subi engine and g'box - start to finish

I see alot of questions on how to do subi conversions and what problems arise, and how to wire them, and, and,and. It seems there are alot of people interested in doing these conversions, but not as many actually posting up there work. What I will try to do is go though the whole conversion, step by step (making mistakes along the way i'm sure, because this is the first time for me too) I'm hoping plenty of more knowledgable people to chime in and point plenty of people to lots of online material to help.
I'll be fabbing plently of my own bits and will add designs and measurements for all to copy and add costs the best I can, because I know this is often the BIG question with this kind of thing.
My conversion will be for a baja, so there are alot of things that would have to be different for those would still have an engine bay, but the basics are the same.

Lets get started, doner cars come in different shapes and sizes, but the 1990- 94 liberty EJ22 seems to be the easiest base so thats where I am starting. There is alot of talk of "low km" cars, I really don't believe it. The EJ22 may be a massive technical step forward compared to the vw, but it is still 20 years old now, I find it hard to beleive there are that many examples that have only travelled 150k in that time and at the end of the day highway km are still better than town km. You can tell if a car has been looked after or abused, go with your gut feeling on this one, at the end of the day you can buy another engine on ebay for $400. The bits you really need are in the car itself, Dont get too hung up on km. Secondly, try not to get to caught up on a bargain that is too far away, I looked at dozens of cars online, but the bottom line was once you add frieght, petrol, trailer hire, time ect. it's not a bargain anymore. There are more of these this around than beetles these day's. you'll find a good one around the corner. Got mine 13km from my place 😎


And here it is, 370k on the clock but as you can see very well loved in a past life, there is a mass of new parts on this car. Story is the head gasket finally gave in after a long life, the owner bought a newer one for a wrecker, had the belts water pump and tensioner replaced. then decided putting it in was more than they could handle and bought a new subi instead. So I got a running engine and one to rebuild (and cam, and port🤘) for later.
plus saved me the trouble of taking the engine out




Tally so far?
car $600
trailer hire $67

awesome cant wait to see the whole thing good on ya

Hi

Good idea but maybe this should be in the "non VW engine conversion" section.

Good luck with the conversion

Steve

Good to see Nils. I picked up a 92 Liberty with 297,000km. I've since picked up an Exhaust system that was built for a Baja, complete with stainless muffler cheap, and an RJES bellhousing. I'm planning on doing the wiring loom myself.

Terry's old system, yeah? That had a nice note.
Will wire it myself and i hope to show people that it isn't scary at all, as well as shorten the sump, reverse the throttle body and mount the radiator and heating. like I said i will add measurements and plans and web based referance for as much as I can. Hopefully help some folks out with there own. probably a 6 month job i hope

Tore the dash, bumper, headlights and gaurds off during the week to get ready to dive in head first today,
here is the work guide I am using as a referance and will save me a HUGE amount of wrighting in this thread.

[url=http://]www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=136053[/url]

there are not alot of changes that I have found between the us and aussie model, all the wires you need are still in the left hand side and the centre loom (there is no good reason to take off the drivers side guard that I have found) Only thing in the driverside loom is one of the fan wires, so just cut the fans off and start again just as outlined in the link above. Here is the pile of wires that i ended up with, actually the alternated sub loom is not in this picture



while going though the guide linked above it did take me a little while to make out where the four relay block that he kept mentioning was, Its part of the under bonnet fuse/reley box



This is the driverside loom, you can see the alternater subloom in the top right hand of the picture but this seems to be the only part of it worthwhile, though it does contain about 5 meters of great wire, if you are doing a full rewire of your car it's a good place to start,




Dug though the massive pile of parts I got with this car and managed to dress the good motor, good to know all the parts are there 😂



then started the loom, I am building a stand alone loom for the engine, with only the very basics spliced into teh existing because i really don't want to start from scratch again. Starting to run short on real eastate in the garage since I dragged it home, so the roof of the car seemed like a good flat place to mark out. (It's hard to tell but all the plug positions on the motor are marked out here on the roof and then taped down to the there position), the blue line represents the firewall. Once things are placed roughly where they will soon end up you start to grasp just how much of that wire that you spent hours trying not to make to short you will just not need. From top to bottom - engine plugs(2 in my case), fan harness, altenator harness and sensor harness. see easy😂
Anybody wanting me to take closeups of any part of this, now is a good time. In the second picture you can see the ignitor, CPU and relay block on the other side of the "firewall"





Few what a day, Beer O'clock

I would be smashing a turbo trive line in the liberty

I have a full manual loom for that liberty with ecu & dash cluster

Mate, if you want the body and are anywhere near me, come and grab it. The inside is as nice as the out and I went to the trouble of pulling rhe dash nicely, not just ripping randomly. Will start ebaying parts this week, then it has 2 weeks till it gets crushed into a tiny cube

The scrap metal guy offered $100 for it, anywhere near that and its yours, its has lowered lovells springs in it if it sweetens the deal

Think back 20 years, same thing happened but with VWs.

