The inaccurately named "Blighter", Regular car reviews, WRX seats, and front lip 27/04/19

[Reuben]

So, went to check the bucket this morning, had a whopping inch of ice last night! woo, and it had frozen all down the sides too.


IMG_9482 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

Then went to clean blighter, rain forecast for this afternoon, so it's safe to hose the cars... or so we thought...


IMG_9484 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9487 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9485 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

Clean blighty.. Bet before we were even finished, it had already started freezing on the drive... and that's WITH running water over the top.


IMG_9490 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9489 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

[soba noodle]

Jealous of all that scenery.. went over to Waiheke for a few days last week. The blue BLE became orange (went up to Man'o'War, not gravel - orange muddy substance instead), have a pic on my camera, will upload one day.

[aekOne]

that scenery and those roads! very jealous..

[Muse]

It's too pretty. That's it, I'm moving down there. I'll be knocking on your door within a week, looking for a place to crashuntil I get a job, and can afford my own place. See ya then!

[Reuben]

Chur. I'll have a box of kiwi beers waiting.

Did I mention the adundance of cheap JDM subies and parts?

[Reuben]

So I've been toying with ideas... I've now got my heart set on something new for the engine bay. Running ol N/A just isn't hitting the spot, I want power again. And I think I can have my cake and eat it too.

I will not be losing my 9.7:1 ratio, nor my N/A camshafts. I will however be gaining 200cc of displacement and boost.

The plan follows, acquire EJ22. Acquire turbo heads, pref wrx, pref STi, must be hydraulic, so 93-96 (reason: exhaust note). Put the two together, making no compensation for compression, I plan to keep 9.7:1, it's good for around town, and the duration and overlap of the EJ20D cams will be great for off boost and even on boost performance. Acquire accurate rev dependant knock light, wideband O2, and oil pressure gauges, then go hard, fully on the fly tuneable ecu for the win.

Why don't more people do this? I have to assume its the stories of every stock short block 22 turbo build over here dyeing a big end munching death. It doesn't have to be this way. Factory ecu's for this generation can't handle that dramatic a change, you're changing displacement, which strains the duty on the grey injectors, changes the shape of the flame front, the combustion chamber, the compression ratio, the metered air vs air actually going into the cyl ratio... Just about every aspect of a factory 2L tune will be woefully wrong. It's little wonder at all why they det and die. With quality tuning gear, there's no reason I can't get a stable reliable tune. 9.7:1 is not considered a high compression ratio fur turbos today, it's pretty standard actually, and no legacy has ever had forged pistons, they are not required. This is going to be fun.

[Muse]

Once again, I have to say this... Called it.

[Reuben]

Yeah, the predictions have been prophetic in this thread

Also thinking of twisting the turbo, running the outlet under the 20k manifold to a front mount. A discrete front mount mounted below the bumper beam (small is good). No beam cutting, shorter pipe, no 90's, no 180's. black intercooler, no one would be the wiser.

Means I don't have to track down a turbo bonnet. Sadly stealth is a common practice here, meaning its a known guise, I.e. no sleeper effect had. I get questions already "oh is this an RS, it must haul!" And that's with the Ti sticker, N/A bonnet and grille. Lol.

[86bratman]

If you're doing a standard ej22e bottom end with the 20g heads you won't be at 9.7:1 cr anymore. Going by the standard 47cc combustion chamber on the cover heads (I know there are slight variations but it's easier to call it 47cc) and a 1.3mm phase 1 head gasket thickness, you'll be right about 9:1 cr. I don't have my old spreadsheet on this new phone to get a more accurate calculation I'm just going off memory.

[Reuben]

Well, that's just fine by me, means I can add more boost. Either way I'm winning.

Don't forget there's three generations of 20G, early, late, and solid/smooth. I'm going late 20G, that matches BG pistons, with a dish. Early has flat pistons with valve recesses.

[86bratman]

The only 20g head that I know of that has a vastly different chamber is from the 1st gen legacy, something like 54cc. The rest of the clover chambers range from 46.2cc-49cc from the info I've gathered over the years. I don't know about over there, but there are only two different ej22e pistons 90-96 with a 14cc dish and 97/98 with 12cc dish. Without knowing for sure what bottom and top ends for sure it's all speculation, but between 8.7-9.1:1

[Reuben]

Perfect. I'll do more research. But tbh, as long as my valves clear, I'm fine.

[86bratman]

You should be good to go in that respect.

[Reuben]

So today I popped some washers onto the rocker cover bolts to try stem the flow of oil. Had a couple of people tell me the aftermarket gaskets are too thin, and having the washers on can close up the gap. Easy job.

Tomorrow I'm going to track down why the link is reading 0v on the O2 sensor. Turns out that's why it's auto tune was failing. Should hopefully be able to get some moderately good economy compared to what I'm getting now when I can get it working right. Will be a patchup until I have my wideband.

