It's been a long while since I laid wrench upon a Suby. Mid 90's or so. Friend of mine in college had an L-series of '80s vintage. Wasn't my first flat-four experience, I'd owned a couple of Beetles prior to that. But it was my last for a while, been mostly working with Mazdas of late. Current daily-driver is a turbocharged '92 Miata.
So what's this then? A 2004 Forester XT? Well, so it was in a rollover and has been pretty much totaled, but that's ok. I wasn't planning on using the body anyway.
Guh?
Well, to be honest, the Forester is a bit large for my tastes. And it's got a bunch of stuff on it that I don't really need. You know, doors, windshield, body... Great for the wife & kids I guess. But I'm actually just interested in the engine. For this:
(Well, crap. Apparently I can't embed images w/ fewer than 15 posts. See attachment.)
The design is still a little rough, but that's basically what we're shooting for in this build. Transmission is from a Porsche 914, engine adapter from KEP, and the plan is to drop the EJ255 from this Forester into the mix.
Plan "A", and the reason I bought a whole car instead of just an engine, was to transplant the whole ECU and wiring harness into the new car. Figured that since this motor is already rated for >200 HP from the factory, the stock electronics would be good enough.
Well, turns out I should have done some better homework before the purchase- who knew that Subaru was so far ahead of the curve from an electronic standpoint?
(Answer: not me.)
Variable cam timing? Check. Tumble-generating thingy? Check. Fuel level sensor connected to the ECU for some reason? Uh, ok. Throttle-by-wire? Wait... really!?
Ok, now I'm starting to realize that I may have gotten in a bit deeper than I'd anticipated. Probably should have stuck to my gut instinct and gone with an OBD-I donor. I mean, I've built and installed at least a dozen Megasquirt ECUs, but they were all in cars that didn't have anything called an "Integration Unit" and where there was a physical connection between the pedal and the throttle.
So, what to do...? I could part everything out and sell it all I suppose. But that puts me back where I started, and my chassis builder is getting itchy to get his hands on the engine so we can finalize the placement of the rear suspension and start actually welding pipes together.
Plan "B", I suppose, would be to ditch all of the stock electronics and just build a Megasquirt to run it. The critical sensors seem pretty straightforward, though I'd probably need to pin down the intake cams to a static advance. Not the end of the world, but it annoys me to think about it.
Am I the first person to find myself in this predicament?
So what's this then? A 2004 Forester XT? Well, so it was in a rollover and has been pretty much totaled, but that's ok. I wasn't planning on using the body anyway.
Guh?
Well, to be honest, the Forester is a bit large for my tastes. And it's got a bunch of stuff on it that I don't really need. You know, doors, windshield, body... Great for the wife & kids I guess. But I'm actually just interested in the engine. For this:
(Well, crap. Apparently I can't embed images w/ fewer than 15 posts. See attachment.)
The design is still a little rough, but that's basically what we're shooting for in this build. Transmission is from a Porsche 914, engine adapter from KEP, and the plan is to drop the EJ255 from this Forester into the mix.
Plan "A", and the reason I bought a whole car instead of just an engine, was to transplant the whole ECU and wiring harness into the new car. Figured that since this motor is already rated for >200 HP from the factory, the stock electronics would be good enough.
Well, turns out I should have done some better homework before the purchase- who knew that Subaru was so far ahead of the curve from an electronic standpoint?
(Answer: not me.)
Variable cam timing? Check. Tumble-generating thingy? Check. Fuel level sensor connected to the ECU for some reason? Uh, ok. Throttle-by-wire? Wait... really!?
Ok, now I'm starting to realize that I may have gotten in a bit deeper than I'd anticipated. Probably should have stuck to my gut instinct and gone with an OBD-I donor. I mean, I've built and installed at least a dozen Megasquirt ECUs, but they were all in cars that didn't have anything called an "Integration Unit" and where there was a physical connection between the pedal and the throttle.
So, what to do...? I could part everything out and sell it all I suppose. But that puts me back where I started, and my chassis builder is getting itchy to get his hands on the engine so we can finalize the placement of the rear suspension and start actually welding pipes together.
Plan "B", I suppose, would be to ditch all of the stock electronics and just build a Megasquirt to run it. The critical sensors seem pretty straightforward, though I'd probably need to pin down the intake cams to a static advance. Not the end of the world, but it annoys me to think about it.
Am I the first person to find myself in this predicament?
