red headed stepchild

Hello people I'm going to start a build thread with hopes that this project will be complete before this time next year. Been working slowly on my 1990 legacy wagon, mostly because of money and time constraints. I bought this wagon last fall with 293k on the clock, blown headgaskets, wrecked and under appreciated by the previous owner, basically for an all around project and to keep my self busy during downtime and weekends. The car cost me $400 bucks I had another motor sitting in my spare room from my first subaru.

Began the original engine removal last week after months of procrastination, got it out and cleaned up..I knew this car was horse beat and the motor was mighty sluggish, probably from years of oil spewing from every seal and gasket imaginable.

A little background on what I would like to do: a high compression (11.5:1) ej series screamer using mostly oem parts, pp6 or megasquirt management for obd2 application. I'll be sourcing pistons from an eg33 h6 from a 93 svx and dropping those into my 22e block. I really want to use the 22e heads mainly for the cam grinds that delta offers. But they move air like a 40 year Marlboro smoker, so I may be using Dohc 25d heads and 22e ecu. I haven't gathered all info, mostly baseline stuff to get the motor back into the car and god willing fire it up.

Would like to get into some autocross of some sort, but I don't really know the gear heads in our city that could send me in that direction. The time of illegal street racing has met its end for me and I have sold the cars that I have gotten into trouble with. So I'm starting new with a new attitude.

For simplicity in setup, you'd probably be better off with the megasquirt. The PP6 is not very common as far as I remember. As for the rest of the build, for a somewhat on the cheap hybrid swap sounds like it could be fun. I've seen a similar setup before and they aren't terribly shabby.

My only warning with any frankenstein build or swap is that things don't always fit as cleanly as advertised regardless of the platform. It's always the piddly crap too.
The guy to talk to is Abel at Garcia Subaru. He can point you in the right direction.

The management is by far the hairy part of this build, I thought maybe the megasquirt too but wires galore the pp6 might not hold the effect either, have heard of a few people that have ripped them out for stock ecu learning around it...this would be the time when I would have to take it to a tech. As for the build itself, I have really two ways of keeping it simple, just the lack of parts here. Honestly,I could a different block (25d) and a cam grind and I could have the motor cranking in a month with about a 10.5:1, would probably run w/out management.

I got all excited when I saw these h6 pistons, got a big ol' dome on them, more excited when I Mic'ed them and they were super close to the 22e bores. Haha I said impulsively......

A lot of guys tend to put an ej20 in and massage a radiator in to keep it simple and common truth be told. Yes, more money but at the same time more options and support. But there are a few of the "hardcore" enthusiasts that still run what you are thinking.

Yeah, I understand that, who wouldn't want to put one of those motors in especially for the support and wealth of info for them not to mention availability. I have an old car so it seems proper to put old thinking into it, I'm pretty new to playing with these motors besides a few hg jobs, motor replacements general maintenance etc..5 years with these cars and I have learned a lot about them quicker than any other manufacturer in the time applied.

The thought of turboing my 95 sedan was serious at the time, the n/a platform would have let me put 8psi through it. Just the thought of a quick 30 to 40 HP/tq with a few pipes, ic and a turbo is enticing for sure.

Got my 22e heads taken apart yesterday, pulled the cams and rocker assemblys out to get ready for a cryo-treat. From what I remember before I pulled the motor out of that car there was an hla in there ticking so im bringing in those to bleed and refill, the valves were in pretty good shape except for one shriveled up ex valve on cyl #3. Not bad for 167k I believe...next thing on the agenda is pulling the heads off the other 22e...that one has 292k on the motor and a blown headgasket, so only god only knows what ill see in there. That motor been sitting covered by three tarps on a pallet for the better part of six months..think I should have drained the oil/water out of the pan months ago?...cheers to complacency.

Oh yeah, if anyone has a spare 25d short block available in the next month or so Holla...hopefully I can secure that, gaskets and timing kits after tax time.

Looked into the megasquirt 2 assembled unit, sounds promising with the compression change..have seen on the web that i may not even need ems to run that setup, either way the motor will scream stop or say hey that's nice.

This weekend I might start the body work on it and some interior stuff too....

I was trying to embed some pictures on here yesterday but all I could do was copy a link from image guru, any tips or a better hosting site, I am doing all this thru my phone (no computer/broke white boy).

I always host all of my pics on the site through photobucket, really easy to use with their mobile app.

