pontoontodd

Considered trying gear oil but I've always used waterproof grease. Doesn't the oil leak/drain out? Thanks for the tip on the seals. I think the ones we've been using are NBR, not sure if they sell a different version.

What video are you talking about?

Fit up a couple 1.5 x .065 6061 aluminum tubes and had them TIG welded for the upper radiator hose. Used 1.5" silicone elbow for the radiator end and 1" x 1.5" for the engine ends. Figured this way both sides should flow freely into the radiator. The water neck on the passenger side is very close to the cam cover. It's difficult to get the hose and hose clamp on at the same time. When the other engine goes in I'll have to clearance that. Two sets of strut housings tack welded. One for my 99, the other we'll put on my friend's Forester. If you look close you can see some of the part numbers laser marked, that was convenient. Fully welded, going to the grinding shop today for ID grinding. In a couple months I'll probably be making two more sets of fronts, one for my 2002 OB and another for a different guy's Baja. Going to take at least one shock/spring off the parts car before it goes so I can look at getting more travel out of the multilink rear.

Not really. It has nine bolts holding it on. The forward most one will probably be very difficult to rip through the tube it bolts to. Mainly it will be pushing the car up, so the bolts and tabs won't see much load in that case. I imagine we'll eventually bend the radiator support tube and/or the crossmember, but where do you stop?

Just jealous and giving you crap, don't worry. Got the skidplate almost done. Needs paint, but it's cold and rainy today, plus I will probably add some tabs to the sides to mount some pieces to protect the exhaust. Hoping I can re-use the sides of the one we made last year. I've thought for years about making something out of 10 or 12" wide C channel that would cradle the oil pan for good bending strength but have about 1" more ground clearance than the rectangular tubes we've been using. Something like a 10" x 2.5" x .24" C channel would have been about equivalent bending strength to the rectangular tubes we had under the car, but 2.5" tall sides would not have fit. Then I figured if I made the whole thing out of 4130 I'd have twice the strength with similar weight, and 2" tall sides should be adequate. Got a few pieces cut out of 1/4" 4130 while they were doing the new strut top mounts. Here is the big rectangular piece bolted into the front crossmember. In the first picture you can see the line where it will be bent. This is how I fit the sides and the ribs. Goal was to have about 1" clearance from this skidpan to the engine, especially since you probably can't get group N engine mounts for the EZ30. I had the sides laser cut out of 1/4" 4130 also but had to do some clearancing. This is after some milling on one of them. Here is what it looked like tack welded together. Added some 1/8" thick ribs near the middle and near the bend, again leaving about 1" clearance to the engine. Figure this is the part of it that will really be taking a beating, like hitting big rocks with a 4000# car at 40mph. Milled a slot across the rectangular plate to make it easy to bend. Had to do a little more clearancing but fit pretty well. You know you're making a heavy duty skid when you're milling it and the 1/8" thick ribs look thin. Here it is with the mounting tabs tacked to the radiator support. Maybe if I make another one of these down the road I'll recess the bolt heads, but this way they're easy to get at and cut off if required. Welded some little strips on in front of them to keep rocks from completely smashing them. Everything fully welded. Added some strips to the sides where they're short. Figured that's the mostly likely place it will bend, not that these fully compensate for cutting down the sides.

Rub it in I think is short for rubbing salt in the wound, or adding insult to injury. You got the exhaust for free and then tell me that you could get a whole BG Outback for $300-400. In the US with that kind of mileage it would be worth $2000-$4000. The last thing I need is another car though.

Rub it in. I've been thinking about moving...

Yes, the rust is bad, most of the northeastern US uses a lot of road salt. A lot of that is just surface rust and will be cleaned off the first time we go out in sand or something though. Interesting. This is a BG Outback but the stock exhaust was nothing like that! How much does a euro BG exhaust cost? I did think about doing something like that with the EJ25, kinda doubt it would work with the EZ30.

I fabricated a new exhaust from the cat back. That big tube along the driveshaft is 2.5" x .095" 4130. Hopefully that won't get crushed. Bolts on at the muffler, so that flange is up out of the way. Muffler is where the stock gas tank used to be. Tube that goes between the crossmember and body is 2.25" and barely fits. Have to lower the crossmember a bit to get it in and out. Got a tab with bolt that attaches that to the muffler outlet. All of these connections overlap 1-3" to minimize leakage and keep it from falling apart. This is what the rear parts of the exhaust look like welded. Had some silver high temp paint so I hit the welds and other bare metal parts with that. All welded up and bolted together. I need to add another hanger somewhere near the last cat, but this will be good for on road driving.