I'm gonna crush this immaculate old VW beetle. I've got the engine for my buggy/trike that's all I wanted 🤪

Going well Nils, I'll be watching the subagears part of the conversion very closely.

Yeah, I know what you are saying joel. but I'm not too sentimental about old metal, will leave that to others. I'm quite happy to give it to someone who is though, without a loom im not real sure how easy that will be. And i have a deadline to how long this thing is in the garage

Another weekend down, well really I didn't get too much done as we went and bought a new couch and dishwasher and dog. but I did get a few hours in during the week and finish up on the weekend. I have what looks like a real wiring loom, the work guide that I linked ealier in this thread is pretty spot on, there really are few differences betwwen AU and US models. There are a few wires that are different colours (engine check light) and the wire that goes from the coil to the ignitor and the wire from the water sensor to the CPU are allmost identical, one is white/green, while the other is white/blue and with years of engine oil the two look the same.
There is a greeen wire that comes form the coil that I haven't worked out yet and find no referance to. Also a brown wire from the 'C' plug, spot #16 I think, that is stated to be empty, but it isn't. I have some lenght left here for when I work it out or someone can enlighten me 😁

I would say there is about 30hrs in it and there is probably alot of stuff I would do different (like just cut everything off at the plugs and just build from the guide and the workshop manual)------ but here it is, no idea if it works yet. Will start on the changes to the motor from here and get to the point where I can get rid of the shell and fire this on a stand. Though I have to point out having a brewery up the road from your house sure does take its toll quickly 🤪

Spent some time cleaning the garage today, and have found every growing pile of colour coded wires. Anybody chasing some coloured wires for there resto?

Not really a good weekend for vw/subaru related works, I did organize to get the gearbox home and a manual starter. I sold the spare headlights and indicators that came with the car, sold the leftover of the car. Now I have the car space back.



Total- $667

$250 for the gearbox
- $30 headlights sold
- $130 for what was left of the car

$757

Also the boot carpet from the liberty wagon just about fits perfectly in the back to a beetle without a back seat, just needed a little cutting around the shock towers and rollcage. pretty happy with how it turned out😀



we did pick up this little monkey

Interesting. The sight of those wires gave me a headache.

$250 for a gearbox and a starter is a bargine.

What is its story?

Ive just finished a similar conversion using a 02 foretser donor to my baja using the full dash n loom .

My tip is dont think wires of the same colour/stripe do the (same or simliar) funtions. also theres good cheap OEM diagrams on Ebay

Am getting that impression actually wild baja, think i have it pretty much sorted. but might check that out if i get stuck, thanks. would be interested to see your baja some time, where you from?
The gearbox? Just in the right place at the right time and happy to throw some cash at him. Fellow said he bought it as a spare fot his gt forester because he heard they broke and then never broke it. Suppose to be good, but haven't opened it up yet. time will tell

had a little bit of time today to play with the baja, (anybody else think thats wierd when you are able to say that on a weekend) mainly played with the mounting and sizing up of the wing. Not sure if I like it yet.

I'm in Newy PM sent

Hey wild baja, i don' t seem to be able to send or recieve pm's at the moment.

must be cause the site is "made on a mac" 🤪

From my experience -on your wiring loom - you normally don't cut the igintion relay and fuel pump away from the loom. There is also a diode that you need around there.

You also don't need that relay block when you strip a loom out.

You should end up only needing to terminate power, ignition, start and fuel pump from a stripped out loom to get your motor to run.

The other wires are oil pressure, temp, tacho, VSS and fans for radiator.

Thanks for the shout out lovebuggy. its no longer wired anything like stock, check out the link that i worked from posted above. the relay block now runs the fan and ignition duties, aswell as the fuses for the fans and cpu. oh, and the diode is in there too. the fuel pump isn't pictured because its at the front of the car ( with the fuel tank)🙂
the extra wires in that pile are probably vss, a bunch of earth wires for the auto/manual modes, tacho, temp gauge, acc power, fuel pump switch, ac switch and the
2 i can 't figure out yet. so yeah theres a bunch alright. the wire i think i got sorted till i try and fire this thing
, then on to dignostic and may cut a few more out.

But thanks for putting another set of eyes over it,this is still a first timer job

Hey Nils call me on 0435901521

will do mate,

Pulled the sump off today, no surprises happily 🙂 Will start with cutting 2 inches off and seeing what else needs modifing (pickup, dipstick or baffles) aswell as how much capasity is missing and how much I need to add again. Am starting with only 2 because I think, and I hope Todd Triebler might chime in here and confirm, but using the the subi gearbox ends up the engine alittle higher than the when using the vw box?