[Reuben]

So, if i am to turbo blighter, I have a problem. Intercooling.

I refuse to install a WAIC setup on a car that didn't have it from factory. Sure it'd slot in nicely and bolt on up, but it's just extra plumbing I don't want, I hate working with it. At least a FMIC pipe can be unclamped and taken out of the way, but the stock WAIC pipes are rather persistant.
I don't want to get a turbo bonnet, and run a wrx angled intercooler, they don't do it for me, only thing I'd want to run is a V3-6 setup... but a BC scoop is not large enough to cool a beast like that, let alone the WRX angled ones.

Leaving me with one option, FMIC. And inspired by the recent fabrication seen on the MCM EZ36, I'd love to have a dab at making my own piping, I could cut, and tac it, mock it up, and get it all ready for one of the local guys to weld, I've already asked if I could do this and have tracked down a tig I can use.

Now, I also have a 20K manifold, meaning I can use the under manifold method. here's what I'm thinking.


IMG_9492 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9493 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9494 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9495 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9497 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9498 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr



Few things will need to be done. Will have to cut the front face of the car under the headlights exactly how MCM did it to route the pipe under there, and likewise, the foglight mounts and bumper beam will need a trim. The intecooler should ft behind the bumper plastic, under the bumper beam, meaning I don't need to cut the bumber or beam at all which is desired. I will have to go with a BC/BF turbo overflow so there's enough room to route the pipe up by the battery, and the air con line will need to be pushed and bent to make room, and the battery cable to the starter also needs to be shoved around a fair bit, but the rest of the way is spacious and straight forward.

The other issue is having to make a custom up-pipe, and mod a downpipe. One option is to actually use the 250T downpipe, as it has an upward facing flange, meaning the downpipe fab will literally be an elbow with two flanges. Handy. Otherwise it's just mod a rage down pipe or something.

Thoughts?

[86bratman]

Unless you're planning on running the turbo clocked or rotated in some manner just grab a factory or aftermarket manifold up and downpipe. Since the 250t crossmember is essentially a turbo crossmember.

[Reuben]

That is why I chose it, to run an up-pipe, it's currently got the 250t up down config, and is currently running turbo headers. But I don't want to run a factory turbo up-pipe, cause I can't run a factory intercooler, and I don't want a kit FMIC. Kits are always way too long in the piping, and have too many bad bends like 180's off the turbo etc. that's why I mocked up that piping, totally custom, and I'd say a meter less piping than most kits, and no unnecessary bad bends.

[Reuben]

Today, I embraced the inner ricer and bought some cheap gauges. With the recent scare with my oil pressure, I wanted an oil pressure gauge for blighter, and a boost/vacuum gauge for tuning, also have a $20 a/f ratio gauge coming from china, which will tide me over till I can afford the innovate MTX-L for my proper tune in future. Will be getting an oil temp for the hell of it to fill the 3rd slot when money allows (A/F ratio will be column mounted for the tuning)




I feel dirty.

Going to make a plate under the stereo, and paint it saturn black, in the hope it will blend in nicely. Already have a bunch of sheet alloy to play with for it. The gauges are premium Taiwanese 'performance meters', the Autogauge EVO series, you guys may know them as prosport over there. From what I can tell, they are litterally the same thing, different box. They serve a purpose!

[fwa2500]

I'll have a box of kiwi beers waiting.

You still owe me some Tui

[Reuben]

Just come and collect them cuz.

[Muse]

I'm sensing the first annual "Come & Drink All Of Reuben's Beer"/"Let's make that 'I' really mean something" SL-i meetup/test&tune...

[Reuben]

If I build it... will they come?

Today I finally finished putting a GTB back together I've been working on on the garage. Fucking cunty twin turbo's... You'd think they'd get easier.... NOEP. Twas a secondary replacement, as the original died a miserable death. A 3-4beer job on a single turbo, if it's a slut like beast, a 2 beer MAX. This took a week. I struggled with snapped studs and freezing temps, not pleasant.

Once that was on the road and out of my hair, I could focus on cleaning the garage and then I got to fit blighters new rear seats! I should add, the whole day it was snowing, pretty heavily at times! I wanted to also make a start on my 1.5-din-slot gauge holder, but I ran out of time.

I did manage to go and check my links base timing, I skipped a step during initial setup, that verifies if you are running 10deg static advance. It was perfectly thankfully. God knows how they expect you to do that normally, given 20g's run coil-on-plug factory, and I'm told that normally the crank pulleys don't have a timing mark on them! Thankfully I used blighters original pulley, which is off the SPFI, which had a dizzy (so needs the TDC mark). Handy.

[Reuben]

Well, my oil consumption culprit may have revealed itself on the weekend. Was doing some pulls to dial in my AFR's, and I pulled over after to save the auto tuning for me to download and asses that evening, when we noticed steam out the bonnet. no cracked radiator, it was comming out of the over flow bottle. Had a peek inside, and the fucker was brimming, and had a decent whack of oil floating on top. Bugger it. I checked the temps while driving, and it's a nice stable 80-82 deg...

