El_Freddo

Well, sadly I’m at a point that I HIGHLY doubt Redback will be in attendance at Subinats.

All the little things are piling up - the bits I didn’t think about in advance. EG: having nuts and bolts to hold the thermo fans on the radiator. I have many 10mm headed M6 factory nuts and bolts but these are flared. The thermo fans require only a hex nut to make use of their built in mounting points.

Other things I overlooked - blow off valve setup. My plan on this was to have a mate weld a plate to my WAIC intercooler where the BOV lived on the GT’s air to air intercooler. This didn’t eventuate so I’m using another WAIC I was given from Bratgeebah that is modified for a ver3 turbo’s BOV setup with the pipe from the intercooler.

I have Bratgeebah’s old BOv setup from this but need a bit more pipe to make it work on the 2002 GT foz pipework and my WAIC…

I’m finding it frustrating!

To add to this I lost the retainer clip for the bottom of the gear stick that keeps the bush locked in place - I have no idea where I put this even though I was carefully keeping an eye on its location between work and home. Since unpacking the car it seems to have taken an unwanted holiday.

What’s done as at 06OCT26:
- 3.9 ratio rear diff fitted
- auto Forster tail shaft fitted with custom centre mount
- 3.9 ratio phase 2 AWD gearbox fitted with clutch cable setup (factory setup)
- modified gear stick setup
- WRX turbo block (phase 2) fitted with EJ202 SOHC heads, RHS modified to fit the factory turbo return pipe)
- late model EJ253 coil on plug units - MUST repin the engine harness plugs
- 2002 GT foz intake manifold and turbo setup (TF035 turbo at the moment)
- RS turbo WAIC modified for later BOV setup
- RS turbo “twisty” turbo exhaust manifold
- GT forester power steering rack
- JDM turbo EA81 engine crossmember
- Gen4 turbo Liberty power steering pump and lines with remote res (remote res yet to be fitted properly)
- custom battery tray
- modified/custom pitch stopper rod
- Gen4 turbo airbox cut down to fit behind headlight, yet to be fully plumbed in
- LHS airbox mount from gearbox adapted to hold RS WAIC intercooler (RHS yet to be completed using the GT foz intercooler mount)
- Subarino hybrid 5spd clutch cable fitted.

Still to do:
- finalise thermo fan mounting brackets
- fit radiator and thermo fans
- need a Z heater hose between engine and heater two
- need some hose clamps for the turbo pipe under the intercooler
- re-wrap wiring loom and install
- merge wiring loom with EA81 loom
- add check engine light and boost light to dashboard
- upgrade fuel system

Hold up on the fuel system, bloody frustrating, please take this into account when you purchase a new external fuel pump!

I believe this pump was gifted to me, it was so long ago I can’t remember - it was in original air tight packaging so I thought it was good to go. Nope!

It needed an inlet fitting as it was just a captive thread at the back of the pump. Front outlet end of the pump had a black cover over what I thought was a barb fitting.

I receive my 10mm ID Barb fitting for the pump inlet and began to get ready for the fuel system upgrade. When I removed the black cover from the “barb” fitting, I discover it’s not a barb, it’s a one way valve setup that requires another fitting to make it work in my system.

ANOTHER fitting purchase this time RWF-807-044-05BK. This is a banjo to barb fitting to adapt the bloody one way valve to the efi rated 6mm ID hose. WHAT A SAGA!! I’m over chasing parts like this.

I’m also over my under-estimation of how long little bits are taking to get this project sorted. Even then, if there’s a miracle tomorrow there’s zero test time to run it. I highly doubt an interstate trip is the best way to test this setup out.

Other things I want to do: swap 5th gear for a WRX 0.73 ratio. This 3.9 ratio Impreza box uses a 0.81 (or something similar) 5th ratio which will put my 100km/h cruising revs right near 3000rpms which I think will also be boost territory.

It is what it is. I’ll still work on it tomorrow before I need to head off for the TISM concert in Melbs (TSIM - make no mistakes national tour). Really keen for this gig but it’s the wrong timing in the grand scheme of things. There was no other gig time or location I could work out without shelling out for flights and accommodation, I couldn’t justify that plus most likely no mate’s to come too.

Projects - such a roller coaster!

It’s official. As of yesterday (27th Sept), Redback sports an EJ engine in the engine bay.

Still loads to do - wiring, cooling, intercooler, rear diff, gear stick. Sounds simple when I type it out like this…

Pics to come.

Well I’m feeling quite deflated. Sunday the project threw me a spanner in the form of my gear linkages not working properly when the interior trim piece is fitted.

That saw me back at work using the workshop to hopefully rectify that issue. I ticked off a few other things too. Sadly no pics because phone is frustratingly full. COP retainer plates made and work quite well. Battery tray modded/finished off. Turbo return line fitted to the RHS head - thanks Barbs for sending me this ages ago!

A pile of parts we purchased - low pressure fuel filter, efi fuel hoses, oils, spigot bearing and a visit to the local Subaru dealership workshop for some seals that I thought I had in my stash but must’ve used on the RS engine…

And it’s Wednesday. The brumby didn’t move from the carport while I prepped other bits. The clothes line became my open aired paint booth for all the brackets I made for this conversion. EJ PS rack fitted to the factory EA81 turbo engine crossmember - yes, you read that correct. Subaru was turboing their engines basically in the same configuration you see today all the way back in the early 80s with the EA81! Just we never got them in Oz unless it was a private import.

Engine and heads are prepped for fitting. This will be close to the first thing I do tomorrow, rearranging the backyard might take priority to get the brumby in position to pull its drivetrain out.

