ENGINE BLOCK

It has been a while. I have been neglecting my project for a while now.
I have finally assembled the EA82 block with new engine bearings and piston rings, and I am waiting for some new valve guides so I can bolt up the block with the cylinder heads.
It has been a pain to find parts for that engine here in Greece and I am having thoughts of changing engine plans for one more time. The candidate is a Subaru EJ18 engine which is more modern... 1990's and it was found on Legacy's.
The good part with that engine is that is cheap, already has crank trigger wheel, injectors and a throtle body and all I would have to do to mate it with my Megasquirt unit is to play around with the wirring.

Specs on Subaru motor

The Subaru EA-82 engine was produced from 1985 to 1994. It came with a carburetor, single point fuel injection, or multi port fuel injection. Most of the technical advancements introduced to the EA82 were utilized in the Subaru EJ engine, specifically, the SOHC valvetrain, and multi-point fuel injection.

* Displacement: 1781 cm³
* Bore: 92 mm
* Stroke: 67 mm
* Compression Ratio: 8.7:1 or 9.0:1 SPFI According to Subaru Factory Service manuals: 9.0:1 "carb" 9.5:1 SPFI
* Valvetrain: SOHC
* Horsepower:
Carb - 84 bhp (63 kW; 85 PS) @ 5200 RPM,
SPFI - 90 bhp (67 kW; 91 PS) @ 5600 RPM
MPFI - 97 bhp (72 kW; 98 PS) @ 5200 RPM
* Torque:
Carb - 101 lb·ft (137 N·m) @ 3200 RPM
SPFI - 101 lb·ft (137 N·m) @ 3200 RPM
MPFI - 103 lb·ft (140 N·m) @ 3200 RPM

As you can see +50bhp will be an easy task on this motor. The parts are dirty cheap although not a very easy task to find but they come up.There are even newer versions of this motor like the EJ16, EJ18 , EJ22 and so on that can be found for about 400euros.. Less than a good pair of Aircooled heads.

No more Aircooled Power..

The subaru motor is coming to life and it looks like this is the motor to keep. This motor looks so robust and strong that it can take the beating a lot better than the aircooled 1740cc that I was building. Dont get me wrong, I still love the vw Aircooled motors. Its just that this motor is best suited to my intentions.

Big Change on the Powertrain!

After almost finishing the motor on my bug disaster struck. The heads revealed cracks under the carbon deposits on the exhaust valve. Obviously the machine shop just put new guides new valves and considered this a valve job... I always say it is better to DO IT YOURSELF! On my attempt to tear down the heads I damaged one of them and started looking for some performance 40mmX35mm heads. This is the point where I changed sides! The dark side won and I found a new engine project for my beetle. The engine is a 1985 Subaru 1.8L boxer engine that came with the adapter plate for the vw trans axle. No time was lost, I swapped motors and started rebuilding the Subaru engine.
The motor was torn down cleaned measured and inspected for damage.

Almost a Year!

I haven't kept up with my blog for the longest time!!! I am almost ready to start assembly on the engine. I have bought a set of pistons and cylinders 85.5mm CB performance con-rods a lightened flywheel from SSP and some end play shims to set the end float on the crank. I have trial fitted the crank and con-rods in the crankcase and found out a clearance problem with the stock pistons. Since I am using an unorthodox combination of a 76mm Stroker crankshaft and stock size pistons I am on my own to find out what fits and what HITS! I set up the engine case on the stand and fitted the crankshaft and 1 connecting rod along with one cylinder to find out if I need to trim anything in the engine. Well the skirts of all the pistons at the bottom stroke would bind up on the crankshaft web. I measured how much I needed to trim of the skirts and I trimmed them down on a milling machine at work. So far so good, I hope the last and hold on for a lot of miles!! After milling about 5mm (2.5mm on each side) of all the pistons I weighted them and found out that only took off 2 grams off. All of them measured out the same even with rings c-clips and pins on them. Next in line is to build a set of cylinder shims to compensate for the increase of the stroke. My intention is to bring the compression of the motor to about 7.5-7.8:1 since I am going to be using a turbocharger on it. There is a formula that roughly calculates what kind of spacer you need based on the stroke of your crankshaft. The stock crank is 69mm and the one I used is 76mm. You take the difference of the two which is 7mm and divide by 2 and in my case I need 3.5mm spacer on the bottom of the cylinders to get back to the stock compression. I am going to try and get this done this week in order to start cleaning again and measure everything out before I go and buy some nice cylinder heads.

INTERIOR

In search for rust holes and other nasty stuff I ripped off most of the interior. Rear seat , front seats, carpet and rocker paneling all came out. I found about 6 euros and 500Drachmas(Older greek currency) and some other interesting stuff that only the 2 British ladies on the "How Clean is your House" could appreciate. So far only a small rust hole on the area under the rear glass was found, that was used for storage from the previous owner. Thank god no heater channel rust damage.!!
Next in order is to measure up the case and go buy bearings, maybe new rods and bolts and some 85.6mm cylinders along with gasket kit. In the plan is also a new oil pump, full flowing the case and an extra oil cooler. More to come!

Case Preperation

After a lot of power washing, brushing and cursing for all the nice stuff that found their way on my face I got a clean engine. I masked it off and I lightly sprayed a flat black on it. There are a lot of discussions on the net about the benefits of black paint, chroming, powder coating etc. I chose the benefits of dissipating heat with a light coating of flat black paint. It also looks good at least on my eyes.