Injulen

Thanks for the advice! I'm actually starting to think about other things I want to do to the car now and a nice throaty but not loud muffler is on the list. What you described sounds EXACTLY like what I want. I've currently got Michelin Defender XT tires which seem like they'd be excellent for MPG. I've got synthetic oil in the EJ22 now, and the gear oil in the rear diff and 5MT is on my list of things to do soon. Any recommendations on which fluid I should look out for? I'm not sure if I want to lower it or lift it haha. Stock height for now is the best of both worlds I guess A 1-2" drop would look good, just swap in some WRX suspension I think is an easy way to do that. 1-2" lift is about all I'd do and isn't nearly as noticeable as a bigger lift which is what I'd really want. Maybe I will actually lower it haha. Pic of my wheels and tires: https://i.imgur.com/S8iItfC.jpg

Update on mpg. Most of the time I'm running 24 to 25 but on a good tank without a lot of city driving I'm hitting 28. Best yet was 28.6. I've rub 87 and 91 octane and haven't noticed a difference. I'm going to pull and check the spark plugs this weekend. I'm loving the swap still! It's great seeing the reactions at meetups when I say I just finished knocking my HP down 30 ponies and love it more after.

I can definitely tell the 2.2 had more low end torque now after driving it 300+ miles. I can also chug along at lower rpm easier without the engine feeling like it's lugging. Sohc ftw! I do think I had some pinging going on with 87 octane. There was an odd noise I thought was my heatshield but it was too regular and consistent. Put 91 in and it stopped. My torque app has a knock detector mode and it passed 100% with the 87 in there but since the sound went away with higher octane I think it was detonation. I haven't redlined it, I never do. Also can't calculate mpg yet cause I have to fix a fuel vent line that leaks when the tank is full. But if anything I think I'm getting better mileage or at least very close to the same. No emissions testing up here in my county of Maine so no worries. Got a fresh inspection sticker after the swap without issue. Mechanic and I talked all about the swap and he was impressed with the condition of my 241k mile 1999. Once I fix the fuel vent line I'll update here on my MPG.

I can definitely tell the 2.2 had more low end torque now after driving it 300+ miles. I can also chug along at lower rpm easier without the engine feeling like it's lugging. Sohc ftw! I do think I had some pinging going on with 87 octane. There was an odd noise I thought was my heatshield but it was too regular and consistent. Put 91 in and it stopped. My torque app has a knock detector mode and it passed 100% with the 87 in there but since the sound went away with higher octane I think it was detonation. I haven't redlined it, I never do. Also can't calculate mpg yet cause I have to fix a fuel vent line that leaks when the tank is full. But if anything I think I'm getting better mileage or at least very close to the same. No emissions testing up here in my county of Maine so no worries. Got a fresh inspection sticker after the swap without issue. Mechanic and I talked all about the swap and he was impressed with the condition of my 241k mile 1999. Once I fix the fuel vent line I'll update here on my MPG.

I can probably do a logfile of my timing advance if you'd like. Good point on the DOHC vs SOHC difference, that would explain how it feels. I have a steep hill by my house and with the EJ25 I used to have a hard time turning onto that road in 2nd gear and getting momentum built up while climbing the hill. It was to the point where I'd slow to a crawl during the turn and hit 1st gear just to get some oomph to climb the hill. Now I can stay in 2nd gear and have plenty of power to get going. Also..

Ah okay, I'm just going by what the gauge in Torque labeled it as: http://i.imgur.com/HXs0CkU.png

That's actually funny, I stopped have shorting and arcing problems after I took the positive strap off the starter while finagling that bellhousing bolt. I must have re-installed it in a better manner! Just got done putting on the new shorter bellhousing bolt which allowed me to utilize the stock starter ground strap location again. Now it starts and runs perfect without jumped cables to aid the grounding! Also it DRIVES perfect! I barely even feel like it's less powerful, I imagined a 30 HP drop would be much more noticeable. No CEL after several miles, OBD-2 passed most of it's self tests sans the ones that take a long cruise like the evap. Idling right at 700 RPM, vacuum is reading a "9.3" but I have no idea what is normal.

I have now found a couple threads that mention if anything it would run lean not rich when running a 2.2 with a 2.5 fuel map. But it's within spec and doesn't throw a code. I'll check the plugs for sure, I do that regularly on all my cars.

