bluto5

LoL I was not expecting to see pics of my car when i opened this thread. quite a wth? moment. Whats shakin man? The rx is still going strong. 5 lug swap went well. Few new soobs keeping it company also.

nice, your car will be read for more power when you swap in a an ej2xt. Sorry, i had to. Your build mirrors mine. in almost the same order of events. with similar parts. its kinda erie. Nice work, keep it up. but in the end, ejftw

Awesome. You are doing it right. Shame you arent in se mo as i get down to that area occasionally. as far west as salem. Im interested to see what you come up with in the rear. i have been thinking of reworking the back of my rx (same chassis, 3 door hatch) for more utility. Sam

Awesome! Good to see another leone/rx getting flogged! It's nice a group of Soob guys got the "first rx" title. Any plans to come out to autobahn? I'm hopefull to see the track in mine this year as well. Good luck to you guys!

well, not to try and deter you but.. I have about 10k miles on my swap with some welded up offset bolts. I made mine myself. right now they are living with an ej22t and 17psi from a tdo4. My adapter plate as delivered was intended to be used with bolts from both sides threaded into the adapter plate. I wasn't thrilled with this setup, smallish standard bolts from the engine side. 2 strikes right off the bat. Sam

humm, who wants an ms? If you were interested in going this route, I may be able to put something plug n play together for you. I am a wholesaler for diy and could get you into it with just as much $$ as needed, no fluff or or unnecessarys. Put a base tune on it and it would be ready for action. probably in the area of 50-75% of their quote depending on how much ms to engine harness wiring you wanted to do. Pm me if ya like. Sam

ej205 c.o.p. coils are "smart", getting a logic signal sent to them by the ecu processor which tells an on board transistor how to behave which in turn tells the coil how to behave. early coil packs are "dumb" and require a signal from the ignitor to tell em whats up. There are subaru coil packs that are smart and use no ignitor may work off of a signal intended for a smart c.o.p. but that might be a stretch. each coil has its own characteristics and its signal matches accordingly. a new problem pops up in getting off the shelf plug wires of the right configuration. you sir are a perfect candidate for megasquirt.. I dont know how you were managing your old motor but i bet you werent getting the most out of that setup. Sam

I have also been considering what to do with flywheel options. spec isnt rating their er/ea clutch offerings very highly for lb/tq and hp. Chopping the bell housing to relocate the starter might be a nice option if its viable. the flywheel ring gear height is roughly 3/4-1" different. Rather than cut from another trans, if only the bosses were wanted, it would probably be easier to weld on some new ones. Why the desire for hydro clutch? Sam

mmm, wiring. New harness with good condition stock plugs spliced in. I still havent seen anywhere to buy subaru pins and connectors. The unslpiced wires in the middle will be clt temp for the ecu and gauge and intake air temp. The bunch at the end will likely be spliced into a soob engine harness plug. little bit closer now.. Ill be swapping injectors soon after this wiring swap happens. just a re-splice here and a re-splice there.. same for a jump to wrx/sti coils if i get my hands on a few sets. I love zip ties. little bit closer now.. This is how i build harnesses if i cant run new plugs and pins. Crimp with gooey heat shrink. Ive soldered all joints before(2 harnesses?) and to me this is easier and more reliable. especially on large gauge wire and connecting more than 2 wires in one spot. After this it gets all wrapped up in nylon braided split loom and most of the zip ties cut out. Route it, hook it up and tie it down. Im not exactly sure when ill get around to doing this. Its on the list of things to do before i swap motors tho. Sam

The zeal board has been in wide distribution for awhile and i have used it several times myself. jbpef also offered a diy board that i have used. also with the lm1815. I edited my first post to list the current offering that is all surface mount and has a small foot print. im not sure of the chip used. I know some just bread board/proto area the circuit. The lm1815 always done the job "well enough". i often have signal noise on the cam and crank signal to deal with when using vr sensors. its overcome with filters, proper wiring practices and sensor alignment but who knows if stuff would be easier with a different chip. As for the cop swap reasoning, I like the cleaner packaging and less wear parts. Its just as easy to set up the ecu one way as the next i usually differ to cop when im able. Also, it was time to build a proper engine harness and if I was doing that then it was going to have cop wiring at least in it. thats the other wonderful thing about MS(all stand alones really). I can swap motors with reckless abandon. I have had a 251(w/ 6/7, stock coil pack) swapped and putting on miles on this same ecu and harness in my soob. any other would be just as easy with a few adjustments. next motor going in is going to be a ej25d with turbo and meth. Ill swap that one to a 36-2-2 tho. I also tend to prefer distributor-less system. all depending on application and parts availability of course. Sam

