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

[Muse]

I was talking more about that flat white thing, which I can only assume now is a ribbon of wiring, or something...

[Reuben]

Yeah, it's the ribbon cable for the ecu hand controller.

[Reuben]

Woke up this morning to see this out the window... How could I not take pics!


IMG_9588 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9589 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr



And the astute viewers yesterday may have noticed my missing BBS centre cap on the front right wheel... Well, the centre cap was there, the bloody BBS logo had delaminated, luckily I saw it half way through falling off before I went for a drive the other day and saved it! Today after work, I got out the epoxy...


IMG_9592 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

Epoxy mixed


IMG_9593 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

And applied, with pressure from a willing and handy axle stand. Should do the trick!


IMG_9594 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

[98legwag]

That is a horrible view to wake up to. I don't know how you do it.

[Reuben]

Little bit of love for the Blighter today... His right headlight has been intermittent recently, so I had a look last week and saw the plug was a bit fubar. Today I replaced the plug with one of the many spare bits in the garage.


IMG_9603 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


Also cleaned the inside, and polished the spoiler which had began to oxidise again. Also snapped some pics of the rear leather seats and head unit I installed a month or so ago, but forgot to post pics of. I'm loving the head unit, def a classy bit of kit.

These seats are sooooo soft, unlike my fronts which have turned into bricks... Def makes me jelly of the rear seat passengers!

IMG_9607 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


KDR-80BT, picked up on clearance. Niiice. Blue tooth and all the bells and whistles.

IMG_9612 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

[Reuben]

And to address the FMIC piping ideas, a member on DOBC just posted this pic up of a custom rotated TD-05 housing he's done today... I like this idea for piping much better, seems way less tricky, and means I can run with a standard up pipe and down pipe which pleases me...



And for those first gen aficionado's on here, that is a stock 20G intake manifold with a pipe under it. Solution was simple, phenolic spacers, custom pipe, EJ20K powersteering pump and hoses. the "and hoses" part will be the biggest hurdle over there in MURCA.

[Reuben]

EJ22 Acquired


IMG_2919 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

[Reuben]

In other new, I blew the head gasket in Blighter proper on the weekend, so motivation to get this engine together pronto is High, Basically I'm spending all my pay at the moment on it, to get it done.

I whipped the heads off the EJ22, and ICK. EW. WTF. Poor engine was clearly neglected, the amount of scaling on the pistons tells me it was never driven above 3000rpm, and the rust in in the galleries tells me it was badly neglected. I'm def considering getting the block halves sent off to get acid dipped, so I can start a fresh.


IMG_2961 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

Odly though, cyl 2, was looking beautiful...


IMG_2962 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

Cyl's 1 and 3

IMG_2963 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

[Wagonista]

Yuck. Get that thing cleaned up, and then never worry about blighter's motor again. I'm pretty sure I've run my EJ22 almost completely out of oil before. Never had a single hiccup. (knock on wood)

[Muse]

Hold on, so, you're saying if I run my motor over 3k, it'll avoid that black scaling crap on the piston? Good thing for me leaving my driveway is basically a 0-60 sprint.

[Reuben]

The itallian tune up is as valid today as it was 50 years ago. I've seen no more evident an example of it than Shale, Amy's HX20s. Little 2.0L SOHC, but that thing is peppy, more torque than you'd expect from a 2l, just runs super well, and has 250,000ks on the clock. I've also driven other HX20's with half the mileage, that have been slugs. Even after a service and plug change, they just feel like half the car...

The trick, for the last 200,000k on shale, not a single time do we drive shale, do we not hit the redline at least once and floor it at least once. These other cars, 'one careful lady owner'. I can think of no fate worse for a car than 'one careful lady owner'

The 20D I put in Blighter, I had to break in to this way of life, I drove it like I drive shale, but was too late. The engine showed SERIOUS levels of neglect when we put it it in, rusty galleries, tremendous oil leaks, sadly the damage was done before we even dropped it in the hole, and I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. Honestly, treat em mean, keep em keen.

[soba noodle]

Sweet, I'm doing the right thing then

[Reuben]

The way I see it, you're not going to get any nasty surprises during that one silly overtake, when you know that how hard you're pushing that car in that moment is no different to how you normally drive it.

[SILINC3R]

Love the progress and the pictures. Keep 'em coming.

[Reuben]

I've neglected this thread for a bit... woops.