I don't use their mobil app, but I also use photobucket.

http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/diypnp-nippon-denso-76pin-unassembled-kit-p-384.html

Ok I have been looking at this kit, haven't called them for the info yet...want to ask you guys what you think. I know I'm tuning retarded and I'm not seeing a wideband o2 or a map sensor in there and doesn't really describe the contents of the bought unit. So I'm thinking I'm not done there right? Shot in the dark that any of you guys have experience with this kit or the likes of it. The more I read on this part of the build tells me there is a lot of guess work and trial and error, not to mention wires freak me out so I may opt for the assembled unit.

I don't know how much experience you have with stand alone ecus, but most do not come with a wideband and will require you to wire one in in some fashion. Some ecu's will allow you to replace narrowband o2's for a wideband, some require an addition of a wideband in addition to the existing o2's and have wiring for it, and some will not allow for it at all.

If you are confortable soldering and can read a schematic, then go for it. Putting one of these together is not a matter of trial and error at all.
Additionally, you will need find a qualified tuner who knows how to build a map. There is no base map to build off of if memory serves me correctly. You might be able to find one from another user, but that will be hit or miss.

I have squat for tuning experience.lol, by reading more through that particular system that it has the wide band integrated and I would need a gm 3 bar map sensor. But also I may be thinking to deeply about this as well and ems may not be needed. Though it would be an addition to a thorough turbo build. Really I'm only hoping for about 160 HP and good low to mid rpm power/torque for autocrossing and throwing around a little bit. I don't have the capitol to build a monster to flog.

Got to spend all day on my heads, did a lil diy blend and polish on the intake valve openings at work. Opened the ports up on my exhaust manifolds and finally put the valve train and cams in for cryo treat.

Pulled the heads from the 1990 motor apart and found some S***, the heads were rebuilt some time before I bought it and somebody did a piss poor job at rebuilding them..everything was torqued down by the hulk and they decided to drop a bottle of rad-weld in there to seal up the horribly corroded head mating surfaces. I could probably spend about two hours welding the aluminum back into the heads. Cheers to S*** mechanics and bad practices.

Soooo, now I have to take one of the 95 heads to the machine shop to see if that sparkplug tube can be salvaged, dude from gabriels told me he will blast the head and see how far the crack is into the shoulder and probably have to put a F*** helicoil in there. But at least I was able to commit to a full day at it. Well I'm getting a beer..peace.

Good news on my heads, the one with the bad sparkplug tube is good to go says gabriels machine shop so I had him extract that insert and re-tap for a helicoil and resurface. I really didn't want to use that head but time is running out and I need my car back so there we are with that.

I did a bunch of polishing to my I/m throttle body entrance and blended that lip into the chamber for a smooth air push, also took a lot of the roughness and casting joints out of the runner exits. I left the bowls underneath the valves a little rough but uniform same for the exhaust ports. These suckers will flow. I will need to hone the 1990 bores there is a little bit of surface rust on in the #1 and 3 cylinders. But its coming along.

cleaned up the ports and left them a little rough throughout the eexhaust end just cleaned that side well and ran a 60g paper roll in it.

blended the casting marks cleaned it well..

blended that lip down into the throttle chamber all the way around and polished it pretty smooth in there, the entrances to the runners remain rough and even out in the exits to the heads. I think it will breathe better but only time will tell.

Been awhile and through employment changes and other things im glad to say my legacy has been back on the road for about 5 months and is running great, its definitely not the 2.2 i remember and its all smiles. Have done quite a bit of work to the motor since last time i got on the forum, i slapped some unequals on and started the 2.25 ss piping thru to my secondary catalyst, all thats left for the exhaust is the cat and axle back. Car is still ugly and relatively bouncy (bad struts) im currently building some coilovers and i have some oem+ wheels from a saabaru on deck for installation. Cant believe its been like 9-10 months on this build from a busted up car and bleeding motor to being a busted up driver.lol. hope to be sharing more with everyone who is interested. Next up for this is a turbo charged motor that im now collecting parts for!! Excitement awaits i hope

Been awhile and through employment changes and other things im glad to say my legacy has been back on the road for about 5 months and is running great, its definitely not the 2.2 i remember and its all smiles. Have done quite a bit of work to the motor since last time i got on the forum, i slapped some unequals on and started the 2.25 ss piping thru to my secondary catalyst, all thats left for the exhaust is the cat and axle back. Car is still ugly and relatively bouncy (bad struts) im currently building some coilovers and i have some oem+ wheels from a saabaru on deck for installation. Cant believe its been like 9-10 months on this build from a busted up car and bleeding motor to being a busted up driver.lol. hope to be sharing more with everyone who is interested. Next up for this is a turbo charged motor that im now collecting parts for!! Excitement awaits i hope

Cool to hear.