ms2 v3.0 things to note... The driver on the far right on the heat sink is coil output 1 and is standard. The driver with external wiring is coil output 2 and has been added on. http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/bosch-bip373-coil-driver-mod-kit-p-230.html Same as the 2 to come. this is a bosch part with built in fail safes. im using a zeal engineering daughter board (the board in the lid of the case) http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/zeal-engineering-daughterboard-with-dual-vr-conditioners-p-378.html i have the crank signal(36-2-2 crank timing pulley) coming into this board to be "conditioned" for the ms processor. its going from an analog signal to a digital. this could be processed by an on board conditioner but its been reported that the zeal board works better. if cam and crank signal were to be used, the board or some other conditioning circuit would be needed. http://jbperf.com/dual_VR/v2_1.html is another option The board also sends out my tachometer signal. This could also be done by the main board pretty easily. more to come.. Sam

To continue the ms talk.. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/139437-megasquirt-coilpack-to-cop-swap/ lots of info on the alcyone site. i have always been sort of fascinated(from a distance) by ecu decoding and reprogramming. its so foreign to me that it has never seemed like much of a personal diy possibility. sam

soo.. this is info on my up coming switch to coil on plug(cop) from coil pack and megasquirtsoobrxdrivingfun in general. thanks to northwet for encouraging public discourse. this will be done on an ms2 v3.0 029y4(?)msextra firmware attched to my ej22t/dohc with a 36-2-2 crank timing belt gear/ crank trigger from a later ej motor. The current coil pack is an ej25d unit that matches the heads/intake. the cop's i will be using are svx( dumb coil, no ignitor). the change to the ecu will be a change of scale rather than design. the hardware is wired in the same but 2 more drivers are needed because the coil count goes from 2(2 coils in a coil pack) to 4 wrx/sti(smart coil, on board ignitor) are also an option with slightly different(simpler over all, no drivers required) ecu configuration. If you go here.. Megasquirt (V3.0 board) - Spark/ignition output and scroll down to here.. Three or Four Coil Outputs (6 and 8 cyl Wasted Spark or 4cyl COP without ignitors) --its a long page-- You can see the technical bits of what im going to be doing. All the info to modify the ms hardware for this operation is provided. Ill try and show some of the grunt work of whats involved. i have run on both dumb and smart cop coils, various coil packs and old style coil w/distributor. Sam

haha i feel like im proselytizing now. this convo has been a good "what do you believe in and whats really important" talk hehe. its a small percentage who want or need to modify their car in this way. For me it was a fascination with turbocharging that got me on this path. stanalone really shines when you are changing lots of the hard parts away from oem design. There are other ways to manage a factory turbo car boost up or na-t conversion but ms made a lot more sense than piggy back computers that were available to me circa 2004(80s-90s japanese built units/technology). this has been eclipsed to a degree now with the quality and reprogrmmability of oem ecus. if your in a wrx or evo or whatever i wouldn't be recommending ms (or other stand alone) unless your really going off on your own path. I will be doing the cop ecu mods and swap in the near future. I have a new engine harness mostly built and parts on hand for the ecu. if i can ill snap some pics along the way and make a cop swap write up and ms q&a(if any pop up). Sam

I had a little bit of a write up on my install but i think it got lost in some of the forum moves that happened a little while back. Im pretty far removed from my original setup to be able to write a useful writeup and my current setup is probably far from a typical install. here is one on an 89 rx from diy http://www.diyautotune.com/tech_articles/how_to_megasquirt_your_subaru_rx_turbo.htm 2milehi has an extremely good ej/impreza writeup and information thread on rs25.com. his build involved a ms2 v3.0 inside a stock ecu case using a stock ecu header plug to make for oem fitment.http://www.rs25.com/forums/f105/t135220-diy-megasquirt-inside-stock-ecu-case.html One thing i would highly recommend for anyone setting up an ms on an ej.. you have the option to use the phase l cam and crank(6/7) sensor combo or the phase ll 36-2-2 crank only sensor/wheel. it is significantly easier to get the latter up and running. I try to keep my eyes on the forum for anyone looking for ms info but there hasnt been a lot of interest, even when my writeup was up near the top. I just read of another member here picking up a pnp(plug and play, made with the applicable ecu harness plug. nice feature but more $$ from diy) unit for an ej application. maybe they will share their adventures for anyone spurred on to do some reading, i would suggest the msextra.com forums and manuals. its a community that has branched off of the bowling and grippo main group with its own code and devolpment. most ms users are probably on extra code. http://jbperf.com/ this is the website of someone who does some independent hardware development in the ms community. you may find it interesting. Ive listed lots of options and features that add a few $$ here and there. it does all add up. but aqain, if someone wants to run an ea or ej it can still be done on that ms1 v2.2. (note: ej would need a different crank position sensor fitted but its doable. i ran a custom sensor and trigger wheel on my ea.) good luck with whatever you decide. im sure it will work out. and as you alluded to, the joy is in the journey and the doing of whatever. Sam

