ScottyC - 6

Thanks guys. Sorry I write to much. I am working on adding more lights. I will post some pics and details when I get closer to being finished. ~ Scott ~

33 views and no responses? Anyone? ~ Scott ~

numbchux, I will be interested to read what you know when you have the time. kiwi subbie, I think it all depends on the vehicle manufacturer. My old Ford was a 93' and that model of car didn't get OBD2 until mid-96'. But in general, OBD2 didn't really become a standard until mid-late 90's. grossgary, I will keep that idea in the back of my mind about the EJ22... though I didn't want to reduce engine displacement. I definitely know what you mean about the cost of rebuilding an engine correctly. I tore down a V6 to the block before to replace piston rings and re-work the heads (they were leaking and my car was drinking oil like it was gasoline), which easily cost me about $3k and a couple of weeks to do. It was a first for me, but I had expert help and learned a lot. Still can't believe how much manufacturer head bolts cost... but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry with very important parts like that. BTW, any good places to buy parts for an EG33?? I might as well start collecting website links and business cards now so that the project can get completed without too many issues. Thanks for all your help! ~ Scott ~

grossgary, I know what you are saying with the upgrades of the EJ25 instead of swapping for a EG33 to get the performance I am looking for. I also understand that the weight change will affect the handling. I am sorry that I didn't search through the forums more about this type of project before posting. I do want my questions to be taken seriously, but it's difficult to find enough time to sift through years of posts and read through hundreds of threads (that are sometimes mind-numbing and may not answer my specific questions). I truly am sorry if I seem rude for doing this. The problem I face with my project is that I use my car as a daily driver... and taking it out of commission for several days/weeks to upgrade/rebuild or even just adding a turbo would create lots of problems for me. I even considered buying an equivalent EJ25 and upgrading it to drop into the car and reduce the project completion time... but I figured if I was going to buy an engine, why not buy a better engine that could produce more power? There would still be some down-time on the car to swap the engines, but it would be less time than tearing down and re-building the engine while the car sat around. I also considered buying an EJ25 that was already upgraded (like something out of a STi or a WRX), but this option would put the project outside of my budget as some of these engines sell for a large sticker price. The EG33 seemed like a great deal because the cost is relatively cheap (like $600-1500) and would naturally have more power with greater displacement. I figured with a few decent mods, the 230 base HP could be up around 250-275 HP without major modifications like a supercharger or turbo. But since you and bratman18 have told me that this has been done, the project dream is still alive. I will take some time over the next several weeks to look through the forum and see if there is any informative posts that will help guide me through making this project successful. Thank you. I truly do appreciate your help. ~ Scott ~

Oh, and I also have a plan in the works to customize the fog lights. I am replacing the OEM fog lights with 2 pairs of Optronics QH-7CC driving lights. They will both mount side-by-side in the fog light opening. The outside pair will be wired up to turn on with the parking lights and stay on until the high-beams are on (basically acting as fog-lights). The inside pair will be wired separately and have a kill switch like the fog lights... but they will only turn on with the high-beams and be focused higher to temporarily help solve the high-beam focusing problem. Who knows, maybe this temporary fix will make a lasting impression and remain on the car after I change the headlight situation. ~ Scott ~