Some flavors of electrical tape I used on the wiring. The middle roll is thick and super gummy, so I covered it with the wide stuff. Worked nice for making the loom a tight fit in the firewall hole and give it some padding. This is what that whole mess looks like behind the heater boxes. It took hours but I got the heater and AC boxes bolted in. Hoping they settle in with some heat and vibration. Hella fuse block I got to replace the one we removed, gives me a few extras to use for stuff we're adding (lights, jacks, tracker). Have to clean this up, but you can see the crimp connectors that crimp the conductor and the insulation. I looked for those for years before finally finding them. Spliced the wires for the 99 clutch and brake pedal into the wires that went to the brake pedal on the 2002. Pushing down on either pedal opens that circuit, so should cancel the cruise. Wiring I've removed from the 2002 harness in the last couple weeks. Had to get pusher fans since nothing I could find would fit between the radiator and engine. These are 13" Spal fans, but they're closer to 14" on the outside of the housings. Had to trim a few things to make them fit. Lower mounting tabs. Added one mounting tab, one threaded insert, and bolted the other ears into the condenser mounts. Had to remove the headlights to install the fans and trim the headlights to bolt them back in. I need to clean up the wiring, but I have both hot leads for each fan spliced into these fans. The sub (passenger) fan relays are wired in parallel, so if either of them work the fan will run. For some reason the main fan relays are wired in series, so if main 1 stops working, that fan won't run. Thinking about changing that to parallel. Fan relay is still wired up but I have them hard wired to ground also. We also mounted the 2002 fuse block, air filter, power steering reservoir, and both coolant overflow bottles. Working on coolant lines and exhaust.

Worked on cleaning up the wiring. Got the passenger side basically all in wire loom. Driver's side is still a mess. Most of the engine compartment wiring is in loom now. Ran out of 1/2", not too much left to go in engine compartment though. That coil of wire loom near the washer fluid bottle is going to go. Noticed this seam in the body is slightly buckled right by where the windshield is cracked. There is probably some relationship between those two facts. I was cleaning some of the dirt and rocks out from the base of the windshield and realized there are drains on both sides that were completely plugged up. Probably why the carpeting would get wet when the car sat outside in the rain. Got a fuel injector and spark plug for #1 cylinder. Fuel injector didn't seem to help, idle was same with it plugged in or unplugged. Replaced the spark plug. Old one didn't look too bad, dirty but the tip was shiny. Seemed to actually change the idle a little when you unplug and plug back in that injector now, not as dramatic as the others though. I put the gauges back in and took it for a drive. First thing I noticed is that it's smoking a little, with some coolant smell, but I'd just topped that off. It definitely seems to pull harder now, maybe not what I hoped but more power than the four cylinder, but also smokes like mad when you hold the throttle open. Doesn't look or smell like oil smoke. Coolant is mostly water now so it's mainly steam. So I'm assuming that cylinder has a bad head gasket leak or worse and the spark plug was fouled. No trouble codes. Hazard light switch has to be plugged in for the turn signals to work. Drove the Impreza and H6 99 Outback back to back up the uphill bridge. When I went to add coolant to the Outback the pressurized overflow bottle definitely smelled like hydrocarbons. Outback definitely feels faster and isn't noticeably smoking now but won't connect to OBDII scanner. According to the GPS, the 99 OB H6 is definitely faster than the EJ22 96 Impreza. The OB hits 70mph in 13 seconds while the Impreza hits 62mph in 15 seconds. OB hits 57mph (top of second) in 9 seconds, Impreza takes 12. The Outback basically averages 1 mph / s more acceleration the whole way up.