Friday:
Finally got the 22 block halves apart, there's a bit of scoring on cyl 3, but nothing more than beast had on his 20R when we tore that down at 118,000km's, so not too bad. Put the block halves in "Mr Washy" to see how they come up, hopefully a couple of cycles should do them fine, and I won't have to sent them away.


Saturday:
So, Blighters head gasket issue is a bit odd. I've just been driving him as normal, thinking, 'fuck it, what's the worse that can happen, I cook this temporary motor?' It's only overheated once since the massive overheat last week, up to 98 deg, not even regestering on the needle, so that's fine... But the thing over the week has began to chew more and more fuel, to the point of smelling like it through town like an ol carbie pile... and is starting to drop the revs when warm (used to only do that when cold). The engines def not happy, but whatevs, maybe I'll just tune the link to compensate, dahahaha.

Welp, new exhaust finally going on tomorrow!


Today:
Well, the fuel smell and consumption culprit showed itself... after dropping my work mate home, we were remarking on how fucking strong the petrol smell had become, and it really was down on power today too... so we popped the bonnet, and injector 2 was bubbling fuel out... nice... Even made a lovely pool on the back of the passenger head... Not dangerous at all...

So whipped home and in 30 mins I had the manifold off, and managed to find how it failed...


IMG_9617 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9618 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

A quick wiz with some carbie cleaner to get the muck off them, and I picked some new seals of a BG5 manifold sitting in the garage, re-assembled and test drove. Whole thing from key off to key on was just over 2 hours, nice. In time to watch the sun set. Test drove it (partially to listen to my new exhaust too) and it went well, nice to have my power 90% back, but still a bit stally, so the head gasket is still playing up. Because the drive was a bit spirited, temp got to 100 when we parked, and the overflow had boiled over on the way, but the moment you get moving temp just plummets back to 82deg.

And on the new exhaust, got a local mechanic who likes working on sunday mornings (pics up a fair bit of work doing that) to weld up my fujitsubo.


IMG_3018 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_3020 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

Sounds really fucking cool, just what I was after. Nice and quiet to drive around, but the moment you put any load on the engine, it's got quite a good noise. And WOT delivers an a decentky loud, rough, cackle (gotta love the N/A's for that). Very pleased indeed.

[soba noodle]

Fark yeah, I'm a huge fan of FGK!

[Muse]

Yeah, NA is a less refined sound than turbo. Which is funny because it then sounds more badass, even though it's not as fast.

[Reuben]

IMG_9623 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9624 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9635 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9637 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9644 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr


IMG_9641 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

[Reuben]

First of Blighters FUN bits arrived yesterday too... I'm really impressed with the quality, especially given it barely cost more than the gaskets on their own if I was paying full banger retail through work (not so bad at staff though, lol). Dunno how I'm going to swing the dual water inlets though... I guess the company reckons I can get away with using two innies for my in and out...


IMG_9659 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

And more bits arrived today... I forgot how big these fuckers are!!! I'll make it work... :s


IMG_9662 by Reuben Horsley, on Flickr

[Reuben]

Have been posting on good ol Clubsub again, and I inevitably got the "why don't you just sell it and buy an RS?" questions. So I thought I should make this vid

[Stasis]

Lolol, that dent will buff right out

[CFK]

Looks Awesome Dude, Coming along Very nice. Can't wait to see it " Complete " :iroc:

[Reuben]

This page has been left rather neglected... Well so has the car. The venerable daily known as Blighter saw no real modifications over the summer, just commuting duties and pipe dreams. The 2.2 is fully disassembled, and oiled, and wrapped in cling film - essentially mothballed. the EJ20D has also suffered, and about a month ago, it finally cooked its goose, the headgasket is finally 100% poked rendering the car uncommutable. Much thought has been put in to it however, and it is decided that I will fix the headgasket in the 20D, finally get off my arse and install a wideband and knock light, and tune the feck out of the 20D. This will tide me over, and allow the 2.2 RS-RA project to go forth proper, and not on the cheap. Going to wiseco it.

So yes, I am carpooling with our flatmate as Blighter sits and thinks about what he did to that poor headgasket, and hopefully before winter sets in, he'll be on the road with a new lease of life. Again...

[Reuben]

Still no good news with this thing sadly, hence my slow posting. Head gasket may be getting done this month though! My mate is going to help me do the head gaskets, but he's concerned with rust in the bores and the pitting that may cause. He has another EJ22 lying around we can scavange for parts if we need to. At this stage I'd be happy slapping the DOHC heads on one and rolling with it, anecdotal evidence on the net suggests there's no fouling between valves and pistons when this is done, so it'll be interesting to see what the go is... So hey, I might be getting a DOHC EJ22 afterall... Just a non turbo one...