I'm thinking since it has no ATF in the radiator, only other place oil can get into the cooling is the headgasket... shit. Must be blown between oil and coolant though, and not into the cyl's. Going to install my oil pressure gauge tonight, and just keep an eye on what it's doing, will be talking to all the local mechanics while at work tomorrow too, see what they have to say.

My 2.2 idea may be coming to fruition very shortly...

Also, went to go fit my oil filter sandwich plate for the oil pressure sensor, only to find there's NO way it will fit, at all. It would with an oil cooler, but then using the plate the read oil temp would be rendered useless. Well, it'd tell me how effective the cooler is at cooling the oil :P

Did some googling, found the bung on the back of the block next to the crank case breather would be perfect, going to run a tee off there and use that as Subaru intended. There are kits that give you the correct bolt and fittings and whatnot for about the same price as my sandwich plate, so woop.

[Reuben]

So we drove the wee blighter out to glenorchy and back, and with my latest tune getting dialled in real well, the work I did to get that STi manifold and throttle body in is starting to pay dividends. There's not a lot happening midrange, but it really comes alive after 5500 odd, and you can make real good use of the 7500rpm redline, def makes more power that the Mrs' 20E. Interestingly though her mid range is way better, def way more torque at 3000-4000, and there lays the difference between SOHC with a tiny throttle vs DOHC with a massive STi intake. Can't stop thinking about the mountain of torque a 2.2DOHC turbo would have in that sweet 3000-4000 rpm spot though :3

[Reuben]

Well, put a Cusco rear strut brace on yesterday, and the summer tyres too, and I went for a drive after work today. Hooned out to windy point, making good use of the 7000 indicated redline (set limit to 7300), pulled over, and it didn't get above bloody 96deg. during the driving it was sitting nicely at 80-82deg. A sharp contrast from the 118deg i saw the other day after pulling up the drive after doing the crown and seeing the temp shoot up almost to the stops on the factory needle. No boiling over, no oil in the coolant today. Strangest fucking behavior I ever did see... One week it's oil in the coolant and boiling over. Next week oils gone, but one random overheat and boil over. Week after, bollocking it out towards Glenorchy, and it takes it on the chin like Beast and Shale do... WTF.

Oh, handles GREAT now! I'm torn about the billies though... weight transfer is nice and immediate, but I can't help but feel it would be nicer, and more immediate on KYB's... I'm fine with KYB's for daily duty... Hmmmmm. Biggest issue that needs resolving is the 260mm fronts need to go in the bin asap. Gotta get me some 294's! Heck, I'd like to see 290's in the rear over the 266's too lets be honest.

[Stasis]

Headbolta stretched at all? :s have heard similar on lgt and that was caused in the end by headbolts, although no turbo on this beasty yet so unlikely.

Either way it's sounding awesome x)

[Reuben]

So, much has been happening as spring has hit with force nice and early down here in the south. Nigh on a whole month of continuous, uninterrupted sunny days, most of those being still and calm as shown...

Pic 1

Pic 2

I have been enjoying raving my BBS's and RE002's many good feels... And the engine issues have pretty much levelled out, nothing left but oil consumption and blue smoke out the exhaust. If anything's clear, this engine and box are old and tired. It's on magnatec at the moment, I can't help but feel something a bit thincker will be appropriate, the oil light continues to flicker after startup, despite oil sitting on the full mark, so a bit of thickening agent wont go astray I think. If I fuck it, oh well, I'll build that 22 I want.

A collegue of mine also scored a 96 GTB auto for $700, leaking so bad it left a trail of oil on the road behind it! We got it into the garage and popped a cambelt cover off to see it drop half a litre of oil on the garage floor, so ahead we went and did a cambelt on it. Sure enough, the usual suspects, the oil pump had it's bolts coming off, and that mixed with the copious amounts of stop leak added (seriously, that oil must have been as thick as gear oil), had pushed a cam seal. Ooooooo. Nasty...


IMG_9502 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

I've also made a start on my gauges, splicing a plug into the ignition loom that I made for the turbo timer... Shits TIDY. one 4-pin plug that does constant 12v, acc, ignition, and ground, with a loom I've made coming off to supply power to all accessories needing it. Any issies, just unplug it, no mess of wires, just on common loom for all aftermarket additions. Slick. The gauge mounting on the other hand... Now THAT is my finest work yet. Behold the brilliance:


IMG_9578 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9580 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


Don't worry, it's temporary, the gauge cost me $12... just a quick guide as to what AFR's are doing until I get my wideband.

[Muse]

Is... is that bandage tape holding it on???

[Reuben]

Electrical tape. Premium gauge mounting solutions my friend. Nothing but the best.

[Reuben]

summer wheels pic!


IMG_9583 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr