Zandr

Yeah, that's why I want to get out of the 11s. These things have a pretty good track record in Vanagons, this one just seems to have been put together with the wrong gaskets for the application. Thanks again!

I've made it back to the shop and poked a borescope through a plug hole. Pistons have valve relief, but are not the big square dish of the D pistons. Piston tops are stamped 0.50, which is consistent with the 0.020 overbore that the builder mentioned. Still waiting for other details, but it seems like this is probably a stock EJ251 bottom end? Given that, with these gaskets, I'm probably in the 11.3:1 range before any machining. Sounds like the right answer here is to go to a 0.051 or 0.056" gasket, which would drop me down to the mid 10's. Seem right? Thanks again for the help, it is appreciated.

Yeah, I understand that. Next weekend when I can get back into the shop, I'll measure exactly how far off this thing is. But as I said, it would be rather more than 0.030" off all four surfaces to get here. Here's one of the other posts I found that suggested there was more of a difference than just machining. "Running an ej257 block on '98 ej22 heads here. It'll work. ... Use the intake manifold from the EJ22, it'll be slightly longer, the bolt holes are 1-2mm off. Drill out the manifold holes 1mm larger to make them fit." There was another that had the oddly specific reference to a 1.8mm difference, but I'm not finding that right now.

As an academic matter... does that mean that "All EJ motors have a 201mm deck height" is false?

I'm fairly certain this is built out of OEM parts. I can probably see the dish through a plug hole with a borescope, but it sounds like I really need to measure piston height at TDC to know what I'm dealing with, and I should probably put it back together with thicker gaskets. I'll contact the shop on Monday and see if they still have anything in their files, but that doesn't seem too likely. Thanks for the help, I'll keep you posted.

I don't know what pistons are in there. This was built for me professionally a few years ago, and I don't know what I did with the paperwork. They knew what I was doing with it, since they were building the reversed 5spd for me at the same time. Is there a way to ID the pistons without splitting the case? I'm not averse to pulling the heads to take some measurements, and the bog-stock EJ22 is on a stand right next to it. Do 331 castings point to this being a 251 block? Searching for casting numbers rarely yields much info, which seems odd to me, I guess it all comes down to how the castings were machined. That would have been a hell of a deck to cause this much misalignment... Like more than 0.030 off all four surfaces. EJ25D heads are not an option, because this thing needs to look like an EJ22. That includes the number of cams.

I'm new around here, so my apologies if this is the wrong section. [Please move as appropriate] A few years ago, I had a Frankenmotor long block and reversed 5spd built for my Vanagon. Life got in the way for a bit, so I've only now gotten back to the project and am swapping parts over. The existing motor was a bog stock Phase 1 EJ22. The new motor is a Phase 2 EJ25 block (6+2 bellhousing pattern, 311 castings), with Phase 1 EJ22 heads (dual-port exhaust, SOHC). So far so good, until I tried to install the intake manifold from my EJ22. Somehow the heads are too close together, by a few mm. Searching this forum and others tells me two things: a) all EJ motors have a 201mm deck height, and b) if I use this combination, the intake will be "too wide" and I'll need to slot the holes in the manifold. I guess my first question is... how can both of those be true? If the deck height is the same, how do I have such a large difference in width? Gaskets and machining won't add up to what looks like about 3mm. As to getting a motor put together, I'm ok with slotting the manifold, though I'm a little concerned about the ports being misaligned. But is that the right answer? Is there a different manifold I should use instead? Finally, would a different 2.5 bottom end avoid this? As we also race a Subaru powered Beetle in Lemons, I have a pretty good boneyard to go shopping in. Many thanks, -Zandr

Hello everyone, New member here, I've come looking for wisdom on some issues I'm seeing putting together a frankenmotor, and will go post those questions in the right forum. I have a Kennedy kit EJ22 setup in my Vanagon, but I'm also part of a LeMons team that has been running various EJ motors in the back of a '71 Super Beetle. (With dual controls, but that's a different story) I also have an LS3-swapped Miata and a Miata-powered 'Locost' Seven, so you can probably tell I'm the sort of guy who can't leave anything alone. :) -Zandr