay anything to get another one.


Turns out the oil coolers are different, you need a deep socket for a liberty but not for a forester (pictured)


Also managed to free my collection of barometric sensors, I've got 2 that have good resistance according to the FSM as well as 3 sets of TGV assemblys, One has had the flaps removed (from the foz motor), One is known good out of my parts car, and one came from my vin donor.


Of course, sensing a VE ute with a Uhaul trailer the ball joint decided to snap on me while loading it on the trailer, managed to limp it on. Sold the shell with Brembos, TbSTI wheels, and as many broken/ useless to me parts on it as possible for a decentish price.


But yeah, thats an update if anyone was curious, all thats left for me to do is grab a 24mm deep socket for the oil cooler, mount the exhaust and turbo, install the clutch, and then put the engine back in. fingers crossed everything goes smoothly from here and I can have the car back on the road before February. I've also met the Corgi and donated some pumps to his cause, and can not recommend him enough for any power steering needs, super nice bloke with an insane knowledge of power steering pumps and shift linkages.

Does anyone have any advice for mounting the coolant reservoir securely and where to put the engine loom ground when running TGV deletes? I ran the ground to a bolt on bottom of the TGV and I have continuity between the metal tab for the ground and every point on the block so I think it will be fine but the reservoir has me scratching my head, my deletes don't have the mount for the metal bracket that covers the injectors.

[Yowie]

Nice work - especially shifting the engine in a 39 year old Daihatsu Handivan.

[ginge_mcninge]

Nice work - especially shifting the engine in a 39 year old Daihatsu Handivan.

To be fair, it was with my mates help. They're not as heavy as I thought they are but considering the car weighs somewhere around 560kg, and the motor weighs something like 264 lbs (120 kg) with two 100kg ish blokes I'm pretty impressed by the little 850 cc motor. Just annoyed because I was told it was drained of oil and it didn't leak the whole car ride home. I get it onto my engine stand and then the turbo drain line decided it wanted to paint my garage black.

[Yowie]

You might have a "Rolling Stones" turbo drain line there.

[ginge_mcninge]

You might have a "Rolling Stones" turbo drain line there.

The turbo was removed, just spent the afternoon cleaning up oil from the garage floor and swapping that oil cooler. Managed to grab an OE FB25 oil filter and a dirt cheap Ryco filter just to make sure everything fits and nothing hangs too low. The turbo drain lines were not fitted to the block it just had sliced up hi-vis jammed in there but after a good cleaning it appears to all be clear of debris. Now it's just a search for some exhaust nuts and bolts and a single exhaust stud. I sold both of my sets of heads for cores and this engine has 5/6 of the studs fitted. New copper crush washers for the turbo lines and cleaned banjo bolts with filters removed and then turbo time. Spewing that I didn't grab a replacement turbo inlet hose because looking at this one its probably on its last legs.

[ginge_mcninge]

Well its been an afternoon...

Swapped what I think was a xforce turbo back from my auto for a manual PhatGT downpipe with a factory flange on both ends. Also managed to get the missing exhaust stud I needed. Turns out Bunnings doesn't stock any m10 x 1.25 nuts or bolts only m10 x 1.5 So its going to be a bolt shop trip for all my flange bolts.


I have no enemies in life, except for the turbo inlet pipe, this pipe is the absolute worst thing I think I've ever had to get on. Before anyone says anything about the garden hose, Wanna sell me the right pipe? partsouq doesn't have any in stock and neither does Subaru's parts department.


This is me trying to figure out turbo lines... turns out none of mine are usable and they're all cracked beyond use, guess thats another thing I'll have to pickup. Just grab any old set of lines or is it worth grabbing braided?

[Yowie]

Good work, despite the setbacks.

One of the reasons the silicone pre-turbo pipes are so popular is they are easier to work with, install, etc. than the hard plastic OEM pipes (which also rot-out with oil where they hose-clamp onto the compressor inlet).

I wouldn't worry about braided lines for the turbo - especially if time is a factor.

[ginge_mcninge]

One of the reasons the silicone pre-turbo pipes are so popular is they are easier to work with, install, etc. than the hard plastic OEM pipes (which also rot-out with oil where they hose-clamp onto the compressor inlet).