Fortunately I was able to pop the cover off the instrument panel and the needle for the temp gauge snapped back down when I pushed it. Temp gauge seems to work perfectly. This is how I routed the 2002 harness into the engine compartment. Could have put this fuse block inside the car, but there's even less room there. Figure we'll mount it between the master cylinders. Hole sawed through the firewall and down into the car. 2" holesaw is the biggest I have, getting the relay strip through there was a pain, but it's all in now. Wire out of the instrument panel that goes to the alternator is black/white, so I spliced into that... And crimped some spade connectors on that and the wire from the 2002 that goes to the middle alternator pin (red tape). Alternator charges now. Works without the idiot light bulb installed too. Looked at the wiring diagram again and there is a diode that connects that circuit to one of the others so the alternator will still charge with the bulb removed or burned out. My friend also was looking at the interior fuse block on the 2002 harness. There were really only three fuses we were still using. So we checked all that, unplugged that fuse block, and spliced three fuses into a few wires, and everything still seems to work. Except a few of the fan relays aren't working, but I think I see the fuse we missed that runs those, that should be a simple fix. The accessories weren't working because I wasn't sure what the four wires to the ignition switch did after messing with it with the multimeter. My friend found the wire colors for those in the 99 FSM. I had spliced into the one that powers ignition, but there is a separate one that powers the accessories. So now the wipers and power mirrors work. My friend rewired some 1000 ohm 10W resistors into the TCM with a terminal strip. A little nicer than the breadboard setup, they run much cooler than the 47 ohm resistors, and still no codes. Also pictured here is the tach adapter. They probably sell a million of these, they're super easy to set up and seem to work perfectly. Another thing I did was wire the fuel level wire that went to the 99 ECU to the 2002 ECU. No fuel level code since I did that. Horn didn't work because we connected the plug for the cruise set/resume switch at the column to the 2002 harness. The horn goes through that plug. So that's an easy fix. Looked at the VSS diagrams some more. The 99 goes straight from the trans to the ECU and speedo. The 2002 has two VSS inputs to the TCM and a torque converter speed signal (TCSS), which should still be working, I left it on the engine. Then it sends a VSS signal to the speedo, cruise control module (CCM), and ECU. The VSS signal for the ECU/speedo is a 0/5V pulse, the ones for the auto trans are AC, possibly sub 5V. So we spliced the VSS signal from the manual trans into the 2002 ECU/CCM and it seems happy. The cruise wasn't working because I had the 2002 brake switch plugged into the harness, but without the pedal pushing against it, that made the cruise module think the brake pedal was pushed down. So I jumped that for now and the cruise works. We were getting a code for cruise control set, I think I fixed that by cutting a wire from the TCM to the CCM. Actually drove it a few times with no codes, no check engine light, cruise works. It did stall a few times. Then the check engine light started flashing. Misfire on cylinder 1. Seems like pulling that fuel injector plug doesn't change the idle at all. If you unplug any of the others, the idle drops, plug them back in, idle picks back up. So it seemed to be running on five cylinders, which would explain the unimpressive power. Couple things semi related to that. This thing pumps out a decent amount of smoke from the breathers when you disconnect the valve cover hoses. I should try it sometime on the white 02. The black stamped steel covers for the fuel rails are heavy. They're probably 14 gauge steel and part of it is doubled up. Is that so when you're in a horrible wreck the fuel rails don't get damaged? Speaking of super heavy, the passenger airbag is like a solid brick of steel. I'm very tempted to take the cover off and put it on the car and leave the airbag out. I'm not going to hook them up regardless. Just not sure if it's worth risking death or serious injury to take ten pounds off the car. We also watched the ignition timing at full throttle, the ECU only gives it about 20 degrees advance at full throttle. Test drove the white 02 wagon and that also only has about 20 degrees advance at full throttle. So I could see bumping that up with a tune would help considerably. This morning I went back at it, trying to figure out if that injector or coil or spark plug was bad. So I pulled the coil off and jammed a spark plug in it. I could barely get the engine to start, and it was idling rough at maybe 600RPM. The spark plug was definitely sparking. Put that all back together and it still seems to idle rough and slow. When I checked codes I had a MAP code and O2 heater code (I'd unplugged it to get at the #1 coil pack). Cleared those and it was back to idling smoothly at about 900RPM. #1 injector still seems to have no effect on idle speed, others do. Wondering if #1 could be getting enough fuel from the other five cylinders from the intake manifold (if that injector isn't working) to sort of run with the ignition hooked up. The injector is getting 12V with the ignition on. I will probably replace the injector and the spark plug if I can get at it. Any thoughts on that?