Also my 2.5 ecu matches the cars 5speed, my 2.2 ecu is for an auto and I'm pretty sure there is a difference there which would take more effort to resolve. And here is another forum post I was just reading through that's related: http://imgur.com/aR4JfqI

I have just done even more research and continually find information stating the 2.5 ecu can run a 2.2 perfectly as well as vice versa. It's the nature of the o2 sensor feedback loop, it just measures the exhaust gases and adjusts the air to fuel ratio accordingly. There is no reason to think the 2.5 ecu will ever cause harm or even consistent rich conditions. The ecu learns and modifies it's behavior to match. The ground strap is still an issue but I've been diagnosing by using jumper cables from the negative terminal to the starter body. I'm going to tractor supply to get the proper length bolt to put through the bellhousing to attach the starter ground strap tonight. The bolt I thought was ready to shear off ended up coming out just fine.

I have just done even more research and continually find informArion stating the 2.5 ecu can run a 2.2 perfectly. It's the nature of the o2 sensor feedback loop, it just measures the exhaust gases and adjusts the air to fuel ratio accordingly. There is no reason to think the 2.5 ecu will ever cause harm or even consistent rich conditions. The ecu learns and modifies it's behavior to match. The ground strap is still an issue but I've been diagnosing by using jumper cables from the negative terminal to the starter body. I'm going to tractor supply to get the proper length bolt to put through the bellhousing to attach the starter ground strap tonight. The bolt I thought was ready to shear off ended up coming out just fine.

Welp. I think it's finally figured out. I knew it was going to be something stupid simple and it was. I never torqued down the passenger side manifold bolts. Torqued them down, fired right up and idled smooth.

You're talking about the intake manifold harness? The intake manifolds are not swappable (different bolt patterns) so I left the harnesses attached to their original ones and I'm currently running the EJ22 intake manifold with the EJ22 wiring.

Thanks for the advice. The grounding issue I've just about taken care of now, the problem electrically I'm having now is a phantom draw. I don't think better grounding will help that, I have to find a short of some kind. As far as the 2.2 ECU, I found on numerous sources (including this forum) that the 2.5 ECU will run the 2.2 no problem, it's a direct plug and play swap. If I can't figure it out soon I'll try swapping the ECU too but that really shouldn't be the problem. Oh and the "random surges" aren't the ECU, that's my foot on the throttle. If I just let it do it's own thing it drops the needle below 500 and sputters and dies. I was giving it throttle to keep it from doing that, just for the sake of the video. I haven't repeated this since. I'm still hoping it was the IACV being stuck that caused this and I've now swapped another one on but the phantom draw and lack of working starter is where I'm at now before I know if that swap helped anything.

I think I've got the vacuum lines sorted now. An oddity though, this is the only Subaru engine out of six that I have which has two nipples for vacuum lines on the passenger side rear of the intake manifold. All the others have a plug in the lower hole. Not really that relevant but I found it interesting. Anyway, here is an actual link to the video for you: I've swapped in a different IACV since I thought that might be the issue but now my electrical problems seem to be worse.. the battery is draining fast when left hooked up and when I turn the key forward, I have plenty of juice for lights and windows but then when I put the ignition to start the check engine light loses brightness and gets really dim. The rest of the lights stay on fine. I can get a few cranks out of it but then it goes flat. I've tried a different battery and unhooking the alternator and it's still doing it. I can't for the life of me figure out how I could have caused such a bad short in the wiring but that's what it seems like to me. At this point the starter is having issues too, it now won't even crank at all. I guess next step will be to get that swapped for a known good one and see what happens. Edit: Okay, no matter what I do to put in that youtube link it keeps automatically embedding the video. I can't even paste the link as plain text. Grr... I'm going to put it here without the prefix so you can copy paste it hopefully. youtube.com/watch?v=pgXEFEu6qHw

And here is the pic of the mystery vacuum line I couldn't figure out that I folded over. It's the one coming out of the left side of the plastic tee fitting in the center of the frame and comes straight back towards the camera. On the '95 it went to a small unit on the passenger fender wall which had I think 3 hose nipples and on the '95 there is only one or two nipples there. Which actually leads me to another thing... nobody anywhere mentions the charcoal canister. On the 99 its in the back, 95 under the hood. I just hooked the 95 canister with the bracket back in under there to the two nipples for it but now I guess I have two charcoal canisters on active duty haha. http://i.imgur.com/3tr5CWv.jpg

Here's the vid. It really sounds like the IACV hose is unhooked but I checked it. I'll be triple checking the vacuum first I guess.