I cut the bottom 2 inches off today, measureed the capasity of the piece. 950ml, mine has a small dent in the bottom, so i'm happy to call it an even litre.

The nxt 2 inches that i will be cutting off is pretty much straight up and down except for the triangular section which is ease enough to work out the capasity aswell, but thats in the future. I put the sump, now with a big hole in it back on and measured the height of the pickup comparitively. 1 1/2 tall, so the pickup sits 1/2 from the bottom and I will make it that way on the new sump too.
Also ordered alot of peices for the exhaust and oil filter relocation today, because I guess this all needs to be taken into account when deciding the final shape

55mm higher up using a Subie box compared to a VW box.

Awesome, thanks todd!😀

Have had plenty of time to concider designs and variables. The subi sump has a few good ideas for baffling already, and don't plan on going crazy redesigning the wheel. The new bottom half of the sump will be leaning toward the front of the engine because shortening the oil pickup causes it to move this way, bringing the pickup close to back to the center. The shape will be an octaginal so that any oil movement will always be met with an ever decreasing area. I will post up measurements on this when I am possitive on the design, it ends up with an extra 100ml all up. (sorry to the boys that work imperial when it comes to volume I can't get my head around cu in)



the oil pickup I cut out 2.5 inches out of the center of the tube and it requires its mounting bracket to be removed



[/quote]

Not much vw works going on this weekend, having the weekend off after a HUGE week.

BUT i did spend some money on parts and things 😀

Well I did say to you years ago this was the way to go

Very nice work so far nils

But you have to always consider the prices of stuff compared to the time you spend trying to save money

subibaja wrote:Well I did say to you years ago this was the way to go

Very nice work so far nils

But you have to always consider the prices of stuff compared to the time you spend trying to save money

I have learned this the hard way over the last year or 2 with stuff i am doing.

reflecting on what i have done, i realize now much time and money i lost trying to be smart about it and saving money, sometimes its not worth it.

I completely know what you mean fellas, this conversion is already stretching out and i just started🤪 but i like the satisfaction of doing it myself. Plus i hate mechanics, no offence

I take offence to that comment, Nils you bastard...... :P

Ha! Funny you should chime in. you and the german autos mob are about the only ones who are allowed to. only place I can't say anything but great things about (great now i sound like i am backpedaling and kissing ass at the same time)

Anyways I promise to get this thread back on track after this weekend

As I have been promising, I'm trying to get this build back on track. Work and life is just too much sometime, think I need a holiday just to work on the bug.
Guess the biggest learning curve has been TIG, it's not anything like MIG, can't just rip in and deal withh the imperfections. Along with co-odinating two arms and a leg, YIKES! Think also the fact I started with .040 stainless not sure has helped. I built a quick welding trolley out of scrap first of all, its not all done but new add ons are coming every day . Actually managed to find a mob that sells gas bottles instead of renting them, which is great.


Guess the biggest thing that I have learn't is. CLEAN, CLEAN AND CLEAN SOME MORE!!! and preparation it's really hard to fill in gaps with a TIG. As you will be able to see in the photos a very small amount of impurity turns your weld into poo real quick (so I'm not sure if tig welding a sump is a top idea to begin with) maybe new time I would boil it to get all the oil out of it? because the parts washer just was not enough. Who was it that ask not so long ago why no one post pictures of bad welds?
Some turn out pretty well









others, . . . . . . . . .not so much

But all in all I have a finished sump that doesn't leak, well the second time around anyways. I ended up putting 2 baffles inside after way too many stories of starvtion. I thought I would be abit of a smart arse while putting stiffeners on the outside to protect the bottom, but the .040 thou has a bad habit of moving out of the way when ever it is heated, even while clamped! So.. . . . . .just ended up a bit ugly.


Also did the suction pipe, with no problems


I have been reassessing the rear wing, think it is too complicated and will cause problems. I will be going back to a drag style wing, solid mounted. Made a few patterns today


speaking of patterns, here is the one for the sump incase anybody wants to use the design


One of few difficult pionts I found while building the sump is the that the area around the dipstick is brazed in. I cut it out along with the brazing and then welded it back in afterwards

Moving on I welding the first of the exhaust manifold headers, the 1.6mm material is ALOT friendlier to weld. Not sure on the hieght yet, Is there a thermostate housing I can use to change the direction of the water hose at the bottom?

The turbo thermostat housings are at 90 degrees to the NA ones.