Wiring for fuel temp / pressure sensors, evaporative solenoid, etc. Two of the wires at the ECU just need a resistor between them. Two others had 12V with some resistance going to them. There are a bunch of these green/black wires running around that are 12V with ignition on. There were two we'd cut that went to the trans and timer relay, so I spliced into those for the above wiring to the ECU and to power the tach signal adapter. With heat shrink. Splice into VSS. The 99 speedo still works with the 99 VSS, which is good. I'm pretty sure I've spliced into the wires for the 2002 VSS1 but no MPH on the OBDII scanner. This was the only one we had hooked up when we drove the 2002 donor car around and had MPH showing up at the speedo and OBDII. If nothing else this will be required for the cruise, and it might be causing the engine not to run at full power. Based on my GPS logs, the car accelerates no faster from 30 to 50 on level ground than it did with the EJ25. Not the most accurate test, so I tried something different. Drove the white 2002 Outback up an uphill bridge by my house. Started at 10mph at the bottom, 40mph by the time I got to the first light pole maybe a hundred feet away, 70 by the time I got to the last light pole at the top and still pulling hard. Next was the 96 Impreza, I started in second gear at 10mph, it hit about 30mph at the first pole, 60 at the top and running out of breath. Last was the 99 with the H6. Basically the same as the Impreza but louder. So I don't think it's making full power. Don't know if that's electrical or mechanical. Wires for oil pressure idiot light and temp gauge spliced in. DO NOT ground the wire going to the temp gauge to check that you have the right one. It caused the gauge to instantly peg out straight up. Have to fix that or swap it out. Also got the check engine light working and hooked up the tach adapter and got the tach working. So at this point the main wiring task I haven't done is getting the alternator to charge. Trying to get various things to work, I've plugged everything back in. I thought maybe the stock ECU had to be plugged in to turn some things on. When I turn on the ignition, it didn't ground the MIL/CEL or run the fuel pump, so it doesn't seem to be working. Horn relay clicks when I hit the horn button. None of the wipers or power mirrors work. Power locks, turn signals, and interior and exterior lights work. Is there something that went to the engine that needs to be grounded?

Hooked up most of the various wires and plugs. Took me longer than it should have to realize that I have to splice the hot ignition switched lead from the 2002 harness into the same for the 99 since that is no longer plugged into the ignition switch. It does seem to at least idle smoother now, after a few seconds it drops down to about 1000RPM. Got the speedo working in dash but not reading MPH at ECU so cruise isn't working. Auto VSS was two wires, the VSS in the 99 is three, but one of those which I think should be +12V doesn't have any voltage. Same color (green/black) wire that goes to the speedo in dash spliced into the signal wire for the TCM, not sure what is going wrong there. One time I drove it I had a code for VSS A, but not the last time, but ECU still showed just 0mph. Turn signals, brake switch, power locks, and headlights are working, but wipers and power mirrors aren't. When I turn it on there's a relay under hood that clicks on and off a few times, but then stops. Any thoughts on those two issues would definitely be appreciated. Only other code was the fuel level A. I figure tomorrow I'll work on the tach, temp gauge, idiot lights, and alternator wiring. Hopefully those will be easy.

One issue with the radiator hoses is that the lower radiator water neck is about an inch away from the timing chain cover and points right at it. You could probably jam the hose on but I doubt it would last. Cut off the neck at an angle and made up a slightly longer and thicker piece to weld on. Got it welded on. Found out there is a pinhole leak (dark spot in the picture below), so I'll have to take it back. Even with that welded on at an angle, the radiator hose still hits the timing chain cover. I'll put a piece of rubber in between and it should be alright. Also in this picture you can see that the "frame rail" on that side is buckled, so that doesn't help either. The upper hoses were a little easier. Only complication is that the H6 has two outlets but I want to keep this 2" core radiator which has just one inlet. I got a tee from Jaguars that run, only place I could find something like that. Those guys have been in business for a long time, we got a V8 Z car swap kit/book from them about 20 years ago. Used a piece of 1.25" aluminum tubing, a radiator hose I had laying around, and cut up the long H6 hose. On the plus side, I can drive the car now. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem much better than the EJ25. Idle is high and erratic, definitely has an exhaust leak. According to the GPS, with the EJ25 just before the swap, in third gear it went from 20 to 30mph in 6 seconds. Took 5 seconds to go from 30 to 50mph. With the EZ30, 20 to 30 took 2.5 seconds but 30 to 50 took 6 seconds. When I drove it, I couldn't connect to the OBDII scanner, when I got back and grounded a wire I'd missed, just had codes for fuel pressure/fuel temp/evap. I don't have a lot of things hooked up, VSS, gauges, etc, so that's next. I'm wondering if it is electrical, the engine being weak, or a combination of the two.

First thing I tried with the exhaust was cutting the driver's side most of the way, cutting the passenger side completely, and thought about extending that side. That might have worked but it put the rear O2 into the tunnel by the time the exhaust cleared the crossmember. Then I thought it would be simpler to just flip around that section of the driver's side exhaust. It bends right away coming out of the front cat but is straight for a few inches before it goes into the rear cat. That straight part is why it wouldn't clear the crossmember. Here is what it looks like flipped around and tacked back together. Still hits but seems like the flanges bolt up flush to the heads. Welded back together. Pipe in the bottom middle is what I flipped around. Back in the car. It was pretty loud with just the three cats, so I tacked the section with the next two silencers back in and wired it up for now.