Hello All, There are a couple of posts in here that discuss owner's displeasure with the performance of their Baru's headlights. I am new to this forum and want to get some opinions on this. Sorry this is long, but I want you all to know how much effort I have put into this and how much your opinions will matter to me. I currently own a 99' Subaru Legacy GT 2.5L Sedan - 30th Anniversary Limited Edition with a 5-spd manual transmission. I love it, but I have a list of modifications I would like to do to truly make it my own and love it a lot more. I live outside of Pittsburgh in the country but I work in the city, so I need good headlights to see all the Deer running out in front of my car. I wanted to do something to make the headlights work better. Stock headlights: the low-beams are okay, and the high-beams are a complete joke. I honestly couldn't tell the difference between the low beams and the high beams... and neither could the other drivers on the road (which is pretty sad). So I thought maybe the lights just weren't adjusted high-enough. I have adjusted them so high that they are probably as high as they can go without making other drivers severely angry with me. Still, the high-beams were lame at best. The light is a single-bulb dual-filament light. Type 9007 with a 55Watt low-beam and a 65Watt high-beam. So I looked into projection beam headlights... not because I want a focused low-beam, but because I want separate high and low beam bulbs. I went to a few places in the area that do custom modifications to cars (like Total Image) and was told that no aftermarket lights exist for Legacy's and my best option would be to buy HID lights. The guy wanted to sell me 10K bulbs and ballasts for $300.00, and another $100.00 if I wanted dual-filament bulbs. Without the dual-filament bulbs, I am pretty sure my car wouldn't pass the PA inspection. He kept throwing different K numbers at me like it meant the bulbs would be brighter, but I am not an idiot and know that the different K numbers only represent the color temperature of the light and not the actual light output, which is generally rated by Lumens and Watts. I got frustrated because they were trying to rip me off, and so I left. Then I decided to try something a little more bold. I added a single wire to the passenger side headlamp to ground and hooked it up so that the low-beam filament remains on when the high-beams are on. I figured that 65W X 2 + 55W X 2 (total of 240W) would have to be much better than just 65W X 2 (total of 130W) for high-beams. The light output was significantly better, but the focus of the high-beams were still horrible for the back-roads. So I did some serious research and searching on the internet. I found Japanese projection beam headlights for a Subaru Legacy, but they didn't seem all that impressive. More so, I could see that they were extremely difficult to find and would be very hard to replace if something were to happen. Basically the cost didn't seem worth it. I also found articles discussing the HID bulbs, but I still wasn't buying it until I read up on them in Wikipedia where they stated that HID bulbs can range up to 3000 Lumens per bulb and are generally around 1000 Lumens brighter than their Halogen counterparts of the same wattage. The downside is the HID bulbs don't last as long. I went out to an auto-parts store and spent $50.00 on a pair of 5K HID bulbs by Sylvania. When I dropped them in, I checked the difference. The change was a little brighter, but minimal at best. I actually prefer the 5K color temperature though, because colors are easier to see with them. In further research I found that spending a couple hundred dollars on HID ballasts would make the bulbs up to 30% brighter, but the cost didn't seem worth the trouble because the high-beam focus is still the biggest issue. I also read a post in here that discusses swapping the 55W/65W type 9007 bulbs with a set of 80W/100W type 9007 Halogen bulbs from Hella. Though I liked the idea, I still say focus is the issue and also worried that my car wouldn't pass PA inspection if they noticed the higher-power bulbs in the car (and yes, I could swap back to 55W/65W bulbs before sending for inspection). So back to the projection beam headlights. I found a pair that was built for a 95' to 01' Subaru Impreza. Here is a link to one site that sells them out of California: http://www.ilovebodykits.com/product/45087/95_01_Subaru_Impreza_Dual_Halo_Projector_Headlights_Chrome.html I also found another site that sells them out of Canada for about $30 cheaper, but I would prefer to keep business in the US to avoid any legal issues. I compared these visually to the design of the Legacy lights and the biggest difference is the inside curve being opposite. The Legacy curves up around the center grill and the Impreza curves down because the grill is part of the hood. They also include the side-marker lights in the design, but I am not concerned about that. I am determined to fix this. So this pretty much leaves me with 2 options (and 5 questions for you all): Option 1) Buy the aftermarket Impreza lights. Remove the OEM grill, OEM headlights, and OEM side-marker lights. Insert the new lights and maybe mold a new grill from diamond-mesh metal. Question 1) Will the Impreza style light fit inside the Legacy opening? (It seems to lack some of the same mounts found on the Legacy Headlights, but generally looks like it would fit) Option 2) Buy the aftermarket Impreza lights. Take them apart, Dremel them, and mold them together with a secondary set of OEM Legacy headlights so that they fit inside the original opening with the grill in place and separate side-marker lights. (Yes, I already have a second set of OEM headlights because I hit a deer a year ago and it busted a plastic adjustment fitting on each light... but upon inspection, I think I could make them work without tearing apart the new replacement headlights.) Question 2) Do you think it will work? I am very good at DIY projects and great at customizing, so I think i should be able to do it as long as no major problems arise. Either option would still leave me with a set of original OEM replacement headlights, so there shouldn't be a problem if I need to swap them to pass a PA inspection. So my last three questions are: Has anyone done this before? Was it successful? Do you think I am insane? Well, I would really appreciate any advice or thoughts about this. Sorry again for making this such a long post... Damn Noobs (refering to myself). ~ Scott ~

Hello All, Sorry if this question was already posted before. I am new to this forum and looked around to see if anyone had asked, but couldn't find anything. Though I am new here, I am not new to working on my Baru. I currently own a 99' Subaru Legacy GT 2.5L Sedan - 30th Anniversary Limited Edition with a 5-spd manual transmission. I love it, but I have a list of modifications I would like to do to truly make it my own and love it a lot more. I might sound crazy, but I want to swap out the EJ25 model 2.5L (non-turbo) H4 and drop in an EG33 model 3.3L H6 from an SVX. I looked at the available clearances under my hood and think I might have to do something drastic like get rid of the A/C radiator and move the engine radiator forward to allow more room (if that is even possible??). Is this even a feasible thought to have?? So you might be asking WHY the heck I would want to do this. Here is why: I am generally disappointed with the performance of the 4 cyc engine. If the A/C is on in the summer and I try to get on the highway... It feels like I own a Honda and will die before I get to 60mph. More so, I have always liked the added performance of a 6 cyc. engine. I had a Ford with a V6 that had the same displacement (2.5L) and I was much more impressed with the performance of that engine than with the H4. Also, I am generally considered insane by my peers. So has anyone tried this? Was the project successful or a complete failure? What would be the biggest thing(s) to worry about when making this kind of swap? I already know that I should worry about what year SVX the EG33 engine is coming from so that it will be able to work with the OBD2 system (like 97'?). I have looked on eBay and found a couple of places that sell these engines pretty cheap, most of which are JDM (Japenese Domestic Market) engines... so they were probably chopped out of stolen cars in Japan. Regardless, I am not too worried about the condition of the engine because I plan to re-build it from the block up with performance parts before swapping it... but I am worried the effort might not be worth the trouble. If I do all this and realize I can't get it under the hood without MAJOR changes, I might want to just sell it and would lose out on some major money. But if I CAN swap it, I could just sell off my 2.5L H4 and recover at least what I paid for the 3.3L H6... making it a pretty wise investment. Please let me know what you think about this. I am extremely interested in getting some advice from the pro's! ~ Scott ~