That’s it for now. I hoped to have the gearbox and engine in at this point… anyway, I know how it goes building cars, I just wasn’t ready for the emotional rollercoaster when things don’t go your way. It didn’t help that Mrs El_Freddo enjoyed a well deserved 24hrs without our family around her, this was planned ages ago. It took time and energy away from what I wanted to achieve.

I’ll get some pics sorted, most likely from Mrs El_Freddo’s rad phone.

Back in August I packed the project halfcut onto a trailer and dragged it to work for access to lots of awesome tools and equipment I don’t have at home (but would love if I had a shed to use them in!). Here are some pics and explanation of the work done.

Unloading procedure:



Engine bay layout looking really messy (I think I took this to take a later “completed” pic - that never came to fruition):



Gearbox crossmember was the first item to be fabricated - previous to this I was bending up material, taking it home, checking, making notes, wash-rinse-repeat. That wasn’t working ultimately. And here it is with only half its bolts holding the mid section in place. The swaybar clearance/setup will be sorted once it’s in Redback.



From here I was able to sort out the gearstick rods/linkages with accuracy as I wasn’t guessing where the gearbox would be located. I used a brumby gearstick too, this one is cut down but it won’t be hard to swap in a stock length one if I wanted to (I don’t think I will as the ball pivot is mounted higher than stock). The brumby gear stick adds the benefit of being a short throw setup too:



To adapt the brumby gear stick to the EJ ball at the base I folded a piece of ally tube with a section cut out to suit the bottom of the brumby gear stick. This turned out to be the size needed to fit the EJ ball (it’s removable!) - I drilled a hole through the gear stick and fitted the retainer pin. Worked a treat.

I planned on using the factory EJ gearstick boot with an adaptor plate over the EA trans tunnel hole. In the end I figured it was just easier to cut out the section of the EJ boot that protects the ball and socket from any dirt etc (much like the boot on a ball joint) and use the factory EA81 gearstick boot - this keeps it all simple. It also means I didn’t need to go to the effort to retain the disc piece on the selector rod that the EJ boot secures to. This is now redundant and I might as well cut it off.

Here’s the pitch stopper rod, I’m pretty stoked how this turned out (pardon the pun - read on). I didn’t want to weld anything here. The lathe got a bit of a work out for this, but it was good fun making it myself. The factory rod was shaped on the press, trimmed and threaded for an M12 I believe - same thread size as the engine mount studs. There’s a crush tube in the factory pitch stopper rod bracket on the gearbox. Shame no one will ever see it!



This is the battery and airbox setup I’ve finally settled on. This configuration took ages to come up with - finding a suitable airbox was somewhat of a nightmare:



I still need to sort out some PS lines. Options are to steal a set from a turbo forester I was gifted but that’s not ideal as it’s a complete running vehicle awaiting club rego. Other option is possibly a gen4 or gen5 (unsure which one) remote mount res setup as this is mounted on the side of the engine bay - it could also have other unforeseen issues such as the brumby engine bay not being wide enough to accommodate that. One way to find out but that’s time and money I don’t really have to experiment at this stage.

From that battery and airbox location I knocked up a new battery tray to take up any available holes to bolt into or utilise as a mount point. It still needs a few things but you get the idea:



With the fitting of the EJ rack I needed to sort out the steering knuckle. This is what I ended up with, a cut down SF foz steering knuckle from when 1wdfoz did his monster lift, this was the original steering knuckle I buggered up when drilling out the original retainer pins. I drilled out the remaining two pins and threw out the rubber guts to just use the upper and lower uni joints. I still had a gap to fill so I lathed down a section of solid ally bar that I used for the turbo snout job to create a solid disc. From this I marked out four holes equally spaced to bolt the uni joint flanges to. This turned out really well. In the pic I’m only using two of the holes as I didn’t have enough bolts long enough to use all four with the uni’s offset from each other:



EJ throttle cable modified to fit through the Brumby’s firewall.

The halfcut project was packed up on Friday for the journey home. Yesterday (Saturday) it was unloaded into position to have various parts removed for prep of the big swap. Nothing like an open air shed and zero supporting facilities!



Still loads of things to do:
- modify the battery tray - essentially finish it off. This will also mount/hold the airbox.
- extend the AFM wiring to reach the new airbox and AFM location.
- finalise the wiring to mate to the main loom - this will be done in Redback. There’s a few other wires to be sorted in there too.
- sort out the tailshaft. I think I have a solution to this.
- finish off the gearstick rear mount bracket.
- heads on the turbo block plus everything after that.
- fit the modified diff stubs (yet to get a pic of these) and set the backlash as I swapped the sundials.
- setup the EJ rack with parts from Subarino’s care package for this project.
- find and fit the clutch cable mount to the gearbox. A Subarino 5spd clutch cable will be used in this conversion.
- sort out the WAIC radiator. Hopefully a long time forum friend will be able to help me out on this one. Problem is he’s flat out with work at this time of year.

I’m sure there’s more I missed above. Radiator and fans are basically sorted - two 11inch spal fans fitted on the factory radiator, good clearance with the engine and gearbox sitting that 20mm rearwards.

Hopefully Wednesday - three days away - will be the main drivetrain swap into Redback. That’s when “shit gets real”.

Last bbq was the one on buffalo you came to

Yeah wow, that was a while ago!

Has turned into a mates trip now. Have tried to do BBQs since but attendance was too flakey/non committal to bother

Fair enough. If you have a group of mates with like minded interests and it works for you, why wouldn’t you all get together? And it’s not up to you to be the organiser every time, I’m sure it can be shared around.