Nope, haven't done anything with it yet. There was sparkly stuff in the coolant too, considering that and the 187k it has on it, it might be best to just buy a lower mileage engine.

Thanks, just meant I don't know much about the EA cars. You're probably right, a lot of work to get an extra couple inches of travel is probably not worth it for trail riding. Being able to tune real offroad shocks for higher speed use is good even without increased travel, but not worth it for crawling. Seems like it might be possible to get 10-12" even with short arms with enough body lift. If we did a 4-6" body lift on an EJ we could probably get 14"+ travel with the stock links/arms. Following to hear how the axles work out.

Rallyru just mentioned in this thread: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/162379-long-travel-front-suspension/ that these type of axles are available on Rockauto. Looks like they're about $93 each, front and rear for some cars.

1996 Impreza EJ22 with 255k and still going strong. Been overheated countless times, first time hit a deer and lost all the coolant, then had no fans for a while since the rad had been pushed back, overheated a bunch more times. Only one time in the years I've owned it that it wouldn't start, usually sits for a week or two at a time outside. Planning on getting an Outback starter for it eventually. Had to replace the clutch and trans over 200k, other than that it's been a great car. The best entertainment per dollar of any car I've ever owned.

Guess I missed that this is an EA car, sorry.

Full build thread: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/144953-long-travel-outbacks-or-making-subarus-faster-and-more-reliable-offroad/ The start of the long travel build starts on post 81: http://www.ultimates...-4#entry1266961 Fairly current pictures of the long travel struts on post 218: http://www.ultimates...-9#entry1307908 Reader's digest version, we made inverted struts for the front and rear. It is a fair amount of work and expense. If someone wanted to buy a set I'd probably have to charge about $5000. You'll probably find this to be the case for any set of rally struts and springs that are well regarded. The axles were sort of a limiting factor in droop, but various other things were binding up at that point also, it would take a fair amount of additional work to get more droop. Bump travel more limited by spring height (solid height vs travel) and tire to body clearance. A body lift would help both of those factors. Hotbits I think sells 10" front / 12" rear travel struts for about $2000 with springs. I have heard they bend when pushed hard, so we've never tried them. I know a guy with a used set he'd probably sell, PM me if you're interested.

For the most part, mechanically this swap is simple since it's Subaru into Subaru. I had some difficulty removing the engine from the trans in the donor car. I think they were corroded together and/or the bellhousing dowels and torque converter pilot were tight. I used the hammer and chisel sparingly on the parting line and threaded some bolts into the engine and hammered on those. Make sure you unbolt the torque converter, there is an access plug at the top of the block under the intake manifold. It helps to put a jack under the front of the trans so the engine isn't holding it up while you're trying to separate them. Make sure you have both bellhousing dowels in place in the engine or trans. One thing I did before installing the H6 was to RTV that plastic cover for the torque converter bolts back in. Also duct taped both sides of the flywheel shield, there were some slots in it. May not last but it's a nice thought. If you're not running in a lot of dust like we do, you can skip this. Flywheel and clutch from the 99 bolt right up to the H6. Transmission bolts up. Starter works. Engine mounts line up perfectly in the 99 crossmember. Throttle cable hooks up, even has the right amount of throw.

Are those Heri axles? Curious to see how they hold up when you start beating on them. How much travel are you trying to get? We got 11-12" of travel out of a custom built strut setup. There are a lot of limitations beyond that unless you're making all new arms and links or making major body modifications/lift.

Fuel lines/filter are the same. I'd recommend using the H6 radiator as the radiator hoses will be much simpler that way. But we already had a 2" thick core Mishimoto in the 99 that I really wanted to keep. The H6 is definitely longer, maybe only an inch, but there is no way any Subaru fans are going to fit between the radiator and the engine. Even if they did, I don't know where the air would go when it came out. Piece of 2" square tubing pictured in between I was using to check for clearance. I think the only reasonable solution is to put a pair of pusher fans on the front. Exhaust from the H6 almost fit the 99, some modification will be required. H6 exhaust hits the 99 trans crossmember on the driver's side. Almost bolts up flush to the head, back end of the cats probably has to go up about 1". Exhaust will go to the driver's side anyhow, so I'll just tweak the stock system for now to fit. We wanted to use the accessories on the H6 since the pulleys are different and it would make things much easier. The high pressure (short) AC line from the 2002 and the low pressure (long) AC line from the 1999 seem to connect the 2002 compressor to the 1999 evaporator and condenser. Power steering lines at the top of the crossmember thread right in.