Yeah I see that now, I plan on running a process west intake manifold and a front mount later on down the line. Didn't think replacing the pipe would make as much of a difference but now I understand. Turns out my block has for some reason had the turbo oil drain tube removed from the head so i've got to take it back off to get that reattached to the block.

I wouldn't worry about braided lines for the turbo - especially if time is a factor.

I already have a braided Oil feed line, problem is it looks too short for some reason, I'll double check the routing but I might have to try and harvest one of the lines I had from my parts motors.

With this turbo It's got a vacuum line going from the turbo body straight to the wastegate and doesn't have the T that would go to the intake manifold. Should I cut the line and put a T in or just run it as it is? I don't have a tune and it just needs to run enough for a blue slip and to get on and off of trailers. Its a GTX2948 turbo and I have some familiarity with RomRaider (found a basemap online and disabled secondary air injection and TGV system).

[Yowie]

With this turbo It's got a vacuum line going from the turbo body straight to the wastegate and doesn't have the T that would go to the intake manifold.
Should I cut the line and put a T in or just run it as it is? I don't have a tune and it just needs to run enough for a blue slip and to get on and off of trailers.

That direct vacuum line from the compressor housing to the wastegate is called "running on wastegate pressure" (for some reason) and is the lowest possible boost the turbo can make (without a leak anyway). It will be a safe way to get the car around before the tune - assuming you don't deliberately try to get the revs & engine load right up.

Once you're ready for the tune you would get your boost controller involved. In the case of my 3-port, running vacuum lines to and from that. Top tip - different coloured vacuum lines can prevent confusion.

[ginge_mcninge]

Ah okay that makes a bit more sense, I'm running into issues with the turbo oil feed line. The turbo came with a line attached however it is too short and has the wrong fitting on the end of it to fit the engine side and after a morning at STI haven they sold me a stock turbo feed line which I told them wouldn't fit the turbo and sure enough it doesn't clear the compressor housing, prospeed racing it is I guess. I think i'll just shelf the turbo and run one of my stock turbos, I have a fair bit of shaft play in the Chinese IHI clone but it doesn't have leaking oil seals and hopefully the hard line oil feed will fit and clear.

That direct vacuum line from the compressor housing to the wastegate is called "running on wastegate pressure" (for some reason) and is the lowest possible boost the turbo can make (without a leak anyway). It will be a safe way to get the car around before the tune - assuming you don't deliberately try to get the revs & engine load right up.

Once you're ready for the tune you would get your boost controller involved. In the case of my 3-port, running vacuum lines to and from that. Top tip - different coloured vacuum lines can prevent confusion.

Yeah This makes a lot more sense, I'm working on both this lib and a SR20VCT swap into an S13 so its nothing but fun doing just enough to have it get onto a flatbed but not fitting anything that needs to get tuned first. Dug myself into a hole here letting my mate book his car in for a tune on the 7th of feb right before nothing but heatwave during the day and torrential rain at night.

[ginge_mcninge]

Well, Big update on the lib
First off, finished the SR20VCT swap on the s13, gearbox is a little hot but got a trans cooler on the way. In the mean time, did a clutch on an evo 4 and I realised just how much better Subaru AWD is to work on than transfer case Mitsubishi mess, but none the less the lib got its time.


fixed my turbo oil line and finished the motor off. Shout out to Force Hydraulics down in Penrith and STI Haven. My engine being out of a foz had a two piece oil line where one side went Block to AVCS solenoid and another piece went from turbo to block at a different point. Bought a WRX oil feed banjo and then used hydraulic fittings to adapt it to my turbo with a mix of hard and soft lines. Realised as well that my block was missing the pressed in turbo oil drain line somehow and big thanks to Joel for giving me one amongst a collection of m10x1.25 nuts and rubber pcv hose removing my iconic garden hose PCV system.

All went well until I went to use the engine crane again, aaaaaaand the piston crapped out on me. Filled it with dex-3 and got no dice so now I'm on the hunt for a shop to rebuild it and I guess I'll have to give the crane some love. The motor went in smoothly and my 3d printed clutch alignment tool worked perfectly. Used the exceedy HD that came out of the car and coated everything in LLM. The clutch has a fairly decent amount of life left and appears to be working fine.