I love to modify and drive my cars and have logged many memorable miles on a megaquirt. 3 personal cars, daily driver and road trippers about 20-30k miles total with a couple of 1500 mile trips and 600 miles a week dd for a couple of months. 280zt, 280zx and my soob , an awesome bunch. ive done about a dozen installs with good results. mostly home built ecus to boot. I first ran my ea82 (also my 280zt) on a ms1 v2.2 and edis hardware sourced from the jy(i had this on hand at the time from previous installs). As another member has shown(on aem, but same solution) the stock ignition parts can be used with a disc swap. http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/megasquirti-programmable-efi-system-pcb22-kit-black-case-p-128.html $157 and some shipping. maybe pic up a stim board to test your creation for another $45 Im currently using v3.0 builds and recommend them. little more expense but some nice features come along with that. this is running the ej in my rx. 6800 rpm, 17psi tdo4 all day, every day. 1500 mile trip and teh big dd miles in the same configuration http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/megasquirti-programmable-efi-system-pcb30-kit-black-case-p-108.html $207. There are add ons required but its all there and sorted out. $30 board w/ parts to convert the timing signals. i have a few more drivers in there now too 4 @ $8ea, im making the switch from coilpack to cop. wire in the drivers, adjust the wiring harness as required and its done. I will likely make the jump to ms3, at least on my subaru where i am honing my tuning and building skills. again more expense but more hardware and software for the $$. when i read your posts i think of other knowledgeable persons within the ms community who keep it all turning. im sure you would be a wonderful asset to the community if you ever came around to the ms side hehe I dont disagree with what your doing, as a fabricator i spend hours building brackets and cans and this and that. its a human drive to remake things as you see fit. i guess i wanted to provide a pro ms point of view and quick mention of capabilities vs price. Sam

I will be building megasquirts version of what you have just described (megashift) sometime in the near future. id like to try a subaru auto as i have heard them described when built for high performance. for whatever faults ms may have it has a large user community to sort out and devolope new software and hardware solutions to new ideas and problems that crop up. sort of like this thread x100. with a x1000 archive of knowlegde and problem solving. i suppose from your backround and view it may seem like a closed enviroment with weak hardware but from mine it is wonderfully open with hardware and capabilitie that are beyond my(and 98% of the population) ability to tune or make full use of. almost everything that has been put forth so far as a desirable option is already ms capable and in the low price range you are aiming for. if your lifes goal is to design and scratch build an ecu that will run an engine than you are on the right path. if you want to build a car to suit your idea of driving pleasure(that you will actually drive) then you are going the wrong way. Sam

huh i had no idea. my subaru world is shaken yet again. gonna call on monday. I either put a clutch in it or go auto... slip slip what will fail next. Sam

http://www.specclutch.com/cars/Subaru/XT/1989/Single I havent called to verify this yet but it looks to be a nice new (to me at least) option. I would prefer act or some other but ill take what i can get at this point. I have had both good and bad experience with spec. Put one in my brothers 240sx,a 6 puck sprung i think. Felt very good and held great under some abuse but a few of the clutch finger retainers snapped after a short(ish) time casuing the clutch to not work right. Sam

im sure someone could do it better (harder better faster stronger) than megasquirt but i think youd have to be really bored to try. cheap($170 to control a ea series and $260 for an ej) and ready to go, order it as a kit and solder it together for the diy feel. it can run almost any engine with capabilities that surpass 97.5% of tuners in the universe. sam

aaaaaaaaand im done. I forgot how good it could be. sam

pfft.. shoulda checked into this from the start. thanks. chop weld drive sam

Im refering to the column to rack 2 joint shaft. Has anyone ever checked it out? Sam

Thanks for the quick replies. I hadn't seen the square plug hole before. So '99 ej25d had those.. Do they fall into the grey area of phase 2 ej25d that I have heard about? Are the 2.5rs ej25d square plug also? Just curious here. I was aware of the hyd lifter heads. So my confusion started with azones website, (98 subaru outback) 4 felpro listings based on vin. What I failed to notice befor was that it was only two part numbers. That narrows things down a little bit. The pics show both kits with the oval plug hole but I wonder if one is the square kit. My heads have the oval plug holes. Sounds like all of these gasket kits should be the same..? Thanks again for the help. Sam

Hi all, I have an impreza that has been ej25d swapped and the time has come to do the head gaskets. So I am gathering my gaskets and discover I need to sort out the valve cover particulars. I didn't know previously that there were changes in this area. So, question is.. With no vin from the original vehicle, how do I determine which (of the 4 types?) of valve cover gaskets I need? Any insight? Thanks, Sam