IAC vacuum hose was the first thing I checked, hooked up good. Other bits on the intake seem right too. I have a hose coming from each valve cover to the top airbox, a PCV hose, and then the IAC one. Without being right in front of it, there might be one other but I can't think of what it'd go to. Lights are all off inside. Another thing I forgot to mention, the headlights stayed on for several seconds after I took the keys out when I tried starting it the first time. I've never ever seen that happen before and they shut back off while I was watching but the corner light stayed on then shut off a second later. Keys were in my hand, parking light switch was off. Alternator is a good thought, I'm not sure which car's alternator ended up on there. I think it was the one from the EJ22 though. Both of them were working alright to begin with, I've had the 99 outback as a daily driver for awhile until the headgaskets just went and then the 95 Legacy has been a yard buggy but always kept its charge and recharged, better than any other vehicle in my yard does. I don't actually know if either alternator is a reman since both cars have 200,000+ miles on them and I bought them late in their life.

Hey, I haven't posted here in a long time but I just finished swapping a '95 EJ22 with dual port heads from an auto Legacy into a '99 Outback 5-speed that had a EJ25D. I had done a bunch of research and determined that this should be plug and play. So far, it has been. The EJ22 dropped in, bolted up, connectors plugged in great. The EJ22 was running the day before the swap and running well. I pulled both engines out from both cars right next to eachother so I had lots of extra nuts and bolts and was able to cross-reference between them well. Then came the startup. I know one issue I'm having already, my ground strap to the starter isn't right. I currently have no way to connect the strap directly to the starter because the lower nut is rounded off and the upper bolt was over-torqued on installation and is now ready to shear right off. Short of taking everything back apart and drilling out that bolt, my only option was to try a different spot for the ground strap. I went with the unused threaded hole not even 2" away on the engine block. This is not adequate. The starter won't do anything. I grabbed a jumper cable and went straight from the negative terminal on the battery and attached it to the starter housing. Voila, it cranked right away. So I know I need to fix that and I will. But now.. When it cranked over it fired right up, yay! And then it stalled out. I figured, eh, fresh startup, probably needs more fuel. Started it again. Fired up. Running rough. Have to keep my foot in the throttle or it stalls. I found a random vacuum line that has nowhere to connect to now and thought maybe that was it so I used vice grips and folded it over and tried again, no bueno. I'll get a pic of that vacuum line for reference cause I have no idea what its for. I have a scan-tool on the way from Amazon to help diagnose but would love anyone's thoughts on the matter here. Another note, I might have a short somewhere because after letting it sit for awhile the fully charged battery was about flat. And when I removed the jumper cable from the starter after diagnosing, I got a much larger than usual arc and some spark shower. Is there a common mistake made in engine swaps that would cause a big short? I'll reply to this post soon with a picture of the vacuum line and also a video I recorded of the rough running. I know someone is going to say something about the timing being off but I was bold and didn't do the timing belt replacement when the engine was out because it was fairly fresh and I know the timing is right to begin with because it was running just fine in the Legacy. Maybe though someone will come along and tell me that my research was wrong and the EJ25D ECU cannot run the EJ22 as direct plug and play. Any tips, thoughts, or criticism is welcome.

This is an excerpt from the pdf manual I have for the 1995 legacy. It doesn't have anything about the other side of the vehicle. Just for the sake of it I also included the exploded parts diagram from my manual.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm going to mess with the adjustment tomorrow at some point. I'll let you know what I find.

In the manual I have it says the star wheel is always installed with the threads towards the front of the vehicle therefore you aren't turning it around and since you are accessing it from the opposite side it should be the opposite turn. On the drivers side it is turn the wheel up to expand. This is turning the wheel counterclockwise if viewing from the rear of the vehicle. If you move the star wheel to the passenger side without turning it so the threads are in the rear but keep it so the threads are towards the front like the manual says, you are now accessing the star wheel from the opposite side. If that wheel still needs to spin counter-clockwise to expand then you need to be turning the side of the wheel you can see through the access port down instead of up. I say that not matter-of-factly but just to explain my own reasoning.

So you are saying that if the driver side is up to expand the shoes, the passenger side should be down to expand the shoes?

I'm actually using a regular flathead screwdriver. I don't have any problems reaching in there and turning the wheel with it. I'm sure it'd be easier with a brake spoon but oh well xD

I'm not sure if I can see any arrows with all the rust I have. Thanks for your reply though On another forum I got this response: "I'm pretty sure it's the same on both sides - it was for my 97 Skyline, and it had the same type of system (Subaru/Nissan part swap)." I replied to him with: "Thanks. When you buy the hardware kit to replace both the adjusters, are they labeled for left/right? The only way I can think of that would allow it to be the same on both sides is to have one side use reverse threads."