In return for doing the clutch on the evo I was gifted a Likewise shift knob with the matching pattern sticker only to realise that at some stage the thread on the Cobb short shifter is absolutely beyond munted. Busted out dads trusty Kincrome tap and die set and a can of WD and had it working like a dream in no time again. The reverse lockout doesn't appear to be working on the gearbox but I'm sure its nothing too crazy, Reverse still works fine the problem is that I don't have to pull the collar up to get into reverse, it just goes in. On the Liberty reverse is right and down but on my BRZ reverse is up and left so its going to be a fair bit of a learning curve


Then I did this, this was 100% my fault, I wasn't happy with the engine loom having 2 broken spark plug connectors so I mistakenly used my automatic engine loom on my manual chassis completely overlooking that they are not compatiable, missed the brown transmission plug that should of warned me and everything because I was so close to making it run. Completely cooked the ECU in the car beyond repair. Now I am by no means a Subaru specialist or an auto electrician but I kept the ECU and Body module off my automatic, realised my mistake with the loom and swapped the manual loom in and plugged in my automatic ECU on the prayers that it will work because the FSM lists the pinouts as the same on them. Went key on, cluster came to life, Si-Drive worked, and I had flashing cruise control. Did some digging and It appears that IC405 stores the Immobaliser information on it and the chips despite being off a AF and AG ECU had the same marking, pinout, location, and ground so I swapped them over. Went key on and boom, immobaliser light came off the dash and the car cranked over. At a later date I will pull the chip back off and try to read the key data off of it so I can have a set of triangle gen4 keys with central locking becuase my current keys are a gen5 pentagon style key with no central locking and its bugging me a lot.


I may have a cranking Lib however I did not have a running lib. As this engine was a $600 marketplace gamble nothing was off the table. It would crank but absolutely refused to start. I got in touch with Mat and he quickly made me a map with a TGV delete, Secondary air pump delete, and modifications to suit my intercooler and turbo choice. Flashed that with the tooning laptop but I still would get crank but no start. I tried jump packs, brand new battery, and two batteries with jump leads and still had nothing. Then I became absolutely terrified that this motor was jumped timing or a boat anchor... But it wasn't, pulled the timing cover off and verified that the belt which was brand new OEM Subaru still had its markings and with a lot of turning the markings all lined up, the cams all lined up and everything looked okay. With the suggestion of some Subaru enthusiasts I swapped the Cam Angle sensors with the ones off my auto engine as well as the Crank angle sensor and got no difference. I then unplugged them and got errors so then I took a step back, and went through the basics. Fuel rail had pressure, put 12v straight to an injector and could hear it click on and off, connected a spare injector to the plug and cranked and felt it clicking in my hand, so I chased spark.

Pulled Cylinder 1 coilpack out and then put a spare spark plug into it, shocked the shit out of myself not remembering that the threaded part of the spark plug is conductive and my other hand convienetly placed on the body gave me a very nice shock, stuck a camera in and verified that it did infact have spark plugs installed, then pulled one out and it was fouled beyond use. They look to be brand new NGK Iridiums and then I kicked myself in the ass for not checking while the engine was out. Every cylinder had filthy spark plugs that while working yes were not a white spark rather it was quite red, pulled all 4 cleaned them in and...


Started right up. Didn't do the normal Subaru Dun dun dun dun du start that I was used to just went du and fired right up. I am absolutely kicking myself that I didn't take the sump off and check the internals because theres no way the internals are stock, cranking the car I could hear compression and it just didn't quite sound right. I have no idea how to explain it but theres something going on in the marketplace motor and its spooky. Motor was extremely smokey which makes sense, it was sitting for a fair while and I did invert it and put it on all sorts of angles to put it together. Fingers crossed it clears up.


Wouldn't be a first engine rebuild without some problems, I must of nicked the oil cooler coolant lines when installing the engine because that hose was destoyed, replaced it with a spare and leak gone. I have a FB oil filter and I'll be testing out running these after reading the oil filter deep dive. I will be replacing the oil in the next 1000KM or so with a OEM Subaru filter this was more to verify that the filter fits and works.


Swung by the local Revenue NSW and scored a two day unregistered vehicle permit for the low price of $31. Told them it was for a test drive and fuel stop and that was good enough for them. However now I know theres some problems.

- Steering wheel has a weird noise
- Brakes need attention
- Exhaust leak
- Front O2 sensor isn't happy

Not the end of the world, The steering wheel has been replaced at some stage and I wouldn't be surprised if the nut holding it on is loose, I didn't take the airbag off and check it I assumed it was okay and I was wrong. The brakes have been sitting for 437 days getting rusty and sticky however after some brake testing on an empty street everything is working fine now. There is an exhaust leak in the headers I can hear it so plan is to take the headers off and replace all the gaskets and give it some exhaust gasket maker love. I'm assuming the front O2 sensor isn't happy because of the amount of crud coming out of the motor and headers from sitting.


In the end, it runs, it drives, it starts, it stops, and I'm over the moon. I would like to extend a huge thank you to; Joel, Luke, Nigel, Jarren, Matt, Euno, Dan, Gav, Jacob, Seb, Ethan, Yowie, and anyone else that turned a wrench, answered a stupid question, or otherwise helped out in one way or another. Rego is fingers crossed coming up soon and I've got some custom plates on order waiting to go on. Silvia in background, it was the support vehicle for the test drive.

[subyroo]

All I can is WOW!, good work, stick with it.

[ginge_mcninge]

All I can is WOW!, good work, stick with it.

Cheers mate, Just fixed the exhaust leak tonight. Turns out I'm a bit of a shit mechanic after a few bundies the headers were loose. Picked up a gasket set from Subaru and replaced the half dead ones on there. It has a weep on the passenger side cam seal but nothing too bad. Just got to figure out how I'm going to seal it without taking the timing cover off.

That being said it has developed a P0031 code so I'm probably on the hook for swapping the front O2 sensor out, its pretty much welded in place but if it comes to it ill just swap the manifold piece out with another welded in place working O2 sensor. In my infinite wisdom when stripping my auto shell I forgot to mark everything auto or manual (known good vs unknown) and guess I didn't grab the working one but Its not the end of the world. Just organising a stock set of wheels, suspension, and headlights for the blue slip hopefully sometime next week. Spoke to the bloke that said hed do it and he said clean up the seatbelts and make sure they retract smoothly and double check the rear lower control arms for cracks and damage, worst case ill crack the TbSTI subframe with Brembos out and fit that with its nice and shiny alloy arms and pillow-ball bushings.

[ginge_mcninge]

Well I kept going,
For rego got told to check the rear LCA for cracking and damage. The arms appear okay however the diff bushings and pretty much all of them are absolutely cactus for a 272780km shell. None the less it was rear subframe time. Scored myself a rear subframe and the alloy TbSTI arms for a steal last year and its just been sitting in the garage getting filthy so a good clean a coat of LLM and in they went.


Got slab privileges from dad just told that if I mark it i've got to clean it, tarp down and carpet sample mats to make sure the stands don't dent it. Not super stoked on how its sitting but its got enough clearance and it doesn't shift when shaken. Tribeca swap wen.


Subframe pulled, diff seals look mint and the driveshaft has a bit of stiffness at the U-joint to the diff. Centre bearing looks okay and has little play so I'm happy to keep the driveshaft and I don't have to pull much more out.


Gave the new subframe a touch up and a good covering of LLM and degreaser, might have to slap pads and rotors on sooner rather than later but for rego it should be fine. All the bushings are solid polyurethane and super good condition however the trailing arms look to have some cracking around the insert. Not the worst, this is much worse...


Made a mistake and didn't check all the bolts before I installed it and realised that the brake line hard line mount has the bolt snapped off. Shit. Guess i'll be pulling the trailing arms off pulling the rest of the bolt out and pressing out the last OEM bushing.

Also if It helps anyone:

- Pre-face and Post-face Liberty wagons have the same subframe (at least in the 6mt r180)
- ABS sensor is different between Pre-face and Post-face however the mounts are the same and they just swap straight over

Not too keen on the Pre-face garnish but In need of a set of headlights (HID bulbs) and factory shocks and springs for rego if anyone has a set in Western Sydney and wants a spare rear subframe shoot me a message I'd be keen on a swap