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Finishing off my EJ22 Swap, opinions wanted!


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Gday guys,

I am in the final stages of finishing off my EJ22 swap before it goes for a trip to the engineers, however there are a few odds and ends I want some opinions on...The big rig is a 1992 Brumby with a 1992 Liberty EJ22 and matching AWD5sp.

 

1st up, Does anyone have recommendations of an Factory Air Box that fits the Brumbys engine bay? I have a first gen liberty one at the moment, however nomatter where I put it it just doesn't quite fit right. The only place I can find that it fits is where the battery normally sits (Australian model) on the drivers side, and even then it sorta sticks up a bit high to have the bonnet sit down properly. I really wanna avoid chuckin a pod on it if I can avoid it.

 

2nd, The battery. If I do end up finding and using a smaller factory air box, and I end up mounting it on the Driver Side, I was considering moving the battery to the Passenger side of the engine bay. I'd have to drill the spot welds out of the jack holster and remove it, but I rekon it would fit nicely. Has anyone done this before?

 

3rd, Thermofans. Has anyone got a recommendation for slimline fans between the motor and radiator? Or does everyone just install two on the outside and set up as pushers?

 

4th, The gearbox. At the moment, its held up by some flat bar in a pretty pissweak sorta saddle/cross-member that goes back to the chassis, and forwards to the plates that the radius rods bolt to. I would like to make a better member for it before I take it to the engineers. I was contemplating using the centre cross-member from the Liberty, bolted through the original Brumby cross-member at the front and bolted up to box section across the tunnel at the rear. I think if I do this though I will have to space the swaybar down to avoid it contacting the centre crossmember and maybe even cut a notch out of one side to get it to clear past the swaybar hump. Do you guys run a different swaybar? Do you think this centre crossmember idea will work ok?

 

Thanks in advance guys.

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Subaru themselves put the battery on the opposite side of the engine bay in the ea81t cars.

1463961551911_zpsicbqc0jk.jpg

 

That's the only picture I have of my engine bay at the moment. But you can see the air box is where the battery is typically mounted in the carb cars.

 

The ea82 (L series) cars have the battery on the other side of the bay, what you could do is find one of them in a parts yard and drill the spot welds out of their battery tray and fit it to yours. One of their airboxes could probably be used as well with some modification. But it would have to be one with the later hot wire maf sensor I would think.

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Another thing. I have also test fitted the transmission crossmember setup that you're trying to use. I haven't been able to mess with it enough to figure out how to do it and keep the factory sway bar position. Early ideas include cutting up an ea82 or legacy crossmember and lower control arms to harvest their sway bar mounting system and weld them onto the ea counterparts.

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+1 on the airbox, I'm still playing around with a factory-looking solution. I would love to get a slimline spare tyre back under the hood. 

 

I have a thermo-fan fitted that clears the radiator / engine by the tiniest amount, I'll see if I can find the details. Pretty sure it's a Brown Davis. Speco make some nice ones in slimline too but they are exxy. I couldn't go front-mount fan b/c I have AC.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for the input fellas...time for an update...

 

Airbox - I have been toying about with a modified Gen 4 Liberty/Legacy airbox and its looking promising that I can make it work. I did try finding a EA82 EFI Airbox but no luck. The only one I could find was an early flapper-style...which I ended up buying anyway as a spare for my 86GLTA Sedan. Another option I have found is an R31 Skyline airbox that fits pretty well...shame about it having NISSAN embossed in it though...next time I'm at where the car is I will take photos to post up.

 

Battery - dependant upon how I go with my airbox situation it will go up in the spare wheel holder or down the side of the enginebay where the jack goes.

 

Thermos - given the heat of summer is now over I may can my A/C plans and set up two 10" pusher fans on the outside of the radiator for now. I would still be interested in seeing a photo of your fan arrangement though Dfoyl.

 

Gbox - I ended up canning the idea of snaring the Liberty/Legacy centre crossmeember in between the original front piece and a custom rear piece and have made a full 3-piece cross member from 2mm thick 1" x 2" RHS. Its in the car at the moment, I'm going to pull it out though and gusset all the pieces for extra strength and paint it, I'll take some photos of the finished product.

 

Another quick question for my own reference, these Liberty CVs are way too long. Given I cannot locate a spare set of Leone Turbo CVS to rip apart and swap the Liberty ends onto, I am going to pay the engineer to shorten the Liberty shafts. Does anyone have a bare 25 Spline Leone/Loyale shaft laying about they can measure for me?

Edited by ANIM_Hooneru
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