Thanks mackeymanx, that is exactly what i wanted to here. bought one off ebay already this morning

Got the other side header done this weekend, the new thermostate housing hasn't turned up yet but the bottom is looking like an engine again. Turned the engine over again and played with the intake alittle. The plan at the moment is, instead of turning the throttle body at 180 degrees straight up the centerline, Ive gone to the side somewhat and hope to use the subaru intake hose and airbox while keeping it with in area of the engine. I'm not sure whether this is the right idea, but being able to use the stock parts does save a few dollars and all the right breathers are avalible, so in my mind seems right at the moment (that said there are only a few tac welds holding the thing together) Am very interested in feedback on this set up, good or bad




I had a bit of spare time at work friday arvo, (well actually there was a problem with one of the jets and wasn't allowed to leave till the damn thing was in the air ) so I spent my time turning those cardboard templates to something abit more presentable

A wing on a baja....are you mad ??? 😂

matberry wrote:A wing on a baja....are you mad ??? 😂

Gold!😂

It adds 50hp doesn't it?

mackey manx was right, 😀

matberry wrote:A wing on a baja....are you mad ??? 😂

Not as mad as putting the radiator at the rear 🤪 😂

veedubberpaul58 wrote:

matberry wrote:A wing on a baja....are you mad ??? 😂

Not as mad as putting the radiator at the rear 🤪 😂

not as mad as having a Chinese type 1 engine in there 🤪

Mate that is very nice work
I really like your Invert manifold so you can use the factory airbox
How far have you got now

subibaja wrote:Mate that is very nice work
I really like your Invert manifold so you can use the factory airbox
How far have you got now

Thanks terry, hope it fits like that

buying alot of parts, measuring half a million little brackets. pondering new brakes, wheels, heater and fuel tank.
this is turning into a rebuild instead of an upgrade 🤪

that and my computer went belly up, so can only post on my phone, so i have to decide between spending money on it or the baja. no brainer right?

Otherwise, its summer. I still use the baja most days, which reminds me i should go and clean it

Oh! Forgot to ask, anyone know offhand what kind of rpm the ole ej22 liberty does on the highway?

Paul's Manx with 091 and 32's was doing about 3000rpm give or take

nils wrote:Oh! Forgot to ask, anyone know offhand what kind of rpm the ole ej22 liberty does on the highway?

My auto Liberty donor was doing 2900 at 100, manuals are probably a touch lower

Sweet thanks guys, hoping to order gearbox kit in the next few weeks and am still up in the air about ratios. I want the 4.86 but was alittle worried about over reving it. figure I should get alittle over 2800 at 100 km/h

go for a drive in a subaru, most 4 cylinder cars rev around 3000rpm in top,

Nils did you modify the standard baffle in the sump so you can fit/remove sump with the short modified pickup ?

You're right bone, forgot about that. only a tiny corner you need to remove.
will get a photo this arvo

Cool. Just occurred to me when I was cutting mine down the other day. Haven't worked out my final shape as yet, but final total depth will be 100mm to get inside rear cage and bash plate.

So turns out i was wrong, definatly thought i did cut the baffle, but no. When putting it on you have to approach from an angle (lowed at the pulley side) and then drop it into place.

So I've been trying to get this thread up and moving again in the last few weeks, but I just don't seem to find the half hour to sit down and think of what to write.

I will start with the spendings,
exhaust pipe and catalytic converter - $248
external oil filter set, hose and fittings - $187
cooling system header tank - $48
bottle of argon - $120
gauges - $205
hoses of all shapes and sizes - $108

total to date - $1703




I finally have this bracket just about finished and am happy with the fit and placement of the airbox



Have been spending alittle time on the fuel tank, ended up with 70ltrs. Just have the baffles filler and drain to finish and then weld it up 😀
this is a free bee so far because it's made from scrap at work


the reverse manifold is all ready to go


also bought some gauges from speed hut again over christmas while they where on sale. The fuel gauge is cool because it is programmable to any sender, the second fuel gauge belongs to my brothers missus car


And lastly, I relocated the taillights and numberplate to make room for this wing


I really had hoped to make this build a bit more detailed but I really am not finding the time

Any updates ??

I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone called me out on this.

There has been a slight change in plan. The whole point of putting the subi engine and box into the baja was to make it more user friendly on trips (because it is sooo damn loud) but what I have noticed though the few trips we have done this summer. The REAL problem is space, 2 people plus camping gear and a dog that just doesn't spot growing has no place in a beetle.
As a result I bought a combi to do trips in and the baja will go back to being a toy car. As luck would have it the combi I bought had a corvair motor in it and that will after a bit of love find its way into the beetle and the subi engine and box that I have been prepping will end up in the combi instead.

Can I call that an update? but this thing is still happening, just not in a beetle sorry