I'm fine with this... I continue to allow this car to chose it's own destiny, I'm just along for the ride picking up the parts bill.

A question for you American folks... Down here in NZ, we are spoiled little brats when it comes to jap performance cars to pick from. so naturally the N/A's are left un-touched, while modified scene revolves around the turbo stuff... But I like the idea of fucking about with a non turb... How do you guys get extra ponies out of your EJ25's? I'm not talking about a nice intake and leave it at that, I'm talking stuff like what aftermarket camshaft options are there, and any resonable tuning maps out there for me to look at so that I can figure what kind of advance I can dial in, and what are good a/f ratios to be targeting for good power... You talk to anyone in NZ about tuning a non turbo EJ, and they look at you cockeyed, and tell you to buy an RS...

Help a brother out!

Only problem I think I might strike though is the compatibility of camshafts with the direct HLA motors... Direct HLA DOHC's were prolific in japan, spanning from 1992 to mid 1996, with 3 generations of WRX using the 20G, the Legacy TS and TS-R 20D's, the 250T's 25D, and the early twin turbo GT 20H's all using the head design also. But from my understanding you only had them for one year, in one model... the 1996 2.5GT... is this right? I need to find if the post 96 solid lifter cams can fit a direct HLA head... If so, sweet. If not I may be up shit creek, with only factory bits to choose from! And I think I might already have the best cams for my purposes if that's the case, given my 20D is a TS-R motor (7500rpm redline, these engins were turned for revving, with 0 low down torque which suits me if that's my only option)

Regardless, throw some brand names at me that make N/A cams for EJ's, I want to see what's out there, but have nowhere to start! Only place in NZ is Kelford cams, and when I said non-turbo EJ, they glossed over and dismissed me... Apprently you're not allowed to have fun with N/A's here in NZ!

[Go Mifune]

http://deltacam.com/index.php

Their website doesn't have a lot of information but they do have performance cams for our Subarus.

[Reuben]

Will check em out, thanks!

[Dead91silvia]

http://deltacam.com/index.php

Their website doesn't have a lot of information but they do have performance cams for our Subarus.

Reuben, these guys are actually about a 30 minute drive from me, if I remember right. Lot of people use them for getting custom cams done. If you need a bit of help with them, I can help ya out. For the most part, people dont do much to N/A motors unless adding a turbo, however a few people do.

I dont know a ton about all the heads and all, but there was one year (1996) were we had a different style head in the Outback and one other model that escapes me. We didnt really have GT's till 97. That being said, GT and Outback motors are pretty much the same. Like I said, I dont know a ton about them, just enough to know how to fix them.

The other upgrades people seem to do is throttle body swaps, injectors, header, coil pack and maybe some other bits. They cost so much to build over here, just going turbo is easier and cost about the same.

[Reuben]

Ah sweet, that one year outback head will be the one I need cams for, the Direct Hydraulic DOHC, as apposed to the solid lifters after that, and the roller rocker hydraulic lifters of the first gen DOHC's... I'm going to look at the spec sheets and see if the journals are the same dimensions. If so, then I can run any ol DOHC cams for things like the 2.5 RS etc. If not, maybe a grind would be the only way.

[CaleDeRoo]

Hmm. There's a bunch of things you can to to N/A EJ25s for incremental HP increases.

Light Weight Pulleys
Phenolic Manifold Spacer
Throttle Body Spacer
Grounding Kits
Better EL header
Cams as mentioned
Hybrid build

and if you don't mind you can go for a shorter axle ratio

[Reuben]

Well I got a Hi-Lo box kicking round, Instant short ratio box at the flick of a lever

Earthing kit is a valid point on an old first gen for sure, but I don't buy the phenolic and throttle spacers at all, engine bays are hot places, shits going to get hot no matter what.

As for equal length headers... The one place I'll sacrifice power in favour of sound track!


Did a bit of flicking through the service manuals, and camshaft journal size is the same between motor generations, but the cam profiles change a bunch. Dunno if that's due to the design of the lifters, but I'm guessing it is. The older cams have WAY more lift! Like 5mm more lift! I also know that if you use thin headgaskets on the early motors like what I have, the valves 100% contact the Pistons, to the point the engine won't turn... (Thankfully a mistake I have witnessed, but not performed!). I now wonder if that's due to the extra valve lift

Interestingly the later motors make a bit more power though, with the lesser lift, but thin gaskets (and higher compression).